Three of hearts

A NOVEL BY RICHARD BOROVSKY

THREE OF HEARTS OR

WHAT LOVE DOES

i

Richard Borovsky, 2002 All rights reserved Copyright 2007 by Richard Borovsky “Believing in Mind” (Hsin Hsin Ming) by Seng T’san, Third Patriarch of Zen, translation by Richard B. Clarke “The I Ching,” translated by Richard Wilhelm, published by Princeton University Press, 1967

ii

Thanks to Michael Borovsky and Nico Borovsky for their generous help with editing and the mysteries of the computer, to Peter Borovsky for his advisory assistance, to the patient people at Integrative Ink, and to John Schill for his kind encouragement.

iii

iv

To all flowering members of the vegetable kingdom, the poetry of Dylan Thomas, cirrus clouds, our children and their children and theirs as well, the sanctity of devotion, the flutter of the night moth’s wings, the wedding of Only and Forever, all nicknames—particularly Ninny and Tweet, the songs of Cole Porter, the novels of Tom Robbins, the Upper Midwest, all the Simpsons—particularly Lisa, the enduring power of faith, the Great Lakes, the sculpture of Michelangelo, Bach’s left hand, the color of Gretchen’s hair, the paintings of Vermeer, the game of baseball, the Beethoven Symphonies— particularly the Fourth, all bubbles rising in Champagne glasses, the sacrament of marriage, the transformative power of landscape, the seven colors of the visible spectrum—particularly violet, and art for art’s sake.

v

Also by Richard Borovsky Available through Lulu.com

A PEACEABLE KINGDOM THE SONG THE BIRDS FORGOT

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THREE OF HEARTS OR WHAT LOVE DOES THE TOP FLOOR THE HORATIO HOTEL THE RESTAURANT HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER BERNARD THE ELEVATOR MAN FELIX, THE ARTISTE THE HOUR KEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL THE ELEVATOR MAN AS ROSIE THE ARTISTE IN LOVE BUTTERMAN SAINT BERNIE SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN TWO BY THE WINDOW THE BATTLEFIELD LOVE DEFINED THE HOUR KEEPER, BUTTERED FREDA SPEECHLESS BUTTERMAN AS POET THE ELEVATOR MAN, BUTTERED THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE THE HOUR KEEPER, BUTTERED AND TOASTED THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR GRETCHEN

vii

1 4 7 12 28 48 76 88 103 114 129 137 157 166 175 189 196 212 217 227 234 250 263 273 288

viii

THREE OF HEARTS

THE TOP FLOOR

I’m flat on my back, contemplating the end of my life, which should happen any day now.

I’m not sleepy or unwell. I’m on my bed, propped up on pillows, with my black and white female cat sitting on my chest in her sphinx position. I don’t know whether cats have names in their own society, such as it is. I don’t know whether they have names when they’re still in the litter, for instance; when they share a home with other cats; or when they meet others between buildings, in yards, or in alleys when they live in cities that have alleys.

My current cat, whom I named Lois, is one of a number I’ve lived with over the last sixty years: I was born into a family with cats. That’s with cats, not of cats, though if given the choice I might hesitate. Lois is one of the more friendly cats I’ve known (or affiliative as they’re known in the business), but other than that there’s nothing to distinguish her other than that she is a cat. At fifteen she is old for a house cat, and I’m still not certain if she knows her own name. Like most of her species, she’ll respond to it if I call her in a certain tone of voice; but she’ll also respond if I call her Hildegarde or Gildersleeve, as long as the voice is right. And if

1

THE TOP FLOOR she does know her name, it’s not important to her as it is would be if she were a dog. But if she were a dog, she’d never be up here on my bed, let alone relaxed and gazing at me from my chest as I contemplate my rapidly approaching end.

It may have aroused your curiosity that I am going on about cats on this Thursday afternoon in 2002, which may be my last among the living. A question may also have come up regarding just how I know about my future, given that I have claimed to be in good health and “comfortable.” People in good health rarely expect to be dead within a week, unless they’re about to enter the most horrific kind of war, which I am not, or into a hazardous venture of some life threatening sort, which again I am not. And people reclining on their own beds with a cat of their choosing on their chests are typically not those condemned to death by lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, or hanging, which again I am not. And those who describe themselves as “comfortable” are usually not the ones who are planning suicide—though I can’t speak with any certainty about suicides. It may be that the very prospect of leaving a life of torment is comforting to them; but that’s not true in my case, or in my life, I’d prefer to say, since I don’t consider myself a “case.” All questions regarding my imminent death will be answered in good time.

Beauty is a more immediate concern of mine. It always has been. I consider Lois an especially beautiful cat, and for that reason, she’s not only permitted but encouraged to sit on my chest. She has nearly symmetrical black and white markings on her head and face, particularly when viewed from here on my back. The top of her head is black, as are her pointed ears and the space around her yellow-green eyes. It’s as if she’s wearing a black half mask, but there’s a white diamond on her forehead, and this white fur carries down between her eyes and around her perfectly pink nose and her mouth, and then extends down over her chin, silky neck and chest.

Along with this she is blessed with startlingly long white whiskers.

She is looking at me intently and purring; the purring leads me to believe that she is content, but I haven’t an inkling, a hint, even a vague intimation of how she perceives me or the world around us.

This interests me greatly; there’s nothing to suggest that a cat’s consciousness is any less intense than ours, only more narrowly focused. On cat business. Which is what? And, surprising to say

2

THREE OF HEARTS (for you perhaps, but not for me), it is this awe in the face of the unknown, this profound unknowing that has developed through a lifetime of experience that accounts for my present circumstances: the comfortable contemplation of my own death, which I expect to arrive before next Monday or Tuesday—though as with all bets, commitments and promises, one can never be entirely sure. § My bedroom is the only room on the third floor. It is a long room; it stretches the full depth of the house I’ve lived in since I moved up from Chicago seven years ago. The front and back walls have wide windows, arched on top, opening onto the street and backyard. The walls on the sides are windowless and rise only five feet before meeting the slanting ceiling which comes to a sharp peak above me.

The skylight which is set near the rear of the room opens with a crank, most often to the night sky, weather permitting. The stairs from the second floor end at a landing next to the front window, which, in the summer, is filled with the fullness of a maple tree.

The tree grows on the strip of ground between the sidewalk and street—a residential one but wide and often busy. In honor of that tree (which I consider an intelligent being, perhaps even more so than the cat), the long wooden bench under the front window is covered almost entirely with potted philodendrons (philo, love + dendron, tree), leaving only one cushioned space in the middle where I often sit and look out.

I never tire of looking out of windows—in the city, at least.

I think I would soon tire of a beautiful view of the mountains or of broad green fields or of an ocean or lake. I am fond of traffic, motorized and pedestrian. At the age of sixty, I still nurture the habit I developed as a child looking out the window of my mother’s apartment back in Chicago: wondering where the cars and people are going, and spinning stories to satisfy my curiosity. And I do like the sound of traffic on this street, no less than one might like the sound of wind through thr trees, or a river, or water crashing against rocks or lapping at a moonlit beach.

My name is Horace. I am happy with my life just as it is.

3

THE HORATIO HOTEL

THE HORATIO HOTEL

I live in a small room with one window at the back looking out over a public parking lot. If someone called the room shabby, they’d maybe be right. It does need painting—the walls need washing, at least—but this is a “residential hotel” where decorating and cleanliness aren’t all that important. My room does have a sturdy door with two deadbolt locks. The rooms on the first floor and the ones by fire escapes have bars on the windows. I live on the third floor, so there’re no bars blocking my view. My room is at the back of the Horatio Hotel. The elevated trains clatter by day and night on the street in front of it, and anyone calling my room shabby would probably also say this hotel is “on the wrong side of the tracks.”

The tracks run on a dark, old, riveted steel platform that keeps the street below it always murky during the day; and that darkness fits right in with the traffic sounds that make a background for the screeching and grinding of the trains. The edge of the prosperous part of downtown is on the other side of the tracks, where the old buildings rise straight up along with the new gleaming ones that are

4

THREE OF HEARTS made of glass, steel and marble. The old elevated tracks run around a part of downtown Chicago, making what everyone here calls “The Loop.”

On my side of the street, the Horatio Hotel’s side, the properties aren’t so desirable, like the city of Chicago planned it that way years ago and doesn’t want to bother changing its mind. Here the buildings are older, grimier, and smudged by the exhaust fumes coming from under the tracks, fumes that seem to steer clear of the polished buildings on the other side. I can’t say why this is. And on this side the pedestrians aren’t dressed so fashionably. Even on the brightest days it seems darker on this side of the tracks. Other people have noticed this too, not just me; so don’t think I’m some kind of crackpot. Some say it’s soot in the air spewed out by the tall brick chimneys of the factories nearby. But these factories shut down years ago. Some people say that the old soot’s still here, some say it’s all in the shadows cast this way by the tall buildings on the other side, and others say it’s just a sign of neglect. Across the street in the tall buildings, there are modern, thriving businesses.

On this side, the old buildings house leftovers from former times: small time suppliers; light manufacturers of goods hardly used any more and dreary offices staffed by people who have probably missed one boat or another. But when I meet people who work in the buildings around this hotel, they’re always pleasant. And it is a little darker over here, but I don’t mind; and I don’t think of my room as shabby. I’m very happy with it and with the clatter of the trains that reminds me that life goes on uninterrupted.

The brown walls in my room with all the cracks in them haven’t been painted in years—I’d say maybe twenty-five. The white ceiling also has cracks and has its own covering of soot along with its automatic sprinklers. The room is furnished with a small under-counter refrigerator next to the porcelain sink with a small drain board alongside. I have my own two-burner hot plate and a small microwave that I keep on the counter next to the sink. Along the wall opposite the sink is an alcove with a toilet and shower stall but no door, only a curtain. My bed’s on the back wall across from the windows, so if I prop myself up on pillows, I can see the sky outside. Along with my bed, there’s a linoleum-topped table with two straight chairs in the room and one worn but comfortable armchair. I do have a clock radio and a small television, but the

5

THE HORATIO HOTEL television’s reception could be better since there’s no cable here.

There is a dark blue rug on the green linoleum floor. Besides my clothes, books, dishes and a few other things, the dark blue rug is my only personal possession. The hotel janitor lets me borrow the vacuum cleaner once a week to keep the rug clean. It’s like the ocean for me. I have one plant, a philodendron I keep on the windowsill, and a dozen or so plates I like set on a wooden molding about head high on all four walls. I keep a blue cloth on the table, along with a pink bowl where I keep oranges when I have them, because I do like things to be pretty. My bed is covered with a colorful quilt I found in a thrift shop years ago. There is always activity in the parking lot, so I keep my comfortable armchair next to the window.

I never get tired of looking out my window. I love the way the pattern of cars entering and leaving the public parking lot always changes during the day, and even the few at night, too, because these comings and goings seem like the pulse of life. There’s always traffic on the two streets I can see and stoplights at the corner where they cross. In the summer, I open my window and watch the taxis, the yellows ones, the checkers, the red and white ones; and I like the way I can never tell which kind is coming next.

That reminds me of the way life is too. In the winter I wrap myself in my quilt and I watch the snowplows make their rounds and the janitors with salt and the pedestrians trudging through the grey slush. I’m happy with the way I live. I have a twelve minute walk to work at a fashionable old hotel, The Randolph House, where I’ve operated an elevator for thirty years now. Once a week I hang my uniform on a hook outside the steward’s office, and when I come back for my next shift it’s been dry cleaned and pressed. I keep my shoes in my locker and shine them daily, when I also brush my hat.

I have my hair cut at the hotel’s expense in the gleaming barbershop once every two weeks where I have a manicure—something I need since I often shake hands with our guests. I sometimes feel so happy just delivering them to their home floors that I have to hold back my tears. My life’s not complicated and that’s the way I like it. My name is Bernard .

6

THREE OF HEARTS

THE RESTAURANT

My name is Felix.

“Hey, Kathleen,” I say, calling her over to the mâitre‘d station where I’m standing. “Don’t say ‘Soup or salad,’ say ‘Salad or soup.’ ‘Soup or salad’ sounds like super salad. Okay?”

“I don’t get it.”

Kathleen’s my friend and practically my sister but I roll my eyes at her anyway. ‘Would you like soup or salad with your dinner?’ ‘Gee, I don’t know. What is a super salad, something like a chef salad, but real, real big?’ Okay?”

Kathleen says she enunciates quite well, gives me a look and walks away. It’s just 5:30.

It’s a Tuesday night, and by the look of the reservations it’s going to be slow. I’m touchier than usual tonight, however. When I was showing the new busboy how to set tables, he asked my why the knife blade should be turned in toward the plate.

“Because it looks good that way,” I answered.

“Really?”

I knew that it might have been a mistake to pull him out of the dishroom to work in the dining room. Just after I hired this kid 7

THE RESTAURANT he asked me if my name really was Felix. I said it was, and that it meant “Happy”. “Like Felix the Cat?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said, “just like Felix the Cat.” So he was a kind of wise-ass student type, but he was smart and carried himself well.

“The turned in knife blade symbolize that the knife is ready for action on the plate, not off of it? How’s that? And anyway it looks good. The curve mirrors the curve of the spoons…”

“But the spoons have two curves…”

“Enough, okay? This isn’t design class. But if it was, I’d be in charge, just like now. I also want you to be sure to stagger the placement of the two forks and the two spoons next to the knife.

Nest them in together. And the water glass is to be above the tip of the knife. And if all the silverware’s polished you make all the settings exactly the same, perfectly parallel, the wine glasses will ring a little, all by themselves, they’ll sing. Listen for it.”

I’m in charge of the dining room here. There are only eighteen tables in this little basement restaurant, nine in each room.

The smaller room is triangular, pie shaped, there’s a fountain surrounded by plants if the far corner—a little boy pouring water out of a jug. The fountain is easily clogged, but the two little tables for two on either side of it are the most private and romantic in the place. Or some prefer table #6 in that same room, another one for two people, which, though not secluded, is adorned with a periwinkle blue tear-drop glass chandelier above it.

The rough sandstone walls in the room are painted white; the beams across the ceilings are salmon colored, the carpet forest green. Several misty landscapes and a tapestry are hung on the walls; the ceiling is low and the lighting soft. There is only one large round table in the Fountain Room, all the rest are “deuces”— that’s what we call them. I’ve heard that in most restaurants they’re called two-tops, like four-tops and six-tops, but this isn’t most restaurants, and two-top is an ugly word. We also can push tables together, of course, but still it’s hard to put large parties in this room. It’s a perfect room for Valentine’s Day. And it’s a beautiful little room, because along with the fountain in the corner and the little blue chandelier and tables with their golden cloths and wineglasses that sing when the silverware’s polished and aligned, there’s a brightly lit marble counter on which deserts are displayed, and above it there’s an awning in flowered fabric; earth tones—

8

THREE OF HEARTS mustard, muted oranges and rose. Every customer ordering dessert is escorted to this display, but it’s dark behind the counter except for a large hole drilled in the concrete wall through which orders are passed, hot from the kitchen.

Through a short basement passageway, one wall of which is wallpapered with a bucolic scene of Brittany, the main staircase comes down next to the maître d’s station in the other room, the Fireplace Room. This room is larger than the Fountain Room; it has mostly tables for four, and an attractive but non-functional fireplace that is filled with baskets of dried flowers. Only the back wall is white sandstone, the three others are paneled in dark wood.

The beams are painted the same salmon color as in the fountain room. Across from the maître d’s station (where I spend most of my time) is an antique marble topped credenza with bottles of wine on top of it and a matching blue, glass teardrop chandelier above it.

This room has more space and, lacking the fountain corner and dessert display, less charm, and it is the sight of my increasing unhappiness.

This restaurant is staffed by my best friends, most of whom I knew in Chicago before we all moved up here. The music that’s played in this restaurant is louder than in most restaurants because it is valued in itself—and it is of my own choice. I don’t cook the food or create the recipes, but I do choose and order the wine and drink it whenever I can. Sometimes, once we’ve cleaned up after a busy Saturday night, we gleefully break several city ordinances and have ourselves a party down here, secure and out of sight from the street. No guests allowed. We pull tables together in the fountain room so there’s enough room for all of us: myself, the wine steward, a few waitresses, waiters or combination thereof, and whoever’s washing dishes and cooking. We play classical music, loud. We pass a pipe and drink Champagne. We eat and drink together, and wait or hang out in the kitchen when the courses are prepared. We figure the cost of food and wine and pitch in to pay it. We clean up, and leave stoned and champagned and off to someone’s apartment to continue on. But I hate my job.

I hate it, but the force that keeps me down there seems almost irresistible. Once I burst out during a rush on a cold Friday night. I strode around the block in my tux, my heart raging at my captivity. It didn’t matter that the environment was aesthetically

9

THE RESTAURANT uplifting; it didn’t matter that all my friends were there or even that I often did my job with relish and that the sight of an overbooked reservation sheet actually thrilled me. I am an arrogant man who despises restriction. I despise the fact that I knew I would return that night after I burst out, that though as much as I wanted to, I could not run until I dropped, or even died—which would have been fine.

Nothing can please me if it is not of my own design. There was a time when I worked in that restaurant only one night a week—on Mondays. I had no other job, but beginning Sunday night, I was sick at heart. There is nothing I can create and nothing I can destroy that will satisfy me when I feel like this. Like tonight.

The lights are dim, the candles are lit, Bach’s Goldberg Variations is playing loud enough for me to follow both the right and left hands.

The two women who are waiting tables are not only old friends of mine but brilliant and accomplished, each in her own way. I will sit here on my stool, answering the phone, greeting guests, taking them to their tables, serving some wine, clearing some plates. It will never be busy tonight, but I cannot bear it, because no one can hear me. No one can ever hear when another person is distraught. No one can ever help when help is needed most.

“Are you okay?” Clare asks as she slips in with me behind my little desk.

“No. I’m going to explode.”

“Well, wait. We’ll go to Nick’s after we get off.” Clare understands about as much as anyone does, but it isn’t enough.

“When we get off I’ll be okay,” I say, sorry for not feeling grateful for her concern. “But sure.” And the thought of a cold Beck’s or a Harp does soothe me for a moment until I look at my watch. When I do, I realize I am entirely alone.

Still, it is true that I exult in the heroic feeling we all enjoy after a crazy-busy Saturday night. I control the flow, and I like it when things flow smoothly. I like it when people with reservations don’t have to wait for their table, and I like it when no one serving the tables gets slammed, and nothing happens that makes anyone in the kitchen threaten us with knives. I like it when the flow is steady under the deep, clattery, packed dining room sound of conversation, laughter, silverware on plates, wine glasses clinking, kitchen doors

10

THREE OF HEARTS swinging open while the Bach flows on with only me listening, as only I can, because I’ve known every note for years. And it’s so good when a table opens and we sweep down on it with trays, and a crisp clean cloth and napkins folded sharp and shined silver and glasses ready to sing, so I can walk away before it’s finished and return with a swept armful of guests knowing their table will look as if it’s never before been used. When it’s humming busy and the checks and tips are big, and people believe me when I tell them the Gewurtstramminer is perfect with the duck because it is, and I get lucky and pour the six of them six perfect golden glasses, the last emptying the graceful bottle to the last drop in the last glass so that they politely applaud—and I see a waitress stuff a few bills into the sweating dishwasher’s apron. And then when no one’s waited and it’s slowing down and the empty tables are covered only in golden cloths and it’s ten to ten and no one comes in to ruin what’s promising to be a busy but early night, and the reservation sheet is as crossed out and corrected as a manager’s roster for an extra inning ball game. We have to sit and wait a while when the last couple by the fountain is still sipping wine and holding hands across the table, but that’s no problem that because it’s been a good night and I can listen to The Goldberg Variations, amazed how two musical lines can coexist and flow in perfect complementary synergy. And then I wonder how I can look forward to this with such dread, but I remember again as soon as the two lovebirds at table four don’t show any signs of leaving, or even any signs of awareness that they’re in a restaurant, and certainly not that they’re the only ones in it. So after a little while I go in there and noisily move some chairs around, hoping they’ll turn and see they’re in an empty room. But they don’t, and they’re starting to ruin my life, so I wait until the music comes to climax and abruptly shut it off. But they don’t even notice. So their waitress and I wait in the Fireplace Room for another five minutes until I can’t stand it any more.

“Excuse me,” I say to them. “But we’re just about ready to close up down here…”

And they look around shocked that they’re alone in there, and even apologize, but I’ve ruined something, and I don’t give a damn because I hate it again. And the guy knows something’s wrong, I can tell by his look, but fuck him—and fuck you, too.

11

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER

I named my cat Lois regardless of what her mother called her during her early kittenhood. She may have been known, or at least singled out, in some other way we cannot know. I was named by my mother. She chose to call me Horace (Horace, The Hour-Keeper), probably in accordance with the vibrational field that accompanied my soul into this incarnation. At least that’s the way the story goes, the story of reincarnation, one among many she used to tell me at bedtime, no better, no worse than the others—like “The Three Little Pigs” or “The Tar Baby”—my mother having a passion for both the occult and the dramatic. Neither she nor my father had ever taken traditional religion seriously. Early in life she became a serious occultist; he a serious pragmatist. My mother eventually became a woman of uncommon spiritual power. I never knew my father, however; he was killed by a stray bullet in Chicago in the late winter of 1942, shortly before my birth.

12

THREE OF HEARTS I should point out here for the squeamish among you that “an occultist” is not a person who practices ritual black magic. The term “occult” only acquired its shady reputation under the superficial gaze of late twentieth century popular culture. Occult means concealed, hidden. An occultist is one who believes in the existence of esoteric knowledge, secrets of the soul and the world, often of ancient origin, and always unknown or ignored by the culture at large, either academic or popular. It’s probably too late for the term “occultism” to regain respect, however, not that “New Age” does any better to describe the spiritual awakening which began to show itself in the second half of the twentieth century. It may be that the greatest stumbling block that faces this change of world consciousness is its lack of a good name.

In any case, my mother once told me it was my father’s pragmatism that got him killed, and I didn’t understand how such a thing could be. I understand it now, but don’t think she ever really did, not fully, at least. She was, among other things, an ardent student of astrology, and tended to believe the musical clarity she found in natal or progressed charts accounted for tendencies and events with a kind of cosmic exclusivity.

But we know that everything my father did in his life led to his death. That’s how it is with all of us. His commonsense, practical outlook was only one of the innumerable forces that shaped and guided him to his meeting with a stray bullet on Roosevelt Road on the near south side of Chicago. He had just stepped out of his large black Buick, with his black medical bag in his hand. He was making a house call, and several people were sitting on the stoop of the three-flat he was about to visit. But no one heard the shot fired, which should come as no surprise since the Cook County Coroner, a man with whom my father played Gin Rummy, found that the bullet entered the top of my father’s skull at an angle of seventy-five degrees to sidewalk on which, according to three witnesses, he was standing erect. So it was determined that shot had been fired into the air from at least a mile away, probably more like two. And depending on the angle at which my father faced the steps, it was concluded that this bullet’s path originated somewhere to the west or southwest of the spot where he was hit, and there’s a lot of city out there. But the extensive police

13

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER investigation that followed found neither evidence of the crime nor anyone who admitted to witnessing any gun fire at the time.

But of course it wasn’t only the bullet that killed him—nor his pragmatism, nor the last red light he stopped at before parking or getting out of his car. It’s never only one thing that causes another—can I stress that enough? It would help if everyone learned that in school, very early on. Certainly before the multiplication tables, which are, if not the last thing one needs to learn about arithmetic, close to it. People do need to multiply in their heads every now and then. Some occasionally even need to divide. Those few who show a genuine love of mathematics, of course, should be free to explore as they like. But we already know that, don’t we? But do we know that an attempt to describe the universe in mathematical terms is like trying to describe human beings in terms of their skin? Do we know that the only terms in which the universe can be described are those of the human soul?

The mystery of the human soul. Does everyone remember that it’s the marriage of the known and the unknowable that lies at the heart of everything: of us, of the universe? Do we get that? Do we know that the universe cannot be understood through intellect, only through consciousness, and therefore the exploration of the universe is a psychological process? No telescopes or computers required?

I do sometimes tire of being professionally generous, and of my practiced patience with a culture so blazingly un-self-aware that it considers itself advanced; so blazingly un-self-aware that it institutionalizes revenge, and accepts the claim that this time the physicists really have found the smallest particle. I know that these attempts to grapple with reality are in themselves the workings of the universal mind learning to know itself—I know this, but the grapplers do not. I even know that I have every reason to love them for it all, and so should you.

So I do believe I have my priorities in order. § There is a desk perpendicular to the back wall of my long bedroom with the peaked roof, so as I sit at it I can look into the back yard and the alley beyond. If it weren’t for the alley, which is trafficked by many people taking shortcuts and a few cars, I’d probably tire of

14

THREE OF HEARTS the commanding view of the yard, despite the lush flower garden that grows there every spring and summer. It is purely an aesthetic garden: no vegetables, just flowers, butterflies and bumblebees and any other insects who find it homey. I don’t plant or tend to the garden; I have someone do that for me. There have been a long string of horticulture students who’ve made it a project for a modest sum. I do clean and maintain the house, however, in which, along with Lois, I am the only resident. There isn’t any furniture on the first and second floors, and it’s an easy and satisfying weekly job to sweep and dust an empty house. The first floor contains an unusually spacious living room and a small dining room. The bedrooms are on the second floor. Essentially it’s a structure containing kitchen and lavatory appliances to support my room on the top floor. Other than trips down to the kitchen and bathroom, I rarely leave this room. As I said, it’s a long room and everything I need is in it.

There is an excellent old upright piano in the room on which I occasionally play the simplest pieces by J.S. Bach; there is my desk, book cases, lamps, all the early twenty-first century electronic necessities (musical, video and other), my telescope, a sofa, several comfortable chairs, a coffee table, a bed, a dresser and a wardrobe. The small amount of wall space left is covered with reproductions of the astonishingly dramatic paintings of the Baroque period of European art—Caravaggio, La Tour, and Manfredi in particular. And though I have no doubts about the ongoing life of my soul after death, I do wonder—still lying here with my cat on my chest—what my experience will be like without these comforts of home, without the comforts of this room of mine.

I do have a sense of what death will bring, I believe I have touched on it in dreams: a memory of something so manifest and familiar, something that’s always been there for me, something I wonder how I’ve ever forgotten. But I have forgotten; and I believe it may be necessary to forget in order to live. And besides, everything I think and feel about death from my living perspective may dissolve into something meaningless in the face of the real thing, in which the very idea of sense may not even exist. And to me, that sounds exciting. Interesting, at least.

So as you might expect, I have a problem with the way most people in our modern age react to death. When I hear that someone

15

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER has died, my most genuine response would be congratulatory: “Well, good for them!” And if my informant happens to be close to the deceased, I’d modify that with a condolence. Of course, this is not my verbal response; I’ve never lost any friends that way.

There is one thing that does disappoint me about my approaching demise, however: I had decided that once I’d reached seventy, I’d begin to say exactly what was on my mind to anyone and everyone. And I consciously chose the age of seventy because I believed that having reached it I’d no longer have anything cruel to say to anyone—inappropriate, disturbing, shocking, seemingly mad, yes, possibly, but not cruel. At the age of sixty, unfortunately, I don’t yet qualify. § Having mentioned that my mother was an ardent student of astrology, one or another of you may have suspected that it was she who foretold the time of my death, and you would have been partly correct. She showed me how to calculate it for myself. I suppose she didn’t want to know the details; she certainly made no efforts to learn about her own. But the astrologers who are capable of this are few, and many think it’s impossible.

Ascertaining the manner of death is a simpler matter; in technical terms, this is often signified by the Sun, Moon, ruler of the Ascendant, and sixth and eighth houses. This is explicated in oldfashioned texts, still available. And in my particular case, both Mars and Uranus were involved in this interplay of forces and positions and angular relationships, indicating, according to the classics: “strange deaths, usually sudden and unexpected, through inventions, electricity, lightning, railroads, explosions, travel or suicide.”

But ascertaining time is another matter; it’s been a well-kept secret for ages, and those who do know won’t tell. Think of the Hippocratic Oath. For an ethical astrologer, foretelling death is equivalent of a doctor “doing harm,” or a time traveler delving into the past and meddling with the timeline. I’m speaking of foretelling another’s death, however. There is a well-known case of a prominent uninsured twentieth century astrologer who presciently

16

THREE OF HEARTS took out a huge policy for the benefit of his wife just before his unexpected natural death. I suppose I could do that, too.

I do know that after that bullet and my father met on Roosevelt Road in 1942, my mother immediately drew up the appropriate charts and to illuminate the forces at play. In hindsight, the unexpected event seemed predictable, but being the forthright woman she was, she readily admitted that she wouldn’t have noticed without looking for it. But she was never overly interested in astrology’s unreliable predictive tools. She impressed upon me early on that astrology worked best as a psychological tool; a means to self knowledge; that a natal chart was the blending of a set of archetypes, an interplay of tried and true universal symbols. And she was quick to point out that an analysis of a birth chart reflects not only the practitioner’s understanding of the archetypes and their interplay, but his or her character as well. So caveat emptor.

Never accept the astrological insights of a person from whom you wouldn’t buy a used car.

I’m still at my desk staring out my window when my doorbell chimes. When this happens I have several options. I can ignore it if I’m napping or otherwise indisposed. Or, if I’m feeling lazy, which I have every right to feel, I can pick up my intercom, ask who’s there and buzz them in, or on occasion, as with Jehovah’s Witnesses, tell them no thank you. If, on the other hand, I’m ready to meet the cosmos on its own terms, as I am today, I bound down stairs and answer it.

And today the cosmos offers a beautiful young woman.

I’ve known a long line of beautiful women in my life; I’ve made a point of that. But of course, things have changed for me at sixty.

Beautiful women, particularly the younger ones, are ardent about beautiful younger men, which I understand and accept. But I still enjoy their company, as females, of course—whom I consider the more evolved gender at this time in human history—but also as living objects of art. Yes, objects. Like my cat is an object. I can’t imagine incurring any wrath for keeping my cat around because she’s beautiful.

“Hello, Gretchen,” I say. “Nice to see you.”

Gretchen is the horticulture student who’s tending my garden. She’s is tall, with shoulder length wavy blond hair and

17

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER brown eyes. She has a singularly Midwestern wholesomeness about her. She’s dressed in a yellow tee shirt, cut off jeans, and sandals.

She ordinarily goes directly to the garden without ringing the bell, often without seeing me at all.

“I wanted to ask you something, Mr. G.” she says.

“Because I’m not sure if it’s okay.”

“It probably is,” I answer.

When I interviewed her, a graduate student, she seemed grounded, bright, and sophisticated. Of course, if she were a skilled young criminal, plotting to kidnap me and hold me for ransom, she could have given a grounded, bright, and sophisticated impression if it suited her to do so. But when we talked about the garden, she seemed to feel as I do about things both aesthetic and beyond.

“I have a friend who’s a photographer,” she says now a little shyly, twirling a strand of corn colored hair in her right hand, her left on her hip. “He’s a student, and he wants to take some pictures of me… And I thought in your garden might be a good place.”

“Do you want him to take pictures of you?“ She looks surprised at first, then she smiles. “Oh, that’s what I meant. We’re good friends.”

“Well, then fine. It’s not all that private, but…”

“Oh no,” she laughs, embarrassed. “You don’t think we…”

“No,” I reassured her. “That’s not what I thought. It’s just that there might be distractions, with the alley traffic. As you know, this is hardly an enclosed garden in a Italian Villa.”

Gretchen says distractions are no problem, and I ask her when she wants to do this.

“Now?” “I don’t see any problem with that,” I said, and I didn’t. It was a bright, sunny day; it seemed ideal.

She beamed at this, and waved to her friend whom I hadn’t noticed sitting in a parked car. Gretchen introduced him as Jay. He also seemed like a pleasant young person, and his camera equipment looked impressive. I told Gretchen there was juice and bottled water in the refrigerator and that if they got thirsty they should help themselves, and to otherwise make themselves at home—out in back that is, since there was nothing homey about the empty rooms on the first two floors.

18

THREE OF HEARTS Then I went back upstairs. I thought for a moment about watching them from my window but felt uncomfortable about that, so sat down on one of my easy chairs to continue contemplating whatever entered my mind.

I must have fallen asleep. I was awakened by the raised voices of Gretchen and her friend Jay. I somehow had it in my mind that they were arguing over groceries, but when I shook off the dream I realized that something was very wrong. By the time I got downstairs, they were already getting back in the car. I called out to Gretchen just as she’d closed the door; she didn’t answer, but then, just before he pulled away, Jay hit her on the back of her head with his open hand, hard enough that so her forehead banged on the windshield. Then they were gone.

I memorized the car’s license number and went back to the garden to see if anything there could explain what had happened. I saw that several of the tall zinnias, red and orange ones, were drooping on broken stems and that one begonia plant had been flattened by a heel. Then I went inside and called the police. I told them that I wanted to report an assault. Then I found Gretchen’s number and called her. Apparently, she had two roommates, Lorna and Stephie. Each woman had her own voice mail. I left a message for Gretchen to call me.

I admit that then I felt a hint of irritation that my serenity was disturbed. I remembered opening the front door to see what the cosmos had to offer and, seeing Gretchen, having made the assumption that what it had to offer was good. Clearly, it was not.

But I didn’t see anything that I could do to help Gretchen, so I just permitted myself be disturbed, and I spent the next hour worrying and trying to imagine what had happened, but I’d come up against something I couldn’t stomach, so I tried the number again.

This time someone answered. I asked for Gretchen.

“She’s not here right now. I can take a message or click you onto her voice mail if you like.”

“Are you one of her roommates?” I asked.

“Who’s this?”

Her defensiveness was reassuring to me. I told her who I was, and fortunately, it turned out that she knew that Gretchen did some gardening for me. She even said Gretchen had told her all

19

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER about me. Then she said she was Lorna. I told her I was worried about Gretchen, that I may be meddling in something that’s not my business, but it seemed important. Then I told her what happened.

“What?” she asked.

“He hit her on the back of the head, hard. I’m sure he hurt her, and then drove away with her.”

“Jay did this?”

“Yes. And I got his license number and called the police.”

“I don’t think you should have done that.”

“Why not? You think he’ll retaliate?”

When Lorna didn’t answer immediately, I started losing my patience. “Lorna?” I said. “Is there something you know about this?”

“No,” she said. “I just mean it’s between Jay and Gretchen.

I don’t think you should have involved the police.”

This annoyed me. “All you have to do is watch a little television, or go to a movie occasionally, or pick up a magazine to know that women in abusive relationships sometimes try to protect the abuser and even blame themselves. So I’d appreciate it if you told me what you know about this. I’m very concerned.”

“I don’t know anything, and I really don’t know you,” she said, her voice tightening. I expected her to go on but she didn’t.

“And…?” I asked after a moment.

“And if Gretchen wants to discuss this with you, that’s fine.

I don’t feel right doing it.”

So I said goodbye to her and left her my number just in case. I got the impression that she didn’t write it down. § Except for my monthly visits to my old cousin Lydia who resides in a nursing home on the east side of Madison, I haven’t traveled any farther than my own back yard since early spring, and that’s just as I’ve wanted it. I’d found a grocery store that not only delivers, but takes pride in picking out the choicest produce and meats for me. I suppose they do this for all delivery customers, but the impression given is one of personal service. I could have sent my laundry out, too; but there are machines in the basement and an occasional trip down there does me good.

It’s important for humans to

20

THREE OF HEARTS occasionally spend some time underground. Don’t ask me why, just accept that.

When I sit down at my desk again and look out into the garden I see Lois is there, prowling around the disturbed broken stems among the zinnias. She is walking warily, crouching. She may be sensing some remnant of earlier disruption; there may be a cloud of negative emotion not quite dispelled; or it may be a mouse.

It’s probably a mouse. It’s such a bright day that I hadn’t realized that a thin cloud had moved across the sun—until now when it drifts away and the garden is dazzlingly illuminated. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. As they do, Lois disappears into the green black shadows in the midst of it.

It’s often difficult to trace the associative patterns of the mind, but as I gaze at my garden into which my black and white cat Lois has just disappeared, I am reminded of my mother. I don’t even try to guess at the correlation, but it’s one I’m happy to accept.

I enjoy thinking about my mother.

Just after her fortieth birthday, my mother was elected president of the American Metaphysical Society, an organization based in a western suburb of Chicago. My father’s unexpected death did not leave us wanting as one might expect. It was almost as if he were the astrologer who knew how to foretell the time of death, because only weeks before he met his fate he tripled the size of his life insurance policy. And my mother did have an income of her own, though through a well reasoned agreement with my father, all her work was done under a pseudonym, given that he, even at his early age, was a prominent member of the Chicago medical establishment. He respected my mother’s practice and often secretly conferred with her in particularly difficult cases, but could scarcely subject his reputation to the stain of any association with astrology, let alone, of all things, an astrologer wife. She told me the two of them laughed about this. But I have to imagine they were indignant as well, since on one occasion that I know of, my father attributed his astonishing diagnosis of a presumably moribund man to my mother’s analysis of his natal and progressed chart, narrowing the cause of the man’s malady to the brain, someplace no doctor had thought to look.

My mother’s astrological business did bring in a modest income—an astrologer’s clients are often wealthy—but since my

21

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER father’s earnings were far greater, she was able to squirrel her own away, to save it for a rainy day, never expecting a lightning strike to accompany the rain. So we were not in financial jeopardy when my father left us, and in the ensuing years his pragmatic investments were transformed into a windfall by my mother’s shrewd management. Until the end of her life, she denied using her astrological expertise to guide her investment choices, but I know for a fact that this was untrue. In going through her papers, I found records of stock purchases and horary charts stapled together. And I have no objection to this. It has permitted me to follow my personal pursuits without distraction.

So I am happy to be my mother’s son, and happy to have a cat who can trigger her memory by simply entering the garden. My mother’s official position was eventually bestowed upon me, and though I took the responsibility seriously, I carried a certain skepticism with me into the office. And as Past President of the American Metaphysical Society, perhaps the most august exoteric— that is, public—spiritual society in America, I realize now that through all my study and research, I learned nothing of any real value that can’t be gleaned from the two familiar exhortations, “Know Thyself,” and “Love thy Neighbor.” All the rest of it may as well be gossip, or fiction, or self-deception. All the beauty (and mumbo-jumbo) about the sevenfold nature of man, the inner realms, the esoteric brotherhoods are all aspects of self-knowledge. These things can be learned anywhere, but only understood within. And the only things that can be whole and true to us are those we learn through the medium of love. But we should all know that by now, shouldn’t we? Despite what modern thought has tried to foist on us? But Lois has emerged from the garden with a rodent in her teeth, so perhaps my sermonizing should come to an end. And now the phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Horace? Is that you?”

“Yes,” I say, hearing something distantly familiar in the female voice. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, you’re going to have to guess that. How old are you now, sixty?”

“That’s right. I’m Sixty.”

“So? Your voice doesn’t sound any different. Does mine?”

22

THREE OF HEARTS There’s a crystalline quality to her voice, and an intimacy.

And suddenly then I know. “Miranda?” I say.

“Um hm. Why so surprised? I’d think by now nothing would surprise you.”

“It’s been since 1979, hasn’t it?

“1978.”

“Fine. But that twenty-four years ago. And as I recall, I woke up one morning and you were gone.” Which is what happened. I had rolled over in bed and she wasn’t there.

“I’d say that’s accurate. Were you terribly upset?”

“Miranda?”

“Yes?” “Oh, nothing in particular. I’m just surprised to be talking to you again. And I was upset, I think, but not terribly. I don’t remember my psyche being scarred. It was kind of easy come, easy go, wasn’t it?”

Miranda doesn’t answer this. “I’ll be in your neighborhood the weekend after this. I thought it might be nice to catch up.”

I feel irony itself creep over me. Miranda, red-haired, with a delightful elfin look about her, was a friend with whom I shared no sentimentality. Our relationship was based on an almost brutal truthfulness between us, an experimental truthfulness. We even referred to our several months together as an experiment. If there was a living soul to whom I could tell the truth it would be she.

“Sorry, but I’ll be dead that weekend,” I can almost say. But I hold back. Something isn’t quite right. I know this is something I must keep to myself.

“I don’t hear you leaping for joy at the prospect. I hope I’m not intruding on something… ” I still hadn’t answered. “No, you’re not intruding. I’ve been uninvolved for ten years now. I’ve become quite a recluse.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“From whom?”

“From the crackpots at the Society.”

I remember disagreeing with her about those people, my colleagues at the time. Now I admire her discernment. “Were you looking for me?”

Here she hesitated. “Not exactly. But I decided to drive to Boston from the West Coast and to rekindle as many memories as I

23

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER can along the way. There’ve been some places and people I’ve already visited, and you were certainly on my list. If I couldn’t find you, I might have wept for a minute or two, but, you know… I weep a lot these days. I’ve become more contemplative myself, and I’ve always remembered you as a fascinating person.”

Words escaped me.

“So there’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling suddenly relieved. “There is.”

“Is it some reason why you don’t want me to come up to Madison to see you?”

“No.” “Are we playing a guessing game?”

“No. I just don’t know how to talk about this.” Miranda was a poet, and being such good one, she struck at the heart of things, or at least she had in the past. I could tell that my hesitance only peaked her interest. Something else returned to me then: she had always had a way to dismantle my defenses.

“It’s a conundrum,” I said. “And I’m afraid talking about it will affect it— adversely.” This was a lie, I think. I wasn’t entirely sure. I was still trying to be evasive.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Horace, but I can tell you’re ambivalent.”

“No, no, no,” I hurried to add. “I’m not ambivalent about you…” And then I realized she’d broken through me again.

“So can I come see you?”

“Yes,” I said, but my tone was still tentative. This made me uncomfortable. “Miranda,” I said, sincerely, this time. “I’d love to see you. But it might not work out, and I’d hate to have you come up here if…”

“Does Jane still live there?”

“She does. She’s always sponsoring things, concerts, exhibits…”

“So let’s say I’m coming to visit Jane. I’ll call her and arrange it, and when I’m in town, I’ll give you a call. Now doesn’t that sound… non-committal enough for you?

Conundrum resistant?”

“Miranda?”

“That’s enough,” she said, “You don’t have to tell me more.”

24

THREE OF HEARTS But I did. “There was something in you I cared about very much. I want you to know that. That’s very important to me. And it wasn’t anything trivial, or passing. So I believe it’s still there. So in case I don’t see you…”

“I understand, Horace,” she said, her voice warming. “It’s the same for me. It’s natural law. It’s physics. I’ll even send you a poem about that. I didn’t write it. I don’t write anymore; it’s one I found in one of the innumerable little magazines no one but poets read, but I can’t remember which one. I’m not even sure who wrote it except that he’s from Wisconsin. Maybe you know him. So, anyway, if you don’t get to see me, at least you’ll have this poem.

It’s about what you were trying to say.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I let my mouth do it. “Will you send it off right away?” I asked.

“I’ll e-mail it if you like. You are… still in step with things, I assume.”

I gave Miranda my e-mail address, but before I could ask her where she was calling from or any number of other things to keep her voice in my ear, she told me goodbye and that I was high on her list.

I went down to the kitchen then and Lois followed me. It wasn’t time for her cat food, but that seemed a humanly artificial idea, so I opened her up a can of human tuna from my cupboard, and emptied half of it into her dish. She set upon it immediately, but then after ten seconds or so, she lifted her head from her dish, turned and looked at me—in thanks? In acknowledgement? In wonder? Would I ever know?

I had an unopened bag of nice looking cherries in the refrigerator, and after tasting one which was red-black, firm, juicy and sweet, I pitted about fifteen others and mixed them with some vanilla yogurt in a blue bowl. It was nothing Lois would like, so I felt we were both justly served. I sat at the kitchen table and ate the gloriously sweet pink yogurt. When the cat and I had finished I washed both our bowls and set them in the rack to dry.

By the time I climbed to the third story of my house, Miranda’s email had arrived. In it, she explained that whoever the author, this poem might have been an homage to a famous poem by e e cummings, called, “i carry your heart with me(I carry it in my heart)”

25

HORACE, THE HOUR KEEPER She also explained that she had no time for our modern “cult of originality,” and believed that if someone was brilliant enough to write another “Mozart Symphony,” he or she should by all means do it, since we obviously could use a few more of those.

Or paint like Raphael. Or write in the style of a great poet, as this poet has done. Any intellectual opposition to this principle, she went on, was based on a blend of egoism or insufficiency or a blend thereof. The following poem by an unknown Madison author was attached.

The long hunt in the sun for the jewel hidden in the leaves (which is also your heart) will not have led you here until I find my heart as well.

And this is a mystery.

And never again, my fair friend, never again in the long sun will I search for you, nor you for me, for I will have found you (you will have found me) in my heart.

I read through it a few times. I printed it out and returned to my former reclining position with my head propped up on pillows.

I felt like a vessel being filled. But there was one part, one line that particularly moved me; that intrigued and enchanted me.

The long hunt in the sun for the jewel hidden in the leaves (which is also your heart) will not have led you here until I find my heart as well… will not have led you here until I find my heart as well…

Was that true? It seemed it must be. But how? How does that work?

26

THREE OF HEARTS But then the sight of Gretchen’s head hitting the windshield reverberated dissonantly with those words, and I decided nothing was more important than waiting for Gretchen to call.

And then Lois hopped up on my bed again and very cautiously probed my left arm with her right front paw to see it was safe to traverse it on the way to my chest. But there was a problem.

Fish was the problem. I did not want to invite a tuna to rest contemplatively on my chest. So I elbowed Lois away. She meowed at this and hopped down. Her meow sounded assertive, but of course I really can’t say—and the trouble is, I don’t feel I’ll have lived correctly and completely until I can say. So maybe that’s another regret.

And then there’s Miranda.

27

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN

For the first ten years I worked at the Randolph House, I paid half price for meals in the coffee shop like all other employees. Ever since that tenth anniversary, I’ve eaten free of charge; and since I know the chefs in the Epicurean Restaurant along with the cooks in the coffee shop, I’m sometimes treated to expensive meals and get surprises packed in Styrofoam when I say goodbye. It seems to me I should treat the hotel staff with the same respect I treat our guests with, so I say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening to everyone I meet. This is what I call a living principle of mine, and I can’t say that there’s been anyone here I’ve known or worked with that I haven’t cared about.

Sometimes I have problems with people at first, though, before I know them. That’s when I think of them as selfish bastards or sons-of-bitches. Those are the kinds of words I use, but never out loud. I get so angry when I see people being disrespectful to others that I shake, so angry I call them names, which I know isn’t a Christian way of thinking of others, so I suppose I’m as guilty as they are. But I don’t get mad when people treat me disrespectfully.

28

THREE OF HEARTS One of the dishwashers in the coffee shop, a young one, just a boy, named Oscar, called me fucked-up old man just last Tuesday when I stepped in front of him while he was carrying a steaming hot rack of water glasses right out of the Hobart—that’s the big, stainless steel dish washing machine. I was taking a shortcut through the kitchen and he didn’t see me coming. I was already starting to apologize to him when he set off swearing at me.

He didn’t drop the rack or anything, but I don’t suppose he heard me over his own voice and the clatter of the hot glasses. When he put it down on a stainless steel counter, Carl, a friend who’s been cooking there for fifteen years now, took the boy’s shoulders and pushed him up against the wall and told him if her ever heard him talk that way to me again he’d have him fired after he beat the living crap out of him.

It never bothers me when people in movies or on television fight, no matter how violent it is, but even the least little bit of real violence I see between real people makes me sick. I had to sit down and hold my head in my hands with my eyes shut tight for a few minutes to settle myself down after Carl pushed Oscar against that wall. I could hear Carl still yelling at him. “Do you know who that is?” he was saying. I’d never seen the boy before, and I don’t know if he’d seen me, but I am one of the oldest people working at the hotel and I’ve worked there longer than anyone else, so I suppose that’s what Carl wanted the boy to know. I think he wanted him to respect his elders. I don’t think that’s a very sensible thing to expect, though. I don’t think elders should be singled out, particularly with so many of them being cranky or having Alzheimer’s these days. I think children should be respected as much as elders and everyone else, maybe even more.

When things slowed down, I went back to talk to Oscar and to tell him I should have been watching where I was going, but he looked at me like I was trying to trick him, so I just said good night and left. Carl gave me a roast beef sandwich on a hard roll in a square Styrofoam carton to take home with me. Knowing what can happen to sandwiches, I opened the carton and wrapped it in foil so it wouldn’t come apart during my walk home. Carl doesn’t know how I get to and from work. Maybe he thinks I drive or take a bus so I can hold the carton flat on my lap or on the seat next to me. I never say anything to him, though, considering how generous he is.

29

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN If he ever sees me wrapping up a sandwich, though, I’ll tell him why.

It may seem odd to some people that I’m so concerned how a sandwich packaged. But it’s important to me because in order to enjoy my trip to and from work I need to walk free, holding the carton in my hand like a book, instead of trying to keep it upright.

When I walk downtown I try to set my mind entirely on what’s going on around me. If I can do that, the walk’s an adventure to me—but what you’d maybe call a very quiet adventure, because even with all the noises around me, my mind is quiet: I don’t think.

But it’s marvelous thing too: I flow right along in the stream of people with their special faces and the way they carry themselves, with their mumbling and their conversations and their shouts, and their briefcases and shoulder bags and packages gift wrapped from stores. And there’s the traffic, too, with its taxis and cars and buses; and there’s the polished brass doors, and the restaurant windows, and electric signs—all in color, all in stereophonic sound, with the smell of exhaust and the street and well dressed people with their perfume and aftershave and cigarette smoke and liquor all blending together as I walk through it, parting the waters like some kind of a ship. That’s how it seems if I do it right.

But the first thing I thought about when I got back to my room after work that day was Oscar.

I know how it might seem that Oscar is a funny name for someone not even twenty. It does sound like an old fashioned name.

It makes me think of Oscar Meyer or some kind of foolish oldtimer, but I think that’s so only for white Americans, which Oscar isn’t. He’s a Hispanic, but I don’t know just where his family’s from, though I guess it’s more likely from somewhere close like Mexico, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, rather than Uruguay or Chile (I think those people would be considered Hispanic too, or maybe it’s Latino.) Judging from the way he speaks though, Oscar was born in this country: he doesn’t have an accent but does have a way of speaking that seems different from people from Kansas or Maine. I’d guess his folks speak Spanish.

But something tells me things aren’t happy at home for him. Or maybe not—maybe it’s not his family; maybe he acted like he did because of the way the world’s been treating him, maybe he’s been discriminated against. I don’t know, but there’s unhappiness

30

THREE OF HEARTS someplace in his life or he wouldn’t have snapped at me like that. I can sense that, just in the way he looked at me, like he was so angry because of something he’d lost. I don’t know what. Somebody in his family? Something he was hoping for?

But I’m also very tired when I get home that night. I change into my pajamas, robe and slippers and sit in my easy chair with my roast beef sandwich and a glass of milk. Most people my age don’t drink milk. I think it’s good for my skeleton since I’m on my feet all day and don’t have any trouble with my legs or back.

There is a fold-down padded seat in the elevator I use during off times, but never when the car is moving. That would seem impolite to me. I am glad to sit down now, though, and put my feet up on the covered radiator just below my window. Being summer at eight o’clock, it’s still light outside but just dim enough for the street lights to show, which gives the street a kind of glow, like in a stage play; and when I see it this special way like I do tonight, it’s my street—that doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong to other people who care about too, but it’s also mine. And there’s something about the north-south traffic stopping at the lights while the east-west traffic starts up that seems stirring to me. The way one thing always has to give way for another thing or they can’t be free, but once they cooperate they can each get their way. It’s a simple idea but a wonderful one. I think maybe the entire world and maybe even the whole solar system depends on it, and here I’ve got it acted out for me right outside my window just two hundred yards away. Every time the lights change, I feel it. And I’m not some kind of crackpot.

It makes me glad to be alive when I see that, and thankful to Carl for this sandwich, which is probably going to be more than I can eat now since I’m so sleepy. I don’t think I’m even going to be able to wrap it back up and put it in fridge before I doze off. § What I dream is that I’m Oscar, or someone who was Oscar, or is another Oscar, or someone like him. I’m brown like he is and his age, too, about seventeen, I think, but not here, not in any city at all.

We are in a very small place, a fishing village I think, by the ocean, by a bay on the ocean. We, my little brothers and sisters and I along with my mother, all live in a place I’d probably call a hut; it’s small

31

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN but it has two open air windows and we sing together in it sometimes because of the way it sounds inside, and we also tell stories. There are chickens close by and a young pig. There is one burro who is with us sometimes but sometimes with our neighbor.

He and the other burros run free through the village at night. I know all this. I haven’t seen my father many times. He does show up every now and then, but my mother is usually unhappy after he leaves so I wish he’d never come around. We take care of ourselves. Everyone does here. We fish. My two younger brothers help me out beyond the bay in the boat we also share with our neighbor and his wife. They have no children and they need help.

Long ago we had no boat or burro either. I cannot tell you how I know all this in a dream about being Oscar, but I do know it, and I know much, much more—too much, maybe Sometimes my brothers and sisters wake up at night with frightening dreams, and it’s all my mother and I can do to reassure them that nothing’s wrong. I don’t understand how it is that one can cry out and wake up the others and draw them right into their fear of the dark or of some red devil or of death, even. When the sun comes up, it’s usually all forgotten, but sometimes one of my little sisters sobs for a while without knowing why while my mother cooks us breakfast just outside. We all think she is a good cook, even though we nearly always eat the same things except when we have meat from a pig or a chicken. We eat fish and rice and beans and round flatbread my mother makes from corn. And we eat fruit.

These are some of the things I know when I dream I’m Oscar. We are a beautiful family with our golden brown skin, our black hair and eyes. Our hands and feet are beautiful and strong. My brothers and sisters are the most beautiful of all. None of them is grown up yet; one of my sisters can’t even do much to help my mother and the others with the nets. She doesn’t even know there is a person called her father. She is my favorite because she is closest to the place in the stars where children are before they’re born. She cries without shame. Once she walked away in the night and was chased home by a dog. I believe the dog was her ally and protector even though it bared its teeth at her, because she might have been trampled by the burros running wild through the village.

My brothers and sisters and I are like links in a chain.

Sometimes we all hold hands when we walk together very early in

32

THREE OF HEARTS the morning or at dusk, on the beach or just past the place where the hundreds of tortoise shells are stacked. I tell them that when we all hold hands no harm can come to us, and when they each ask what harm do I mean, I tell the oldest, my brother, who is named after the cradle star, that it is the harm from robbers. And then I tell my next oldest brother who is named for a night breeze, that it is harm from snakes. And then I tell my bigger sister who is named for a red flower that it is harm from ugly old witches, and I tell the little one who’s only six and who’s named for the happy sound rushing water makes, that it’s harm from big brothers telling scary stories. We don’t like to hold hands when people are watching though, because they smile at us in a way that makes us feel shy. My mother laughs at us when we are shy. She says everyone envies us because we are so beautiful and healthy. I have had no brothers and sisters who have died, and none of us has ever been sick for very long, except that my brother who’s named for the wind limps because when he was kicked by a burro when he was little and his ankle never healed right. My mother told me that we’re all healthy and beautiful because before I was born she went to a woman her own mother told her about, a woman who gave her something wild to eat and told her stories she could not remember because she was in a living dream. Shortly after she put this blessing on my mother the woman died. When my mother tells me this she always laughs, and asks me if I believe in such things or in Christ. I’ve answered her both ways and she just laughs and tells me I am a splinter of the sun either way.

But I don’t think I would be dreaming this dream if my mother had really and truly been blessed. Because this is a shadow dream and she was cursed. I don’t know who’s at fault, the shaman who blessed her or Christ who didn’t. But something did happen in this place that is too terrible to tell, something that has made me forever sick at heart and has broken me; something that mercifully killed my mother. I don’t know where she is now. Maybe it’s better; maybe it’s worse. Maybe she lives in a place where sorrow is stone and she is a face in a mountain, or maybe she is in a place where smiles and songs are folded into flowers and no shadows are cast. My brothers and sisters cried out for me. Again and again.

But I lost them, one at a time, each by name. It came too swiftly. If I live a thousand years I will never cease to mourn them. I lost their

33

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN brown shoulders, and their smooth backs; their strong hands and feet and everything they said to me with their eyes, and everything will never have a chance to say. And I know there are blood thirsty fish as deep as they must have fallen. § When I woke up I knew why Oscar was so angry, or why someone was angry, it really didn’t matter which. And it didn’t matter whether it was anger or sorrow or just regrets, which grow on the same stem; and it might have even been me who once suffered such a terrible loss in another dream I’ll never remember, because it felt like the terrible loss was my own. I hadn’t slept for more than an hour when I woke there in my chair with the stream of life starting and stopping there out my window, and the first thing I did was wrap up the rest of my sandwich and put it in the fridge. It didn’t seem like I could possibly sleep again soon, so I turned on the television and lay back on my bed to watch. But if wasn’t long before I dozed off. I didn’t dream I was Oscar, at least I don’t think so. I don’t know what I dreamt, but I woke in the morning with the television still on. I still felt like I’d suffered a heartbreaking loss, and the thing I wanted most was to talk to the real, live Oscar. I knew he was working days that week, so I got to the hotel early, at noon. I wasn’t on until one, and like I said earlier, all I needed to do was change clothes, polish my shoes, and brush my hat.

I found Oscar by one of the pots and pans sinks with long rubber gloves up to his elbows and pools of water around his shoes on the floor. Someone else was at the Hobart. I wanted to talk to him about his sadness, but I knew I couldn’t come right out and do that. I believed in it though. I’d never had such a real dream, but it was more than that.

“Good morning,” I said to him He turned around from the sink. “Hey,” he said. There was no bitterness in his voice, he seemed sorry, maybe.

“I didn’t want us to get off on the wrong foot, Oscar,” I said. “I’ve washed dishes myself and I know how it can be when someone gets in your way. I shouldn’t have been barging in here like I own the place. So…”

34

THREE OF HEARTS “Yeah,” he said, looking like he wasn’t used to apologies, a little embarrassed, maybe, like there was something unmanly about deserving one. “This is my last shift.”

“It is?” I asked. “Better prospects?”

He shook his head and frowned. “No.” “Just fed up?”

“No. That asshole Carl told me this was my last shift.”

“Did he give you a reason?”

“I was an hour late.”

“First time?”

“No. It takes a long time to get here on the train.” He plunged his arms deep into the sink again, a heavy scouring pad in one hand. He was working on a roasting pan. I think he was trying to look busy to avoid talking to me.

“You know, Carl’s an old friend,” I said, “so I could talk to him if you wanted. I mean if you wanted to keep this job…”

He shook his head, still looking down into the sink. “No,” he said. “I don’t get along here.”

“You’re sure about that?” I asked, hoping he’d reconsider.

He nodded, frowning.

But this didn’t seem right to me, like he’d missed an opportunity. “Well, good luck to you, anyway, Oscar,” I said, walking away from him then, feeling sad, like I was the one who needed to talk to him, like his leaving was my loss.

After I changed clothes, I went over and looked into the Epicurean Restaurant. Earlier on in my days at the hotel, I wanted to work in there. Not as a cook, or even a waiter; it was the Maître d’s job that had me interested. But I found out early on that if I wanted do that kind of work, I had to work as a waiter first and do some cooking to get to know my way around the kitchen, and sometimes I regret I didn’t do that. I certainly know how to greet people and always treat them as valued guests. The Maître d’, Luis, he does this well too, but sometimes it looks like he’s just putting on a show.

Even when I’m not up to par, I don’t have to pretend to like the people I carry up and down. But I didn’t feel like myself for the whole shift that day, from one in the afternoon until nine at night. I wasn’t sure, but I figured Oscar would be leaving at four, and found myself hoping he’d come round in the lobby on his way out, maybe

35

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN just to break of the rules that didn’t apply to him any more. But he didn’t.

When I went back for lunch at five, I asked Jolene to just bring me a sandwich and a glass of ice tea. She knew what kind I meant. When I have a cold sandwich for lunch it’s always the same.

Roast beef with lettuce and tomato on pumpernickel with mayo on the side. She says she can tell when I’m a little off because that’s when I order the sandwich. Most days, I just ask her what’s good, or just wait to see what Carl or one of the chefs sends out to me.

It’s fine if Jolene knows how I’m feeling; it would be a different thing if the Hotel guests knew. It’s my job to be feeling just fine as far as they can tell.

I was starting in on my ice tea, sitting in the back booth of the Coffee Shop when Carl came and sat across from me.

“I saw you talking to that kid,” he said.

“I was. I understand things didn’t work out.”

“He comes in over an hour late and gives me attitude when I tell him to come on time. Who needs that? What were you talking to him about?”

“I was trying to give him a chance to let me know who he is.”

“I can tell you who he is, Bernie. He’s a piece of shit. You give people too much credit.”

I like Carl, and I know how strong he feels about things. So I just nod. I don’t see what harm that does. It’s not like I’m bearing false witness against someone in a court of law. I think Carl knows I don’t agree, but appreciates my friendliness. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. He gets up and goes back to work to make my sandwich then, and Jolene brings it out and sits down with me too.

She’s a pretty woman for fifty: I know she’s fifty, but most people wouldn’t think so. She has blue eyes and she dyes her hair red.

She has a wide face and a mouth and doesn’t seem to be able to keep her from smiling. If it wasn’t for that I don’t think she’d seem quite so pretty.

“So when are you taking me out on the town?” she says.

“I’m still waiting.”

Jolene’s always kidding me like that. She’s a married woman and I’ve been to her house for dinner. She does know me pretty well, because before I even try to kid her back, she asks me if

36

THREE OF HEARTS something’s bothering me that I want to talk about. She’s half kidding there, too, since I’m the one in the hotel people usually come to talk to if they need to blow off steam or talk about their troubles.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll be okay. I’ll ask you out on a date if I need a shoulder to cry on.”

That seems to reassure her. But by the time I get off for the day I’m really feeling poorly. I don’t even stop in the kitchen for something to take home. I’m upset and I’m anxious to get out on the street.

When I get out it’s raining. There aren’t many people out there, and the ones that are, are hurrying past. No one’s looking at anyone else. The sight of wet, big city downtown streets has always been a lonely one to me. It reminds me of Sunday nights as a child, of going home to a place where no one is waiting. Which is the way it is this evening, but I’ve grown accustomed to that by now. It’s been nineteen years of that already.

I don’t have an umbrella with me, so I go back into the hotel where there are always umbrellas in the lost and found. Once they’re there for ninety days, they’re ours to use, but we’re still expected to bring them back—at least until the steward, Mr. Peepers, we call him, decides it’s too crowded in that locker.

I’ve learned to walk in the rain without an umbrella, a warm rain, at least. Everyone knows that if you have any distance to walk, you get just as wet if you run as if you walk. The brain knows that but it’s hard to convince the rest. I’ve done that, though. I can walk in a summer rain without hurrying. People look at me like I’m crazy, even though I’m the one who’s enjoying myself. But tonight I take an umbrella. I suppose I’m not up to enjoying myself, which is a foolish feeling, I realize, but like with what I was saying before, just knowing can’t always convince the rest of me. I do see one beautiful thing on the way home: it’s the red, green and yellow reflected on the street at the stoplights. It feels to me like all the hurrying around me to get out of the rain, all the hurrying to get out of downtown, or to get home to a feeling that’s waiting there, or to get away from something that’s upsetting is all dissolved into those colors—pools of them, shimmering there like spilled paint on the street.

37

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN When I unlock both locks on my door and enter my room on the third floor, the light in my window has that same colored tint to it coming from the intersection just outside and across the parking lot. I sit in my chair by the window for a while without turning the lamp on because I want the reds and greens and yellows to stay vivid and bright for me. They fill me up and keep out that sadness I’m feeling. Finally I decide to turn the lamp on and read. The book I have about the American Revolution doesn’t interest me, though, so I turn on the television and go to the refrigerator to get myself a something to eat. I watch over my shoulder as I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There’s early news on and I don’t want to see that so I flip through the channels until I find a detective movie. I don’t know who I’m trying to kid, though, because even though it’s early evening, I fall asleep almost immediately and have the following dream.

At first I think it’s in old Boston because there are muskets and there’s an ocean there, but then I know it’s Los Angeles. And I can’t tell whether I’m with the police or the police are after me, but I’m on the beach, running through the sand. Then it all settles down into what’s real—and this isn’t a dream. It’s happened too soon.

I’m Oscar again.

My brothers and sisters are with me, but not on the beach any more; we’re in the festival boat. The woman and children have picked the fruit and flowers the day before. The festival boat is really just the same fishing boat we share with our neighbor, but it carries a blessing along with the flowers and fruit, just like all the other boats—dugouts and outriggers I think they’d be called. Some of us in our village are Christians and some only trust the shamans, and others, like me, take what we like from both. If Christ and the man with one eye who stands in fire both bless the boats this day, that sits well with me, and I never heard that ripe fruit and strung flowers are one of the Christian God’s sins.

There must be thirty boats out just past the entrance to the bay. Some of the men are drinking a fermented beverage made from the bitter juice of a root mixed in with sweet sap so they can swallow it. I’m not old enough yet, and suppose when I am, those men who drink it won’t seem so frightening to me with their eyes red and noses running green. But there’re only a few today. Close to me is a boat with an uncle, and there’s a cousin not far from him.

38

THREE OF HEARTS Mine is the only children’s boat, and my little sisters are the only girls out on the water. It wouldn’t be allowed but we are known as a blessed family.

The sudden change in the wind is a surprise, but no one is prepared for how quickly the water falls away underneath us.

Everyone has turned back in a bobbing group. I’ve never been out in rough water with the children before, and I’ve never seen a sky like this before either. It had been calm, with fat, white, sluggish looking clouds that were suddenly stretched and swept away with a hot, grey-green wind off the water, like a sky in a bad dream. I knew that because I wasn’t dreaming. Then a fierce looking man with a narrow face in the stern of a long, brightly painted boat shouted something to us. I couldn’t understand him, but he scared me. He was one of the possessed, and my brothers started to cry, both of them, even the older one named for the cradle star. So soon my sisters start crying too. They are sitting together in the bottom of the boat holding hands with their laps full of flowers and fruit.

But my brothers need to paddle strongly if we’re going to follow the rest of the festival boats in to the bay where the water’s shallow and never unfriendly, even in storms. But they’re not paddling strongly because they’re crying. Now the painted boat with the men who are dreaming awake is turning back toward us into the wind. But I don’t think we need saving. The wind is at my back and even though the sunken water is still sliding back and away from shore, our boat is still moving under my power alone. All four men in the painted boat are shouting at us now, but they aren’t getting any closer even though they’re cutting at the strange water furiously.

Then they stop and look, not at us like I thought at first but behind us, where, when I turn, I see a mountain, green like the sky, swelling in from the sea. I think it’s a mountain, though I’ve never seen one. It is far higher than the tallest tree I’ve known, and suddenly it’s silent, but then there’s shrieking.

I’m not paddling any more. My younger brother with the name of wind is the first one I lose. His hand slips bit by bit from mine in watery thunder that’s upturned the silence. Now I can’t hear myself scream. Then my next brother slips away from my other hand after I feel the bones in his fingers break in my grasp.

Now the flooded boat is upright again. I am in the bottom surrounding my sisters with my arms, screaming the names of my

39

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN brothers who are trying to stay up in the churning until the stronger one is gone, sucked away like in a high wind. I don’t know where my other brother is. The boat is gone forever now. My littlest sister who’s named for rushing water is clinging to my waist, choking on the water in her lungs. Then for a moment we see the sky, which is nearly black, and then like everyone else, she’s torn away and my other sister’s hand is in mine until the world comes to an end.

Flowers and fruit wash up on the shore for days on end, but only flowers and fruit. Nothing else. No one else. The wisest and kindest of our neighbors take me and my mother away and burn our hut to the ground and build us a new one. We are given pigs and chickens. We are given pots that have survived from grandmothers’ grandmothers to assure us long life. We are now the richest in the village. But my mother follows my brothers and sisters and dies into their invisible arms. I forgive her for leaving me. I have already turned to stone, and the wind and water will wash a away a little at a time until I join them or disappear forever. § When I wake up in my chair by the window my right hand is bruised and aching. I don’t think I’ve actually been asleep. I don’t know what to call the place I’ve been, or who I’ve been, but I’ll call myself Oscar because that’s simplest. After I take off my clothes and get in bed, I sleep till morning again with no dreams, but in terrible distress.

Looking back on it all in the morning, I don’t know how I can continue to live like I’ve been living. Everything I touch or see seems tilted, weighed down, thrown off kilter by this. It’s like I have a new self here inside me with its sorrow along with it. I don’t see how I can go in to work.

In my thirty years on the job, I’ve only missed two days due to illness. I’ve had a knack of being sick on my days off, and I have a healthy constitution, so even those days don’t happen much. But today I feel ill. I’m not on until one in the afternoon again and I call work at nine to speak to Peepers. I tell him I came down with something during the night, and I feel okay about saying that because it’s true. Maybe the world is still a little behind in understanding that with heartache you’re just as sick as with the flu,

40

THREE OF HEARTS but today I understand that. But I know that if I stay in my room in the Horatio Hotel today, I’ll be physically sick. I need to move my body, to walk, maybe a long way. I need to be alone but not alone.

I need to see people and cars and taxis and maybe dogs if I’m going to make it through this day.

When I get outside it’s still raining. I walk in the shadow of the El tracks, close to the splash and stain of exhaust, and I’m not even comfortable there until a train rumbles by overhead sending a fine spray down across the sidewalk. There are dozens of people on that train; each one coming from somewhere and going another— except for maybe one or two who are going nowhere or who have nowhere to go. There are always a few like that on the trains.

Today I am one of those.

And it’s not just Oscar. It’s not just my loss of those smooth brown shoulders and dark eyes and strong feet and hands that I wasn’t strong enough to hold. It isn’t just that that’s pulling me under that mountain of the sea. Because I am surrounded by it now. As I walk, I pass the faces of secrets; some locked shut, some swung open. Then I see one woman and I know I should keep my eyes to myself. She looks forty. She is wearing a dark raincoat and carries a small black umbrella. Her pace in her high heels is quick, business like. She looks like she knows how to give orders; the way she put on her make-up makes her look severe. Her mouth turns downward in a frown, but she smiles and nods to me our eyes meet.

It’s a pale, weak smile and a surprised nod, but it shakes me.

Because I am ill today and I see her mother with the same dark eyes but who is wrapped up in disappointment, a mother who weighs this fragile woman down with her distorted hopes. It’s all perfectly easy to see. To imagine. To know. I’m ill, so I don’t know what the difference is. I know her mother had called this morning, early, and badgered her. I could taste how her coffee grew cold as her mother spoke. How her stomach soured. I saw she was innocent. I saw her in her car, parked in an indoor garage in the dark of the last stall against the concrete wall. I saw her fix her makeup after her crying had smeared her face. I saw the people she worked with, high up on the other side of the tracks. I saw how she lied to them, how she hid her sorrow, how she tried to be who she never was or would be. I wanted to run after her and tell her that it was all right, that I knew. So I tried not to look at faces. I crossed

41

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN under the tracks to look only at the traffic, only at the bodies of people hurrying in the rain, only the stone faces of buildings, the gleam of windows, the polished shine of the brass. Why had a door to the sorrow of the world opened up in me?

I stopped for coffee in a busy place. I sat at the counter.

“Just coffee, please,” I said to the waitress whose nametag read “Marie.”

I could not avoid her eyes. They were pale blue but unclear.

Her face was loosely locked, like she was. I was ill, but felt secure there. Marie wouldn’t reveal anything to me. The coffee was weak; I expected that, so I drank two cups. I had to put my hand over my cup to stop Marie from filling it a third time.

Back outside the rain had stopped, and I couldn’t help myself. I looked in most every face I passed. But it seemed like maybe a protective veil had fallen when the sky brightened, because now the faces I saw were just faces: they were plain or pleased or haggard or selfish—nothing more. In my brain I supposed it had been the coffee, and for all I knew it might have been, because I now was walking with a spring in my step, even right through the puddles. More of the women and men who rushed and just ambled past me were smiling now that the rain had stopped, but the beauty of the colored lights on the wet streets was gone with the sun. And I guess I might have been smiling too as I walked through the crowds on my way to the park between downtown and the lake, feeling like whatever was wrong with me had maybe been cured.

And after a fifteen minute walk through the park, I thought maybe I’d stop back at the hotel to see if I could still work that day, and I sat down on a bench to think about it. The sun was warming my face but when I closed my eyes I saw that woman again, clear as day—the woman with the black umbrella who had been forced into her life and saw no way out. And as soon as I saw her in my mind’s eye, I collapsed inside and I knew couldn’t possibly go to work, that the sun or the coffee or whatever it was hadn’t cured me at all, that my wellness was a sham, that I’d been cheated, that everything I’d discovered in my illness was terribly true and terribly real.

I walked quickly through the park in the direction of the lake. I believed that when I came to the broad concrete walkway with the cyclists and the joggers all passing behind me and the great empty lake stretching off to the horizon, I’d be standing in the only

42

THREE OF HEARTS place in the city where a man like me can find peace. But who is a man like me? How did I get to be this way? That’s what I’m wondering as I’m hurrying across the park and finally come up to edge, out of breath, the dark water just below my feet.

“Bernie?” I hear from behind me. “Are you all right?”

I turn and see Jolene, but not in her pink waitress uniform.

She’s in jeans and a Bears sweatshirt. “I thought you were going to jump,” she says.

“No,” I say. “I’m taking the day off. I’m not feeling well.”

She stares at me. It seems like she can’t understand why I’m there, or how she happened to find me. Then she says there’s a bench there where I should come with her and sit for a while.

The bench Jolene leads me to is still wet with rain but warm under the morning sun. I don’t care if I get my pants wet so I just go and sit down. Jolene makes a fuss about the place she’s going to sit and takes a tissue out of her purse to try to wipe it off. That doesn’t do much good so I just change places with her. She thinks this is funny.

“Do you know how to swim, Bernie?”

“No,” I said.

“You looked like you were going to jump in the lake.”

“I wasn’t.”

“But if you had, don’t you think it’s kind of wild that I would have been right here to fish you out?”

“I wasn’t going to jump, Jolene. I’m just not feeling well.”

“I can tell you’re upset, and I’ve never seen this way before.

So there’re two strange things.”

Jolene’s Chicago Bears sweatshirt is white and has only a small logo on it. It’s a nice sweatshirt, it looks expensive, dressy for a football sweatshirt, but I’m looking at it to avoid talking about what I don’t even want to think about. “Two strange things?” I say.

“Uh huh. Us meeting here by accident in a city of millions of people and your being upset. Two strange things.”

“But this is a place where lots of people come to walk. It’s a civic attraction,” I say, sounding gruff. “It’s not as strange as if we met on a side street somewhere on the southwest side.”

“Bernie?” Jolene’s leaning over toward me on the bench, looking all concerned. “What’s wrong? I promise I won’t tell anyone at work. I won’t even tell Jack.” Then she tells me I’m a

43

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN person everyone comes to with their troubles so it’s easy to think I don’t have any of my own, and that if I did, who would I talk to?

She might be right, but I don’t want to think about it.

Jolene’s worked in the coffee shop at the hotel for nine, maybe ten years now. Her husband Jack works for the city up on utility poles and he makes good money, but he and Jolene don’t have any children so she works pretty much to give herself something to do besides watch T.V and get fat, like she says, and she’s such a friendly person that all the people she waits on love her. She makes strangers happy every day.

“I sometimes still talk to Abby,” I tell Jolene all of a sudden, which is true, and I’m surprised I haven’t thought of Abby once since this trouble started.

“Does it help? Talking to her? Do you find comfort in that?”

But I can’t answer. I’m just staring out at Lake Michigan, which has little whitecaps out past the breakwater where the wind must be stronger. Then I say some things I didn’t expect to say.

“I’m emotionally upset, Jo,” I blurt out. “I’m having ideas about things I don’t know how to talk about. It would sound crazy. I feel crazy.”

“Crazy? You’re the least crazy person I know, Bernie Schmidt,” she says waging her finger at me. “But that’s probably not what you need to hear right now, is it?”

“I can’t tell you what it is,” I say to her.

“That’s okay,” she answers. “I’m okay being the person you can’t tell.”

What she says really doesn’t make any sense to me, because I know how much she wants to be helpful. So either she’s lying, which I doubt because that wouldn’t be like her, or she’s even more big hearted than I knew. The thing is, though, I’m not sure if I can get up off this bench and walk back into the city. It’s almost like I’ve had a stroke or something like it because I feel immobilized. It isn’t even so much my dream about being Oscar in another time.

It’s the woman with the black umbrella. And then I realize tears are coming down my cheeks.

“Will you help me get home?” I ask Jolene.

And now I see she’s very worried about me and I don’t know what’s best. “Sure. I’ll walk you home, okay?” she says.

44

THREE OF HEARTS “Or do you want me to go get my car? That’ll take a little while, but I can go get it and pick you up right back over there if you like, by the light, across the Drive?”

“Jo,” I say. “I haven’t got a friend in the world.”

She was starting to stand up, but she sat right back down when I said this and took booth my hands in hers, like in the movies. “You mean it’s like I said before, you’re everyone’s friend but no one’s yours?”

I nodded. “Jo, I’m sixty-four years old, and for the first time ever I’m scared of what’s happening to me. And I’m not even sure if anything’s really happening or if it’s just going to go away.

But it’s beyond my power, Jolene, because I might be insane or I might be blessed. And I can’t talk about it…”

“Are you having a religious experience, Bernie?”

I don’t know why I was so shocked to hear those words, but I was. ”No, that’s not it,” I said, but I felt strength flowing back into my legs. Then I told her walking would be fine.

And it was, all the way across Grant Park. I was feeling a little badly about Jolene getting so far away from where she parked on account of me, but I knew she’d ignore me and wave her hand at me if I said anything about that. I looked at people we passed along the way, and all of them seemed either empty or locked tight, but once we crossed over Michigan Avenue back into the crowds I saw something that changed it all.

It was another Hispanic person. It was a girl, or a young woman, maybe—I’m too old to know what to call her, but she had two children, little girls like Oscar’s little sisters. But it wasn’t the little ones that touched me. It was the mother. Because in her face was a well of sorrow so deep that I sank to my knees on the sidewalk as if I was looking down into that well and got dizzy.

Jolene screamed, but the young woman came up to me and knelt down and took both my hands like Jolene had on the bench and started saying something to me in Spanish. “Padre!” is what she said to me, and then more words I can’t remember. I had to turn away from the girl and pull my hands loose, and even though I felt weak I got back on my feet. Some people had gathered around by then, but no one seemed to know what was going on until Jolene told me the girl must think I’m her father, and someone said, no, she

45

BERNARD, THE ELEVATOR MAN thinks you’re her priest, and then I sat right back down on the sidewalk.

“Someone call 911,” I hear Jolene say.

“No,” I tell her, but someone’s already calling.

Then I hear people say things like “Give him some air,” which I’ve always wondered about when the stricken person is outside in the open. But I’m not stricken, I’m just stunned, I think.

But Jolene’s kneeling down on the sidewalk next to where I’m sitting, and she’s holding my hand again. But I’m not the one who’s in trouble, I start to say when I realize that the girl and her children are gone.

“Please let me stand up,” I say, not just to Jolene but to another woman who’s trying to tend to me. “Where’s the girl?”

“What girl?” someone asked.

“The Mexican girl! The one with the children, the one who called me her priest!”

And everybody looked around but the girl wasn’t there.

Jolene was the only one who’d had a really good look at her, and even she didn’t see her leave. This gave me the chance to get back on my feet though, and I admit I was a little shaky.

It isn’t long before the ambulance roars up, and it’s just when I’m starting to feel even worse because it dawns on me that it wasn’t sorrow I saw deep down in that well of the girls soul, but fear. She was terribly afraid of something, and now she’d run away.

And even though I wasn’t her priest like she thought I was, maybe I could have helped. But the paramedics are taking my blood pressure and pulse and are asking me questions about my medical history. And I keep trying to explain that I wasn’t the one with the problem, but that doesn’t seem to be what they want to hear. So I ask Jolene if she could go look for that Mexican girl her little children, but she says she can’t leave me.

Then the paramedics try to convince me to come back to the hospital for tests, and I have to raise my voice to them. “It’s not me!” I say. “I’m just upset about someone else!”

The woman who seemed to be the one in charge and who didn’t stand back like everyone else did when I shouted began talking to me quietly then. She told me she’d feel best if I came in for observation, but that I could do what I thought was right for me.

She said that either way, I should go to my doctor for a check up,

46

THREE OF HEARTS and that maybe I was having an anxiety attack, and that something could be prescribed for me if it happened before or it should happen again.

She was being very respectful, so I listened to her patiently, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. I didn’t even bother telling her anything more about the girl and how I thought they should try to find her, because I knew tears were about to well up in me again and I didn’t want to scare Jolene.

47

FELIX, THE ARTISTE

FELIX, THE ARTISTE

I guess you could say I’ve never had much luck with pets. My parents never had them. I had a few turtles and goldfish and one yellow canary that escaped and flew out the back door. Once when I was in my early twenties and was living in an apartment by myself in Chicago, I decided to get a cat. So I went to the pet store and all they had were kittens so I took one of those. I asked them what else I would need, so I also took home a cat box, litter, a few cat toys and some food. I think the kitten was golden, but I’m not sure. I put out its food and cat box and gave it dinner and then played with it for a while before I went to bed. I remember being very tired. It wasn’t long before the kitten was in my bedroom jumping at my blanket every time I moved my feet, because my bed was just a mattress on the floor. After a while this started to get annoying because I couldn’t get to sleep, so I picked the kitten up and put it in the other room. But the bedroom had no door on it, so the cat kept coming back and pouncing at my feet. Finally I started kicking it off, but maybe it thought that was some kind of game, because it 48

THREE OF HEARTS wouldn’t stop. Then I closed it up in the bathroom with its litter box, but it jumped at the door and scratched and meowed until it was driving me crazy. I was pretty pissed off by then but I let it out to give it one more chance. But it kept it up, it kept pouncing on the bottom of my bed, so finally I just got up, pulled some clothes on, picked up the cat and walked two blocks down the street and back into an alley where I put the cat down, said, “Stay!” and walked and then ran home. That was the end of the cat.

And that wasn’t the only lousy thing I did when I was younger. While we were still in high school, I used to drive down into Chicago with my rich suburban friends and taunt drunks on Skid Row—which was on West Madison Street then. We’d pull up along side the curb, maybe in a big white Lincoln convertible one of my friends drove, and call a drunk over and ask if he wanted a beer.

He’d always say yes, but then when he did, we’d dump a beer all the hell over him out of a big red soft drink cup we’d fill for just that purpose. And we’d laugh and drive away. I also did some pretty nasty things with a pellet gun. But that’s ancient history.

Just a year ago, though, when I had another apartment I decided I wanted a dog. I’d been working as Maître d’ at Bernardo’s for a few years already, and I went down to the humane society, and asked for a dog that was due to be euthanized soon because I liked the idea of saving an animal’s life. I had to choose from three very deserving looking dogs which was hard, heart wrenching, really, but I forgot about that once I went home with the brown one with nice eyes and floppy ears that the woman at the Humane Society said had a lot of Spaniel in him. I decided to call him Fido because I believed that name came from the Latin root for loyal.

As soon as we got in the apartment, I knew I wanted to take him to the park to play. I was in a good mood. I was off that night, and wouldn’t start to feel sick until the next morning. I had a box in a closet with a football, a baseball glove, some skates, and a few baseballs, softballs and others and an old beaten up Frisbee, which I knew was the perfect thing for Fido. So we went to the park near my apartment. It was a very big park with a public pool, long expanses of green, and it was bordered on one side by a boulevard, a street with a landscaped strip of lawn in between the lanes. I’m pretty good with a Frisbee so I selected the longest unobstructed

49

FELIX, THE ARTISTE strip of grass I could even though it was next to the road. There was no way I was going to hook one to the left. And I didn’t, I threw a perfect, long, high shot straight down the center of the fairway. Fido knew exactly what to do and took off after it like a natural born athlete and retriever. Just when I thought he ought to slow down, however, just when he should have prepared for his leap, he didn’t. He kept running and the Frisbee fluttered down just behind him. But instead of turning to pick it up, he kept running, and running, and then he angled over to the sidewalk along the boulevard. And then he kept running down the sidewalk like he knew where he was going; he stayed out of the street, but he kept on running until he was out of sight. And I ran after him for a while but never saw him again. I was so disappointed I just left the Frisbee on the grass where it landed.

It was fifteen years between the dog and the cat, so it’s not instant Karma, at least not on a human scale. I trust it more this way, anyway. It seems it should take some time for all the pieces to fall into place. So you see I did have a spiritual education even though I don’t lead an exemplary life. I do know the answers, most of them, in case you’re interested, but that doesn’t stop me from hating what I hate, which is anything that restricts me. And I’m not such an idiot to believe that restrictions are only imposed upon us.

No, I know the part I play and I play it well, but some day, something’s got to give.

Once, around the time I had the cat, I got an appointment with a man who was the head of a philanthropic foundation that helped out creative people. I was and still am one of those. His office was in a venerable old mansion in the best part of town. The ceilings were high and the furnishings elegant. As soon as I sat down he asked me if I wanted coffee, and I did, and then a young woman far too well dressed and well maintained for the likes of me brought it in. I couldn’t even imagine her with her clothes off.

Then he asked me outright what I wanted, and I said I wanted to be free. He didn’t hesitate for a moment before he laughed at me, but his laugh wasn’t derisive. No, it was more like the way you’d laugh at a child. He asked what I’d done, which wasn’t much—just some art and a little music—and he said he couldn’t give me freedom, I had to earn it. Of course I was an idiot back then. I had lots of lofty ideas, many of them flawed, but no experience with the travails of

50

THREE OF HEARTS maturity, nothing beyond the part-time job I had in a sleazy gift store on the wrong side of the tracks—a job that I hated as passionately as I hate what I do today. Then the beautiful untouchable woman came back in and told him he had a phone call.

I finished my coffee long before he was off—and this asshole went on having a personal conversation about what a terrible cold he had as if no one were sitting in his office. I’ve seen rich and powerful people do things like that a number of times since then and I wholeheartedly despise them for it. And even though his laughter at my desire for freedom was not unkind, he wasn’t entirely justified in it. Because my answer is the same today. I want to be free. I know what it means, now, I didn’t then, and I’m not sure whether Mr. Foundation did either. Freedom is obviously a psychological state. If he’d suggested that we might have had a nice conversation.

§

I don’t live in an apartment any more. I can’t afford it, so I just live in a room, and not a very nice one either, but it’s in a nice house, and the rent is low. There’s only one window in it and it looks out on a wall of the building next door, but there are no windows to look in, it’s just brick. If I crouch on the floor and stretch my neck I can see a little slice of the sky, but the room’s not all that dark. The building next door is painted white.

When I moved in here I wanted to make a new start in life.

I was now without a wife of five years, and that wasn’t symbolic at all; that was real, but that I rid myself of all my own possessions was strictly symbolic, strictly ceremonial magic. This room was furnished with only a bed, a table and a chair. There was an old, discolored yellow shade on the window, the kind that sometimes rolls up with a snap and a flap that can startle you. I went and bought sheets, a pillow, a quilt, and some towels and things for the bathroom that was down the hall. I also bought a deep blue tablecloth for the one table and an emerald green bowl to keep on it.

The window shade was so outstandingly ugly that I had to take it

51

FELIX, THE ARTISTE down, buy a piece of deep blue material and a spring-loaded curtain rod to drape it over.

There was something else in that room, something that you hear about but rarely see, something that suggested deep sorrow and desolation, but I fixed that up. I made a cylinder of cream-colored musical manuscript paper and rigged it to fit safely around the bare bulb that hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room as the only source of light. I had to try it, though—just for a while on the evening before I put the paper shade up, so I sat in the straightbacked chair at the cheap, old wooden table there with the bare bulb hanging above me, and I did what one traditionally does in a rented room with a bare light bulb hanging above: I contemplated suicide, which is something worth contemplating. I’d suggest it to anyone who believes they take life seriously.

Now that I’ve been in the room for a year, I’ve accumulated a little money and enough possessions to occupy every lonely space in it. The possessions have largely been gifts. A book case, two framed prints—one Cezanne and one Chagall, a butterfly chair with a red canvas cover, a deep red garage sale rug, a large round mirror without a frame, a small antique table, a dream-catcher, books that friends thought I couldn’t live without, candle sticks, candles and more. I do have a number of friends. All this I supplemented with numerous wooden wine cases of my choice, a fine wicker basket I found set out in an alley one garbage day, a slightly damaged modern floor lamp I found in the same alley on another Thursday, a coat tree and a radio I bought at Goodwill, along with the few things I need in the pursuit of my own artistic goals, fitful though that may be at times.

Years ago, a little after the incident with the cat, I had a job in a warehouse, a dusty old wholesale place that stored and shipped lamps. I’d worked there for about a week and already hated it when a Friday afternoon came along when there really wasn’t much of anything to do. I was just sitting there, waiting for a shipment that obviously wasn’t coming in that day, so I suggested I tidy up the display room, a place I’d noticed was particularly unattractive. I think I may have been under the influence of amphetamine; that would account for volunteerism. The lamps in that room were set out on a wall of receding shelves, five of them I think, like stadium

52

THREE OF HEARTS seats, but the lamps were placed poorly, many were hidden behind others, and there with no consideration given to their sizes, shapes or colors. So it was not only an ineffective display, it was artless.

And I was just the man to fix that up, because the lamps themselves weren’t that bad. I spent about an hour doing the job, during which I also dusted the shelves, lamps, and shades. I finally had it arranged so that there was a sight line that showed off different lamps from every place in the room, and with the largest ones in the back and the middle, none was obstructed. At a few minutes before five, the boss, who also owned the place and was the man who’d hired me, strolled into the display room and before he even looked at me started laughing.

“What the hell you think this is, an art gallery?” he said.

I didn’t answer, but no, that shit hole was no gallery.

“I don’t think you’re going to work out for me here,” the boss added then, as if I should have known. “You’ll get your check in the mail.”

It was on the previous Wednesday of that week that he’d found me leaning against a stack of cartons surreptitiously jotting down a phrase in a pocket sized book of manuscript paper. This had pissed him off. The entire process, which he’d interrupted just at the end, had taken a grand total of fifteen seconds. “Don’t let me catch you doing you’re music lessons here again,” he’d said. I didn’t try to justify myself. It was his place, after all. I felt wronged by the world, not him. But apparently he felt moved to say a little more to me that Friday afternoon after he’d made it clear that he had no use for me or my sense of design.

“I hope you make the top forty,” he said, as I was leaving.

The top forty? I said to myself. The top forty? You stupid fucker—you pathetic, stupid fucker. I hadn’t bothered telling him I was getting married the next day. The marriage didn’t last all that much longer than the job, though.

The top forty?

Exactly. Once, last year, my friends and I held a little concert series at the restaurant. Upstairs, actually, where there’s a less formal version of Bernardo’s. It’s another small place, but it’s on two levels and in the middle of it, behind glass, is the big oven where the baking’s done for both restaurants. There are white marble counters

53

FELIX, THE ARTISTE in the showcase bakery too, and a baker working most of the time, mixing dough in the big mixer with the revolving hook, or forming loaves, decorating cakes, or pulling trays of croissants out of the oven and setting them in rolling racks where everyone can see.

Also, on the main floor, there’s a little raised area in the front next to a plate glass window with forest green café curtains on brass hoops. It overlooks a street busy with pedestrian traffic, and it’s an area big enough for two deuces, which are very desirable tables for those who want to see and be seen.

For our concert series we took those deuces out, and in their place we put chairs, music stands and musicians, three of them.

Among the best in town, too. Our friend, the conductor of The Madison Chamber Orchestra, brought his little clavichord and two associates on the first night, one with an oboe, the other with a cello.

After a free dinner, they started to play at eight and continued on until ten. The people eating upstairs were mildly interested; several of us downstairs—staff, not customers—were passionately interested, so much so that we closed early and shooed out any lingering guests so that we were able to be upstairs before the musicians stopped, which was when I made a proposition to them.

Once the restaurant cleared out, they agreed to play for drinks, and on that night what I offered was a jumbo bottle Grand Marnier, a good orange flavored cognac given to me by a wine salesman.

They played only baroque music. Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, in particular. There were three performers—up there in the window where two tables normally were—and an audience of three, sitting up close to them and a little below. What we had in common was our passion for music and our rapid consumption of Grand Marnier.

This was a music appreciator’s great dream come true. Maybe this is how it was in the court of an enlightened eighteenth century monarch—if I was the monarch. Think of it! If we heard a passage we particularly liked, they’d play it again; if we heard a phrase we liked, they’d play it again, and again, or they’d play just two of the three voices, or just one! We took the music apart if we pleased, and so did they.

And we drank to the oboe, we drank to the cello, we drank to the clavichord—raucous toasts to the clavichord!

We heard one movement of a most beautiful Telemann sonata time after time, stopping to repeat our favorite phrase, which had become the motif

54

THREE OF HEARTS of the night. We lost track of time. By the time the evening ended we, all six, felt like friends. How many people ever share that particular intimacy? The series, known from that night on as the “Grand Marnier Series,” was unfortunately short-lived. There was a second concert but no more. Practical things, legal and others, got in the way. The Telemann never made the top forty.

Of course, if I weren’t working here with my friends— whose tastes and appetites are similar to mine—I’d never have been able to tolerate it as long as I have, since my desire for freedom is, as I’ve pointed out, insatiable. If it weren’t for my friends keeping me indoors when I wanted to bust out, my former wife might have dropped the ax even sooner than she did. Now it’s only my fear of living in a homeless shelter that keeps me in my tux, and I’m thinking seriously about that—my fear, I mean, about whether it’s real or an illusion, and I’m siding with the later.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about my name, too, and how ironic it’s been for me so far. When I was a little kid, I loved my parents and listened to them. When I was a teenager, I hated them and thought they were stupid. Once I became an adult, I could tolerate them, but still didn’t consider them too bright. Particularly my mother, who came up with my name. She claims to have known what it meant—happy—but only as an afterthought, I’m sure. She just liked the sound of it; which is okay, I suppose. I asked her once if she knew what felicity meant and she didn’t have a clue. I didn’t bother asking about felicitous, which means well-suited, appropriate, a happy match. What I’m getting at is that so far Felix has not been a felicitous name for me, at least not so far. Most people wouldn’t give a shit about the meaning of their name, but I’m one of the ones that does. My mother might have taken that into account if she were a little smarter. And of course, there’s the other thing. Her name is Mildred, which means mild threatener, mildly severe. How about mildly retarded? Our last name is Kotka—which, as I explained to my mother when I learned the truth, is Polish for cat.

So I’m thinking of quitting this job and trying to live with no money. And I’m calling it “my pursuit of happiness,” which is, after all, my inalienable right. And living with no money means living on the street. It doesn’t mean hanging out at friends’ houses, or accepting money or food from anyone but strangers or charitable

55

FELIX, THE ARTISTE organizations. It’s summer now, so if I go ahead and do it, I’ve got a good few months to get accustomed to the life before I have to retreat to a homeless shelter. So I feel I’ve got it pretty well figured out. And there’s one thing more. Once out on the street there’s only one practical artistic pursuit. Sure, it’s possible to draw, but drawing isn’t necessarily portable, drawings can be damaged when you’re sleeping on a grate—and anyway, I’m not that kind of artist.

I need a studio. And I suppose one could compose (which is something I’ve done a good deal of), but that would be more practical with a safe place to keep an instrument, and it would preclude a piano. And writing out novels or even short stories in a notebook you jam into your coat pocket is essentially undoable.

So is there homeless person’s art? There certainly is! And what might that be? It’s poetry, of course, an art I’ve practiced in the past, and with some success. I actually had a poem published in a respected little magazine! And the homeless lifestyle might even be conducive to poetic inpiration.

But I’m at work now. Greeting people at the bottom of the stairs and greeting them graciously while in my inner dialogue balloon (that balloon floating above my head with bubbles for a stem) I’m telling them to go get fucked for coming in here at ninethirty on a Wednesday night. Where the hell do they think they are, New York City? If they were, they’d be paying five times as much for this dinner and they probably wouldn’t get past me without being separated from a handsome tip. The trouble is there are six of them, and they look like aggressive business types who won’t react well if I try to shoo them out early. These folks are going to sit over dessert, coffee and probably brandy until they’re good and ready to go back to the hotel from which they seem to have come. Once ten o’clock rolls around, we won’t let anyone else in, and I do have a plan for ten o’clock. There’s only the new sous chef in the kitchen; no one to complain if I break rules, so I’m going to open a cold bottle of white Bordeaux I like, and make it disappear while I’m waiting for the six jagoff hot shots to leave. I’ll probably be very nice to them to, once half the bottle is gone. I’ll probably even engage them in genteel conversation, maybe even witty conversation. I do like people. But when entertaining them, I prefer to be a little drunk. Is someone offering a job like that? It might keep me off the street.

56

THREE OF HEARTS It’s at ten to ten that I open up my bottle of Graves and pour myself a glass which I hide under the counter of my Maître d’ podium. Clare’s working again tonight and she’s someone I can trust, so after I finish my first glass I offer her some, making her promise to not let it be known to anyone on the other side of the kitchen doors, and only to drink a little so I don’t have to open another bottle. I add that I’ll buy her drinks after work over at Nick’s. Her six people are having a good time at their round table in the Fountain Room and I put on Scherezade because I know it’s a piece that Clare likes, and after I finish my second glass, I realize I’ve been a jerk so I call her over and pour her a tall one. She appreciates this and tells me the customers will never know because they’re all drunk already.

By the time it’s all over we’ve finished the second bottle and roll into Nick’s in a pretty merry state. There’s never been anything romantic between us, which makes us good drinking partners. Nick’s is practically empty, though, and the only ones there are old men like Nick himself. We both know what we’re looking for is some high energy night life, and there are lots of places to find that in this town. What do they say? Berkeley is the Madison of the West? A crowd, loud music and an uninhibited gay element is what we choose, and the Club de Wash isn’t that long of a walk. We figure we’ll stop for another drink on the way if our spirits are lagging behind us somewhere on the street.

It’s on the walk over down the very wide and tree lined West Washington Avenue that I tell Clare that I’m considering becoming a poet in the streets.

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” she says. “You’ll be our Rimbaud! Didn’t he live in the streets of Paris?”

I tell Clare I think I’m more of a mystic than Rimbaud, and don’t really know where he lived, but feel a little hurt that she seems so wholeheartedly in favor of the idea without showing any concern for my wellbeing. It is a risky proposition, after all. She thinks I have the spirit for it, that’s fine, I expected that, but… But then she goes on: “And if you find you absolutely can’t stand it, you can come to our apartment and we’ll never tell you we told you so.”

Now that’s more like it, I’m thinking. That’s the kind of back-up I’ll need. The “we” she’s talking about includes her

57

FELIX, THE ARTISTE husband, David, who’s going to be meeting us at the Club de Wash, and who’s someone else I’d trust with my soul, something I feel pretty generous about now that I’ve had a bottle of French wine and one British gin and tonic. I do like the English. We don’t feel we need to stop for a drink, though, Clare and I, we’re feeding off each other’s high spirits now, and we know what it will be like to enter the Washington Hotel. It’s like opening Pandora’s other box—the one Dionysus slipped her on the sly, the one with all the excellent vices in it: reckless, unrestrained, frenzied, orgiastic, drugged, drunken fun. That’s what’s sealed inside the doors of the Club de Wash on a good night. All you have to do is open the door a crack and it seeps right out into the street.

I remember being very, very friendly with some people I didn’t really know, people whom I told a good deal about my life, some of it true, but I have no idea how I got home last night. There’s a good chance I walked because it’s not far. When I wake Thursday I have no money in my pocket (I didn’t have much to start out with, so no great loss), no apparent bruises or aches (so probably no spills taken), and (woe is me) no cigarettes. The one ashtray in my room is empty, but not the wastebasket I emptied it into, where I’m able to dig out three dry butts, one impetuously snuffed out nearlypristine-whole-cigarette with one slight tear near the end which I mend with cellophane tape with a practiced precision. I don’t feel hung over, which is dangerous. And I have the night off, which is also dangerous. There could be a very bleak Friday morning looming in my future. But it would take more of a fool than I am to worry about that now. I’ll opt for the happy fool, Felix the Fool, a bit unsteady on my feet, but securely buckled down to my soul, and I grab what’s necessary and go down the hall brush my teeth, shower, and plan the day’s festivities.

I’m feeling unreasonably good when I come back to my room, but just in case, I pop one of the mega-painkillers left over from a dental calamity. I also check my stash, something I’m paranoid about. But it’s there: an “Altoids” tin nearly full of excellent marijuana from God knows where, someplace exotic, I think. It’s not yet eleven in the morning and I don’t have to be at work until four o’clock tomorrow, and I might even be able to do something about that if I really need to, because someone owes me a

58

THREE OF HEARTS favor. So Felix the Fool is living up to his name, and Felix calculates that this much—a morning like this—might be possible even while living the street. I said I’d never take food or money from friends, I didn’t say anything about a little weed or an occasional bottle of Bubbly.

I dress in a purple tee shirt, khaki shorts and sandals, and feeling no pain (even the beginning of a buzz) I leave the house with two destinations in mind, both close: the convenience store with the cash machine and cigarettes, and a coffee house. Though coffee makers aren’t allowed in the rooms, I still make coffee in mine, but I’m becoming a coffee snob, and look down on my own brew.

What I’ll do is have a cup at Boston Blacky’s while I look out the window at all the poor suckers going to work or school, and the buy a jumbo when I leave and pour it into the thermos I’ll bring along.

That’ll be good for two more cups at home to launch me into a perfectly normal day—which in my book (which I’m yet to write out in full) means a perfectly unencumbered day, a perfectly free day. Which reminds me of that asshole, Mr. Foundation, whom I now realize must have been scthupping that high maintenance chick in his office.

Well, good for him, I guess.

So I do all those things. The only problem being that here in the national capital of political correctness there’s no smoking in coffeehouses. It’s hard to get a bigger stick up your ass than that, but I open my pack of Camel straights anyway, tap a few out so they show like in an old cigarette ad, and put it on my table just to make a statement and possibly alarm some non-smoking wuss who happens to see it there.

When I get home after all that, I take a moment to remind myself of what I’m planning to do that day, and in light of my probable future, I opt to forego pen and paper and use my typewriter—I still am at home, after all, so I may as well accept its comforts. And by the time noon arrives I’m truly lit, my cigarettes seem to be smoking themselves, I’m in harmony with whatever forces are governing me, and by the two in the afternoon, I’ve got a poem to show for it:

59

FELIX, THE ARTISTE

Humble citizen of the mystery, Turn to your father and your shadow, Your mirror and beloved; Honor death and turning, Yet never hear a voice A crystal clearer than your own.

Turn for guidance to the stars, To ancient virtue, prudence, folly, Honor gods and words of gods, Yet never know a vision burning Brighter than the guise In which the world appears to you.

Humble citizen of the mystery, There is nothing beyond this: Every moment is a wedding And a wedding and a child.

And I like those last two lines because they’re enigmatic, not easily synthesized, a little bewildering, just like the real thing, it seems to me: Every moment is a wedding, and a wedding and a child—as if every moment is itself and mysteriously more. Like many of my poems, this one doesn’t necessarily reflect the grittiness of my life as I live it, but the sense of self to which I aspire—the ideal, Platonic version of myself, we’ll call it. That’s the kind of poet I am. Some people frown on that, usually people of little faith, I’ve discovered. But in any case, this new poem makes me feel I’m on one of my rolls, so I’m down in the big communal kitchen where I’ve got a bottle of good French Champagne a wine salesman gave me stashed away in a paper grocery bag. When I’m back in my smoky cloudbank of a room, I open a window, and feeling happier than is probably legal in many states, I open the bottle of bubbly like the trained maître d’ that I am: holding the cork, turning the bottle and releasing it with only the slightest of pops. Then I drink

60

THREE OF HEARTS it, line for line, down to the last drop, leaving this in its place, a pretty little lyric.

Her eyes at the window are filled with a tree that is filled with the wind that is dark with the sun.

It is evening now, all dark over turning, moment by minute and inch over mile.

Her eyes at the window are lost in a tree, it is wide over small among amber and green.

It is evening now, wide among silver, deep as a forest of purple, or roses, or children alive in a story of amber, lost in a forest of purple and green.

Her eyes at the window are lost in a moment: Twelve days wed with twelve nights burning, wide as a wish among forests of meaning, dark as a kiss on a wish of goodnight.

Pretty fucking good, I say to myself. Sweet and ripe! But it’s not night like I said in the poem, not yet, I just made that up, and I’ve been inside long enough. My ashtray runneth over, my Champagne bottle awaits a bright bouquet snatched from someone’s garden, my typewriter’s still steaming and needs to cool down, so, after changing into evening clothes (same shirt, but long pants, and pristine white socks under same sandals) I hit the street. As I consider what I’ve just done, I’m impressed: two poems in a day after a year off is, after all, unprecedented. So I roll merrily down to the square and stop up at the bar of a second floor restaurant that another old friend runs, and sit there with iced espresso to get my earth legs again. It’s a little after five and I’m wondering whether I’m good for anymore today. There’s something going on in my brain about A rose-white city on a distant shore, Where the wishes of eternity are folded into flowers…

61

FELIX, THE ARTISTE but I don’t know, sometimes if they don’t come in a lump, the pieces will never fit together as well as if it had. I like to think about Handel and those blazing three weeks of his when he put his Messiah on paper, or the last few weeks of Schubert’s life when he wrote those three great sonatas and I don’t remember what else.

Direct, unstoppable inspiration. Maybe that’s what it means to “never hear a voice a crystal clearer than your own.”

But I’m afraid that’s not me: I’m just a clod sucking caffeine. It’s not me yet, I mean, because I do expect that kind of life. If I didn’t, what kind of a fool would I be? Not one with a capital F, I can tell you that. Speaking of a capital F, there’s a waitress here named Gretchen whom I think I like and who I’d really like to have a go at. It doesn’t look like she’s on tonight, though. Maybe she’s the reason I came in here. Maybe she’s the one I was writing about, maybe it’s her eyes at the window. I’d like that. These things do come from someplace, you know.

So I sit for a while halfway between inspiration and something approaching normalcy. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best work’s been done with nothing circulating through my blood but my own God-given chemicals, and I imagine if I had the Godgiven time I deserve, these high octane passion fests would be only occasional. Like holidays, or Saturdays, maybe. It’s about this time my friend who’s the proud proprietress of this classy joint asks me if I wouldn’t prefer some Cognac in my iced espresso. If I were a wise man, which I’m not, I’d look at every human approach as an offering from the cosmos—anyone who writes the stuff I do ought to know this. But I, in my ignorance, am more selective, I turn things away all the time, but this particular offer seems to be coming directly to me from the mouth of God through his chosen messenger.

“Save the Cognac, sweetheart,” I say. “Brandy’ll be fine.”

Of course, I don’t ordinarily call her sweetheart. Just when I feel like I’m in an old film, and just when I’m on vacation. In fact, I’ve never called her sweetheart, except once maybe, when I meant it in a different way. She looks at me curiously.

“I take it Gretchen’s not here tonight,” I say to her, for the first time expressing my interest.

62

THREE OF HEARTS “No,” she says, her brow furrowing. “She was on last night but she didn’t show up, and her roommates don’t know where she is.”

“That doesn’t seem like her,” I say, though I really don’t have much to base that on, except an equal mixture of Champagne, caffeine, goodwill and lust.

But then the phone rings.

“Good evening,” Odessa says, “L’Etoile.” She listens for a moment, says something or other, pushes the hold button and dashes upstairs to her office, but not before giving me her old-soul-barrelof-fun look, and telling me to let the bartender know that the drinks are on her tonight. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe it. She must be possessed. I stand up and stretch. If I weren’t in the bar of the best restaurant in town, overlooking the State Capitol and all, I’d shout something out in an unknown tongue, something exuberant and celebratory, about how much I love my friends, and how much I love having so damn many of them. But instead I slip down the stairs and out onto the street and around a corner to have a hit on my little one hitter I brought along just in case. After that I take a few deep breaths of warm evening air then and pop a couple of Altoids to mask the evidence, before bounding back up the carpeted stairs.

Just then the bartender returns. I ask him for another of the same but with brandy this time, and slip a ten on the copper bar.

“She told me it was on her,” he says.

“I know, man,” I say. “That’s for you.” Apparently I’m intoxicated.

I’m thinking that if I lived on the street I wouldn’t be able to come up to L’Etoile for iced espresso with brandy, or iced anything for that matter. Because, 1) I wouldn’t have the money, 2) I might be dressed in rags, and 3) My lack of personal maintenance might cause offence. But so? I’d wake every day knowing that was I restricted only by my own lack of imagination. I don’t know where I’d wake, but homeless people in this politically correct town don’t normally freeze to death or find themselves breakfast for foot long rats. But I do wonder how a voluntarily homeless person would be viewed and treated by the others, all of whom have been touched by trouble if not tragedy. Would I be seen as taking advantage of the charity that helps them? Would I be an outcast among outcasts?

Would I have to lie, to fabricate a story of hard luck to justify my

63

FELIX, THE ARTISTE position in the dinner line at the Salvation Army? Shit! I hadn’t thought of this. It takes the edge off of my expectations. I suppose it will require some clearheaded consideration. Screw that! That might change everything. I finish my drink and leave.

It’s just now getting dark, and the feel and mystery of the darkness buoys my spirits back up after that troubling confrontation with a possible version of reality. So I try to shake that off, and I try to walk without touching my feet to the sidewalk, to feel like that, I mean. To have the buoyancy of a feather. I try to walk in perfect silence, even in my mind where words so tenaciously hold court. And I try to walk without being seen. It’s warm and the wind’s calm tonight, so it should be easy to be invisible, to be seen through. And I remember my flying dreams now. I usually don’t, not when I’m out walking. Because in those dreams I know that all it takes to fly, to spring off the ground with one simple step is the surety that it can be done. I know that’s a message of promise— from where or from whom I don’t know. Some say dreams are real events on other planes. I don’t think I buy that. Some say that they’re messages from our spirit guides. I don’t think I buy that either. But I believe the promise. Just seeing how I cling to my uncertainty is proof enough that people can fly. To shed that uncertainty would be miraculous—and there you have it. Or there I have it, I don’t know about you, even as generous as I’m feeling right now.

When I unlock my door I remember that when I went out I left the one window wide open and the fan on full tilt, just so I’d be able to walk into this place and have it feel cool and soothing and darkly alive. I kick off my sandals, strip off my socks, change back into shorts and sit back at my typewriter. I empty the ashtray, light a Camel and begin. But there’s nothing much there. I pour myself a glass of the cold white wine I’d been saving along with the Champagne. There’s still that crap about the wishes of eternity folded into flowers, and something new about listen to the flutter of the night moth’s wings, but I’m not about to be fooled by the allure of more than I’ve got coming. And I’ve suffered a disappointment in thinking I might be rejected as inauthentic by the homeless, so the wind’s already out of my sails, which is no state to be trying to make art. So my only option is sleep, which might not be so easy considering the quantity of caffeine still coursing through my veins.

64

THREE OF HEARTS So even today’s a fucking compromise. Listen the flutter of the night moth’s wings—yeah, fuck that too. § I wake up feeling pretty good, maybe because I fell asleep early. I feel good for about twenty seconds, actually, until I remember I have to be at work at four this afternoon. It seems to me that my best option is to go back to sleep, but I’m going to have to get down the hall to the bathroom before I can do that. Whatever happened to chamber pots? And of course once I’m out and down the hall, sleep may no longer be possible. It’s only when I get up that I remember that I’m a practicing poet again, but I’m sure as hell not going to look at what I wrote yesterday, because if I do, I might find something wrong. Rather than facing reality, you see, I prefer to spend a few days with a fantasy of creative perfection. Yeah, that’s the way it is. I’m glad I’m not still a painter with a big-ass canvass’s to stare back at me. In a few days, when the planet’s spun a couple of times and maybe some of my cherished ideas about myself have been flung off and away, I’ll look at it again and be able to correct anything that’s doesn’t seem right. But I’m not about to go trampling through my sweet dreams this morning.

When I get back from the bathroom, I’m starting to feel a little sick, but I think that’s just because I’m hungry, so I go downstairs to make myself a sandwich. So far, the people in this house are pretty good about not stealing food. They’re not too good about being absent from the kitchen when I go in there, however.

They’re all younger than I am, students and student types, and the most annoying one is drinking tea down there when I shuffle in.

I’ve got nothing against lesbians, I like lesbians, but I don’t like pushy, man-hating, anti-smoking, vegan lesbians, which is one of the possible ways to classify Tina, and the one I usually choose. If I had any bacon in my part of the big fridge I’d cook it now just for her. She’s already narced on me for my illegal bedroom coffee maker.

“Good morning, Tina,” I say.

“Oh, hello,” she says. “The whole house stinks from your smoking yesterday.”

65

FELIX, THE ARTISTE “I doubt that,” I reply. “It must just be your sensitive nostrils.”

What I don’t say is “It must be your sensitive pussy sniffing nostrils,” because that really doesn’t have anything to do with it, does it? And as I said, I like lesbians; I like anyone who breaks the mold. And as I expected, Tina shuts up now and fumes (so to speak) at me in silence. The non-resident owner of the house smokes himself, so the place is not about to be converted beyond the existing NO SMOKING in the kitchen and bathroom and stairs and hall. And I even heard from him that Tina herself used to be a smoker, but I’ve never chosen to bring that up. Maybe I’m saving it.

I am making a ham sandwich for myself there in the kitchen with her, and wonder if there’s a way to accidentally slip a piece of ham down her shirt. But I suspect that would be classified as an assault. I do know what to expect from Tina, though—once I’ve finished making my sandwich, I mean. It’s her well known counter cleaning obsession. Even when meat never touches the counter, as is the case this morning, when the meat goes straight from the package to the bread which is seated securely on a plate, she’ll say, as sure as the sun will rise: “I hope you cleaned that counter.”

So I’m already pissed. I’m pissed because I’m not asleep and I’d like to be; and because I may be a little hung over but I’m not sure, but I am sure that I have to go to work later, and I’m thinking of this sanctimonious man-hater bruiser saying, “I hope you cleaned that counter.” And then she does it, but worse: “I do hope you cleaned that counter,” she says. So I guess I got a little out of line.

“C’mere,” I say. “Look.” My sandwich is already made but I’ve kept one slice of ham out and I wipe the counter thoroughly with it, enough so the slice starts to fall apart. “Hmmm. Did I miss any places?” I ask her. And then I take the ragged piece of pink pig meat over to the table where she’s sitting and give the spot right around her teacup a thorough wiping as well. And then I leave it there sitting in front of her. And she just seems to sink back into herself for a moment, and then, like a human sledge hammer, she punches full force me in the stomach.

And I’m down on the kitchen floor sure I’m going to die, which is the way you feel with the wind knocked out of you, but

66

THREE OF HEARTS that’s no consolation to me at the time. My sandwich is also on the floor, which even in my death throes seems the greater offense.

Tina’s just sitting there.

Now I’m not the kind of person who’s going to complain about this to anyone because I did provoke her and enjoyed doing that completely. As I was trying to get back on my feet, I actually felt a certain fondness for her because of what she’d done, and—and don’t ask me why—the first desire ever had to see what she looked like with her clothes off. And then I saw she was crying!

Unbelievable! Of course I didn’t know why she was crying, and crawling around picking my sad, scattered sandwich remains seemed far more important than finding out why. And I don’t know why I was so concerned about cleaning that up either, but I even found myself vaguely reassembling the scattered mess as a sandwich before I threw it in the garbage—I say vaguely because the order was screwed up, with lettuce on the outside where the bread should have been holding it all together.

I knew Tina was watching me pick it up, and I could hear her sniffling a little, too. But by the time I was back on my feet I had enough wind to react more appropriately to the situation.

“A bit of an over-reaction, don’t you think?” I said.

“You’re such an asshole,” she said. “What do you think?

That just because I’m strongly principled my feelings can’t be hurt?”

And I had to say, she did have a point there. So I said I was sorry. And so did she, actually, but I couldn’t help feeling I came out looking at the wrong end of the dog. But then when I started to make another sandwich, she got down on the floor to clean up the mayonnaise and any remaining meat molecules and told me that she’d pay for the lost food if I liked. I found this quite moving.

“No, forget it,” I said. “Maybe someday you can make me nice cucumber sandwich.”

“Not a chance,” she said, and got up and left the kitchen, forgetting to take her teacup off the table. When I got back upstairs with my sandwich, I felt like I’d made a new friend. §

67

FELIX, THE ARTISTE Any expectations of getting through the day hangover-free were dispelled as soon as I walked into the restaurant. I don’t know the controlling physiological hangover mechanism but suspect that it can have an emotional trigger, because once I got to the bottom of the stairs I felt both queasy and as if my nervous system were laid bare. My first glance at the reservation sheet sickened me further.

The bookings looked as if they were made by that chimpanzee who for nearly all eternity types but does not recreate the entire works of Shakespeare. Serious rearrangements of tables would be necessary to prepare for the hordes that descending the stairs at 7:00 and then at 7:30, and it was 4:01 and no one else was here. So I started taking the chairs down off the tables myself hoping the exercise would ease my suffering and maybe even give me insight into how to seat the reservations taken by the chimpanzee who’d apparently forgotten how to say, “Would 7:15 be all right, sir?” Or “We could seat you at 7:45, ma’am.”

When I had all the chairs down and none of the three waitresses had shown up, I poured myself a glass of club soda, dropped a lime wedge into it and sat down to study the reservation sheet, but the thought of even one person not showing up filled me with such anguish that I had to start calling them. And apparently the Arch-Fiend himself had a hand in organizing this late Friday afternoon for me, because no one was home at any of the numbers I called, there was no one to tell me, “Oh, she got started a little late, but she should be there by now.” It was only 4:11 now, and there’d still be time to set up, but I couldn’t help thinking the worst so I called someone else who can sub sometimes to see if she was around. Then I hear both Clare and Kathleen coming down the stairs, so I hang up.

“Are you mad because we’re late?” Clare asks.

“No,” I say, which is true. “I wasn’t mad, I was worried.”

“You look pale,” Clare says.

“I am pale,” I answer. “Where do you think Willow is?”

“She’s not in until 4:30, remember? Thanks for taking our chairs down.”

It takes about twenty minutes to get the reservations arranged so that no one gets slammed between 7:00 and 8:00—that is if all the parties come in just on time—and when I’m finished I help setting

68

THREE OF HEARTS up the tables. We open at 5:00. The first reservations are at 5:30.

By six I’ve had two cups of coffee and feel like everything might be okay as long as I keep looking at the reservation sheet every thirty seconds or so. When the three 6:45 tables are late and come in at 7:00 with all the 7:00 reservations who are right on time, I walk back into the kitchen and tell the chef that something very bad may be about to happen. On the way back out I see that my new busboy who should be busting his ass doing something or other is talking to the guy who’s doing dishes.

“Jesus!” I say to him. “Fold napkins! Prep settings! Get out there and see if you can get a jump on something! Man, don’t stand in here talking! It’s Friday night!” And I just rush past him without waiting for a reply.

When I’m back out on the floor I see my wine-steward (who does all the wine on busy nights but also acts as a host) seating a deuce in the wrong place. This is because I didn’t remember to make the appropriate two-way-arrows on the reservation sheet, which is actually a map. So one of the waitresses just got three tables at once, and that’s only the beginning of the problem. This is a very small restaurant. The people who have flooded down the stairs to wait for tables are getting in the staff’s way. Waitresses with trays of straight-from-the-broiler “French Onion Soup” are being jostled; there’s a big crowd of customers jammed up around the dessert display in the Fountain Room; and the busboy, who now suddenly has a full busbin of dirty dishes can’t get through the crowd that’s trying to squeeze up past the maître d’ stand that I’ve vacated because I’m trying to seat a party of six at two dueces pushed together. The most troubling thing about all this is that within a matter of minutes, the wine steward and I will have seated all the tables, and all will seem well, but that will be an illusion, a disturbing illusion, because many of these happy customers attended to by gracious waitresses, may within a half hour or forty-five minutes be angry, snarling customers who don’t understand why their food isn’t up yet, attended to by testy, frantic, or nearly hysterical women, who themselves are being badgered by dangerous cooks and a suicidal maître d’.

And then at 8:00 there’s another wave, not quite so bad but compounded by four jerks who stroll in without a reservation, and who, after being told I’d have a table for them in about twenty

69

FELIX, THE ARTISTE minutes, begin to point at some reserved ones and start in with: “What about that table? What’s wrong with that one?” Well, as you might imagine, my inner dialogue balloon is full to bursting, but what brings me to the brink is the way these guys are walking around the place checking things out. The kitchen is behind because of the 7:00 thing, and the waitresses haven’t quite come out of it either. And there’s another group oogling the desserts and blocking passage through that room, and then one of these bozos— jocks, I’d say from the look of them—pulls out a chair from a set table right behind the dessert jam up and sits his broad ass down on it.

This awakened my fury.

So as it turns out we have four fewer guests that night than we might have. The confrontation with and ejection of the offending customer was hushed and terse, but I was literally shaking after it, and I’m afraid this was evident to all those around me including the ill-mannered jock himself.

Once all the eight o’clocks are down, I should be feeling better, but I’m still upset by the stress of uprooting that idiot from the chair in the middle of the crowded fountain room and everything that followed, and there is still table management to be done because of two big groups at 8:30. I make a partially successful attempt to clear my mind and focus on the problem, which I solve in a way that might make everyone happy, or then again it might not.

If I had a rat’s ass to give, I wouldn’t give it.

“You’re looking even paler now,” Clare says as she passes by me carrying a little round tray with two very pretty desserts on it.

“I’m not surprised,” I answer as she trails off. But then she stops and comes back to where I’m standing. “We’re all proud of you,” she says. “For the way you handled that.”

“Oh, yeah?” I say, surprised.

“You deserve a drink,” she says, laughing as she walks away again.

I believe she means a drink after work across the street at Nick’s. But considering what the night’s been like, I feel deserving right now, so I pour myself a snifter of V.S.O.P. and conceal it under the maître d’ stand, my podium. What I don’t know is that Bernardo himself, as in “Bernardo’s Restaurant” where I happen to be working at the moment, is not only on the premises but about to

70

THREE OF HEARTS enter the dining room through the kitchen door directly to my left just as I take my first slug of Cognac.

“You know I don’t allow drinking on the job,” he says to me, which isn’t always the case—only when he chooses to enforce it. “And particularly if you’re going to be losing me business while you’re doing it.”

Bernardo is a decent sort, and quite easy to deal with for the fiery Italian that he is. For the last few years he’s left the most of the management of the place up to two of us: to Scott, the Chef, for the kitchen; and me, the maître d’ for the dining room. This included all the hiring, firing, ordering, scheduling, and the myriad details of restaurant operation. And since the place makes good money, he doesn’t meddle. But apparently he knows Mr. Broadass whom I’d booted out of the place; he’d run into him in the upstairs restaurant. And he, being the owner and a fine cook in his own right, but never an employee in the trenches, is of the opinion that the customer was always right, a notion that anyone who’d slogged it out with the public on a regular basis for an extended period of time would roll their eyes at.

“I just poured this drink,” I say, “because of the jackass I had to deal with down here.”

Then he tells me he wants to talk to me after my shift, and I finish my Cognac in a gulp as soon as he rounds the corner.

“What he said,” I told Clare across the street at Nick’s, “was that he’d been thinking of taking some maître d’ shifts in order to get a ‘feel for the pulse of the business.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said that he’d heard that I’d been abusing the privileges I had there, and that tonight he saw it for himself, so he was going to cut a few of my shifts and take them on himself.”

“Where were you sitting?” Clare asked.

“We were at table twelve, and all the rest of the chairs were already up, and the lights were up too, so it was looking pretty bleak down there.”

“You’re shaking, Felix,” Clare said.

“Yeah, I am. Because I told Bernardo that if he was interested in some of my shifts he might as well take them all and go fuck himself while he was at it.”

“You didn’t!”

71

FELIX, THE ARTISTE I shrugged and nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He actually said something in Italian at first. Just two words, which I can’t remember. Then he said, ‘It’s been good working with you, Felix, but it’s obviously time for a change, for both of us.’ Then he poured me another cognac and left. So I guess I’m going to be your Rimbaud earlier than you expected, Clare. I don’t think I could have dealt with another week of it down there in that place, anyway…”

“But Rimbaud died at thirty-seven, I looked it up.”

“I’m thirty-seven.”’

“I know. So I’m thinking you might think twice about this.”

“I’ve already thought twice, Clare.”

“That’s what I thought you were going to say,” she said, and looked at me with the kind of sisterly concern that was exactly what I needed at that moment.

I didn’t stay at Nick’s for long, because I wanted to get up to the bar at L’Etoile before the place closed down to see if Gretchen was there. I was feeling adventurous, and just having quit my job and opened my future up to the unknown, the thought of making a move for a lovely young creature like Gretchen seemed perfectly appropriate, as if propriety were in any way germane to my recent behavior. And as soon as I climbed the stairs up to the restaurant I saw that she was indeed there. She was sitting at the bar, though, not working, and she was alone and wearing sunglasses and whispering to Odessa who was pouring her a glass of wine.

The most accurate way to describe the action of my heart at that moment is to say it leapt. Looking around, I saw the restaurant was empty. “Am I too late to join you?” I asked as I walked up and sat down next to Gretchen.

“No,” Odessa said. “I’m glad you’re came in. Our Gretchen here has had a rough time of it and she can probably use a gentleman’s company.”

Again the woman’s possessed, I’m thinking. “I’m paying for this,” I say putting some cash on the bar as Odessa pours me a glass of something red, and then walks back into the kitchen.

72

THREE OF HEARTS “Jesus!” I say as Gretchen lifts her glasses for me and I see her black eye. “Are you okay? Does that hurt?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, and it doesn’t hurt any more,” she says.

“I hope you don’t mind if I take these off.”

“No. No, not if you don’t. It’s dark in here.”

“There were people here before, and…”

“Sure, I know. People are funny about that kind of thing.

Even about bandages. Have you noticed how people always ask what happened if you’ve got a bandage on? Like if they can see it they have a right to know? So what if you hurt yourself doing something violent or criminal? Or what if it was a sexual injury?”

“It’s not a sexual injury,” she smiles. “A guy hit me.”

“No way! I mean, I believe you but… is he behind bars now?”

“He’s not in town anymore.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Someone else did.”

“God, I’m sorry,” I say. “You seem so nice. So… I mean it’s hard to believe anyone would hit you.” I find myself staring at her. “...But I know people are awful sometimes, and that anyone can get hit, and that no one should be. But, uh… did you hit him back, this jerk?”

Here she smiles again. She happens to have perfect teeth to go along with her brown eyed, blond haired, farm-girl good looks.

If it weren’t for a certain sharpness to her features, she’d looks like the cheerleader who just won the County Fair blue ribbon for her 4H project yearling calf. But she has a bit of the bird of prey in her beautiful face. “Actually, I hit him first,” she says.

“Whoa!” I say. “Am I in danger here? A woman already hit me today.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not. But I had it coming. I hope he did too.”

“What did you do to get hit?”

“I’m not going to tell you. Odessa said I was a gentleman and I wouldn’t want to tarnish my image. Let’s just say I taunted her about her political correctness, but I hurt her feelings, and I’m sorry about it.”

Gretchen takes a sip of her red wine. “You know, you’re going to have to tell me at some point.”

73

FELIX, THE ARTISTE Again, the leaping heart. How lucky am I getting? “Oh, I’ll be happy to tell you if I get to know you better,” I answer, starting to tremble a little. “Once you get to know that I really am a gentleman—when it comes to gentle women. This was not a gentle woman, and I did behave badly. So why did you hit this creep?”

She took another sip of wine and stared down at the copper covered bar for a moment. “He’s someone I’ve known for a long time and who I’ve had an on and off thing with, starting back in high school. And we did some pretty crazy stuff together. And two days ago he told me that he’d told someone else I know all about it—the crazy stuff—like that was funny or something, and I couldn’t believe he’d share something so private, and I just sort of lost it and slapped him. It wasn’t like he was a stranger or anything, he was almost like someone in my family. I thought. Then I told him to take me home from where we were, and when we got in his car he hit me on the back of my head, and when I started crying he slapped across the front seat with the back of his hand and hit my eye. And I couldn’t believe this person I’d know so well was trying to hurt me… I couldn’t believe it” “Do you mean he wasn’t just mad because you slapped him?”

“No. He kind of laughed when I slapped him. It was something else. It just came boiling up. Maybe it’s because we’re not together anymore. Maybe he’d been saving things up. He said awful things. It was sick….” She shook her head, then smiled again. “So, now that I’ve brightened your evening…”

“But wait a second. What’s to prevent him from going after you again? I mean, I know it’s not my business, but still, I don’t want you getting hit again.”

“You don’t?”

“Yeah, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Gretchen nodded. “I’ve been staying with a friend he doesn’t know. He’s going back to Iowa, anyway, and I’ve got a can of pepper spray on my person at all times. You want to see it?”

“No, that’s okay. I’m feeling accident prone today.” I finished my wine. “Do you want to go out someplace?” I asked.

“Yeah, but…” she pointed to her eye.

“Do you have any idea how good you look in those glasses?” I asked then.

74

THREE OF HEARTS This essentially stopped the conversation. Odessa returned at this point, and seeing us silent with empty wine glasses, asked if we wanted another. I started to protest but she said she had an hour of work to do upstairs in the office, and the downstairs door was already locked, and that…”

“I’d love another glass,” Gretchen said, and for a moment there I was the happiest man in the Upper Midwest.

75

THE HOURKEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL

THE HOUR KEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL

On Saturday morning I called my Aunt Lydia to make sure she was up for my monthly visit.

Lydia is my mother’s younger sister, and as my mother was a typical older sibling in her self-contained, responsible nature, Lydia was a typical younger one: independent, contrary, and wild.

As I understand it, even early on, she displayed an artistic temperament, a single-mindedness, an intense focus, which, when disturbed, caused regret to all involved. I’m told she was always a bright but careless student. At Chicago’s Art Institute School, she distinguished herself by her painterly abilities but also by her unruly behavior which culminated when, at twenty, she abruptly packed up her paints and left for Paris, not to return for thirty years.

She wrote to my mother regularly, but the letters were more poetic than informative; and when my mother visited her in 1958, a few years prior to Lydia’s return to this country, she found her producing large abstract expressionist canvasses—exceptional ones, but only occasionally, the larger part of her time spent drinking 76

THREE OF HEARTS Cognac with everyone and anyone at all and housing prostitutes in her spacious studio. She returned to Chicago just in time for the 1960’s, and though she was already fifty herself at the time, she told me some years later that by 1965 she’d taken enough LSD to get God high. I did see her occasionally during her “middle aged hippie” days as she called them, and she was always welcoming and pleasant to me, not at all remote or bizarre; but apparently she was also becoming marginalized and reclusive. After my mother died in 1971, Lydia bought a little house with the money my mother had provided for her. At that point she stopped painting altogether and became a cat woman. She ordinarily maintained a population of at least twenty animals in her home, one of whom, 15 years ago, gave birth to Lois. Eventually, and unfortunately for the neighborhood’s cats, life became too complex for Lydia’s diminished capacities—at one point she began a door to door campaign collecting signatures to sponsor one of her cats, a huge black and white named “Felix,” for an open congressional seat—and as soon as I brought her to Madison and installed her in a long term care facility, she took on a vacant look and an even more profound fuzziness of mind from which she’s never recovered.

I believe I can attribute my love of cats to my aunt Lydia. I also believe I inherited her eccentric streak, which has remained dormant all these years. I alone, like a seismographer, have been monitoring its rumblings of awakening.

Lydia is ninety-one years old and quite sick now, and I’m no longer certain if my regular visits register in her consciousness in any way I can understand. So maybe she’s something like my cat.

She doesn’t speak much, and when she does, it seems to take place around the time the Beatles first crossed the Atlantic. She smiles when she sees me, however, which is reason enough to cross town to visit her, particularly since this will in all probability be the last time I do that, and since, she too, seems to be about to depart. So if I think she’s receptive and the moment seems appropriate, I might whisper something to her about meeting again soon, in “Heaven”— whatever that might mean to her. Most people have some sort of afterlife visualized for themselves, even those who claim not to “believe in” one.

But my monthly visits to the nursing home are pleasant for me personally as well, since I enjoy the thirty-minute bus ride to get

77

THE HOURKEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL over to the far east side. It’s another opportunity for me to look out a window, and in these last meditative months of mine, this pleasure’s heightened. Everything I see becomes more charged with meaning as I realize I may be seeing it for the last time. And I’m surprisingly free of sorrow in my observations; rather, I’m often moved by such warmth that I feel radiant.

“These are what we call cars in this little life here,” I say to myself. “And those are what we call trucks; and these are people, and they are covered with cloth. And see how everything has a shadow, something we usually take for granted here, and see how all those wires criss-cross above the street and no one seems to see them? And every one of those people covered with cloth is a universe unto themselves, each one feels as important as all the others do, and isn’t it funny that they practically never remember they’re walking on a huge spinning ball? And see how happy they are when they love each other? And all along this street, too, there are those other people, the ones called trees, the ones who are so content they have no need to roam, and who move and speak only so slightly, and only in their lifelong romance with the wind?”

And what of all the other ways I haven’t thought? I sometimes wish I would board the bus that drives on for all eternity, that turns corner after corner, revealing what’s forever just out of sight and just out of mind. The wonder bus: not one with a sign above the windshield that reads: # 10 Bus, Belvedere Boulevard, or # 6 Bus, Highland Avenue; no, only the simplest of signs that reads nothing but ∞, that symbol alone, back lit above its face, it’s grille configured into an enigmatic smile. And perhaps I’m thinking about that today because my time’s so near: it might have been yesterday; today would be right on the mark, or it could be tomorrow.

Of course I’ve yet to ride the wonder bus; I may have in my dreams, but if so, I’ve forgotten. Every four weeks I ride the city bus, though—that’s not monthly as I said, but moonly, and I ride it only as far and often as I need, and always on Saturdays. And I’m about to leave the house this Saturday morning to catch the bus that regularly passes my corner around 11 A.M., but the phone rings.

“Hello, Mr. Guthrie?”

“Gretchen…? Are you all right?”

78

THREE OF HEARTS “Yes, I’m okay. I am. And I wanted to thank you for your concern.”

“Concern? I’m still concerned. The last I saw you were being hit in the back of the head. I called the police.”

“I know. They finally caught up with him, too. But I didn’t press charges as long as he stays away from me. He’s back in Iowa now—Jay, that’s where he lives. You see, he’s an old friend, and I guess he’s got an anger problem now. He never did anything like that before. But he’s history.”

“He is?”

“Uh huh.”

“So are you confident this won’t happen again?”

“I’m confident I’m not going to be seeing him again.”

“Okay.” I say, still not quite comfortable with it all. I paused. I didn’t know how to continue; I didn’t know what to say.

I didn’t know her well enough.

“It was bad,” she finally said. “He did hurt me, but there’s no permanent damage… to my face or my feelings.”

“Well, as long as you’re all right…” I said. ` “It didn’t have anything to do with the photos he was taking,” Gretchen explained, sounding a little worried. “Or your garden or anything like that, in case you’re concerned. And I hope it’s okay if I keep working for you.”

“Of course it’s okay,” I answered, thinking of the provision I’d made for her in my will to cover her remaining wages for the summer, and a little extra. “You do excellent work, Gretchen, and you’re always welcome here. I hope you know that.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

“Good. And I know it’s not really not my concern, and you’re an adult and I don’t mean to be meddling in your business… but I need to be assured that you’re going to be all right. You understand? I found it very upsetting to see you abused.”

“Thank you. That means a lot to me, Mr. Guthrie. That’s what I called to let you know—that I’m fine now.” There was a momentary pause, slightly awkward. “So…” she went on, “I should be by next week, okay, and… Ooops! I’ve got another call. I’ll be just a second.”

It wasn’t a second, of course. It was more like minute, maybe a little more—enough time to wonder if she’d forgotten me.

79

THE HOURKEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL But when she got back on the line, Gretchen sounded as if she’d been laughing. “Sorry,” she said. “So… I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Thank you, too,” I said. “I’m glad you’re sounding well,” And then we both hung up. And then I left.

Just as I arrived at the corner, I saw the bus I always take pull away and drive off down the street without me. In my younger days I might have chased it to the next corner, but a fifteen minute wait on the bench at the bus stop seemed far more appealing. As my name indicates, I am a punctual person, but given Lydia’s condition, a fifteen minute departure from my accustomed visiting time should scarcely matter—unless she happens to die during that fifteen minutes, or I myself should die, since it is Saturday.

But it’s a sunny Saturday and the bench is warm, and the world is passing in front of me. I don’t think about the world, though; rather I find myself reviewing my “final arrangements” as we squeamishly call them these days. I don’t think I’ll disappoint anyone with my last wishes. I have no family other than Lydia, and the director of her nursing home assured me that her “arrangements” are in order. I never married, and though I spent a number of years with a number of extraordinary women, no children resulted. Due to my modest way of living, my investments have continued to grow over the years, and though my association with the Metaphysical Society was long and at times fruitful, they can seek their endowments elsewhere. I have willed all my assets to the local Humane Society, with the single stipulation their director personally sees that my own cat and close friend, Lois, is given the best possible home, one in which she has free reign of a yard, preferably enclosed, and that her health and welfare be periodically looked into. As far as my “remains” are concerned, if I had my way, I’d choose to be left someplace where wild animals could have a special holiday feed. But that sounds like too much fuss for those involved, so I wish my “remains” to be cremated and—I’m very clear about this—then be surreptitiously scattered in the nearest available dumpster. I suggest stealth only because I imagine that there are civic ordinances preventing such lack of respect for human “remains.” (Anyway, I think “leftovers” would be a more

80

THREE OF HEARTS appropriate term.) Beyond their nutritive value, I have no respect for human remains, and I wish to make that clear.

No profound insights or thoughts of any great significance circulated through my mind as I waited on that sunny bench.

Nothing worth repeating dawned on me. I had drifted farther than I thought, though, because the next bus took me by surprise; I had to jump up before it pulled away. Once settled in my seat on that eastbound bus, it was my intent to gaze at the world that passed around me with eyes wide to everything I’d always failed to see, but apparently whatever agency governs my mind had other plans. And very particular ones, too, because I began to recall a late afternoon in the summer of 1978—and quite vividly. It was a Friday, I remember that specifically, and Miranda had met me after work at the Society Headquarters just west of Chicago. She’d come in her new, red, Italian convertible to take me off on a dinner picnic outing. She was pleased if not enthralled with the car and I wondered if I’d be able to compete. We were in our late thirties “Do you think we shared past lives together?” she asked me as soon as we sped off out of the Society’s driveway. She was a lovely woman at the time, with fiery red hair set off by her dark blue eyes.

I thought about the question for a moment. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, don’t be a foolish man. If we’re lovers today, doesn’t it follow that we’d already established something in the past? I can’t believe two people who’ve hardly known each other can simply tumble into something as thunderous as this.”

“Would you like to consult one of my psychics?”

“You’re speaking as though you’ve got them on your staff,” she said, laughing, as we turned onto the highway.

“I suppose I do. The place is rife with them. It attracts them; it has a long history of that. And I’ve got these “animal sensitives” making inroads now too. But consulting any one of those psychics about something important would be like going to a dental hygienist for back surgery. Really. There’s one woman whom I respect, though, and I think if I asked her, she might read us.”

“So is this woman there today, at the Society?”

“She lives there, Miranda.”

81

THE HOURKEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL “She does?”

“Yes, she’s a little like a piece of furniture.”

“What do you think she’d say if we just dropped in?”

The woman I was speaking of was Edna Witherspoon. She was confined to a wheelchair, though her disability was only physical. She’d been a pioneer in psychic research but had strayed from the mainstream and now spent most of her time reading and translating obscure esoteric texts. She wasn’t a practicing “psychic”—just psychically gifted. She’d worked in the library of the Metaphysical Society and was one of the few remaining residents of its sprawling old building. She rarely leaves her room.

“We’d be her first visitors in months,” I said. “Maybe years.”

“So? You wouldn’t mind, would you? It isn’t too rash or romantic for you, is it?”

Miranda was a treasure. Spontaneity had never been one of my strong traits, and I told her that as well as I could.

“It’s nice to be appreciated,” she said, smiling across at me.

“I’ll just have to find a place to turn around.” She accomplished this at the next exit quite abruptly and with a considerable screeching of breaks. Then she patted me on the knee.

It was shortly after we got back on the highway, that Miranda turned to me.

“Why don’t we try to guess before we visit Edna?” she suggested, bright eyed, having to raise her voice above the wind.

“Why don’t we see if we can come up with any connections we might have had? We’re both intuitive people, we should be able to pull something out from the etheric realms, don’t you think? I believe I can do it. I’m a poet. Poets can do anything.”

“Oh, I believe I can do it, too,” I said, not to be outdone, and believing that I could. “That sounds like a fine idea, but can you manage that while you’re driving?”

“You worried?”

“No, but I need to close my eyes for a few moments.”

“I can drive with my eyes closed,” she said, waiting for me to react. I didn’t.

“Maybe you’re right,” she conceded. “We should pull off again. So we can park someplace.”

82

THREE OF HEARTS I laughed, but Miranda was quick to act and soon we were sitting in her car under a large old cottonwood in a small, and nearly empty suburban park. She had a way of making things happen as soon as she set her mind to it. And there was no formality about it.

We didn’t say a word; we just settled in, side by side in the front seat of her little red Italian convertible. Fifteen minutes went by before we looked at each other, and when we did Miranda leaned over and put her arms around me, her head on my shoulder, suffusing me in her perfume.

“You want to make out, too?” I asked her.

“I always do,” she said. “But not now. It might distract us.

Let’s get going again and tell our stories on the way, okay? You first.”

So we drove off and I told Miranda what I’d seen when I closed my eyes and cleared my mind.

It had been the two of us, together in a courtyard, somewhere that looked Mediterranean, maybe in Italy or Greece.

We were standing together, both holding baskets of flowers, and we were expecting visitors for whom the flowers were a gift. We were of the gentry, and had prepared for a ceremony, a wedding, maybe, or a rite of passage. And we were jubilant. It was as if we were about to host a celebration for visitors we revered, and because of their majesty the best in us both was enhanced. And that was all I saw, and that’s what I told Miranda. She was quiet for a while as we continued back in the direction of the Society.

“It’s amazing, Horace,” she said, “but I may have seen the same thing,” she said. “We were together in a warm, sunny place. I saw trees, which may have been olive trees, but maybe not. It was fleeting, evanescent. And we were dressed and adorned; and I saw the flowers too. We were carrying them, garlands, maybe, or bouquets, I’m not sure. I don’t know what we were to each other, but we were very close. And there were large colored objects of some sort that seemed to have been moved to prepare us for whatever it was we were anticipating. Some were blue, different shades of blue. They were somehow very important. So were the flowers. And then it was gone. And all that I was left with was a sense of the deepest cobalt blue and the smell of gardenias.”

Miranda looked across at me then with a piercing gaze, and

83

THE HOURKEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL we didn’t say a word until we pulled into the circular driveway in front of the Society.

“Do we want to test this?” she asked after she put the car in park.

“I don’t know,” I said, uncertain of what she was suggesting. “We might find out who we were waiting for. Who we were so devoted to..”

“Will she see that?” Miranda asked. “Do you think? And do we want to know that?”

“Do you mean, wouldn’t it be better to uphold the mystery?

The one we’ve discovered? In our sacred hearts?”

“Good for you, Horace! That’s precisely what I mean!

Precisely. If you weren’t such a loveable stuffed shirt, you might be a poet. And even though we’ve driven back here, I don’t think we should delve further. Maybe another evening we’ll call on Edna, just for a visit. But I think we should go off on our picnic now and dedicate every sandwich and strawberry to the wonder of this, and to the sanctity of what we don’t know. How does that sound to you?”

It sounded right on the mark.

“The sanctity of what we don’t know,” I said. “Perfect.

We’ll keep it clean; we won’t touch it.” As a matter of fact, Miranda and I never mentioned that experience again. And soon she left my life as mercurially and as thunderously as she had entered into it. § I didn’t know anything about my Aunt Lydia’s past lives, except, it turned out, about one of them—the most recent one, this one— because Lydia was stone dead by the time I arrived for my visit.

“But I just spoke to her an hour ago,” I said, just as anyone would say in similar circumstances. What I didn’t say was that she was an artist once; that she’d painted huge, bold paintings in deep reds and blues; that she’d drunk with Hemmingway and Ravel; that she never listened to anyone’s advice, that she took enough LSD to get God high. But it was true; she was dead. Old Lydia beat me to it, and once I’d recovered from my surprise, I asked if I could have a moment alone with her (her leftovers, actually, though I didn’t say that) in her private room. There was something I needed to say as

84

THREE OF HEARTS soon as possible. It was something I’d heard that the no-nonsense esoteric teacher, G.I. Gurdjieff, said at his grandmother’s funeral; something that had upset the others in attendance, which is why I waited until I was alone with what once was Lydia. I’d said it a number of times before on similar occasions, and I’ve never felt wrong in aspiring to model myself after anything Mr. Gurdjieff said or did. So once the door was closed and I gazed at her lifeless face, did what seemed an appropriate little dance and said, respectfully: “Now that she’s turned up her toes, may she with the saints repose!”

Then I sat down on a chair across from the bed and closed my eyes. I sat for several minutes in silence before anything touched me, and then it was very slight, already very distant. It was the faint chiming of bells, and it was Lydia’s voice, but her youthful voice, a joyous one, one I’d never heard, but one I recognized as her own, although it was also the sound of bells, which makes perfect sense to me. I listened to it until it faded away; it left me with a most singular and disquieting feeling: light at heart, light on my feet, but not myself at all. I attributed it to the proximity of death.

After I came out of the room, everyone said they were sorry for my loss; and not having yet reached the age of seventy, I played the part along with them, though without much enthusiasm, oddly altered as I was. But they all reacted to death so mechanically, so unquestioningly, and above all so negatively. Is that the way unimaginative dead people look at birth? Then I left without much ceremony, thinking that I would never again ride that bus, never again enter that place… But even as I thought it, something seemed flawed about the notion. I have no words to describe it, but it seemed absurd, and impossible that I would never again enter that place. It seemed that once I’d entered it, I would always be entering it; that it could no more disappear than anything else. And that did not make perfect sense to me. It made no sense at all; none whatsoever that once something happened it had always happened and would always happen. It made no sense, and that was surprisingly reassuring, because I wasn’t entirely sure who was thinking it.

I rode home in a deep daze. When I got on the bus I felt insulated from myself—or from something else, maybe not myself.

Maybe I was watching myself, separated out in a place where

85

THE HOURKEEPER, INSUBSTANTIAL everything always happens. I did realize the route was strangely altered and I still heard the sounds of the city around me through the open windows of the bus. The hum and hiss of traffic, car horns, the persistent wail of sirens, music from car stereos welling up and receding, but my gaze was inward, or someone’s was, and I dozed off for a while somewhere along the way.

In my bus dream, Lydia was sixteen years old. She was walking on a grassy lawn, radiantly green; she wore a flowered dress and had white flowers in her hair. Again she spoke to me, but her words were not mixed with the chiming of bells. And she didn’t speak in words, not actually; she only laughed. Her laugh was innocent yet mischievous.

“What?” I asked her. “What is it?”

But she only laughed, as if she had no need to explain herself, as if I should have already known, and then her laughter faded into the hum and the hiss, and the resounding bass lines of the music rushing past, and the gripping wail of those sirens again. But I didn’t want Lydia to leave me until I understood her, until I understood everything, but I couldn’t hold on, and when I awoke I realized I’d missed my stop. Or someone had.

Once I’d climbed the stairs back to my third story room and looked around, I realized that everything looked different to me, as if all the furniture, everything on the floors and walls had been shifted slightly, realigned; or as if it somehow had less substance to it. I stood spellbound for a time before it all began to make sense to me, and it made a very comforting kind of sense; maybe even an obvious kind of sense. The word insubstantial came to mind—after all, today might be the day. And it had been an odd one—things had happened out of order, in a peculiar way; and there was Lydia’s beckoning laugh, which had felt so real, intimate and immediate. I wondered for a moment if I was still alive. I’d heard accounts of this kind of anomaly; I’d heard stories of souls unprepared to move on, who lingered here, believing themselves still alive; I’d even seen movies; and I’d read the “Tibetan Book of the Dead.” It’s been known to happen.

But to me? How could such a thing happen too me, the past President of the American Metaphysical Society, one so informed

86

THREE OF HEARTS on the subject? One so prepared, so unafraid, so unresisting? But is that what I’d been? Or had that all been part of the dream of my life?

So I did what seemed reasonable at the time, and took myself back down stairs. I was standing on my small front porch about to descend the three steps to the street, when I suddenly felt dizzy and turned back into the house, into the empty front hall, where I let myself slide down and lean back against the wall, my legs extended in front of me. It bothered me that I hadn’t gone out yet to speak to someone to see if they’d respond to me; it seemed absurdly inconvenient that feeling sick should stand in the way of learning if I was still among the living.

87

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE

I didn’t want to talk. We’d been walking west across the loop and I hadn’t said a thing.

“What happened when you saw that woman with the children, Bernie?” Jolene finally asked. She’d been brooding all the way. “What upset you so that made you fall down? I don’t understand. I’m worried you have a blood clot or something in your brain.”

“They said I was okay, Jo,” I said, wanting her to leave me alone. “The paramedics said all my numbers were okay.”

“Oh, what can they know from numbers? She told you to go to your doctor. Are you going to do that? Do you even have a doctor?”

I looked up and saw the blue sky between the tops of the forty story buildings lining the street. It seemed to me the sky didn’t have any opinions about anything. It didn’t even care if clouds obscured it from view everyone’s view. I wished I could be like that. So I tried.

88

THREE OF HEARTS “Look, Jolene,” I said, not sounding much like the clear blue sky, “You want to know what I saw in the girl’s face? It was fear. She was carrying fear in her heart. And she knew I saw it, that’s why she knelt down and took my hands and called me her priest. It was because she was afraid! Do you suppose any doctor’s going to tell me maybe I’m seeing what I’m seeing so I can help people? That maybe it’s not a curse but a blessing? Doctor’s don’t know anything about that. But neither do I. I don’t know how to help strangers in the street that don’t even speak my language! I’m scared too!”

I’d shouted there at the end, not like the blue sky would do.

I’d never spoken this way to Jolene, but it the only way I could get it out, which I thought was what she wanted.

“Bernie,” she said, sounding very patient. “I want to stop by the hotel on the way to your place. You can just wait for me. I want to talk to Peepers. You’ve got to have months of sick days stored up and you’re about to take some of them. And you know what, Bern? I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll tell him it’s medical if you want, that your doctor told you to take a little time off, but I’m going to do it. And after I do that, and you have the peace of mind that you won’t have to go to work for a while, we can discuss this further. I’m not kidding around, Bernie.” Then she told me to wait for her in O’Connell’s and to order some lunch but not to look at anyone in the face.

It’d been a long time since anyone told me what to do, and it all swirled in on me at once. Jolene was going to lie to Peepers and she was making decisions about my life. And I didn’t care.

And when she left me in front of O’Connell’s, I made the strangest decision. I looked up again and decided that I was really going to try to be like the blue sky and just stay the same all the time no matter what was happening underneath me. And I sat down in the restaurant thinking that, which I suppose was only a way of relieving myself of whatever was happening to my brain or my vision or whatever, but I felt like I’d made an important decision about my life just when it was going out of control and into the hands of someone else.

“Did you order something?” Jolene asked when she came and sat across from me about fifteen minutes after I went in.

89

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE “No,” I said. “I’m a gentleman, remember?”

I could see by her smile that I must have been looking better in her eyes.

“You know what, Bern? After I talked to Peepers just now, I called Jack, and we’d like to invite you to come up north with us for a week. I know you told me you like to fish. And we have three bedrooms in the cottage and only my sister and her kids are coming—and they’re teenagers who like to sleep out in tents so they can do stuff Marcy doesn’t approve of. And Marcy’s kind of unhappy right now with her divorce and all. So besides us wanting you to come with us because we like you, I was thinking maybe you could talk to her a little bit, because you... you know…”

I had to laugh. “So first you tell me to go to a doctor to have my head examined, and now you’re trusting me to see into your sister’s soul?”

“So you are feeling better,” Jolene said.

And then the waitress came over to us and refilled my coffee and took our orders, and Jolene went on talking like I’d already accepted her invitation, which I guess had. Mostly, though, I liked the idea of getting to a place where there wouldn’t be too many people to look at.

“You’ll love it up there, Bernie. We always take a friend, the only reason we never asked you was because you’d never take that much time off, and it’s not worth driving up for any less than a week. It’s such a nice cottage. We share it with Jack’s parents but they hardly ever go up anymore. Jack does all the maintenance on it. The road is at the back of the house, and there’s a lawn in front of it that goes right down to the dock. There’s no beach, but we swim off the dock. And there’s a boathouse next to it where Jack keeps his outboard, and we’ve got the key to our neighbor’s pontoon boat, and they’re never there this month, so that means we can sit in lawn chairs and barbecue out on the lake.”

“What did you tell Peepers?”

“That you fainted and your doctor told you you needed to rest up, and that they did some tests on you but the results weren’t in just yet, and that I was going to try to convince you to come up to Wisconsin with us to so we could take care of you.”

“What kind of tests did I have, Jo?”

90

THREE OF HEARTS “I didn’t tell him that. It just sounded like the right thing to say to make it all more convincing.”

I sat there thinking about how easily she just took everything over. I didn’t say a thing.

“Well?” she asked. “Are you coming?”

By then, of course she already knew that I was, but I gave her a smile and told her that I didn’t think I had a much of a choice. § “Do you ever go out of downtown Chicago, Bernie?” Jolene asked me the next morning as we drove out of the city. She’d insisted that I sit in the front seat next to Jack so I’d have a better view of things as we drove north.

“I don’t have much reason to.”

“Where did you live when Abby was still alive?”

“We had a little apartment on North Avenue when working people could still afford to live there.”

Jack looked over at me. “Do you want her to stop giving you the third degree?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine,” I answered, but Jack had turned around to the back seat and told Jolene she should let me enjoy the view. He was friendly about it and she laughed, but still it got me thinking about how the things I enjoyed doing were so bound up in downtown. The personal things, I mean, like watching traffic at stoplights and thinking of the pulse of life, and walking through crowds of people and feeling that everything so rich and full—until the day before yesterday.

“When Abby died, I moved right downtown to the Horatio,” I explained, “because it was close to work and because I needed to get away from the memories.” Both Jack and Jolene went dead silent when I said this. I think they might have been diagnosing me.

Jolene and I had talked for a long time sitting at that table after lunch at O’Connell’s. I didn’t tell her about my decision about the sky, though, but I did tell her what little I could manage about Oscar and the dream. I explained that just because dreams and imagination were different from what’s real, the way a person could feel because of them wasn’t. And I also told her I wasn’t sure what I believed at all anymore. She looked at me with a very serious expression the

91

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE whole time I talked, and finally told me that whatever it was that was happening to me, whether it was a blessing or an affliction or both, I should try to relax and take time to see what it turned out to be. And that’s exactly what I was doing; that’s what my decision was all about. But I think she was still looking for clues, which is a natural thing for her to do being such a caring person. But the sky doesn’t give clues, is what I was thinking there in the car, and I didn’t say much for the first leg of the trip, and when I did, I was careful to avoid any subject that might start the two of them trying to diagnose me again.

Jolene told me that she and Jack usually stop at a certain place just outside of Madison, Wisconsin on their way up to the cottage.

Madison, they explained, is about half way. She told me that there was nothing special about the place, except that it wasn’t a fast-food outlet. It was a little truck stop, she explained, with decent food “You mean it’s a place where little truck’s stop?” I asked her.

“Very funny, Bernie,” she said. “But that’s true, come to think of it. There’s no parking lot for eighteen-wheelers, so the big rigs don’t stop there, but working men do, and I’d bet most of them drive pickups. We’ll just see. It’s not far.”

Jolene was right. We all laughed when we saw the parking lot, which looked like a sales lot for pickups, though there were some minivans there too. Maybe it was being out of Chicago for the first time in twenty-some years, but I felt brand new, and much more like the blue sky than I’d even expected. There weren’t any tables available in the restaurant, maybe because it was early afternoon on a sunny Saturday and lots of people were traveling, but the three of us were happy to sit at the counter, Jolene in particular, being a waitress who always preferred to sit at the counter. This was a pink counter top. I hadn’t seen a pink counter in a restaurant before and it was very attractive. I also noticed that all the stainless steel surfaces behind the counter looked like they’d just been wiped down, and I wondered how they managed that during this busy day.

Jolene said the hot pork sandwiches with gravy and mashed potatoes there were the best she’d had, and I’d never tried one of those, and it felt right to order it to go along with my new outlook.

Then Jolene said we should listen for the Heavenly Choir singing

92

THREE OF HEARTS because this was the first time Bernie Schmidt had ordered a sandwich other than Roast beef on pumpernickel with lettuce and tomato with mayo the side, which made Jack say maybe he should order one of those. So we were all feeling pretty good, and I even felt secure enough to look into the faces of the people I saw in there, and either these were a bunch of happy Wisconsin people without a care in the world, or I’d been given some kind of new lease on life.

But not for long, I’m afraid, because we’d just ordered our sandwiches when something came on the television that changed everything. The television was up on brackets on the wall behind the counter. And it was funny, and I don’t know why, but it seemed that at that very moment everyone seated at the counter and a lot of the others in the restaurant were watching it.

It was “A WKOW Breaking News Bulletin.” I remember that because Jolene had told me how they’re crazy about KOWs up there in Wisconsin. And it was a terrible thing. What happened was some maniac had got on a city bus on the east side of Madison at 11:15 that morning with a can of gasoline, and that he’d soaked himself, the bus driver and some passengers with it and then lit a match and set them all ablaze. Some of the people, including the maniac, had been taken to hospitals in critical condition, and one man who’d just been riding on that bus was pronounced dead on the spot. This was a horrible thing, a horrible fate for these people who were just going about their business; and the reporter on the news seemed very upset, her voice was shaking as she reported the story and she was being very brave not breaking down and crying. Which is what some of the people in the truck stop nearly did as well, which also opened up all sorts of miseries to me.

I went from being a new man one minute, to a weak, cowardly old one, burdened with more grief that I could bear. And it wasn’t just sympathy all these folks were feeling; there was more: it was fear and shame and loneliness and grief of all sorts that erupted, and leaked out, swelled up in all those people, without their even knowing it. Maybe that’s what human sorrow is; maybe it’s that when something so terrible happens it awakens memories of different suffering in everyone, without anyone ever saying that.

But Jolene saw something in my eyes that made her put her arm around me.

“Do you want to leave, Bernie?” she asked.

93

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE It was good that she said that, because her words snapped me out of feeling like maybe sneaking away and reminded me of my trying to be like the light blue sky.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, while at the same time I couldn’t help but see that the woman sitting down a few stools from to Jolene had a look of horror—not on her face, but just behind it—and the horror had nothing to do with the tragedy on that bus in Madison, but of someone she lost, maybe in an another accident, maybe a child.

And that feeling was so much like what I knew, what Oscar knew, that I couldn’t stop myself and just got up and walked over behind that woman and put one hand on her shoulder—not even thinking that I could get in trouble for touching a stranger. But she looked back at me like she wasn’t surprised.

We didn’t say a word. I just felt it—her sorrow—and there were pictures with it, too. I know this sounds crazy and it doesn’t happen to other people, but this was real life, mine. I think the both of us were close to sobbing, but we didn’t let ourselves because what was happening between us was so moving that we wouldn’t have been able to bear anyone’s attention or any embarrassment along with it.

After I let go, she looked at me as I sat back down between Jolene and Jack, and a few other people looked too, but I suppose they thought I must have known her, so pretty soon everyone closed back up into themselves and talked about how terrible it was that those people were burned so badly and that one man was killed, how terrible it was that you could just be going across town and have your life destroyed, and how terrible it was that crazy people were out on the loose. And it wasn’t long before our sandwiches arrived, and even though I realized that this hot pork sandwich was probably very good, I didn’t really enjoy it.

Jolene didn’t each much of hers either. She kept looking at me and then stealing a glance down at that woman, and I think Jolene knew exactly what had happened to me in there. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have called me “Saint Bernie” as soon as we got out the door. She was joking, but only half way; I could tell.

But I felt something like a saint for a little while after we left.

Maybe that’s the way you feel when you can put your gift to good use without breaking your own heart.

94

THREE OF HEARTS The rest of the ride north was very beautiful to me, even though we’d learned of that terrible human tragedy. I think things also looked beautiful because we didn’t get back on the Interstate but drove on county roads where the scenery was closer and there were farms to be seen along the roadside, and small towns, and forests.

Everything stood out brightly for me, like someone was describing it, except that I was the one doing the describing. “That’s a farmer’s house,” I said to myself. “And that’s a barn, and those are black and white cows. And those are power lines, and here’s a little town, and a little town bank, and a little town pharmacy, and a little town tavern, and…”

“You daydreaming, Saint Bernie?” Jolene asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t answer you, I’m daydreaming.” § Jolene and Jack’s cottage was on Crescent Lake the town of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. I’d half forgotten that Jolene’s sister and her teenage sons were going to be there too until I saw a second car already parked on the back lawn when we pulled up. Then I saw Marcy. She came out through the back screen door and waved to us. She looked just like Jolene but maybe ten years younger and with brown hair, but there was nothing in her face that showed that she was unhappy the way Jolene said, or that she might need someone to talk to about her troubles. I suppose it’s selfish of me, but I was relieved when I saw she looked happy. I’d had one good experience. That didn’t mean I was going to have any more.

When Marcy and Jolene hugged, a comforting family feeling surrounded them; I could feel it from across the yard where I was helping Jack unload the car. Then Marcy came over and hugged Jack, and the same feeling surrounded the two of them. It was a long time since I’d felt anything like that, and when Jolene came over and introduced me to her sister, I must have seemed distracted because I was flooded with memories.

So many years ago when Abby and I were first married, her parents sent us plane tickets to California to come visit them and the rest of the family. I’d never had a family of my own. I was raised in the last days of orphanages until I was eleven, “The Lutheran Home,” it was called, and then with a private family until I was old

95

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE enough to work. The private family was always decent to me, but they had problems with their own three children who’d become juvenile delinquents in the early 1950’s. I remember those foster parents of mine grieving over their natural children; grieving because they believed they’d given them every advantage and felt they’d failed. I was younger and I suppose they thought I didn’t understand what they were speaking of, but you hear a lot when you’re raised in a church home with thirty others coming and going all the time. If my foster family’s kids had been living ten years later, they’d probably have been flower children along with everyone else, but as it was, one went to the reformatory, and the other two ran away. So for my last year of high school I was alone in that big house with Mr. and Mrs. Severson, which was the gloomiest year of my life.

So you can see why I was so glad to go to sunny California and visit a happy family. I don’t know why Abby and I didn’t just stay there and start over, considering we’d hardly started back in Chicago, but we didn’t. We loved our little apartment on North Avenue, so we came right back after the two weeks we’d taken off of work. But the experience there was my first surrounded by people who loved each other: brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents; and these people all took me in as one of their own. This was southern California, and one of the family had a house close to the beach, close enough so we could walk there in just ten minutes, and I can remember like yesterday the first time we all trooped down together. Four generations, considering one of Abby’s sisters had little twins: the grandparents, parents, the children and the two babies all trekking over to the beach one day, all with towels and radios and pails and shovels. I remember being with another of Abby’s sisters and looking back at the line of us coming down that street with palm trees all long it. We were at the head of the line, and I was proud.

I don’t know if everyone in happy families feels proud— probably never as proud as someone new to it. Abby and I visited every two or three years from that summer on. We never did anything special there; we never even went to Disneyland, but I don’t think that would have been much of a hit with me, because I was happy as can be just having dinner in a big group, and washing dishes afterward, and then playing cards. And sometimes I helped

96

THREE OF HEARTS with something that needed fixing around one of the sister’s houses, or we all went for a drive along the Pacific coast, or just grocery shopping. I can count eight times we visited during nearly twenty years until everything seemed to breakdown at once. Abby’s parents died within a year of each other, and if that weren’t bad enough, there was controversy about the will that started Abby’s three sisters and one brother feuding so badly that within another year some of them weren’t speaking to the others. And these had been such loving people, and probably still were at heart, but the confusion about the favor of their parents—who were in the grave then—brought out the worst. Then Abby got sick, and my world fell apart. When she died six months later, only two of the sisters and one cousin and her children came to the funeral.

But I’ve done pretty well since then; I’ve kept Abby alive in my heart, and that counts for a lot. That’s where I’ve tried to keep her, in my heart. When I moved out of the North Avenue apartment, besides photographs, all I took was the blue rug we bought when we got married and some beautiful china plates that we were given. And I haven’t done badly living by myself. Way back when, I had a few invitations to come to California to visit the sisters who were still in contact with me, but I always passed on those opportunities, because I didn’t want to feel how different it felt out there without Abby and the closeness of everyone else. So that should explain why I felt so emotional when I saw Jolene and her sister Marcy hugging and being so happy to see each other like that. I felt like I was being invited back inside after a long time away.

“So this is it, Bernie,” Jolene said once we were inside the cottage.

“Isn’t it sweet? You can sit yourself down right here and look out the picture windows in front and eavesdrop on Marcy and me while we make dinner in the kitchen—that sounds like a vacation, doesn’t it?”

Then she took me upstairs and showed me where my bedroom was, where I could see the lake out the window. I changed clothes up there and when I came back down, Jo and her sister were already starting to get busy in the kitchen.

“Come down to the lake with me, Bernie,” Jack said.

“There’s men’s business down there. Men only!”

97

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE “Oh, I don’t know...”said Jolene. “You sure Bernie’s ready for that?”

But Jack had already taken my hand. He led me down to the shore and showed me his boat and the little shed with all the fishing tackle in it, and told me he was thinking about going out early the next morning. When he asked if I’d like to come with, I told I would.

“If those women ever start to get on your nerves,” he said as we were walking back up to the cottage, “just come down here to the shed and fiddle around with the tackle and lures and stuff.

That’s what I do.” And he winked at me and clapped me on the shoulder then. I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled.

Back at the cottage I plopped myself down in an old easy chair in the main room on the ground floor, which extended all the way from the back to the front of the house. Off to the side was an enclosed porch with a dining room table in it. From where I was sitting, I could see out the windows in the front and hear Jolene and Marcy talking while they made dinner together, exactly like Jolene had said, and this was a very enjoyable thing for me. Just like clockwork when the fried chicken dinner was ready, Marcy’s two teenaged boys came in in their swimming trunks and sat directly down at the table as if they were equipped with some kind of dinner sensing device. Marcy made them put shirts on and set the table for us, and they seemed nice and polite when they were introduced to me. I mentioned this to Marcy later, and she said that they were always polite to everyone but her.

After dinner I insisted on helping with the dishes, and as you might expect, everyone protested, saying that I was their guest, and everything else people say on those occasions.

“What would you say if I told you I’d enjoy myself more if I helped?” I asked. “So I could feel more a part of things?”

I guess they weren’t expecting to hear anything like that, because they all got quiet for a moment but then made a joke of it and let me right in on the job. That’s when I could first see how much love those people really had inside them. And I could also tell that Marcy was suffering from a loss, but that she still had so much to give. And like an old man, I was feeling very emotional and almost cried while I was washing dishes, and I know Jolene noticed it. I don’t know if she knew why I was feeling that way or

98

THREE OF HEARTS not, but she didn’t say anything about it, and that made me feel our friendship went even deeper than I thought. § But I dreamed about the being the Mexican girl that night. It was like being Oscar again; that’s how real it was. I wouldn’t really call it a dream. And there was nothing that made me feel funny about being a girl, either. It all seemed natural to me. I can tell some of her story as I dreamt it, or like it was given to me—I’ll never know which it was—but I don’t think the words without the feelings I had will amount to much. But that dream changed my life forever. And it might seem to you that I concocted this whole story by myself, just like it might be hard to believe that I touched that stranger at the truck stop and felt her sadness, but I’ll tell you that when I woke up, I cursed the day this terrible gift had been given me, and anyone with any feelings in their heart will understand that it was more than any one man can bear.

People called me Rosie once I crossed over. I crossed by holding both my daughters above my head so that I hurt my right shoulder and neck. They haven’t healed since. Across the river I gave all the rest of my money to a man who knew my uncle. There were others there, and many of us were shivering in the wet cold. He told us the ride in the truck would take seven hours until we came to a place where we’d find other workers like ourselves and work. This was a place that needed more people, he told us, and he had taken Mexicans there before without any problems. But the problems started as soon as were locked in the back of the truck, because one of the other women had a sick child who vomited, and my own girls were so sickened by the smell that they vomited up the big meal we’d forced ourselves to eat before the river crossing. There was no ventilation in the truck and about thirty people were packed in, so others were sick, too, and as far as I could tell the ride was far longer than any seven hours I knew. He stopped once to let us relieve ourselves by the side of a dark road, but my girls had already soiled themselves, so all I could do was wipe them off on the grass and throw away their underthings. When we finally got out, the

99

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE woman’s child who had been sick looked to me like he was going to die.

But it turned out that what the man told us was true, and we found friendly faces and lodging and work where he let us off, which was someplace in the State of Oklahoma, someone told me when we got there. But the field work didn’t last for long, only three and a half weeks. And then when it was time to move on there was confusion, and dishonesty, I think, because those workers who had been in the country longest knew what to do, and those of us who’d only just arrived needed guidance, and not all of us got it, or maybe it’s even true to say that some of us were misled.

I won’t put the blame on anyone, but my girls and I and two older men climbed into the back of another truck. I hadn’t even sent any money home yet, but I had to give everything I had to the man who drove us north. He said he could take us to Joliet, in Illinois, where he knew there was work. He was a friendly man and I believed that he wanted to help us. But he was also frightened of being caught, so he told us he could only let us out once at night to do our business by the side of the road. Just like before, the rest of the time we were locked in. But this ride too took about twelve hours—in the dark and cold. But no one was sick. All of us were scared, though—and my babies couldn’t be consoled.

In the morning we arrived in Joliet, Illinois, but only on the outside, at a gas station, where the driver, whose name was Hector, made telephone calls to contact the people with the work. It was a bad morning, I knew that as soon as I saw the light of day, and the bad news came when Hector told me that there was only work for men there in Joliet. It wasn’t farm work, it was hard labor. I didn’t cry or anything, but I felt like it, I knew Hector felt sorry for me because he told me that if I didn’t want to stay in Joliet and look for work on my own, he could take me where he was going, to Chicago, where he could introduce me to some other Mexican people who might help give me a start. I felt happy at the thought of meeting those people.

Hector made us get right back in the truck after using the toilet at the gas station, but he bought all three of us American breakfast at a restaurant down the road and gave it to us in white boxes to eat in the back of the truck. It was hard to eat in the dark, and it was sweet and syrupy with queer tasting sausages, and the

100

THREE OF HEARTS first American food my girls had ever eaten, but we were thankful to this man for treating us like his family.

It wasn’t that long, an hour maybe when we slowed down and started to hear heavy traffic sounds around us. I’d heard Chicago was a big city, and also heard Hector cursing up in the truck’s cab. He was cursing at other trucks, I think, or cars, because they wouldn’t let him drive where he wanted to go, and then I heard him curse even more bitterly when we slowed down because we were in a place he did not want to be, a place where trucks weren’t allowed to go, and he couldn’t get out and didn’t want to attract attention because he had three illegals in the back. All this I heard through the wall into the back of the truck, and it had begun to make me go weak with fear. The girls were asleep.

And then when we’d been going very slowly for a while, and stopping and starting with traffic sounds and smells all around us, and with horns honking—at us, I think—Hector, all of a sudden banged the wall of the truck between us and turned so sharply that we slid against the side before he stopped. Both girls woke up crying. I heard Hector’s door slam and then saw the back door of the truck rise up.

“Get out! Get out!” he screamed. “You have to get out!

There are police on the street. This isn’t where we’re meant to be! I can’t help you any more! Get out! Now! I’m in trouble! Run away!”

I never saw a man as frightened as Hector just then, sweat was pouring off him, he was shaking like he had a high fever, and his eyes were wide and terrible like he’d seen a vision of the Devil.

And there wasn’t any time to think, so I had to pull the girls out off the truck with me, across the metal and splintered wood, and I hadn’t even looked around when Hector ran back in and started to pull away from us.

I had never before in my life been in a city. I had never before in my life seen a building higher than three stories. I took the girls’ hands and ran after the truck but I was too frightened to move much farther than out on to the sidewalk of a wide street with shiny buildings that towered to the sky, where I fell to my knees and prayed to the Holy Virgin. Some people stopped and asked me things in English, which I couldn’t understand but that seemed kind and concerned. They were dressed in business suits, even some of

101

THE ELEVATOR MAN, AS ROSIE the women. But I knew I couldn’t stay on my knees there, so I looked around to try to find a church, but all I saw was towers that made me dizzy, and mobs of people and cars jammed up together.

My heart told me there were things there that would devour me and my children, but my brain told me that could not be so, not in America, so I began to walk through it all, but every step I took I felt hope running streaming down out of my pores. And we walked for a quarter hour, I was pulling my babies behind me, and I did not see one church. A city with no church? I only saw towers that had not ceased; and people, Americans, some who looked like they should have stopped for us, but who hurried past. And my girls kept asking, “Where are we, Mama? Where are we?” but they seemed more curious than afraid; they hadn’t been hurt when I dragged them from the truck, so they asked me, “Why are you crying, Mama? Why are you crying?” And I didn’t dare answer them, I could only hold tightly to them until I saw a man who, though he wore no collar, I believed was a priest, and I went on my knees to him and pleaded with him to help us and take us to a church, and then when I told him we had no money, he pulled his hands away.

I pulled my hands away. Then I woke up in the bedroom of Jolene and Jack’s cottage near Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and decided that I could not go on any longer and needed to take my own life.

102

THREE OF HEARTS

THE ARTISTE IN LOVE

Gretchen and I had each finished our second glass of wine, and in the half hour we sat there with empty glasses our conversation did its best to touch on everything essential in our lives: our families; our pasts; our values; our tastes in art, music, literature, and food; our prejudices and our preferences; our recurrent dreams. Gretchen even managed to fit in how when she was eleven, she’d created a piece of outdoor art in her back yard. Symbolic art, really, because in the absence of trees in the yard, with her father’s help, she’d dug seven holes with a post-hole-digger in which she securely planted narrow ten foot poles—and at the top of each of these she’d attached one of seven spectral colored pennants: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Besides being “cool to look at” as she remembered feeling about it, she’d also believed that these poles stood in for trees with different powers. A very imaginative girl, it seemed to me with a very accommodating father. Then I told her about how I’d shot sparrows with my BB gun. We were still talking with a passionate intensity when Odessa came back downstairs and

103

THE ARTISTE, IN LOVE told us she was ready to close the place. I was still occupied being the happiest man in the Upper Midwest and asked Gretchen if she wanted to go somewhere else for a while. She was kind of tired, she said, but she’d like it if I walked her home. I immediately envisioned holding hands with her as we walked, so my happiness quotient actually rose. I was trembling when I held the door open for her at the bottom of the long staircase that led down from the restaurant, and as she went out her hair brushed the side of my face and I went weak in the knees.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m weak in the knees.” I told her.

She’d just put her sunglasses back on, and to those she added a slightly aloof expression, held out her hand and said, “Here, I’ll hold you up.”

What I wanted to do right there was this: I wanted to take both her hands and say, “Gretchen, I know we hardly know each other. We haven’t even worked out a common language. We probably will get to know each other, and learn how to say things, but by then this moment will be gone; we won’t be strangers anymore. And there’s a power we have to affect each other when we still are strangers that we’ll never have again. And I’m going to tap into that power, Gretchen, and tell you that I’m about to fall in love with you, that you are beautiful and everything you say to me makes my heart sing, and that if I felt the way I do now for the rest of my life I’d feel I’d had the fullest life a man can have.” That’s what I wanted to say.

Gretchen looked at me as I took one of her hands. “What?”

“Oh, I was just thinking of telling you that I was about to fall in love with you, and that I really wanted to say it now while we were still pretty much strangers, because it’s such a powerful thing to hear from a stranger, but mostly because it’s so true—even though I know I’m taking a risk by saying it to a person who hits.”

“But that’s exactly what I was hoping you were going to say,” she answered.

“You were?”

“No, silly, I’m kidding,” she said, squeezing my hand and putting her shoulder up against mine as we walked. “But I’m glad you said it, but I don’t know if I can trust you yet—after all, you’re

104

THREE OF HEARTS newly unemployed—you may be a shiftless drifter. You sure don’t waste any time, do you?”

“Oh, but I always have. I’ll admit I’ve felt this way about women before but never dared say anything until the appropriate time came along, if it ever did, which it sometimes didn’t. I’ve never felt intimacy with a beloved stranger. But I didn’t waste time with you because I wanted to see the look in your eyes when I said exactly what I felt.”

“But I’ve got sunglasses on, Felix” “So I had to imagine, okay? But I could tell a lot by the look in the rest of your face, your smile, in particular.”

She sniffled.

“You sweet, dear person,” I said. “Are you crying?”

“No,” she said, lifting her sunglasses to reveal that she was not. “Just sniffing. But you are scaring me a little. Intimacy can be risky.”

I sighed. “I’m really sorry about that,” I said. “Sometimes I’m an impetuous fool, but you’ve struck me like a meteor, Gretchen, so I was thinking I was the only one at risk of being hurt.

Which makes me a kind of selfish jerk, doesn’t it?”

“So you do like Rumi, and Cole Porter,” she said, changing the subject back to the poetry we’d been talking about at the bar.

“That’s a very good reference. A good thing to know about a stranger, particularly a poet. My parents know the man who made those new Rumi translations.”

“Well, that’s a good reference. But I thought your parents were from Iowa.”

Here she dug her nails into my hand. “Try University of, smarty. What did you think, farmers?”

“I was kidding, you didn’t have to hurt me. That’s the second time today now. And, anyway, I have great respect for farmers.”

“You do not.”

“I do. I really do. I spent a year on a farm. I got up 6 A.M. and milked cows—Holsteins… Are we going in the right direction?” We’d turned down along another side of the Capitol Square, heading west, and I thought she lived on the near east side.

“No, we’re not, but I don’t think that implies anything about our future.”

105

THE ARTISTE, IN LOVE “So we have one?”

“Will you just try being still for a while? I don’t mean not talking. Just be still. Let me lead the way.'’

But I did stop talking for a while as she led me around the square, and as we walked I started to feel a sickening knot in my solar plexus. Then we sat down on a bench. “So let me tell you the rest about the magic poles in my back yard,” she said. I hadn’t known there was more, and I was a little distracted, but… “I used to take two of my girlfriends out there with me, and we’d sit down on the grass around one of the spirit trees, I called them, and I’d make them tell stories with me, and we’d always be in the stories, which were very adventurous and romantic in an eleven year old kind of way. But we’d have to tell different kinds of stories under each tree: there’s be stories about the Red King or the Orange Queen, or the Yellow Prince or Green Princess, or the Blue Sage or the Indigo Divine or the Violet Maiden. And you know who I always was?”

“The Violet Maiden?”

“How did you guess?”

“I’m your soul mate,” I said. “But I forgot to tell you something before, something very important, okay? You see, I just paid my rent, so I’ve got about a month in my place, then I was planning on trying to live in the street…”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how I’ve done what I’ve hated for so many years now, that I decided to break the mold and see what happened to me if I just fucking refused. And I got that opportunity tonight. I don’t really know what I’ll do when my money runs out.

I may buckle under the way I’ve always done in the past, and because of what’s happened in the last few hours I almost wish I’d never made that decision…”

“Almost wish? What does that mean? Almost? And also, what does it mean that you forgot to tell me that… that little detail about your life while you proclaimed your love?”

I was in deep shit. Maybe I was crazy as people occasionally suggested. There had been a history of such suggestions. Or maybe just out of control, as my more forgiving critics had insinuated. But since no major psychological overhaul was possible at the moment, and since I’d already disclosed my feelings so freely, I couldn’t do anything but be wide open.

106

THREE OF HEARTS “Well,” I said, looking at her in the shadows, unable to read her expression. “I say I almost wish because I have a conventional side that worries that… No, not worries, assumes that I’d be anathema to you if I were the kind of person who’d do something like that, who’d be rash enough to do such a chancy thing. That’s what my estranged half-brother-self thinks. But I am the kind of person who’d do a thing like that, Gretchen. And also I withheld that detail because once I was talking to you, nothing else seemed like a real part of my life anymore. So I forgot, okay? I was focused in the moment, and the future evaporated. It evaporated until just now when I shut up and tried to put everything that happened tonight together. And I should probably be sorry that I didn’t tell you that at first, but…”

“But you were scared.”

“Right. I was scared.”

Gretchen didn’t say anything for a while.

“This is a lot to digest for a farm girl like me,” she said, smiling now and taking my hand, which instantaneously realigned the constellations in my firmament. “But I admire what you’re doing.

Like I said, I was raised with those kind of values— morally, at least, if not actively. My parents came of age in the late sixties, they never really did much of anything, but I know my grandparents marched with Dr. King, so I believe in sacrifice for what’s just and for what’s of enduring value. And yours is a kind of ‘lilies of the field’ gesture, and I’d like to think I’d do the same thing if I felt oppressed. And I love lilies of the field. That’s my field, remember? So if you’re wondering if you’ve blown it with me, the answer is that you haven’t blown it with me. But,” she said, tossing her head back and sitting up straight, “I don’t want us to blow our entire emotional wad tonight, so I want you to walk me home nicely, and then call me tomorrow afternoon once I know what my plans are going to be for the evening.”

“So…?”

“So, you think about what your plans are going to be for tomorrow evening, and if I’m free we might make plans together, and if I’m not we’ll plan for another time.”

“So… you have a date?” I said, wanting to swallow my words before they got out. “I want to kill him.”

107

THE ARTISTE, IN LOVE Gretchen laughed, and pulled her sunglasses back again, and looked at me with one brown eye and one big black one.

“There’s one thing I know about you already, Felix. I never have to worry about you hiding your feelings from me. It’s reassuring that you’re entirely transparent, even though I think it’s impertinent of you to ask me what my plans are.”

“Impertinent?”

“Yes,” she said, putting her glasses back on and taking on that same aloof appearance she had before.

“But before you said that you believed Odessa when she said I was a gentleman.”

“A gentleman can be impertinent. A boor can’t.”

“So you want me to call you in the afternoon?”

“Yes, about three.”

We got up and walked a few blocks without saying a thing.

Since Gretchen’s tall, we ended up walking in step together, which was kind of funny, but it was only a few more blocks to her apartment. She’d been looking steadily ahead when she took my hand and leaned into my shoulder again. “I’m supposed to get together with my old roommate sometime tomorrow, maybe for dinner, if she can do it, okay?”

I put my arm around her and didn’t say a thing as we walked along, bumping hips now. When we got to her house, we hugged each other just long enough so we could really feel it, and then we said goodnight.

“Voodoo,” I thought. “Do do that voodoo…”

The remaining words of a Cole Porter song immediately came to mind and I sung my way home: “You do something to me, something that simply mystifies me, Tell me, why should it, you have to power to hypnotize me?

Let me live ‘neath your spell, Do do that voodoo that you do so well, For you do something to me, that nobody else could do.”

§

108

THREE OF HEARTS

I was up at seven, with the opening theme of the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony rolling gently through my mind.

The second movement of that most powerful of all symphonies begins with a quizzical, delicate statement which is heard only once in its simplicity before it’s taken up in the magnitude of the piece as a whole. It’s a wonderful way to wake, and I had only eight hours to wait. So I got out of bed singing, which is always promising.

There wasn’t much room to dance in my room, but I let the kindness of Beethoven guide me around a little before I stubbed my toe on one of the metal casters at the foot of my bed, causing only a moderate amount of pain, not much, but no less nor more than anyone in love might expect to feel on an average morning.

When I went out in the hall with my towel on the way to the bathroom, I ran into Tina, who, wet haired, was just going back into her room.

“You sound like you’re in good voice today,” she said to me.

“Why, thank you,” I said, moved by the sentiment. “That’s very nice of you to say,” at which she gave a little nod of acknowledgement, reassuring me of our newly established truce.

The bathroom was hot and steamy after Tina’s shower, and the thought of her naked in the space I was about to occupy gave me a tingle I never would have felt before our confrontation the night before—there’s something about a woman who knocks the wind out of you. Still, I gave the shower floor a good scrubbing before I got in. No, not for lesbian cooties; I always scrub the shower floor, and I mention it only because I was feeling such outrageous good will for the woman that I even considered skipping the procedure. And of course it was nice that the room was already heated up.

But it wasn’t yet 7:20 when I returned to my room, and there was nothing on my schedule for the day. Not until precisely 3:00 in the afternoon, I should say, when it seemed my day would begin in earnest. But it was Saturday, and something was missing, something that had occupied nearly every Saturday of mine for years now: dread. True, I was nearly paralyzed in anticipation, but it was anticipation of happiness, not confinement.

109

THE ARTISTE, IN LOVE But no matter how joyous the occasion, I couldn’t be still, I was equipped with enough self knowledge to know that, so after I dressed, I stuffed my laundry into a pillowcase and headed out for the laundromat. I have always enjoyed visiting the laundromat.

Impatient as I can be, I’m usually happy when I’m waiting. Not waiting for someone who’s late and may not show up, or waiting for a bus that might not get me to work on time, or languishing on hold with the customer service department of some monster corporation; no, it’s the safe kind of waiting I’ve always liked. Like at the laundromat, or in a waiting room for an appointment, where there’s officially nothing to do, so the mind can be free. On the rare occasions when I travel by bus or by train, I manage to arrive at the station early just so I can wait. So the forty-five minutes at the laundromat were minutes well spent. I thought about Gretchen for most of it; or, more accurately, I fantasized about Gretchen, and across a wide spectrum, from the sacred to the profane, though my more sacred thoughts tended to end up slipping in bed with the profane. I also watched my clothes spin in the dryer, something else I consider a perfectly respectable pastime. There really wasn’t all that much in the dryer to watch, though, and I would have ordinarily held off until Monday or Tuesday to go to the laundromat when a full load of clothes had accumulated, but that adverb ordinarily was driven out of town at the end of my conversation with Bernardo last night and hasn’t been seen since.

So. Once I’m home, I put away the still warm clothes and towels, and look for something else to do. The forty-five minutes at the laundromat, plus the walk there and back, and the minute or two to put the things away, make it 8:30 now, which leaves still six-anda-half hours to wait. Which means it’s time to do something else, and in this case, it means it’s time to clean the room. I’m feeling the requisite energy to get down on my knees to scrub the floor, but I don’t have the means to do that: no bucket, no sponge, and none of that special Murphy’s soap for a hardwood floor. In the first year of my recent marriage—something that’s not been on my mind lately, since I’m vastly happier now that it’s over—I offered to wash the floors of our nice apartment several times. I had always believed that to wash a floor one used a sponge-mop and a bucket with something like “Spic and Span” in it. And I did that. I’d seen my mother do it, and I’d learned about it through television ads, where

110

THREE OF HEARTS Americans learn a great deal about life. My efforts at floor washing met with only tepid approval from my wife, however, and it wasn’t until I saw her method that I understood why. Apparently floor washing, when done by those in the know, is meant to be an onerous experience. Sore knees, sighing, and specific grunting sounds seem to necessarily accompany this very serious business—this business so much more serious than washing a car or the dishes or one’s self—and the words, “There, now that’s really clean,” are apparently compulsory at the task’s end, just to remind anyone within earshot of the unique nature of the accomplishment.

But I make do with the little lightweight Hoover I picked up at Goodwill for five bucks, and it takes care of both the bare floor and the carpet. Then I take up the feather duster than somehow became mine since I moved into this room and attack the bookshelf, lampshades, the picture frames, and other nooks and crannies (the crannies requiring particular diligence.) I’m not a wholesale idiot, so I do realize I’m re-seeding my floor with dirt as I do this, but I’ve never been able to remember to dust first, and anyway, there’s something about the baseness of floors that cries out for first attention. Then I do a little Windexing with the Windex I borrow from the bathroom. Truce or no truce, I’m glad I don’t see Tina on this raid. But as I move my typewriter to wipe off my table top, I have the stunning realization that perhaps I am a wholesale idiot for missing the opportunity of… of the year? Of the decade? I’m a poet, right? And I’m blazingly in love?

But there’s a problem. A serious coffee problem. I don’t have any—not a bean—and my spirits, high and soaring as they are, aren’t quite high enough. And I was too mooned-out when I passed the convenience store on the way to the laundromat to remember to stop and buy the coffee I needed. But that would have been crap coffee anyway, and regretting the past’s an idiot’s occupation, so I’m out again and off the Boston Blacky’s to spend some big bucks for a slug of the real stuff and a thermos to go again. It’s 9:30 when I sit down at my typewriter with my steaming cup to accompany my steaming mind. I’m confident. I’m in love. I’m finished before eleven. And it goes like this:

111

THE ARTISTE, IN LOVE On the brightful tuning of this song Leaves grow branches, branches trunks, My doubtless dying dead and dumb, My spinners spin a wishful thread Of winter roses blooming stems with silken Roots that feed the soil, and brother Earth the sweetest lump that sugared Any steaming cup as whitely starred as ours.

And one by one the notes descend And play across the keys, their tassels Trailing, trimmed in trills, Their long call short, their daring done, Their resonance remindful of the rose And wishlong silvered look that plays In pearls across your eyes And whitely lights the stars in mine.

And once I finish this little love song, once I know it’s right just the way I finally put it down, the way it landed on the page like two amorous birds, an extraordinary notion grips me. Extraordinary not only because it feels to me like the order of the world depends on my calling Gretchen immediately, but because it feels as if it’s this poem that’s compelling me to call. To call now. Immediately. At once. Not at three in the afternoon, but now, at 10:58 A.M. The phone rings only once.

“Gretchen?”

“Felix?”

“A poem made me do it, Gretchen. A poem made me call you. That’s the truth. I’m a gentleman and never would have called you before the prescribed time, but a piece of art intervened.”

“Really?” she said. “I can’t remember a piece of art intervening in my life before. What kind of poem is it?”

“It’s a love poem, silly. And I wrote it for you—just now.”

“It’s one of yours?”

“Uh huh. I’ll give it to you later. This is only the annunciation.”

112

THREE OF HEARTS Here she paused. “The annunciation,” she said. “So… you’re not going to read it to me?”

“No-o, not over the phone. That wouldn’t be right. And anyway, this way I’m giving you something to anticipate too, considering I’ve been a dizzy duck since the moment I woke up.”

“You are a dizzy duck,” she said with a sweetness in her voice that melted me even further. “I’m on the phone reassuring my employer right now so I can’t talk. But I will be anticipating the poem and your call at three, promptly. Can you manage that?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “Yes, I certainly can,” at which Gretchen laughed and gently hung up. I closed my eyes then and felt that warmth under my eyelids, and the corners of my mouth rising irresistibly in the warm currents escaping upward from my heart, which at this moment seems the source of all things enduring and good.

113

BUTTERMAN

BUTTERMAN

I sat, dizzy, on my hall floor for only another minute before something happened that clarified my status for me—my mortality status, I should say, my status on the materiality scale—because my black and white cat, Lois, climbed the three steps of the front porch, entered in through the open door and loped right past me as if I weren’t there at all. Odd thoughts bloomed in my mind as time slowed during this occurrence. For example: Where was my actual body? Was it this, here in the hall, or was it at the nursing home with Aunt Lydia? And who was going to feed Lois tonight? And how would Miranda know that I’d remembered the afternoon of that picnic? And did the grocer have any more of those wonderful cherries? These questions and more were addressed then when Lois returned to the hall, rubbed up against my leg, meowed, and pushed her head into my hand as I petted it.

“I thought I was dead, Lois,” I said. “And I’m still not sure.

You’re only a cat.”

I had no trouble getting to my feet then; the dizzy spell had passed, and as I walked through the door onto the porch, I saw my

114

THREE OF HEARTS neighbor, Mr. Knutson (a human), coming toward me down the street.

“How are you today, Barney?” I asked.

“Better than you, I think. You look pale, Horace. Are you all right?”

“I am,” I answered, with an exuberance that may have surprised him. “I had a little dizzy spell, but it’s over now, so I think I’ll just sit here and get some air.”

Which I did. I sat on my front porch Adirondack chair for about fifteen minutes, all the time wondering how after living as long as I had, I could be so foolish to mistake a brief feeling of insubstantiability for death. I was cosmically embarrassed, not one of your everyday emotions.

But that was last Saturday, and today is the next Friday, a fact that clearly requires an explanation—or an attempted one. Because you might recall—and I hope you do, since it’s no trivial matter—that according to a long revered and tested astrological formula, I’d ascertained that I’d have “shuffled off this mortal coil” by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. To avoid cumbersome technicalities, let me explain that if a margin of error did exist in my calculations, it was to err toward an earlier day rather than a later one, because on Tuesday of this week, Mars, one of the key players in this drama, made a transit in my progressed chart that closed the door on the possibility of my demise. So somehow, something intervened.

Needless to say, I had checked my calculations beforehand more times than I can count, and the formula—or formulae, really—come from an unimpeachable source.

A good deal has happened to me since Tuesday when Mars made that transit, but as far as I can ascertain, certain things went wrong, or as I should probably say—considering contemporary prejudice—what went right.

According to my understanding, there are two possible weaknesses in the means of calculating one’s time of death, and both depend on the life of the individual being studied. One of these, I’ve been able to put aside as non-applicable because of the nature of my life, since mine is a life without any major conflicts.

But the second and best possible explanation of what went right would assume the kind of strong personal associations that I do not

115

BUTTERMAN have and have not had for years. It’s all too easy to be blind about oneself and others, so despite my doubts, I must consider the following.

Often when trying to understand the effect of the planets and their interactions in one’s birth and progressed chart (the progressed path of the planets throughout one’s life in relation to their positions at birth), it’s useful to resort to the keywords long associated with these planets, with their angular relations, and the signs of the zodiac and the twelve houses. But in trying to put together a meaningful proposition using these keywords as they apply to my unsuccessful death, I can’t do much better than the following—and this after a long, hard day at my desk.

All I can come up with is this: There is a RELATIONSHIP or ASSOCIATION in which I am involved, which is somehow LAVISH, and which is strongly influenced by SPONTANEITY, by IMPETUOSITY, and last of all by BEAUTY of some incorporeal or even aesthetic sort. And in some way the sheer SPONTANEITY of the relationship diverted what seemed in every way inevitable. It was as if a wild card were played by some lack of restraint unfitting to the time. But of course I am not in a relationship of any sort, let alone a lavish one, in which spontaneity plays any part, and I can’t identify any lack of restraint in my behavior.

So obviously, I can’t be reading this quite right. Obviously, I’ve got something wrong, there’s some connection I’m missing, or some reversal or displacement of which I’m unaware, as if I’m applying these principles to myself in the wrong way or to the wrong person or persons, or personifications or even institutions or histories.

Astrologically, apparently I was in over my head. So perhaps some day I’ll take the problem to a professional I trust, if I should come across one in the undetermined number of years that I have to live. But that, of course, goes directly to a matter of far more consequence.

I spent Wednesday with my books and my calculations, and at night I tried to keep my mind distracted with my telescope. The sky was cloudless and the air was 65 degrees, so my skylight not only opened to the cold sight of the remote past, but the cool summer breeze as well. When I went to bed, I asked the powers that may or

116

THREE OF HEARTS may not guide my life to make me clean and clear, to bathe me in a purifying sleep, so that when I woke, I might seize the day and all its rekindled possibilities in my newly granted life.

My newly granted life!

I slept later than usual on Thursday, and having forgotten to close my curtains the night before, I was awakened by the sun’s rays directly on my face. And that was really all it took; a good way to start a day or even a life, I think, no further omens or assistance was required. I do not know what I dreamed, but I knew that this day, at least, this first day of my reprieve, I’d spend like a child.

My first desire was one I’d had from time to time, but had never permitted myself. It had seemed too infantile—until then, when I turned on my side, took my pillow, pulled it under my cheek, bent up my knees, and with the light blanket drawn over my head, snuggled back to sleep in a sixty-year-old’s best approximation of the fetal position. The feeling was delicious. I only slept for a few minutes, I think, but I woke breathing from the deepest chambers of my lungs.

Then I stayed in bed, stretching my back, curling my toes, asking myself what I’d turn to next: and it was a daydream—of swooping out my window and soaring over the rooftops of the neighborhood, invisible to all but dogs and cats who howled and meowed to the consternation of their owners. I could fly for an hour if I mustered the imagination, and what a silly man I’d be if I couldn’t do a thing any child can do. So I flew on. It was easier, of course, with a flowing cape, and easiest for me if that cape was yellow—yellow as butter. And that’s simply whom I’d become; I was “Butterman,” as long as only I would know, and not my neighbor Knutson, or the people at the nursing home, or the bus driver, or Gretchen, or that lawyer of mine. I could fly myself down to the State Capitol and make tight circles around the dome as the dogs walking the square barked and howled and tugged at their leashes. But this was also work, not too much—and not the flying—it was work to keep the stupid man at bay: that a fool, the Past President with such inconsequential, grown-up concerns. Why not fly every day, I wondered? And not the old man’s astral travel nonsense, no, just this, and see how far afield I can go. Maybe due east all the way to Lake Michigan. Or perhaps I’ll just stand here

117

BUTTERMAN on this lady’s head—the statue that crowns the Capitol dome. Lady “Forward,” in gold leaf.

Or even better, I’ll just shrug it off and see what I can find to eat, so I went downstairs laughing—not without some introspection, though.

I was on what they call these days a learning curve. That I had a bowl of chocolate ice cream as soon as I got down assured me that I was on the right track; the bowl of Raisin Bran I had after that assured me that I was not insane. And to me, now that Friday’s come along, that seems just the place to be when newly alive: in the safe vacuum, warmly insolated between innocence and madness.

A little later on Thursday, after I finished breakfast (and did the dishes), I took a bath instead of the shower and played in the water, even getting out of the tub, into my robe, then down to the kitchen to get several corks which I then held under the water and let go, trying to catch them before they bobbed all the way up. I practiced this long enough until I got good at it, and stayed in the tub for an excessive length of time. Then I decided I’d better be doing something that was good for someone other than myself, so I got dressed and sat down for a while to think about it.

As a free man, I realized, there were no artificial bounds within which I had to operate. I could, if I chose, become a clown and entertain at children’s parties, free of charge, I could do that; or if I chose to volunteer as toilet scrubber in The State Hospital for the Mentally Ill, I could do that; or if I chose I could spend some time walking the city streets giving away a hundred dollars a day to anyone who looked deserving, I might be able to do that, fifty dollars for sure; or I could volunteer at the Humane Society, or the Henry Vilas Zoo, or the Veterinary School at the University; or I could teach the rudiments of Astrology or other esoteric arts at no cost to the students. Or, of course, I could always fulfill my dream of becoming an elevator operator—as I said, to me, as mystic a practice as that of the ferryman in Siddhartha—a more selfish ambition, I admit, but nonetheless fulfilling a hallowed task of delivering people to destinations. Or I could do so much else and still be able to fly around Dane County every morning or wherever else seemed like fun.

Of course, it made sense to ponder these possibilities for a time—and a day later, on Friday, I’m still pondering. I have already

118

THREE OF HEARTS made several decisions; not regarding my new vocation, but about other things. For instance, I have decided never again to turn to astrology or any other method of divination again regarding my future, and particularly concerning my death. I overcame my “cosmic embarrassment” as soon as I realized that I had unwittingly presented myself with a unique emotional opportunity, one that typically requires a near-death experience to achieve, a brush with mortal danger, a reversal of a terminal diagnosis, or a reprieve from a firing squad or electric chair (while either blindfolded or strapped down.) I have been given the opportunity to experience life anew because of a mistake I made. So along with my decision to swear off all divination, prophesy, even speculation, I have added a resolution to never doubt myself again. The reasoning is simple: if through an apparent mistake I have delivered myself into a second childhood—not of senility but maturity—it’s clear to me that I’m ignorant of the actual effects of my actions, and therefore it’s wisest not to judge them.

On Friday night Miranda called me. She said she was happy I was available, and I told her she didn’t know the half of it. We decided to meet for breakfast early the next day and then spend the rest of the morning at the Farmer’s Market on the square.

We were to meet at nine, but I was up early and downtown by eight. The Farmer’s Market was already bustling. I got a cup of strong coffee to go from a streetside vender and plunged into the crowd that slowly circulated around the Capitol Square. At once I was assailed with ears of sweet corn and peppers and eggplants of varying shapes; and with clumps of broccoli and cauliflowers and cucumbers; and with bushel upon bushel of tomatoes—red ones of every shape, green ones, orange ones, yellow ones, little yellow ones with red veins; and then with watermelons, cantaloupes, and other melons, unidentifiable, but succulent, I’m sure.

And intermixed with all this were tables and crates stacked with fresh herbs, basil that announced itself from yards away, oregano, sorrel, sage, and other savory green things I couldn’t identify. And there were early apples, too, and plastic gallon jugs of fresh-pressed cider.

And jars and jars of honey: there was red clover honey, buckwheat honey, pumpkin honey, basswood and black locust honey; and popsicle sticks for samples. And then there was a mushroom stand

119

BUTTERMAN in the midst of it all with a subterranean perfume. And there were flowers, a bounty of them: there were lilies, sweet orange and yellow ones; bee balm, fragrant and lavender; cosmos, hot pink, red, and magenta; there were white gardenias, white snow drops, and there were sunflowers. And cheese, too, of course, and bags of squeaky white cheddar cheese curds; and fresh eggs, and fresh chickens; and there were croissants and sweet baked things; and people, the vendors and farmers, and the kind who get up early for fresh produce, or to walk their dogs around the square, or to mingle, or look for friends, or like me, who reads it all like the it was the news.

By a corn stand, I hear a woman talking to a friend.

“He took the engine out and found all these coiled wires and I don’t know what, and he tried to use my kitchen scissors to cut through them, and I said Ryan, talk to your Dad, he’s got to have the tools for that…”

Then by the first tomato stand, another woman to her friend: “I’ve got so many I can’t give them away anymore and still I buy.

Did you read that article? How they’re saying tomatoes are as beneficial as garlic? Thank goodness. Who eats garlic?”

At a flower stand with quite a spectacular display, I hear an elderly gentleman shyly tell the kindly female vendor that her flowers were so beautiful they looked like they’d been picked from God’s garden again. I decided to buy some flowers there.

At a honey booth, a middle-aged man is leaning against some crates having a leisurely talk with a farmer about his age. “I hear if you do it every day or five times a week or so it’s going to extend your life, but if you’re not doing what you want I don’t see how it makes a hell of a lot of difference.”

Then at another tomato booth, an elderly man speaks to a teenage girl. “You grow all these yourself, sweetheart?” At which the girls turns to an older woman and rolls her eyes.

And these bits and pieces of people’s lives mean nothing more than what they are, but this morning they are luminous. These snippets of talk are like pebbles or fish scales or wisps of cloud or twigs stripped of bark. And after sitting on a bench for a while in the early sun, smiling enough to attract some attention, I look at my watch to discover my hour has passed, so I leave to meet Miranda.

120

THREE OF HEARTS Of course, as we’re all apt all do, I can’t help but picture the person I hadn’t seen for twenty-four years—after all, her voice had remained the same. But still, I try to keep my expression guarded so as not to betray any shock I feel at seeing her aged a quarter of a century. I know she’s well past fifty now.

But I am stunned, and it shows on my face as soon as I see her waiting at the table in the restaurant I’d suggested. It is a place on State Street, only two blocks from the square. “Bernardo’s Restaurant and Café,” it’s called—the restaurant, a more formal place with a good reputation occupies the basement; the café the upper two floors. I first see Miranda from outside as I approach the Café. She’s aged gracefully; just as one would hope. There are wrinkles, yes, but her delicate features remain harmonious, none is exaggerated, none gone weak. In twenty-five years, people can become caricatures of themselves, grotesques; she has not. She is sitting primly behind green café curtains at one of the two window tables overlooking the street. She’d still has her intriguing, elf-like look. She fits perfectly in the little tableau: she is wearing a grey silk blouse, a green jade necklace, and her hair is still red, like polished copper.

As I enter the place, I remind myself that I am, in fact, the immortal Butterman, so I suppose I was smiling as I approach the table.

“You look like a kid in a candy store,” she says.

“That’s about right,” I answer, hugging her. “An old kid.

And you look as wonderful as ever.” Then I reveal the flowers I’m holding behind my back. She beams.

“Picking from God’s garden again?”

I am still standing up. “What!” I ask. “Have you used that expression before?”

“I’ve heard it,” she says, picking up the unseen bouquet she’d set between her chair and the green café-curtains. “That’s what the woman told me when I bought these!”

“I just heard a man say that over on the square. Those same words. We must have bought our flowers at the same place.”

“So are you saying that seeing me again is like lightning striking twice in the same place?”

“That’s a poetic way of putting it, but yes, I think so!” I say sitting down, trying to compose myself by remembering that I’m

121

BUTTERMAN none other than the great, flying Butterman. “I loved that poem, by the way.” I say then.

“Do you believe it?” she asks, admiring her bouquet, quite different from mine but no less beautiful.

“You mean that when you find your true heart you find a treasure that’s buried in everyone? That there’s only one heart?

That love is immutable?”

“Something like that,” she says. “I’d love to find that poet.

It’s a he: I remember that, and he’s in Madison. But I never fully know what poems mean. I interpret them however I choose, which is usually emotionally—and never intellectually. If I ever feel I fully know what one of my poems meant, I either threw it out or worked on it until I didn’t. If poetry’s not a little bewildering to me… well, what’s the point?” She turns the bouquet in her hands and looks at mine. “What is it about these flowers?”

“They’re obviously blessed. So we probably are too.”

Miranda nods and takes a sip of her tea.

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” I say.

“Would you mind repeating that? And thank you for not saying ‘still.’”

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” I repeat. “I probably didn’t tell you that enough in 1978.”

“Once, I think. You were very shy. What happened? It can’t just be these enchanted flowers.”

At this point, a waitress approaches and asks if I’d like some coffee. I tell her I’ll have what Miranda is drinking, which turns out to be “Red Zinger” tea.

“It’ll take me a while to tell you what happened,” I explain, “particularly if I tell it dramatically, which is the way I’d like to do it. So let’s have a suspenseful little pause before I begin, all right?

Why don’t you tell me how Jane is doing, and maybe a little about your trip.”

For only a moment a stunned expression crosses Miranda’s face. She recovers at once, but there’s no fooling the flying man, and this time I can’t help laughing.

“Horace?” she says with a puzzled look, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “You’re beaming. Are you in love?”

“Not specifically… but I’m not divulging my secret before I’m ready. So go on. Tell me about old Jane.”

122

THREE OF HEARTS A little while later after we’d eaten and I’d just begun to tell Miranda the story of my reprieve from death, she leaves the table for a moment, so I’m alone to watch the passersby and listen to the conversations around me.

Outside on State Street, on the sidewalk across it, I saw what might have seemed an apparition if I were a gullible man. Of course, it wasn’t an apparition. What I saw was a middle aged man who looked like he’d lived harder than most. He was dressed in antique “hippie” gear, and had a dissipated, disheveled look; long unkempt hair and a sign which, with the aid of a shoulder harness, he held high above his head.

“THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR,” the sign reads. My jaw didn’t drop, but my eyes must have widened at this unanticipated reminder of the truth. And then I saw two young men—students maybe—stop the ragged looking gentleman, engage him in what seemed friendly conversation, shake his hand and walk on as if there were nothing unusual about running into him on State Street. That I’ve foresworn divining the future does not mean I believe in the silly notion of “accident,” nor does it preclude recognizing personalized messages from the Universal Mind. This was already an extraordinary day in an extraordinary new life, and being confronted with the truth itself coming toward me down the street wasn’t something to be ignored—certainly not by Butterman.

Then I heard two women speaking together at a table not far from me.

“She bought the book, like he said, but she’d only got a little way through, when she told me she was so disgusted she actually threw it down the thing by the service elevator in her building. And it was an expensive book.”

“The thing?”

“The thing, you know—the incinerator thing, the chute.”

I wanted to hear more of this one, but I was distracted by the sight of a muscular, shirtless young man coming down State Street with a large snake, a python, I think, wrapped around his neck and shoulders.

Some passersby seemed repelled—some histrionically—but others, children, in particular, were fascinated

123

BUTTERMAN and eagerly touched and petted the snake when the young man stopped and introduced them. It was only that parents who wanted to entice them away. The young man would have stood there all day making sure the children saw how gentle and beautiful his big pet actually was.

Just then a very distinguished looking man was seated at the other table in the window next to mine overlooking the street. The hostess treated him deferentially, along with the younger blond woman who accompanied him. It seemed she knew and respected them both. After she asked them if they wanted coffee, his vivacious companion asked him how it was going.

“Much harder than I’d expected,” he said with a lilting Italian accent. “It only took me a few days to realize how capable he was and what a load he carried downstairs every night. He’s a good man. A free spirit. He once told me poets don’t have to follow the same rules as ordinary mortals, so I should have known!”

Here his companion laughed. “So you think you should have struck a deal?” she asked “I think so,” he said. “Maybe I still will.”

But then Miranda returned.

“So,” she said sitting down across from me, “you were saying…?”

“What was I saying?”

“That for the last year you’d been living under the impression that you wouldn’t be sitting here with me today or anywhere else… unless in a crematorium—where I’ve heard the bodies do sit up straight once they’ve reached a certain temperature.”

“Is that true?”

“Oh, I don’t know. And I don’t much care. I prefer an blend of truth and fiction in life, don’t you?”

“I’m starting to,” I say, surprised, never having thought of it like that. “I am. And I haven’t before—that’s part of why I’m so happy.”

“I’d ask where you’ve been all my life, but I know the answer. So tell me the dramatic part.”

So I go on with my story after we leave the café and walk the two blocks down State Street to the Square, where the two of us are now assailed by the natural bounty of southern Wisconsin in late

124

THREE OF HEARTS August. By the time we make a complete circuit of the square, Miranda’s bought honey for herself and Jane, and I’ve bought honey, cider and a variety of mushroom I’ve never seen. I insist, however, that the mushroom vendor assure me they aren’t poisonous, just in case my calculations were inaccurate in some way I’d not suspected. I’d also told Miranda the whole story, including “THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR” and how when lightning struck in the same place twice regarding those flowers from God’s garden it had awakened a hope in me that she’d end her cross country drive right here in Madison. She said she’d already considered it.

“Do you remember when we first met?” she asked me then.

“Ah, yes, I remember it well,” I said.

Miranda looked at me skeptically. “Yes, that was Maurice Chevalier, wasn’t it? Who sang that song in...? What was it in?

‘GiGi? About an old couple who have different versions of the past.

He sang it with Hermione Gingold, I think. Leslie Caron was also in that movie. It must have been... 1958?”

“Yes. I remember it well.”

“Do you realize how that dates us, Horace? There are more people who’ve never heard of that movie than those who remember it, and the number of those who do is growing smaller as we speak.

But I’m sure your memories are skewed, dear. The man’s always are. As I remember it, Jane had dragged me out to your Metaphysical Society for an ‘Open House’ that you were having in an attempt to attract younger members. Ha! You were by far the youngest member there, as I recall, and you were getting on.”

“I was thirty-six.”

“That’s what I mean, and you were surrounded by old fossils smelling of vitamins who hadn’t noticed the 1960’s and certainly not the 70’s. And you didn’t attract young people, not the kind you wanted to. Jane and I were the youngest guests and we were your age—practically.”

“There were more,” I said. “We enrolled a few new members.”

“I don’t remember any such thing.”

“You see?”

“So we met at the punchbowl, of all things. You remember that, don’t you?”

125

BUTTERMAN “No. I remember meeting in the library.”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “I didn’t know there was a library until the next time I went there, Horace. I met you at the punchbowl. You were wearing a bow tie, and it was non-alcoholic punch. Jane introduced me to you. ‘The President,’ she said.”

“You’re making this up.”

Miranda laughed. “I said to you, if you’re in charge, can’t you get some Champagne to pour this sweet concoction, or at least some Vodka? And twenty minutes later you reappeared with two bottles of expensive French Champagne.”

“It wasn’t that expensive.”

“So you remember?”

“That part I do.”

“And what did you do then, if you remember it so well?”

“You’ll have to refresh me.”

“I asked if you were going to pour them into the punch, and you said most of the members were tee-totaling vegetarians. So I asked you just what you planned to do with the Champagne and you left the room and came back with the bottle bubbling over and poured two punch glasses full. One for me and one for Jane. Do you remember that?”

“I couldn’t very well drink at the open house.”

“I suppose you couldn’t. But Jane and I made up for that, didn’t we?”

“I don’t think anyone knew.”

“Well, that doesn’t speak very well for them.”

“But then we talked in the library.”

“No, Horace. I told you that wasn’t that night. Jane and I just got loaded and went home. But do you remember when I kissed you?”

“I thought it was after we talked in the library, but I remember.”

“Oh, really? What was it like?”

“It was very sexual.”

“Yes. I thought if I put my tongue deep enough down in you, I’d touch your heart.”

“You did.”

“Oh, I know that.” Miranda smiled. “Horace, I kissed you outside in that circular driveway. Jane was already in the car trying

126

THREE OF HEARTS to figure out if she was sober enough to drive us home. Before I kissed you I flipped your little bow tie off. You see, I knew that there was something there beyond your mild mannered, Clark Kentish President of the American Metaphysical Society. I thought it was going to be easier to bring out though. But I was young and proud, so I believed I could do it myself in a matter of months.”

“Were you disappointed?”

She thought for a moment. “No. I really wasn’t. I noticed my own shortcomings when I was with you—and of course I never in a thousand years would have believed who it was lurking within that sweet inhibited soul I found so attractive. And I love it, Horace. Butterman! It’s so completely daft! The image is so rolypoly and you’re still thin as a rail. But I suppose if you keep eating ice cream for breakfast like you say and wolfing down those sticky buns like you did back at that café, you’ll fill out some.”

“You want to come see where Butterman lives?” I asked.

“Can we fly?”

“We can try.”

“Do you wear tights with your butter-yellow cape?”

“No. Pajamas.”

Miranda considered it a minute and decided she’d rather walk.

It was during the walk then that we discussed the ways in which I might be of service to the community.

“It would be a shame to waste your erudition,” Miranda commented after I’d made a few suggestions.

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Can a thorough knowledge of Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine” be of any more real value than a sparkling clean toilet in the State Mental Hospital?”

“Horace, there are people to do that, people who need their jobs and who may be unionized—and I’m sure if you think about it, you know where you’ll end up if you go out there with such a suggestion.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I should start a school of some sort,” I offered. “A place where I could scrub the toilets and lecture on the Egyptian Mysteries.”

“That would beat giving away fifty dollars a day to homeless winos.”

127

BUTTERMAN Then Miranda didn’t say anything for a while. When she spoke again she took my hand. “Could you afford that, Horace? A school?”

“It would take some planning, but I think I could manage.

There are so many possibilities, so many ways of doing it. I do know the people to talk to, though, or at least the kind of people to talk to…”

“Really?” she said, “Well, that’s promising. I’m actually feeling quite moved now.” She’d let go of my hand and was walking on slowly. “Flooded with ideas. I’m nearly dizzy with them, so I’m not going to say anything for a while.”

That’s when it struck me. Not like lightening, hardy like a ton of bricks: like a bouquet, perhaps, or like a basket of flowers.

“There’s something we both forgot,” I say. “It happened a long, long time ago. A long, long time ago. The flowers, remember?”

Miranda looked perplexed.

I help up my bouquet. “What are these?” I asked her, touching some small white flowers.

“Gardenias?”

“Yes. The deepest cobalt blue and the smell of gardenias.

Remember?”

128

THREE OF HEARTS

SAINT BERNIE

So I decided to do it. I didn’t see Crescent Lake out my window, all sparkling in the morning sun. All I saw was how I looked to Rosie when she was pleading with me and I pulled my hands away. I saw it over and over again. Now it was Rosie; who would be next?

Every time my life showed any sign of improvement, it got worse.

There was no way out. And I suppose because of the way I felt that morning, someone could say I was mixed-up, or afflicted with some disorder, or insane, because there was nowhere I could go with my feelings. I couldn’t help Rosie, who just as well might have been a figment of my imagination, and I couldn’t help myself forget her pain and the pain she felt for her children, or worry who was going to invade me next. So I decided to do it. But not there at the cottage. I’d have to keep my plans concealed.

And I don’t believe it’s a sin. There are no people who depend on me, except as a friend, and only a few of those, and they’re adults who need to be responsible for their own feelings.

129

SAINT BERNIE But my feelings are something I can’t be responsible for anymore; and I’ve led a good life, so I feel right avoiding what’s just around the corner. And maybe it’s something I can’t name—like I said, it’s a disorder or insanity—but those words can’t capture the dread I feel of knowing anything else like what I know about Rosie and the need to get away from it forever. It makes me feel like I should have been the one riding that bus that got set afire, that someone should have done something like that for me!

And in case someone’s wondering how one day a man can be looking down on things like the sky does, and then up from a pit at midnight on the next, then that someone doesn’t know how much pain there is in the world, and doesn’t know the things a person will do to keep from feeling it. And whoever’s wondering probably can’t understand how a man can put his hands on a stranger’s shoulders to share her heartache one day, and then decide to never help anyone again, because when one stranger looked to him for help, he pulled those same hands away. And I suppose, too, that the person wondering about this is the kind I might call a son of a bitch if I got angry, because they would be showing a lack of respect— and not just for me, but for everyone. And that’s about all I have to say about people who don’t understand.

There’s a mirror in the bedroom at that cottage, and when I woke that terrible morning, I looked at myself in it and saw that I’m going to have to be vigilant about hiding my feelings because I looked like I’d had a brush with death. So I rubbed and pinched my cheeks and to make them rosy and slipped into the little shower room upstairs there, before anyone could see me looking like that.

By the time I was out of the shower I was feeling the relief of knowing I’d made a good decision, because I could turn the pain of my dream away with the assurance that there wouldn’t be many more to come.

“Did you sleep well, Bernie?” Jolene asked at breakfast.

“You don’t look too rested.”

“It’s just the change of scene,” I said. “The quiet of the night keeps me tossing and turning. A city boy needs traffic and sirens and horns to sleep. But I’ll get used to it.”

And everyone at the table thought that was funny, so I felt in control of things again.

130

THREE OF HEARTS Jack yawned. “I still want to go fishing, even though I slept as late as a teenager?” he said to me. “You still interested, city boy?”

And I had to say I was, so I did, even though the idea made me numb and I was worried I’d give myself away. But then I remembered the fishing I did when I was younger at a cottage just like this that belonged to a friend of Abby’s family, and when there were two or three of us were in the boat, it was a quiet time without much conversation. And even though my stomach was tied in knots, I made a show of eating breakfast, which was ham steaks with fried eggs cooked on top, and asking for seconds so Jolene wouldn’t worry.

But of course she didn’t know what there really was to worry about, but now I was feeling protected from heartbreak.

Maybe I was like a robot with some of my wires removed, which isn’t either a brave or a cowardly thing: it’s like a thick layer of ice or of mud, or a stream all jammed up with fallen trees, or a place where a bridge fell down across a road.

By the time we were out on the lake that morning, I’d decided I’d buy a pistol at the sporting goods department in the Marshall Field’s Men’s Store. I was pretty sure they still had guns there like they did years ago, and I liked that store. If they didn’t carry them anymore, I knew there was a gun shop west of the loop where I’d go if I had to. It made me feel even more secure to have decided that, like another wire had been disconnected. I knew what I’d write in my note already, too, and that it would be to Jolene.

And I knew I wanted to sit at my window looking at the traffic and the lights when I pulled the trigger, and that the barrel would be in my mouth, and I even thought of how my head would look and the wall of my room. What I didn’t care about was whether I caught any fish that day, but I did catch one Northern and acted as excited as I could. I had to or I would have been cheating Jack, who didn’t catch a thing.

Of course everyone made a big deal out of the fish I caught, which was big enough to filet and cook up in butter for dinner as a kind of appetizer. After dinner the family played Whist, a card game like Bridge but made much simpler. I sat out. I knew I couldn’t concentrate on cards because already I was so worried about going to sleep and having another vision. When it was time

131

SAINT BERNIE for bed, I asked Jack if he had any brandy so I could get over missing the city sounds and get to sleep. Again everyone thought this was funny—except Jack, who put his arm round me in the kitchen when he poured my drink and asked if anything was wrong.

“Nothing a glass of brandy won’t take care of,” I said. And I didn’t look at his face to see if he believed me or not, but just said goodnight to everyone and went upstairs.

No one there at the cottage in Rhinelander knew it, but I hadn’t had a drink in nineteen years. Not since I drank myself into a stupor and fell down in a bar on Western Avenue after Abby died. I don’t remember too much about it. Only that while I was sitting at the bar having one whiskey after another, I was fighting to hold all my grief inside me, and that when I tried to get down off the barstool I fell on the floor like a drunk and started to cry. I didn’t know anyone there, and don’t know how I got home to our place on North Avenue, but I think I got up and ran out of that place before anyone started to laugh.

I never drank much before that night, and like I said, never since, and the brandy Jack poured for me tasted awful but went right to my head. By the time I’d drunk it down, it started my crying for Abby. But I didn’t make any noise about it and fell asleep after just a few minutes.

When I woke up in the morning it was raining, and it rained on and off for the rest of the week. Jack said it didn’t bother him since it was good fishing weather, but both Jolene and Marcy were upset because they’d wanted to keep on sunning themselves like they had that first Sunday. The two boys practically disappeared.

During they day, they were in town or someone else’s cottage with some girls they knew or went looking for other some girls, and at night, Josh told me, they were at a striptease bar where the women did filthiest thing I’d ever heard of—it was a place they could get into with their fake I-Ds. After the first day of rain, Jolene tried to get over her upset and cheer everyone up. But the rain hadn’t had any effect on me, so she concentrated her efforts on the others, suggesting all kinds of rainy day activities from renting videos to playing board games or charades or reading aloud from mystery books. On the third night I had another frightening dream about a different lost girl in Chicago and how she cried for her babies. She was something like Rosie but not quite, and it ended again with me

132

THREE OF HEARTS pulling my hands away from her, so I don’t see any point in talking about it.

It was the next day that Jolene sat me down under the eaves on the front porch, saying she wanted to talk to me. There must have been a leaf clog up there because the rain didn’t run out of any drain pipe, but dripped and sputtered down all the way across in front of us so that anyone who went down the porch steps got soaked.

“How you doin’, Bernie?” she asked.

“I’m holding my own,” I answered her.

“No, Bernie, you’re not being yourself. Suddenly you’re not interested in other people, and that’s your gift, you know that, and that’s and one of the things people love about you. You’ve hardly spoken to Marcie since we’ve been up here, or even to me. I was hoping that getting away would be good for you, that it would make you happy... Bernie? Are you having your visions again?”

“No. I’m just being quiet—like you said, watching and waiting. Remember?”

And that was about all I said, and that was the worst kind of lie, since it was turning an untruth back on a friend. But I was only protecting myself. I can’t say I ever felt any sicker about what was happening to me than just then with Jolene. It got me to wondering if I should just get it over with up there in Wisconsin to save myself three more days of dishonesty, but the thought of creating a memory that would ruin summers at the cottage for Jolene and Jack seemed even worse. Still, I had to make that choice: and I made it for Jolene and her family, even though the next night, by whatever diabolical trick of my mind or whatever was possessing me, I dreamed that I pulled my hands away from that same girl, over and over again.

And so I say: Does Marcy have a problem with her divorce?

I’m sorry if Marcy has a problem with her divorce. Or maybe I’m not really sorry. Maybe what I’m sorry about is having to be here and pretend to be the same as everyone else. But the rain keeps up, on and off for the next three days, and by the time dinner comes around Friday night, I’m not able to smile anymore, and hardly able to speak, and I’m sure that I’ve contributed as much to the overall gloom as the rain, but I hadn’t let on a thing.

133

SAINT BERNIE The plan is to leave early the next morning so we can stop in Madison for a kind of farmers’ market that Jolene likes to go to every year. Then we’ll go back to Chicago, and I’m counting on getting there before Marshall Fields closes. I don’t know what time they close on Saturday. § When we all get up at the cottage the next morning, the sun is shining, and I can’t help but feeling a little better, even though I know I’m going to be dead before much more than a day passes, at most. Or maybe that’s the reason I am feeling better. Or maybe it’s the sunshine, or leaving for home that perks me up, but the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s become such a part of me has let up a little. But not for long, because as we drive off and I start going back over my time at the cottage and realize that I hardly said goodbye to Marcy, the feeling starts to weigh me down again.

We’re all quiet in the car on the way back to Madison, and I realize I’m the reason for that. Some things just have to be. I try to go to sleep but I can’t, so I spend my time concentrating on what it’s going to be like to be relieved from all this. I start to wonder that if I’m dead, who’s it going to be that’s free; who’s going to feel that I’m not suffering any more? And then maybe I do fall asleep. It’s much warmer when we get to Madison than it was up on the lake, and after Jack parks the car and we walk to the square around the Wisconsin Capitol, I see what Jolene meant when she said this Farmers’ Market she wanted to go to so bad would be mobbed!

I can hardly believe it! Are you crazy, Jolene? I want to say to her. Are you crazy for bringing me to a place like this? Why would you do that, with all these faces? Of course, I don’t say a word, but Jolene senses something right away.

“Oh, Bernie!” she says, taking hold of my shoulders, and glancing over at Jack. “I don’t know what I was thinking! I’m sorry. You want me to give you the keys so you can go wait in the car? It’s just that you’ve been so quiet… I… forgot. I’m sorry Bernie. You want the keys?”

But I didn’t. I was more frightened of sitting in that car alone than mingling in with the crowd. That was the first moment I

134

THREE OF HEARTS felt that it must be insanity that had a hold on me. I told Jolene that I didn’t mind the crowd, that I’d be okay and just started following the two of them around. There were more vegetables there than I’d even seen in one place. And some fruit too. I do like fruit, but I’ve never really cared for vegetables: green beans and corn, that’s about it. So I saw a lot of things there I don’t like, like broccoli, and peas, and cauliflower, and mushrooms, which I’d rather not even look at.

There were apples there, and when Jolene saw me looking at them she asked if why I didn’t buy a bag to take home to my room.

Would you eat them? she asked. All I did was shake my head. Are you crazy, Jolene? I was thinking.

There were stands selling honey there, too, something I’ve never seen much purpose for, considering there’s sugar, even in cubes. But I tried not to look at people’s faces there. I’d been practicing that for a few days already. There were men holding hands walking around there, and some women holding hands, too, but nothing I hadn’t seen in downtown Chicago, just never so many in one small area. I saw a man and woman arguing, and that made me feel like I was kicked in the stomach, and then I saw a fella and a tall blond haired girl right in the middle of everyone kissing like no one else was around, and that made me feel even worse than the ones who were fighting. I also heard a child crying and that suddenly made me feel sick, like I wanted to cry too, but there was something else at that market that distracted me from it.

There were beautiful flowers, all around, and the sight of those made me feel so terribly sad it almost felt good. There’s probably another way to explain that, but I don’t know one, other than there was a terrible sweet sadness to those fragile, beautiful things. At one point when Jolene and Jack were quite far ahead of me I felt I had to say something about the flowers, and I did to a kind looking, grey-haired woman. I told her her flowers looked like she’d picked them from God’s garden. And she laughed and said the Earth is God’s garden. And I wanted to tell her, no it isn’t, it’s a terrible place where no one understood anyone else’s pain; it’s a lonely place I hate, but I couldn’t say that to her because it might have extinguished the twinkle in her eye, which seemed to me the only wholly good thing I saw in a week.

When I thought we were finally ready to leave, Jolene decided she had to go back to one of the bakery stalls to buy herself

135

SAINT BERNIE a chocolate filled croissant. Jack rolled his eyes because earlier she said she was going to resist temptation. But Jolene said she did resist it, now she was giving in to it. But it turned out they’d just sold out of chocolate filled croissants, just a minute ago. The proprietor told Jolene that they still had some at her bakery, which was a place about ten minutes away by car, and Jack said it would be all right with him if they stopped there, even though it was out of the way. I felt myself get angry at Jolene again for being such a pig and dragging things out, making everything take longer, but I didn’t let on. Saint Bernie never lets on, I’m thinking, and I’m thinking that if my face is as sour as the way I feel I’d like to spare anyone with goodwill from looking at it.

136

THREE OF HEARTS

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN

As hot as I was to trot, it wasn’t all that difficult to wait until 3:00 P.M. to call Gretchen, because punctuality can be fun. God knows, the exact time when things happen probably affects life in every direction including up, so why not play that to the hilt? Which is something I ordinarily do, and which makes my temporary poetrycrazed aberration this morning all the more singular. But I knew what was in store for us that evening. I knew we were a perfect match. I also knew that even if Gretchen was having dinner with her old roommate, we’d still be on each other like otters before midnight, maybe even eleven. And no, I’m not going to claim I didn’t nurse a pretty solid stiffy most of that day, but any man in love will know that wasn’t the first thing on my mind. It was second, and a close second, but what I wanted most was to be subsumed in her presence, and show her by my every word and

137

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN action that I thrived there. So, waiting to call her exactly when she requested was like shining my shoes, or straightening my tie, or checking the mirror for the sparkle in my eye—and it’s too bad people don’t realize that except when in total darkness, we all have sparkles in our eyes, all of us, all the time. It’s just that sometimes we have a better reason for it than others. For example:

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN

1) SATURDAY Heart fluttering violently at 2:59 PM. Dial again at 3:00 sharp, find line busy. Redial at 3:01. Still busy. Imagine Gretchen talking to recent attacker and deciding to give him another chance.

3:03, still busy. Imagine she’s forgotten—“Oh, I’m sorry, you were going to call this afternoon, weren’t you.” 3:05, my phone rings—idiot with wrong number—wants to talk to Chico. 3:06, try again. Still busy. I will surely die. Heart flutter swells to ominous thumping. She’s forgotten. I’ll never recover. 3:07, try to touch numbers on phone lovingly. Hers rings. She answers, apologizes immediately. SUN RISES WITHIN CONFINES OF ROOM. Explains mother called at 2:50 to say sending check for days missed at work. G. thinks she’ll be out one week until eye is pretty again. One week? I think, all for me. She says, where are you taking me for dinner? SUN RISES WITHIN CONFINES OF CHEST. I say, meet me on same bench on square. She says, bring poem. Thumping has given was to voluble rushing of blood.

Suddenly, after blur of walk, I’m there! All there! Sitting with on bench with G. in 3:30 Saturday sunshine filtered through tall trees.

Read love poem with thighs (in shorts) touching, her head on my shoulder. I tell it like it is:

138

THREE OF HEARTS

On the brightful tuning of this song Leaves grow branches, branches trunks.

My doubtless dying dead and dumb, My spinners spin a wishful thread Of winter roses blooming stems with silken Roots that feed the soil, and brother Earth the sweetest lump that sugared Any steaming cup as whitely starred as ours.

And one by one the notes descend And play across the keys, their tassels Trailing, trimmed in trills, Their long call short, their daring done, Their resonance remindful of the rose And wishlong silvered look that plays In pearls across your eyes And whitely lights the stars in mine.

It does. It plays in pearls. She says she hopes I never change. SUN RISES WITHIN CONFINES OF PANTS. She says, what does it mean: My doubtless dying dead and dumb?

I say (I love you) it means transcending death: what was doubtless is now dead and dumb.

She says, what does it mean: Their long call short, their daring done?

I say (I love you) I have no idea. I’m a poet.

She says a girl like her can get swept off her feet by a guy like me.

Trust me, I say. She says she does.

Long walk then, small talk, big talk: restaurants, friends— flowers, poems—old loves, new hopes.

First kiss near Gorham/Hamilton, James Madison Park: her face in my hands.

Second kiss, same location, my face in hers. Spectators smile.

HAPPIEST MAN IN UNITED STATES. More walk, more talk,

139

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN small, big: jobs, parents—beauty, music—bodies, God. Dinner: white wine, French bread, salads (chicken and Chef). Enter my room 8:00, Champagne in one hand, G. in other.

8:30 to midnight: like butterflies, too tender for words.

2) SUNDAY Wake at 6:00 AM, feeling like poet. G. is Sleeping Beauty: hair fanned out on pillow, sheet trailing off her like Botticelli Venus rising out of sea; perfect, but still, I cover her. Pray she sleeps.

Make strong coffee. Smoke strong cigarette. Am poet. One long sentence: Though I cannot tell you why, I love you as the trees love twilight, and as I watch you sleep by the open window at dawn, your eyes closed in a comfort that restores me, I remember you smiling as you wake, still lost in the violets that will not forget you as you turn to me in a moment forever that never again in the palest of blues will be.

Like in a love story, I place the poem on the pillow next to hers, and leave for the shower, hoping that when I return I’ll find her reading it. It’s a very thorough shower one takes when planning on climbing back in bed with Botticelli’s Venus, and that’s exactly the shower I take. I don’t expect the same of her; because it’s fine with me, even preferable this morning, if she’s scented with the sea. But she’s still asleep, so I leave things as they are and tiptoe to my armchair, put my feet up on a small wooden cable-spool I stole from a construction sight, and thank my lucky stars for twenty minutes until she awakes, when everything goes according to the script. Returning from the violets, she encloses me.

Afternoon at her place listening to Beethoven’s 4th Symphony, her favorite—an unusual choice. On bed, sitting up, clothed, behind her, legs around, her hair in my face, my arms

140

THREE OF HEARTS around her shoulders, hands softly clasped above her breasts for entire symphony. Black eye a little better. Greener now, with a touch of purple. She tells me how in high school went on a personal campaign in Iowa City to save “Noble Trees and Striking Views” from developers’ bulldozers. Failed. I tell how in high school frequently put two “Betas”—colorful, graceful, long finnedand-tailed, never-to-be-put-in-the-water-together, Siamese Fighting Fish—in a small goldfish bowl together to see if I could induce ichthyocide. Succeeded. Then long walk again, again small talk, big talk. Apparently unable to separate conjoined hands. Surgery not an option. Pry loose at 3:00 PM. Plan to meet at bench at 7:00 sharp.

Go down for nap at home. Wake at 6:45. Run like the wind. Venus has a picnic basket, packed with marshmallows and thunder. (Or so it seems.) What less could she carry? What’s less is: a Quiche Lorraine, warm, not hot, just right, and a chilled California white. Sunday night dinner on the Capitol lawn, the square near empty. We tell jokes.

Sleep again chez moi. Talk till two: of biggest lies, of worst mistakes, those we’ve hurt most. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

“Goodnight.” Not a care in the Western Hemisphere.

3) MONDAY Long day. Awaken afraid. Brood for an hour before G. stirs.

“Oh, it was fun at the beginning, all right,” she’s saying, “but now that you’ve showed me your bag of tricks…” And anyway, I think, she’s way too beautiful for me. “You had me believing I’d get a poem a day for life,” she says now, her dark side showing. “But now you’re a bum, you live in the street. You smell. Go away.”

And she’s way too young for me, too, I realize. “I know he hit me,” she says to add the coup de grace, “but the sex was so-o good.

So I called him up. You don’t own me.” I should have expected this, nothing lasts. I’m worthless. I’m dirt off her shoe.

“Good morning sweetheart,” she says.

And she talks all morning about landscape architecture, about getting another degree, about making things outdoors: landscapes that make you fall in love; gardens that make you remember dreams; hillsides that sweep away regrets.

141

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN At lunch at Canton Café, I tell her how scared I was when I awoke. Am called “Idiot,” a word which goes well with “Sweet and Sour” and “Moo Shoo,” as in Sweet and Sour Idiot, and Moo Shoo Idiot. Then we talk about kindergarten. We talk about the terrible bus fire that was all over the news. We wonder about the man who thought he was going for a bus ride and was incinerated.

Then can’t talk for a while. There’s a husky edge to Gretchen’s voice, like the splash of pomegranate juice, or the violin in its low registers, but just an edge. We do not talk of the poet of the streets.

Her fortune: A kind heart opens all doors. My fortune: After a long journey you find joy. “Present tense,” I say to her, and eat the little piece of paper to make it mine.

Then an afternoon of shopping and doing her laundry, the presence of which makes me weak in knees again. I tell her how I love the laundromat. She tells me she doesn’t because of creepy guys like me who sit and watch the dryers spin and are probably preparing to expose themselves. I ask her if she’d love the ideal laundromat; she says she loves the ideal anything. I tell her she’s the girl for me. She says I’ve got that right. Her black eye’s now just green and pink. Regarding her injury, I tell her if she had no arms and legs I’d carry her around in a basket and attend to her every need, and love her no less. She says that doesn’t sound all that bad, but then like a streak out of the blue, I remember waking up so afraid, and I break down and tell her I might lose my nerve.

She says she’ll help me through. I say we have a problem. She says she knows.

We dine at Burger King. Lovers who have problem but love Whoppers have small problem. No problem big as Whopper.

We agree to walk to Picnic Point. I tell her if she had no arms and legs I’d strap her on my back and she could sing in my ear. She tells me if I had no arms and legs, she’d pull me in a red Radio Flyer with a pirate flag high on a stick. How would I be propped up? I ask. You wouldn’t, she says, you’d just roll around.

We’re going to talk about our problem later, we say.

It’s later almost immediately. So talk about the problem, Gretchen says, the two of us sitting at the end of Picnic Point, a spit of land that curls out into Lake Mendota, the August sun going down behind her. This will be the start of something big, I say.

Then start, she says. Make words.

142

THREE OF HEARTS “I’m scared,” I say. “That’s first. That’s Number One. Not little scared: not, will I get in trouble? will I get caught? scared; no, big scared, losing my love, losing myself scared—and which is which?”

“That’s another question. First, how are you scared of losing your love?”

I look at her to see if she knows how difficult it is to articulate all this, and can tell she does. “By making myself unavailable to you by my lifestyle choice,” I say. “That’s how.”

“Oh, really? Do I detect psychobabble?”

“I told you I’m scared,” I say. The woman’s tough. I try again. “I’m scared that if I’m a homeless poet who smells like garbage and has no permanent address, you’ll dump me.”

“I can see why you’d think that. And how are you scared of losing yourself.”

“By not doing something I believe in… because…”

“Because?”

“Because I’m in love.”

“And therefore…?”

“You’re terrible, Gretchen. You’re relentless,” I say.

“I’m aware of that. I thought that’s what you like so much about me. Can you answer that question or do I need to answer it for you.”

“Oh, I can, smarty. I’m scared that because I’m in love I won’t do something I believe in, and I’m not sure if I trust in the love as much as I trust myself. Okay? There, I’ve said it.”

“That’s what I love about you.”

“Only that?”

“Don’t be a ninny. And think about it, Felix, you’ve known yourself for thirty-seven years and you’ve only known me for a few days.”

“Don’t say that. That makes me feel sick.”

“Oh, I don’t mean it that way. I feel the same way you do.

I feel like we’ve known each other forever. But I’m right, am I not?”

Gretchen is sitting across from me, both of us cross-legged on the grass. The setting sun is behind her, and I’ve never seen her look quite so dramatic. “You’re perfectly right,” I say. “But there’s something else, too. There’s a problem with the problem.

143

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN There’s a fly in the ointment. And I know that fly, the one that’s in our ointment, and it’s one whopping fly, my darling, but the trouble is my swatter’s very small…” Just a suggestion of a smirk crosses her face. “Don’t say it,” I say before she can answer with anything about size not mattering or some such crack. And anyway, it wouldn’t be merited. “Would you like me to explain?”

I ask.

“Yes, Felix. I’m sorry I smiled.”

“Well, you should be. No, maybe you shouldn’t be. Maybe you’re prescient. Because smiling’s really my point—or a lack of it: that’s the problem with our problem. I wrote a line about it in a poem once: “Smiling is wider than wishing is deep.”

“That wouldn’t refer to living in the moment, would it?”

I take one of my long hard looks at her. She’s still wearing sunglasses, of course. The slight hawk-like edge to her features is heightened in the backlighting, which also gives her tawny blond hair a radiant aura. She has a peach colored tank-top on and red shorts. She’s kicked off her sandals. Good God! How did I stumble into this?

“That’s exactly what it means. Exactly. Who are you?

How do you always know?”

“What is it you think I know?”

I have to think a moment. “That my problem’s imaginary.

How’s that?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Gretchen answers.

“Well, of course it is. It takes an impeccable mind to live in the moment. Extraneous things keep buzzing in, and as I said…”

“Yes. Your swatter, I know, Sweetie.”

“And,” I said, “I don’t mean to say it precludes planning.”

“Expand, please.”

“Fine. I mean it’s possible to plan for the future without being attached to it, without clouding the present with it. It’s possible to say, “Gee, sweetheart, soon I won’t be able to pay my rent anymore, so you know what I’m planning to do? I’m planning to become homeless, because I refuse to compromise my principles any further. And you know what else? I’ll bet that whatever happens will affect our relationship, but if we’re really in love like we think we are and concentrate on that, everything should work out for the best whether we foresee it or not, so let’s not pollute the

144

THREE OF HEARTS future by making up scary stories about it. Okay? That’s what I mean. It’s possible to say that. But I’m still scared.”

“That’s what I thought you meant, and I am too. But I think it’s probably harder for you, like there’s more on your shoulders.

But still, think of it. Aren’t we two lucky ducks? With our lives and happiness together hinging on the difference between enlightenment and…what’s the opposite? Darkness? Ignorance?

Don’t you think that’s a privilege? I do. And you know what else, Tweetie? I think we should walk back to town and celebrate by getting a little drunk.”

The twelve minute walk down the path back from Picnic Point was interrupted by only one segment of dialogue: “So what’s with the Ninny and Tweetie? I asked.

“It’s my father. The big hearted English professor. He’s been calling me names as long as I can remember. Kindly ones.

Silly, ninny, tootsie, nitwit, tweetie, bunny, goosie, pinhead… You like those names, don’t you?”

“Uh huh.”

“And cats?”

“Cats? Oh… Sure, of course.”

4) TUESDAY Fortunately, we only got a little drunk. Chez moi the next morning we were feeling fine, and I made coffee just as Gretchen was waking. It was already nine o’clock. She was very grateful for the coffee, and asked if I’d come make it for her every day when I was living in a cardboard box, smelling like garbage with lice in my hair. I told her no, under those circumstances all she could get from me was a staff infection. She said that wasn’t a very friendly thing to say first thing in the morning, so I freshened up her cup, and we sat smiling, each to ourselves, for a long, soft trailing on of minutes.

It was her plan that morning to spend some time gardening for the distinguished gentleman she’d already told me about: a wealthy recluse, but a very kind and knowledgeable one, she’d explained. When I told her that that fit with my plans as well

145

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN because I wanted to write that morning, she looked at me suspiciously and asked if I would have informed her of that had she not been planning to be away. I said, er…no. She said that was something we’d have to work on, which made my heart leap like it had the first night I saw her there alone at the bar at L’Etoile. She asked me why my eyelids fluttered, and I told her that I loved her and the way she cared about my creative welfare. She looked at me very seriously then, and I pictured her, years hence: The Mistress of the Hills, Mother Nature’s Deputy with scores of uplifting, therapeutic, inspirational landscapes, all of her own design. A regal woman in a cape. Good God! “What?” she said “Can I tell you some other time? On a walk? Or in bed some morning just when we wake up, after we’ve finished our coffee, maybe?”

“I like that idea.”

Then she went and brushed her teeth and came back to tell me she met a nice woman in the hall. Then she kissed me goodbye, her hair tickling my neck, and said she’ll be back around two in the afternoon if that was all right with me, or meet me someplace if that was better. I said she could come back only if she brought some sweet, juicy fruit.

Just after she left, I realized I could have walked out with her since I needed to go to Boston Blacky’s for a thermos of the good stuff.

And then I was glad I didn’t. There was something in the privacy of that ritual I cherished, and it wasn’t selfish. It was as if the alchemy of poetry began even in my preparations. I walked to Blacky’s in a suddenly altered state. The kind of state it usually requires good drugs to attain. There was a buzz in the trees; the sun was dripping gold. “Hot Damn!” I said aloud as I entered in the coffee house, turning a few heads, and then said it again as I left just for the symmetry of it all. I played my invisible game walking back home with my full thermos, and also tried not to let my feet touch the pavement. I opened my one window wide when I got in, cleaned my beautiful, cobalt blue ceramic ashtray, and took the next three hours firmly by the horns:

146

THREE OF HEARTS

With the caterpillars and golden ants alive across the trees with morning, the white sun rains among the nectar and the green.

The caterpillars, climbing silver leaves, sugared with sun, sing to the owls and sleeping bats as the moon forgets, and the green sun scatters in the scarlet leaves.

And waking late, we will wait with our coffee by the high white window, the bowls of fruit untouched, and the cats on the stone floor at our feet will have curled away to sleep, and we will not question the spreading of the day, nor the long folding of our silence.

And as time seems a circle we will watch the half moon fall like a long stone slowly past the window as it pales, the one sun full above us, our coffee forgotten, with the candles, and the high white bed: And hardly have we known ourselves, yet I cling to you like a sure stone path run wild among cathedrals of birds.

“Two by the Window,” I’ll call it.

“You cling to me like a sure stone path run wild among cathedrals of birds?” she says, standing next to my table, the poem in her hand.

“I sure do, baby!”

“And we watch the half moon fall like a long stone slowly past the window as it pales?”

147

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN “That too.”

“And we have cats?”

“Two, I believe.”

“And stone floors, and a high white window and a high white bed?”

“We do.”

“And there’re caterpillars out there climbing silver leaves sugared with sun?”

“I believe there are, Gretchen. How was your day?”

“It was sunny and good… apparently not as good as yours, but I brought us peaches and plums. Is that all right?”

I say of course, and put my arms around her and my head on her shoulder and breathe in her essence and thank my stars, all of which are lucky, and cling to her like a sure stone path run wild among cathedrals of birds.

At five in the afternoon a thunderstorm sweeps across the city as we’re walking from my place to hers. We’ve blocks to go still, and try to walk calmly in the warm downpour as if there were no reason to hurry, let alone run, which, of course, there isn’t. We find it difficult but eventually manage, and at that point our walk becomes our metaphor for life as we know it.

“You see!” she says, rain streaming down her face. “These could be tears, but they’re not. There isn’t any problem at all!”

5) WEDNESDAY Eye much improved. G. calls L’Etoile and says (daringly) that she’ll be ready for work Saturday night. Writing at night will be fine. I’ll be waiting for her at bar after work, brimming.

It’s a bright, sunny, clean day after last night’s storm, but after G. and I go out for breakfast, we return to bed and talk and play the day away. It seems a day of taking stock, tucking in, reviewing, repeating things proven to make us happy. We also note that the week’s honeymoon will be ending soon. We do not ask each other when we’ll have another week like this together, but we both think of it, which adds a bittersweet flavor to our day. We

148

THREE OF HEARTS cook dinner at her house with roommates Lorna and Stephie, both of whom seem to be trying to impress me. I’m flattered beyond expectation, and Gretchen seems proud. Just before we eat, another thunder storm rolls through. The power goes out just in time for a candlelit dinner, but then, as if prearranged, comes on afterwards, so Gretchen and I can retreat to her room where we watch “Groundhog Day,” which leaves us sobbing for joy.

Then we go for a walk in the cool, twice washed city, and then back to her house for early bed. We whisper under the sheets that smell like a spice bazaar. The alarm is set for 7:00 AM. We’ll pick up our rental car at 8:00 to head south to Chicago. We’re like butterflies again, and fall asleep with fingertips lightly on each other’s lips.

6) THURSDAY The plan is simple. A leisurely ride to the city, an early lunch downtown at the Berghoff on Adams Street, then a few steps over for a day at the Art Institute; then afterwards, maybe some time on a bench in Grant Park, or on the grass next to Buckingham Fountain, or walk over to the lakeshore. No money for a hotel overnight, though we’d like to. When Gretchen’s designing gardens that make people fall in love, that’s when we’ll stay at the Drake, we decide, or when I win the lottery.

Gretchen had never been to the Berghoff, that German Restaurant so firmly rooted in downtown Chicago that the Federal government itself had to change his plans for an ominous glass and steel tower because the Berghoff refused to move. It’s hard to say just what it is about that wonderful place: the food’s good (but not great); the beer and root beer are good (but not great); the waiters are businesslike, if not a little aloof; atmosphere’s bumping and bustling, the décor’s tasteful and well worn, but somehow all that, along with its location and its big city clientele make it an irresistible, unforgettable place, an institution, and the perfect place to introduce to a friend, and particularly when newly in love.

We eat wienerschnitzel and drink draft root beer, so as not to be fuzzy headed for the art.

149

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN Having been born and raised in a northern suburb of Chicago, the Art Institute was familiar territory for me. Gretchen too, had visited there frequently with her professorial parents; they eagerly drove from Iowa. In my case, it was I who had to prod my good natured but semi-intelligent mother to take me downtown before I myself became train and bus-worthy.

As in Wisconsin, storms had passed through northern Illinois the night before and had left this late August day clear and cool. We were beaming to such a degree when we arrived at the museum after lunch that we decided to sit on the steps for a while.

We feel too radiant to go indoors again, so we watch the Michigan Avenue traffic and the people crossing over. For protection, we sat close to the northernmost of the two majestic bronze lions that stand as sentries at either side of the building’s broad steps. But as we’d noticed in the restaurant, many people in Chicago, particularly women, look outlandish, absurd, as if they’re dressed as clowns or made-up for a costume party. This, the view of clear sighted Madisonians, mind you, not country bumpkins—Madison being, among other things (besides the Berkeley of, and the Cambridge of), the Athens of the Midwest. So we watched in amusement, Gretchen and I, as quite ordinary people paraded by, many of whom had gone to great lengths to make themselves look extraordinarily foolish. Then we went inside, and once in the presence of great art, felt ashamed of ourselves for being so petty outside on the steps.

It was the big El Greco that first quieted us down. His “Assumption of the Virgin,” a towering 13 feet tall and 7 feet wide, with the Virgin, draped in silver blue and deep red, rising to heaven, above and away from those of us standing below; rising on a crescent moon through the clouds with angels about her and apostles and saints beneath. “Goddess Ascending,” Gretchen prefers to call her, and far be it from me to argue with that. Then a grand Tiepolo quiets us further still. It’s another painting with floating figures: this time it’s an enchantress dressed in gold with breasts bared, and who’s successfully seducing a sixteenth century crusader from his mission. Painted in the mid-eighteenth century in creamy pastels with draperies floating like the clouds that carry the enchantress, it enchants us by its buoyant presence in that room.

150

THREE OF HEARTS “Another Goddess?” I ask.

“All women are Goddesses.”

Again, I don’t disagree, It’s the Art Institute’s great Manfredi that shuts us up completely, though. It is called “Cupid Chastised.” The artist is Bartolomeo Manfredi, and the astonishingly dramatic painting was created between 1605 and 1610. The contrast between light and dark in the painting is extreme. In it, Mars, in a red robe, belted at the waist, whips a naked, winged cupid, portrayed as a fairskinned, tender youth whose quiver and broken arrows lay beneath him and his powerful white wings. Venus, in white and dark green with a dark green floating sash, looks at Mars imploringly and extends a hand in protest. To upper right, two grey and white doves exit the picture plane. It is early 17th century photo-realism.

The people are shockingly alive, their movements frozen midframe, creating a composition explosively active, yet in stately, harmonious equilibrium. Other than subtle skin tones, it is only the red of Mars’s robe, the white and green of Venus’s, and the delicate blue sash circling the fallen Cupid’s chest that account for the full range of color against the dark background. It looks like something out of Beethoven made visible. It’s too real for our world. It’s flesh, flowing garments and the passion of the gods whipped into action. We feel changed by it. We want to take it home.

“We don’t need to see anything else, do we?” Gretchen says.

“No, but don’t you want to know the story?” I say. And then I read it to her: “In ‘Cupid Chastised,’ Mars beats Cupid for having caused his affair with Venus, which exposed him to the derision of the other Gods.”

“Mars is a fool,” Gretchen replies.

And I’m certainly not going to reply to that.

Though the Manfredi is the last painting we need to see that day, we go on and see others. We see Renoir’s beautiful little circus girls—unlikely acrobats with orange balls—too pretty, too soft, to inhabit anything but a Renoir painting. Then we see Cezanne’s “Basket of Apples,” a quintessential still life composed like a classical quartet. Then we see Van Gogh’s face as he saw it

151

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN in 1887: surrounded by dots, sparks, really, of reds and greens, the same sparks that coalesce into blazing stars in his “Starry Night.”

Then we go see the big De Kooning and the big Pollack, and the great airborne Calder that rings like a trolley car. But it’s enough. The frozen music, the snap of Mars’ whip, the glistening god-skin in the Manfredi was enough, and soon we’re back out on the steps looking at the world with compassion appropriate to its diversity.

“So that’s what you want your gardens and terraces and hillsides to do?” I ask. “Change people?”

“Exactly,” she answers. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

We don’t sit on a bench in Grant park then, or sit on the grass next to Buckingham Fountain. We do walk over to the lake, though.

Because after great art, we figure, how can you go wrong with a Great Lake?

We walk by the lake for a long time, and then sit by it, and them walk back downtown to get our car from the Grant Park underground garage. By the time we drive the two and a half hours back to Madison and arrive at Gretchen’s house we’re famished.

But there’s not much there, so we make do with fettuccine with olive oil and parmesan cheese. We drink Sprite. I myself prefer and full bodied Cola with pasta, but Gretchen says she always prefers white on white—and that’s all there was, anyway.

7) FRIDAY Friday morning G’s eye seems just about fine—just a pale hint of purple. She checks its presentability by dabbing with a bit of make-up. Should easily pass dimly lit restaurant test tomorrow evening, perhaps even unretouched. Her dinner with old roommate formerly planned for last Saturday night has been rescheduled for lunch today.

“I’m not sure if I’ll write anything or not,” I say. “I may just wander around the city being grateful,” at which she gives me a come-hither look and then a long, silent, full body hug.

“So I say certain things that automatically elicit specific reactions from you?” I ask. “Is that the way it works today?”

152

THREE OF HEARTS “That’s the way it works every day, silly. Now do you want to walk me downtown or stay here for a while by yourself? You could climb right back in bed and snooze for a while or go through all my drawers, if you like.”

“Can I really?”

“Um hm. And you know, that actually makes me kind of hot,” she says, “the thought of you going through all my things.”

“Then by all means. That’s what I’ll do.”

“So…” she says. “I say certain things that automatically elicit specific reactions from you. That’s the way it works, right?”

She’s laughing as she goes out her door, saying she’ll leave me here to decide for myself. I immediately climb back in bed and bury my face on her pillow, where I soon fall very happily back asleep. I figure I’ll go through her drawers when I get up.

But when I wake an hour later I’m afraid again, and remain so for most of that day. My swatter is too small to keep dark visions of the future away from me, and they not only alight but sting, repeatedly. I am curled in Gretchen’s fragrant bed, a bed of cinnamon and roses, thinking of every way I’ll be expelled from it, turned out; of how our lives had touched for only as long as pure happiness can last in a world peopled by imperfect individuals such as ourselves. I decide to wait there until she returns so as to be comforted by her, reassured, reminded of what power I do have.

But that would hardly be the point, would it? So after brooding a while longer, I leave her room and underwear drawer behind, determined to grapple with this on my own. The sky is clouded over today, the air close, which seems designed to match my mood.

I walk to the square, hoping, despite my resolve, that I’ll see Gretchen and her friend coming or going if they’d chosen to lunch at L’Etoile. Everything that passes through my mind via my clenched solar plexus reflects the same irresolution. I am seeking detachment yet at every turn trying to avoid it. I am seeking detachment in order to assure my continuing bonded security. And the more I swat and thrash, the more deeply I’m stung.

It’s at this point when I begin to wonder who Gretchen’s really meeting that I regain a bit of balance. I’m able to turn that image away, and wonder if that’s progress enough, but up pops another in its place: the image of me, here, one month hence, on a

153

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN bench on the square, homeless and thereby loveless—and this image returns to me relentlessly.

Then I remember someone once told me that peace takes constant effort to maintain, while chaos maintains itself. Yet soon after such an objective thought, I immediately constrict. Chaos maintains itself. A train of somber, lonely images parades through my mind via my solar plexus.

When the time comes that I imagine Gretchen will be returning home, I restrain myself from calling her. It’s my intent to get through the afternoon on my own. Maybe, I think, if I simply let myself free-fall though every dark image of jealousy, heartbreak and loneliness I can conjure up, I’ll come out cleansed at the end of it all; but by the time I’ve circled the same block nearly a dozen times, I’m just as miserable as when I began. Wasn’t there something about my doubtless dying being dead and dumb? Huh? I wonder if all romantic poets are all liars.

It’s seven that evening when, exhausted, I knock on Gretchen’s door. Lorna tells me she’s not there, that she went to try to find me at my house. I ask if Gretchen had tried calling me, and Lorna clouds up a little when she says she thinks so. So I head for my house—but no, head does not convey how I went. I forged my way, upstream, trailing a wake of calamitous images behind me. I strode, eyes narrowed ahead, distraught at the state I’d sunk to, yet powerless, or more aptly, having relinquished all power to the chaos that was maintaining itself very well, thank you.

A block before I arrived at my house, I stopped and put my arms around the cool green pole that supported the stoplight at the corner. I did this for no reason I could understand, and didn’t even think that I might be observed. The pole was so reassuringly permanent, unmovable, and by means of its unmistakably red light, it spoke. It said: STOP! And I felt such joy in the feel of that staunchly upright steel pole against my body. But I didn’t think a thing. I knew it said STOP! but didn’t try to apply that principle to the darkness of my cascading emotions. I simply held on to the good steel pole for dear life. And I didn’t let go for a while: my eyes were closed but I heard and felt the buzz and click of the lights changing more than once, my left ear pressed against the pole. When I opened my eyes and let go no one was around, no people, no cars, but the light was red again. I waited patiently, and

154

THREE OF HEARTS once it changed, I walked across the street feeling as if I’d been released from prison; not for good behavior, but by virtue of a pardon—but by whom or by what I did not know. I supposed it must have been the green pole.

As soon as my house came into view, I saw Gretchen sitting on the stoop reading a book. She smiled then she saw me and asked where I’d been. I told her it was a long story that I’d tell her a little later after she showed me the book. She said she’d just bought it. It was a book of Italian Baroque Painting, and it included a print of “Cupid Chastised” by Bartolomeo Manfredi, and she was looking at it when I walked up. And there it was, super-real as ever, even on the page. When I told her what I’d been going through that day, she said that after lunch she’d gone off for a walk by herself to try to grapple with some of the same things, and that she’d had a hard time of it, too, but had calmed down considerably after she’d bought the book and had a chance to look at the paintings. Then we sat together on the steps then and went through it page by page. When we finished we went upstairs and sat leaning back against the headboard of my bed and tried to sort out the day. We made some progress at that, but when we couldn’t get much further, she told me she once read that the less evolved parts of ourselves have a right to exist and should be treated lovingly. I asked her where she read it, and she said, “In a self-help book.”

Which made sense, because it helped. § And today is Saturday, my second one with Gretchen, but the first one on which she’s not wearing sunglasses, despite the brightness of the day. Like so many other Madisonians, we rise early and go to the Farmers’ Market on the square. Being late August, it’s particularly busy there. In three weeks it will be September 15th, the day my year’s lease on my room expires. We don’t mention that. As we’re buying green beans and apples, we’re speaking about the evening: “So it doesn’t bother you now? You’re not tense because you have to go to work?”

155

SEVEN DAYS WITH GRETCHEN “No, lamebrain, I’m not. Not everyone’s work-phobic. I don’t mind at all. It’s a great job. It’s the best restaurant in the city, and everyone that works there is professional, and sweet, too.

I’m a lucky woman. I might even like to keep a shift there when I have a real job, just to be with Odessa.”

Humbled, I ask her if she wants a cantaloupe. She says she does but doesn’t want to lug it around. I volunteer. She takes my hand.

“You know what?” she asks.

“No.” I say, at which she puts her hands on my shoulders and kisses me—right there in front of the melon stall. I’m mildly embarrassed.

“That’s what,” she says.

“I thought so,” I say. I lift her glasses. “Your eye looks fine, even in this bright light.” Then I pick up a cantaloupe and sniff it, press the top, and buy it from the indulgent proprietress.

Six ears of sweet corn have been added to the bag I’m carrying with a dozen early apples, a jar of honey and the cantaloupe already in it. We’re almost all the way around the square, when Gretchen decides we absolutely must have chocolate croissants. I tell her filled croissants are not my favorites, but she insists I try these. We buy the last two chocolate croissants they have, and Gretchen goes on and on about how lucky we are. And after nibbling mine, I have to admit to her they really are very good, and as we’re buying some coffee to go with them, I tell her that she’s also right about being lucky.

“What would have happened if they’d already been sold out?” I ask her. “Since you like them so much?”

“It would have been a very, very bad situation,” she answers, laughing. And I can’t see any reason not to agree.

156

THREE OF HEARTS

TWO BY THE WINDOW

I’d just reminded Miranda that as with our bouquets of flowers both “Picked from God’s Garden,” we’d each been carrying flowers in our separate, self-induced past life readings (or imaginings) twentyfive years earlier. The more we thought of it, the more astonished we became. The astonishment lasted for blocks as we walked back to my house and only deepened the meaning of everything else happening to us.

I’d already looked to my Butterman Within for approval of my startling new scheme: the founding a school of a sort yet undetermined, ideally with the help of a woman I hadn’t seen in nearly twenty-five years, and whom I felt might have all these years been my true partner, or even my “soul-mate.” After all, we’d already agreed with the words of the unknown poet. We believed that: “The long hunt in the sun for the jewel hidden in the leaves, (which is also your heart), will not have led you here until I find my heart as well.”

And all this, mind you, clearly not the thinking of the sixtyyear-old Past President of the American Metaphysical Society, at least not before his startling reprieve from death. No, to the former

157

TWO BY THE WINDOW sixty-year-old Past President of the American Metaphysical society, this scheme, particularly the partnership proposition, would seem senselessly romantic: a worldly task for a retiring man and a proposition reliant on personal love in an individual who’d spent years striving for the universal. But to Butterman, a sleek figure despite his name, things looked different. This scheme seemed not only hopeful, but precisely what was needed to evolve beyond that state of Past Presidency.

“What a strange house!” Miranda said, as I ushered her into the empty but swept and polished downstairs. “What a bizarre place. What’s the matter here, Horace?”

I didn’t answer at first because I was laughing. Then I told her to keep looking. So she poked around for a moment or two, looked into the kitchen, looked at me with a perplexed and slightly sour expression, and then climbed to the second floor, which, beyond the contents of the bathroom, didn’t have a moveable thing in it. Miranda gave me a more severe slantwise look before climbing up to the third floor. When she arrived, she stood at the top of the stairs, looked into my richly furnished room, back at me a few steps beneath her, and said, alarmed: “Horace? Have you been living in your higher principles alone?”

“I should think that would be obvious,” I said. “My house is a metaphor for my life. Convenient, isn’t it?”

“But…” she said, shaking her head. “But what does your Butterman think of all this? This preposterous imbalance. How can he live here?”

“Sit down. Please,” I said, offering her a spot on the soft leather couch. “Those lovely time-traveling flowers of ours are going to need some water. I’m going to go back downstairs and put them in a vase, or maybe two. We can talk about Butterman and my higher principles when I get back.”

Down in the kitchen, I combined the bouquets of red and orange and pink and white (the gardenias) in a large pale green vase, filled it with warm water and brought it back upstairs. I bounded upstairs with it, actually, something that I decided to do more of once I got in better shape and limbered up a bit. I limped into my room, put the vase down on a table near the couch and sat down next to Miranda who looked at me quizzically.

158

THREE OF HEARTS “Yes, I’m limping, and that’s precisely the point. Can you follow that reasoning?”

“No. I’m missing something.”

“I bounded up the stairs, Miranda, like a young buck. The point is that I’m feeling a compelling, irresistible impulse to change, to rejuvenate, but to let that go unchecked would be not only irresponsible of me but potentially dangerous...”

“Now wait,” Miranda said. “You’ve come up with this since we left the Farmers’ Market? Since we talked about your esoteric school? You’ve chosen to harness your enthusiasm?”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

“I respect that, Horace, but I hope your new alter ego won’t get suffocated by… by that stodgy old busybody.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. What I’m more concerned about is losing what’s valuable about that solitary, selfless, old busybody Butterman’s come to rescue from irrelevance.”

While Miranda was at a loss for words, I began to laugh. It was silent at first, more of a quaking, really, and it never progressed beyond a closed-mouthed chuckle before Lois appeared at the top of the stairs. She walked directly toward us, jumped up on the couch next to Miranda, and began to purr.

“Lois,” I said, by way of explanation. “With me for the last fifteen years. The love of my life, and the only female in it. I’d rather know her mind than travel to the stars. The longer I’m with her the less I understand.”

“Understand? She purrs, what’s to understand? She’s radiantly in love.” Miranda read my expression. “With anything that makes her happy.”

“I’ve been thinking about her a lot recently but I never thought of that.”

“That’s because you’ve been living in your higher principles, old man. And why were you laughing just now?”

“I can’t really say. Isn’t that progress?”

Miranda gave me a look, petted Lois, and then got up and walked around my room. She looked at the dramatic prints on my walls, the Caravaggio, the La Tour, and the Manfredi; she looked at my piano and the Bach two part invention on it; she examined my telescope; she perused my bookcases and my collection of records and CD’s; and she absorbed the views out both my

159

TWO BY THE WINDOW windows. Her walk ended at the back window, where she sat in the desk chair that looked out over the garden.

“So, Horace,” she said. “I have a philosophical question for you. A metaphysical question, really. Are you still equipped to answer a metaphysical question?”

Lois had followed her over to the chair and jumped up on her lap. I gave Miranda a dubious look.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll take that as a yes. Here’s the question: what do you think it was that snatched you from the clutches of death? Do you think it was your own ‘all knowing soul’ that led you into an astrological miscalculation in order to give you a fresh outlook on life? Or was it an outside agency that acted ‘spontaneously’ or ‘impetuously’ as you explained to me when we were looking at the mushrooms, something that involved a ‘relationship’ and aesthetic ‘beauty’ or ‘lavishness?’”

“You’re thinking you were secretly involved?”

Miranda laughed. “You wicked man! Yes, it did cross my mind.”

“It crossed mine, too. But that wasn’t precisely the question, was it?”

She smiled enigmatically. Then she patted Lois who was cradled on her shoulder now and who seemed intrigued with her copper-red hair. The cat reached toward it tentatively with her white, left front paw. It had been years since anyone had asked me a question like that—but hadn’t replying to thought provoking questions once been my vocation? I was the Past President of The Metaphysical Society, wasn’t I? “If you really want to know,” I said, looking at Miranda suspiciously, “I think the answer to what snatched me from the clutches of death is four-fold... But I want to be certain you’re not making fun of me.”

“No, Horace,” she said. “Not now. I’m serious. I want your studied opinion.”

I wasn’t entirely reassured, but her look drew me in.

“First of all,” I said, feeling like I was beginning a lecture (which I was), “I can see how it was my own all knowing soul, as you put it, guiding me through my life, or through this incarnation, if you’re so inclined. After all, if I have a brain that can regulate the complex functions of my body without my even having to try

160

THREE OF HEARTS and without my being aware of it in any way, just think what an eternal soul can do with the direction of my life. The story goes that the soul chooses the time, the circumstances, the parents—so why not a calculated error to bring me to my senses, to bring out the best in me? Right?”

I paused. She was still listening. “And second,” I said, “it does appear that everything that happens to any of us results from an interplay of forces, and many of those forces lay claim to their own individuality, just as I do; and insofar as I am an individual, then so are Saturn and Mars and Venus and Lois and you and innumerable others that may act in relationship to each other and also display qualities like impetuosity and aesthetic beauty, and so forth and so on. Saturn and Mars and Venus are just bigger beings than we are; they live in a different world of time and we can’t see them for what they actually are any more than we can what electrons are in their reality. But they’re individuals too, okay?

Not to mention the 300,000 that live in Madison, and the nearly seven billion in the world, any of whom might have saved my life.

That’s the second possibility—your outside agency.

“The third possible reason then, and this one might encompasses them both, is the worn out old truism: All is One. But I believe All most definitely is One, which in this case would mean that my all knowing soul along with these outside agencies are parts of one greater being; that they work cooperatively and interdependently like the biology of our own bodies. So there’s nothing more remarkable about Saturn affecting me than my arteries and veins actually containing the blood that flows through them, just as there’s nothing more remarkable in hearing about both of us buying ‘flowers picked from God’s own garden’ than noticing that the petals of a rare, prizewinning orchid have both top and bottom sides. How’s that?”

Here I paused again, somewhat pleased with myself, and Miranda still seemed interested, so I went on. “Now, the fourth answer, the corker, I’d say, is the metaphysical one, and encompasses and obliterates the others entirely, because it really isn’t an answer. And that’s just the point, because both this stodgy old busybody and Butterman believe that the mysteries of life, or the mysteries of reality, or of God, or whatever you name it, are not subject of questions and answers. Questions and answers are a very

161

TWO BY THE WINDOW human business. ‘The name of God is unutterable; ‘Tao that is named is not Tao; ‘The mind is the great slayer of the real,’ right?

Every poet should know that. Answers and questions only pertain to a conditional reality, a slice, a compromise that doesn’t contain infinity within every twinkling of every eye, that doesn’t hold mystery at the heart of every circumstance, that doesn’t know infinity as the root of every word.

“But still,” I continued, since Miranda didn’t appear bored yet, “I think it’s a very generous cosmos we’ve got here because we’re free to pick and choose whichever of these standpoints we like, none is wrong, some may be more inclusive than others but…”

“But?” Miranda asked.

“But they may all dissolve in the face of love.”

Miranda smiled at Lois, petted her as if to say she understood what it must be like to live with me, and then smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said. “And thank you for tacking that bit about love on at the end. That was quite comprehensive, but I have to tell you, Horace, that as a human, I’m attracted to answer number two: the outside agency explanation of your reprieve from death.

The first one—that we ourselves or our souls plan our incarnations—seems like a fairy tale, a pretty one but the kind of fairy tale that can mislead gullible humans. And number three— that All is One—seems true and lovely but remote, hard to apply, not user friendly at all; and fourth one, that the truth exists on a plane beyond questions and answers, well, let me tell you, that may be the bee’s knees and ant’s pants for beings without knees or pants, it may be the $64,000 answer for entities without physical brains or physical anything elses, but not quite me, not today. Don’t misunderstand me. I do have my more and less material moods.

But more to the point, let me ask you something else. Did a bomb go off near you on or about the day you expected to die? Or did someone drop a piano or an anvil from a fourth story window just after you walked past? Was there a near miss of some sort?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” I answered. “Though I am isolated.

Of course, Aunt Lydia did die. Maybe there was some connection there. But I didn’t almost fall down a flight of stairs, if that’s what you mean, and there were no meteor strikes or showers of space debris as far as I know. But I don’t watch television news or read newspapers.”

162

THREE OF HEARTS Miranda gently removed Lois from her shoulder and placed her on the floor, handling that Lois accepted as if it were routine.

“It’s a beautiful garden you have out there,” looking out, standing now. “You say you have a servant pull weeds for you?”

“Stop that,” I say. “I told you, I hire someone who loves to do it, and she does more than pull weeds.”

“Oh, really? And I’m sure she does it very well, too.

Which sounds just fine for a handsome, retiring gentleman such as yourself. How old is she, Horace? Is she beautiful?”

“As a matter of fact, she’d both young and beautiful. And an excellent gardener.”

Miranda looked at me consolingly. “Well, I can’t picture you down in the dirt in any case. But tell me—seriously—do you think there’s a chance I may be the individual force that saved you from the grave? My influence, I mean?”

I laugh again, and for a little longer than either of us expect.

“You may be,” I answer. “You sound like you’d like to be. And it’s true we have a relationship, and I can’t think of any other I have, as I said, except with Lois, and you are beautiful, and you have created aesthetic beauty, and you’re also spontaneous—so that covers some of the bases. But I don’t see where the impetuosity or lavishness comes into play; it’s pushing it to say that describes you or our relationship. But more important, the only contact we had was that one phone call, and I had the impression that whatever it was was immediate, or proximate… but I may be reading this wrong again.”

Now Miranda laughs. “I’m teasing, Horace, but just a little bit—I’m not convinced either way,” she says, walking over to the couch. “But I think we can say that whatever saved your life was something very good. Maybe it was something beautiful, maybe something impetuous, maybe spontaneous, maybe lavish, but above all, and definitely good, very good.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I say. “I agree.”

But now something changes. What seems a different Miranda comes over and sits herself down on the couch next to me.

The tease has left the room. This is a deeply thoughtful woman.

I look at her quizzically.

“Something’s been percolating in me for a little while now, Horace,” she says, sounding a little regretful. “You know how you

163

TWO BY THE WINDOW can ruminate on something without realizing it?” I nod, but have no idea what she’s getting at.

“I’m not going to be able to stay with you in Madison” she says. “I have to keep moving for now. You see, I didn’t expect to find the new you, so I don’t know what else might be in store for me in the weeks ahead. I also want to give you time to enjoy your newly emerging self before letting my own newly emerging self get entwined with it, if that’s ever going to happen.” A hint of a smile now appears on her face. “If you’re disappointed, I understand, because I am, too—quite sharply. But I think if we’re both disappointed, the disappointments should cancel each other out. I don’t need to tell you my feelings for you, because I believe they match your own, all right? But I think it’s good that I have this trip planned, if for no other reason but to test me, and us. I like to live in my higher principles, too, Horace.”

“You mean that poets don’t have to live by the same rules as other mortals? I think I understand that now. So you say this is cancelled out?” I say, pointing to the aching place in the pit of my stomach.

Now she takes my hands in hers and smiles. The skylight is directly above the couch where we’re sitting and the sun is beaming down on her, adding a dazzle to the little scene. “I hope so,” she says. “We should probably agree to it. We’re big people now. At least I am. I don’t know about… Batman... But we can do that, can’t we? For ourselves and for each other? Come what may?”

I agreed, but I told her that I was very sad. Looking surprised, she told me that twenty-five years ago, when I was obviously upset when she left, I hadn’t had the courage or selfawareness to say it; and now that I’d finally come out with it, it sounded a bit… improbable?

But I insisted that was only because I usually don’t express myself that way; and she said she knew that and she was teasing again, and we spent the rest of the day together: she, looking at my books; me, listening to her recite some poems; and then together talking about the poem by the unknown author, whose first name, Felix, she then remembered, and how with that information she planned to contact the UW writing department to see if she could track down some more of his work.

164

THREE OF HEARTS And then we talked about a school for me to found, about how there would be no tuition and how I’d find my students. And we talked about the nature of experience, about that song from GiGi—which she recalled had been written by Lerner and Loewe—and the two of us laughed more in an afternoon than we may have in all our months together in 1978. I told her about my elevator operator fantasy; and she told me about her more feasible ballroom dancing instructor hopes. She told me she regretted not having her hot little Italian convertible anymore, and when I told her she still had her hot red hair, she batted her eyelashes. But eventually the afternoon passed away, and Miranda had promised to be back at Jane’s for dinner. She invited me to come along, but feeling more pensive than convivial, I declined her invitation. We sat silently, side by side on the couch for a while then, reminding me of that day twenty four years earlier in that quite suburban park.

“You know,” she said, as I walked her out to her car, “we should each allow ourselves fifteen minutes a day to be sad about our separation, but not to let it cloud our wonderful lives, or our love of the mystery we each hold so dearly in our sacred hearts...

You remember that too, don’t you?” she asked. “The sanctity of what we do not know?”

All I could do was nod, at which she kissed me gently on the lips and went off to her car. When I got back upstairs, I was happy to notice she’d forgotten to separate out her doubly blessed flowers.

That night I dreamed I was sitting in the State Street café with Miranda next to the bright, high window. But it was not a window to the street as it was in the waking world, but a window to our lives. There was a half moon above us. And we sat together there, the two of us, in awed silence, our cups gone cold, and the fruit platter on the table between us untouched as we watched the moon sink in the daytime sky like a stone, and with it our past, sinking away as we clung to each other, familiar yet unforeseen, welcome yet bewildering, but wholly and uniquely our own.

165

THE BATTLEFIELD

THE BATTLEFIELD

Jack had a little trouble finding the bakery where Jolene could get her chocolate filled croissants. When we did get there, Jolene asked if I wanted to come in, and when I said no, she didn’t argue with me like she might have, because she knew I wouldn’t budge.

And then I said, no, I didn’t want a chocolate croissant, either.

Jack went into the Bakery with Jolene, and I’m pretty sure he did that so he wouldn’t have to sit in the car with me, and I’m pretty sure they talked about me in there, too.

When Jolene came out she had a bag full of something and three cups of coffee. She said she thought I might like to have some coffee, and that if I didn’t I could just let it sit in the cup holder covered up like it was, because maybe later I might change my mind or she or Jack might want it. She said it smelled like good coffee. She also said that she bought a dozen filled croissants, six chocolate, three raspberry, and three apple, and that I was welcome to any I wanted. She said that she wouldn’t be able to get all those at the Farmers’ Market, so wasn’t it good we came

166

THREE OF HEARTS here? But what was she, crazy? Didn’t I already tell her I didn’t want one?

I went and opened my coffee though, but just as I was doing that, some stupid fool ran into our car from behind. We’d just pulled out of our parking place, and I spilled the hot coffee all over my shoes and scalded part of one leg, which started me in cursing.

Jolene was near hysterical. “Are you okay, Bernie? Are you okay?” she kept saying. “Are you okay, Bernie? Are you okay?” while at the same time Jack was saying: “Calm down, Bernie. Calm down.” They didn’t get spilled on themselves, but I was okay and just wanted them to shut up and leave me alone.

It was a woman who ran into us, somewhere around Jolene’s age, maybe a little older; she wasn’t going very fast but her front bumper was crumpled and the taillight and right rear corner on Jack’s car was damaged so that something made a scraping sound when we moved it. I heard her talking to Jack outside. She said she was sorry, that she hadn’t been paying attention and had tried to stop. When Jack told her about the scraping, she sounded like she was ready to cry. He took a look at it though, and said that a little pop with a crowbar might do the trick until we got back to Chicago. Then I heard them talking about insurance and calling the police and a tow truck. I did everything I could to avoid looking at this lady because I could hear the trouble in her voice. Jolene, meanwhile, was fussing over my leg, which was about the last thing I wanted to have done to me. I was angry, not because of the hot coffee spilled on me, but because none of this would have happened if Jolene wasn’t so greedy about getting her sweet roll, and because I was worried this delay would keep me from getting to Marshall Fields Men’s Store before it closed!

And then it took time for the police to get there, and then there was a lot of jabbering about what happened, and meanwhile the tow truck got there and had to just sit and wait. When the police finally left, the woman who hit us offered to drive us to the garage where Jack’s car was being taken by the tow truck, and that’s when I got a look at her face, and her eyes. I could tell right away that a lot of other things weren’t right in her life, that she was holding back her sobs, and that maybe being helpful to us made it a

167

THE BATTLEFIELD little easier to do that. But it wasn’t making it any easier for me!

And then I sobbed. Suddenly. And twice, like a baby.

It must have seemed that I sobbed for no reason to Jolene and Jack, and also Freda, which was the woman’s name, so Jolene and Jack started in with “What’s wrong, Bernie? What happened?

Are you all right?” and it was all I could do to stop myself from cursing at them and telling them to leave me alone, that I had enough problems with being slapped in the face with everyone else’s sadness, and that I didn’t need them meddling in my problems!

My sobbing must have distracted Freda, because her look cleared up a little when all the attention was focused on me. But I avoided her eyes. I was already sensing how she was despising herself for doing careless things, and maybe stupid or cowardly things she was blaming on herself. It was all mixed up. So just before she dropped us off the garage, I told her from the back seat how sorry I was. I don’t think she understood what I meant, but she looked at me in the same desperate and hopeful way that Mexican girl did when she called me her priest, which was probably the worst thing she could have done. Then when I got out of her car, she caught my eye again and she looked like she was about to ask me for something, but all I could do was turn away because I’m a weak man, maybe I’m an insane man, not prepared to carry the burden I’ve been given. So God damn this all, I want to say; God damn this all. And also that I’m sorry and I’m sick.

Then it took two-and-a-half hours to get back to Chicago.

Sometimes the mind can play tricks on a person, particularly when they’re upset and feel like they’re coming apart at the seams, and this time, something told me that if I asked Jack to drop me off downtown at Marshall Field’s while I still had my suitcase with me, he and Jolene would think something was funny. I was never going to see these people again and still I was worried what they might think! But it turned out that it didn’t make any difference at all, because it was already so late. It was a few minutes after five when we pulled up in front of the Horatio Hotel, which was where I had to say goodbye forever to my best friend without letting on that anything was wrong.

168

THREE OF HEARTS It was terrible. I could see that Jolene knew something was very wrong, but she tried and tried to talk to me on the ride back and I didn’t give her the time of day, so she gave up trying to get through, like I was a lost cause. I think she was angry. So I just said goodbye as naturally as I could. I knew that if I dropped my suitcase off in the lobby and walked as fast as I could, I could get to the store before five-thirty and maybe it would still be open.

And if anyone thinks I could have used the phone, they don’t know how much I wanted to find it open.

The way God or Nature works things out does make a little sense to me, I suppose, because just as I started to walk across the Loop, it started to rain. And the sobbing started again, too; the sobbing that begun in the car with that lady Freda, it started to shake me again across downtown Chicago in the rain. It was a chilly rain for August, and it was windy, too, so my shoulders were hunched up, which must have made my sobbing seem even worse for anyone looking at me. I didn’t know if people were; I wasn’t looking at them. My mind was playing tricks again, and I was remembering what it was like my last year in high school when I lived alone in the house with Mr. and Mrs. Severson, but the memory was gripping me so tight that I lost track of what I was doing and walked into the back of a man who was waiting to cross La Salle Street at a light.

It was the time when the Severson’s natural children were either run away or in the reformatory, and because of their disappointment, I guess, they tolerated me but didn’t have much to give me in the way of feelings. I was seventeen, maybe already eighteen. They didn’t talk together at the dinner table the way they did when their three kids were still in the house; and Mrs. Severson wasn’t cooking the same good things anymore, like her pot roast and Swedish meatballs and roast chicken with gravy—things that were so much better than I’d ever had in the Lutheran home.

Meals together had been very important to those parents, and even when their kids were disobeying them or being disrespectful, which one or another of them always was, the conversation at the table was always spirited because Mr. Severson believed in what he called “Dining Room Democracy,” and he never criticized anyone for saying what they thought, even if it was meant to antagonize him and tried to get him riled up—something that never

169

THE BATTLEFIELD succeeded. But I think maybe what broke the parents’ hearts so badly was that after giving their children that democratic kind of treatment, it didn’t look like they were going to end up being good citizens at all. And those kids were smart in school, and I never was. I wasn’t much for conversation. Those kids could have gone to college, something I never considered. So you can see how dreary it was at the dinner table. And I was thinking about one of those nights when I ran into the back of that man on La Salle Street.

It was so long ago and so gloomy in that dining room, and of course I can’t remember what we ate for dinner that night. It was the dessert I remember. It was pumpkin pie, something I’d never tasted before I lived at their house, and it was something I loved; it was my favorite dessert. Back when times were better, Mrs. Severson would fill a little custard cup with just the pumpkin filling in it, and then put whipped cream on top and give me a spoon. But that night when she brought the covered pie plate out from the ice box, she found that there were only two slices left where there had been three, and she asked me if I had taken one of the pieces when I got home from school, and I said I did. I probably had it with a glass of milk. And there I was, remembering about those two pieces of pumpkin pie, not even thinking that I’m going to buy a pistol to shoot myself in the mouth.

And it would have been all right to go without dessert that night; I knew I’d had my share of pie, but Mrs. Severson said she wanted me to have hers. And maybe the reason this came to me as I was rushing through the rain late that terrible afternoon is that when I looked in Mrs. Severson’s eyes, I saw how lonely she was without her own children to dote on. But it wasn’t just Mrs. Severson; it made me feel lonely that I was just a substitute, so I didn’t want her pie. She asked me if something was the matter and I said no, but Mr. Severson said that he thought he knew what was the matter, and he asked me if I would cut each pie slices into three equal pieces. I did what he said; the pieces were only slivers, though. Then he put two of them on each of our plates and asked me if I felt better about it that way. And I did, because he fixed it; he made it fair for everyone, no one got hurt, and that might have been the last time I felt happy about anything at that dining room table. And I know I

170

THREE OF HEARTS was thinking crazy that afternoon, but it seemed like that was the last time I was happy about anything.

And then the man I walked into turns around, angry, and says “Watch it buddy… you drunk?” But when he sees I’m sobbing, he moves back in front of me to be sure I don’t walk right out into traffic. But I’m just standing there and not going to do that, and he puts his hand on my shoulder and leans toward me. “Are you going to be all right, mister?” he says. “Can I help you?” But I see behind his mask, and see that he recognizes something in me, maybe his own sadness. And that’s when the light changed, and when I hurried away, because it wasn’t fair: I felt pity for him and I couldn’t bear it.

As I pushed off through that chilly Saturday rain, I’d already stopped thinking about how Mr. Severson had done something for me then that no one could do for me now—and that’s really how it seemed: I was pushing. I felt like I was in a dream I sometimes have where I’m trying to get home but no matter how far I go I don’t get any closer, which was a crazy thing to be feeling because I was walking east on Washington and Marshall Fields was only three blocks away now. Don’t ask me why I didn’t run. Now I know there wouldn’t have been any use in running, because when I got there, I looked at that big gray building and then I shut my eyes tight. There was nothing to see. I didn’t pull on the brass door handles. I didn’t pound on the glass.

Everything failed.

Everything I did. I was on the corner of Wabash and Washington in the rain, with nothing to do but walk back home. That’s when I sat down on the wet sidewalk and put my hands on my head. How had my life turned out the way it did?

I don’t like to talk about the next few minutes. I felt like I used to feel back at the Lutheran home, except that I wasn’t small; I was an old man, so I had no excuse. I got a ride back to my room in the back of a police patrol car. I lied to the policemen. I said I was mourning a terrible loss and that I’d be okay once I got home.

But what is a person supposed to do on a night when they wouldn’t even be alive if they had their way, if some pig of a person didn’t have to have her chocolate roll, when there’s nothing to do but wait till morning to call on the phone to see what’s open?

What’s a person supposed to do when they’re frightened like that—

171

THE BATTLEFIELD not of dying, or of going to the gun shop, or of pulling the trigger, but of having my mind changed, of having to live? I knew I couldn’t sleep yet. I was scared to jump out the window and get it over with, so I turned on the television.

At ten o’clock, I got in bed with all my clothes on. I thanked Abby for everything she’d done for me. And I thanked the Severson’s, and even the people at The Lutheran Home. The people at the hotel deserved some thanks too, but all the thanking started to seem cheap to me, so I started thinking of everything being gone, and still, and empty—not even blue like the stupid sky, but clear, forever, so there was nothing to touch me, nothing to even remember me. But thinking that scared me. Thinking that I might not have ever been alive scared me, so I guess I fell asleep scared. § The telephone woke me up the next morning. I knew it was either Jolene calling me or Peepers to find out when I was coming back to work. No one else ever called me, so there wasn’t any point in answering, but even on the last day of your life, it’s hard to ignore a telephone ringing. So I picked it up and said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” he said back to me, “is this Bernard who runs the elevators at the Randolph House Hotel?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Oscar Flores. Remember me? I worked in the kitchen until I got fired. You talked to me.”

I felt like I was looking at life from the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, and hearing that way, too. “Oscar?” I said.

“Yeah, this is Oscar, remember me? On my last shift there washing dishes you told me that you were a friend of Carl, the cook, and could talk to him about keeping my job. Can you still do that?

Do you remember me?”

It must be the way it feels to be in battle, with bullets whistling all around you and shells going off with rocks and dirt flying, when you don’t have time to think, when you don’t decide things: you either run, or you fight, or you drag a fallen buddy over to some shelter, or you curl up in a hole and hide your face and cry.

I never was on a battlefield. I’ve seen them in movies, though, and in the last ten days I’d been assaulted with enough fear and

172

THREE OF HEARTS desperation to destroy a life as sure as gunfire or a grenade, and then when Oscar asked me that question, I didn’t decide. I was too asleep or too crazy or too brave.

“Sure, Oscar,” I heard myself say. “I’ll talk to him,” And that’s when my future fell into place like a deck of cards slipping from someone’s hand and falling in a way I couldn’t change. And I felt like those cards and everything I knew got swirled and sucked up into a whirlpool that led right to me.

“And Oscar,” I said. “I’m very sorry about the loss of your brothers and sisters.”

There was a long silence on the phone. It felt like things were still swirling in on me. I was sitting in bed now, my back against the wall, my knees raised up under the white sheet with my clothes still on. My eyes were shut tight. The battle was over.

“How’d you find out about that?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you, Oscar,” I said. “I don’t know what to tell you about that, but I feel for you, and for what you’ve been through, and I’ll talk to Carl and see if I can get him to give you a second chance. I’ll do everything I can.”

After I said those things, I started to wake up and I talked with him for about ten more minutes. I felt like the words were already written out for me and I just said them. I talked about what he’d have to do, how he’d have to act, and what he’d have to say to Carl. I made him convince me he wanted another chance. I made him tell me some things about his life, about where he lived and who he lived with. He didn’t ask me again how I knew about his brothers and sisters.

Then I fell back asleep, and when I woke up, it was easier to be alive. There was finally a little bit of space around me. I was still frightened, but knew I had something worthwhile to do on Monday before I did anything else like killing myself.

After I watched the traffic outside my window for a while, my phone rang again, and this time I knew it was Jolene. I told her right away that Oscar had called me, and she listened without saying much when I told her about the conversation. Then she told me she was very happy for me. It really seemed like she understood a lot just then, and I though I didn’t tell her, I was thankful that she’d been so piggy about getting that chocolate croissant, because if she

173

THE BATTLEFIELD hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have been alive to answer Oscar’s call, and to get another chance for myself.

But then the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like I should also be thankful to whoever it was that bought the last chocolate croissants at the Farmers’ Market, because that was the person who made us go get hit by that woman’s car and not get back until so late; or maybe I should be thankful to the baker that morning who decided to make maybe three dozen instead of four dozen of those croissants; or that baker’s parents; or on and on, until I started to feel thankful for just about everything, and everything seemed connected in a way that was very good—something I wouldn’t have expected to feel that Sunday, still being scared of peoples’ lives opening up and showing me more than I could bear.

Then when I told Jolene I was coming in to the hotel to talk to Carl the next day, she reacted like it was Christmas morning and told me again how happy she was for me, and that she wouldn’t be in till eleven tomorrow, but if I stuck around she’d love to have some coffee with me.

I sat for a while then, still watching the traffic coming to rest and starting back up at the stoplights at my corner, and that made me feel lonely, like life had been going on without me, but better too, because I was back and there was finally some space around me; and then I decided that since I was hungry and didn’t have much in the fridge, I’d better go out for breakfast.

174

THREE OF HEARTS

LOVE DEFINED

One week has passed. It’s a Saturday again; Gretchen’s been working for a week. I am happy to report that with the passage of time and change in circumstances we are no less in love with each other than formerly, thought it is difficult to say precisely what that means. Is there a demarcation line between like and love? Between like very much and love? I don’t think so. We seem to reserve serious declarations of love for living things, for people, for animals. When I say I love Harp Lager, or Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream, or Mozart, or Cole Porter, I don’t mean to imply that that I’d switch any one of those for Gretchen on anything but a momentary basis.

Nor do I mean that if deprived of any of those four things, I’d be heartbroken in any enduring way (though with Mozart, I might.) Romantic love clearly differs from familial and Platonic love, but only in the sexual aspect. It’s possible to love, sacrifice and even suffer for a friend or a teacher as deeply as a parent or a sibling; thus it seems the only thing that differentiates one type of

175

LOVE DEFINED loving—or liking—from another is a good case of the hots. And since it’s possible to sustain a good case of the hots for someone you don’t know that well, someone you only like and for whom you’d never confess love (except under highly pitched circumstances), the obvious becomes clear: to love someone romantically simply means to have the hots for someone you like very, very, very much. Or maybe just very, very much. The number of very’s can vary. It all depends on one’s habits of self-expression.

The question that lingers, of course, is what happens when the hots cool down? Does the liking very much still constitute love?

In most cases, I think probably not, unless the cool down accompanies a companionable voyage into the depths of old age.

So I might have begun this chapter by announcing that with the passage of time and change in circumstance, Gretchen and I still have the hots for each other and continue to like each other very, very, very much. It all depends on one’s habits of self-expression.

(Unfortunately, in any discussion of love, some pretentious blow-hard is bound to cough up something about unconditional love. Unconditional? In my dictionary that means without conditions or limitations. Without limitations? Like a personality?

Like skin? I, for one, insist on remaining conditional as long as possible. I like having a skin and actually can’t imagine it otherwise.)

Gretchen and I leaned back on pillows and discussed the above matters at length when we woke this Saturday morning—only, however, after she asked me to tell her about how she slept.

“You mean how you slept with your eyes closed in a comfort that restores me?”

“What kind of comfort was that, Felix?”

“One that restores me, Gretchen.”

“That sounds good! And how did I wake?”

“Smiling? Still lost among the violets?”

“That’s right. And will you tell me about the violets?’

“The ones in your dream?”

“Yes, those.”

“You mean the ones ‘that will not forget you as you turn to me in a moment forever that never again in the palest of blues will be?’

176

THREE OF HEARTS “Oh, yes, yes. Tell me that again. What kind of moment is that, sweetheart? What kind?” “‘A moment forever that never again in the palest of blues will be?’

“That’s right, my good donkey. Now I’m ready to wake up.”

And this was becoming a morning routine.

For me, the week had been both invigorating and disconcerting.

Invigorating in that it offered new challenges—some of which I met—and disconcerting in that there weren’t enough stoplights with cool green poles to still my recurring panic.

On the first Saturday night that Gretchen worked, I stayed home and started to work on the poem, Listen for the flutter of the night moth’s wings, a strangely formal, rhyming little thing that lacks juice.

Listen for the flutter Of the night moth’s wings, The murmur of the multitude, The echo of the ancient days, The voices of eternity Will speak in secret ways.

The bounty of creation Will whisper as it sings, The shining of the evening star Will mingle in the morning light, Listen for the flutter Of the secrets of the night.

I tried to give it some juice by drinking three cold Harps between the first verse and the second, but it didn’t help much. I have no idea where this idea came from; I haven’t been thinking

177

LOVE DEFINED about the voices of eternity speaking in secret ways, though I imagine they do that. I’d been thinking about having five or six productive evenings per week—on those nights when Gretchen was at L’Etoile—while working on my project of not obsessing about the future. My exercise in “being here now,” however, was clearly more one of avoidance than awareness. Any taste of the eternal present and the freedom it entails eluded me. So maybe I was telling myself to listen for “The voices of eternity,” since the voices I was hearing regarding the future were typically temporal and apprehensive.

But there was still plenty of time for fun, and on Sunday, Gretchen and I rented a car and drove the seventy-five miles east to Milwaukee for a Brewers game at Miller Park. Among other things, this expenditure guaranteed the depletion of my funds by the September 15th deadline for my sheltered life. This may have unsettled me a little, but the game made up for it. Our seats were close to first base; the food, as usual, was excellent, and the Brewers actually won the game—and in an 11-9 come-from-behind walk-off slugfest. We didn’t get a foul ball, but beyond that, things couldn’t have been better.

By some quirk of fate, Gretchen, who grew up in Iowa, one of those unfortunate states not deemed worthy of a Major League baseball team, had become a Milwaukee Brewers fan. Not a Chicago Cubs fan, not a St. Louis Cardinals fan, not a Kansas City Royals fan, all teams also within a proximate distance of Iowa City, but Brewers fan—a rare anomaly outside the state of Wisconsin. It turned out that her father, the big hearted English professor, had attended a World Series game in St. Louis in 1982 when the Cardinals had played the Brewers, and had been so impressed, so totally won over by the two great players on the team, Paul Molitor and Robin Yount, that he had passed his love of the Brewers on to his family and nurtured that love by yearly trips to old County Stadium. The Brewers have not done well in recent years, so when Gretchen and I left that game on Sunday, both hoarse and elated, we agreed that the atypical game had been a mirror of our shining selves. Shortly after we got on I 94 back to Madison, however, we realized we were both too drunk to drive, and pulled off into a truck stop where we drank coffee for an hour. This, in turn, caused us to stop every twenty minutes on the remainder of the trip. It was after

178

THREE OF HEARTS our last pit stop, just east of Madison, that Gretchen glanced over while driving and, reading my expression or my thoughts or my aura or whatever, said, “Just keep focused, baby.”

There are few things that can raise the spirits of a dark haired thirty-seven-year-old male higher and more instantaneously than being called “baby” by a beautiful twenty-four-year-old blond woman with whom one is in love—particularly when the endearment is attached to an encouragement to sustain that love itself. Because it was true, I had drifted into a dire vision of my future homeless self, bereft of Gretchen, bereft of love. Her words moved me so that I leaned over and put my head on her lap, not meaning to distract her attention from the road, mind you, just for the sheer luxury of it.

“Can you drive like this?” I asked.

“As long as I get the attention I deserve when we get home,” she said.

“You mean finish what I’ve started down here?”

“You got that right, baby.”

This last remark, of course, kept me as sharply focused all the way home.

It was Tuesday night when Gretchen went to work next, and that’s when I waded lugubriously back into my poem. Maybe it was the adherence to the rhyme scheme that made the going so slow, or maybe I was trying to pull a poem out of the ethers that had not completely formed there. In any case, there was little pleasure in the experience. I pushed through it on impulse and persistence, concerned with the music and not the meaning, though I felt the meaning followed along. I continued to believe, however, that both I and the poem was a sham; that I couldn’t follow my own advice and therefore couldn’t attest to its veracity. But I liked the music and I finished the poem.

179

LOVE DEFINED Listen for the flutter Of the night moth’s wings, The murmur of the multitude, The echo of the ancient days, The voices of eternity Will speak in secret ways.

The bounty of creation Will whisper as it sings, The shining of the evening star Will mingle in the morning light, Listen for the flutter Of the secrets of the night.

The songs of men conceal the song That brings the gifts of God to light, The songs of God conceal the song That sings the secrets of the night.

The shining in the darkness Will turn the tide of time away, The bell that tolls at midnight Will name the glory of the day.

The voices of eternity Will speak of secret things, Listen for the flutter Of the night moth’s wings.

This disparity between my life and my poetry seemed alarmingly familiar to me. I felt as if my hard-wired, standard equipment suggested that though my life might be bright and vivid, inner peace would never be among the qualities I could call my own. The life of a poet who writes from his higher faculties alone. Perhaps that was the price I had to pay—but for what?

The next day after we woke and I told Gretchen the story of her waking from among the violets, she talked to me about her ambitions as an artist, a landscape artist. She spoke of how she believed, as I do, that art should be always and above all uplifting to the soul—never depressing or disquieting as an end in itself, not in a

180

THREE OF HEARTS world with as much unavoidable suffering as ours. But she believed that the possibilities of large scale art had not begun to be tapped.

That for instance in the same way that the beautiful settings of golf courses could be created, sequential segments of landscape could be made to refresh the psyche by using repetitive, reflective and transforming motifs of slope, vegetation, shade, color, confinement and openness, order and randomness, and many other variable factors to create a living, changing work of art. A great natural book, she explained, the successive chapters of which could teach, enlighten or even cure. (I told her it was Goddess work, and she said she knew that.)

Then she went shopping for groceries and clothes. Later, after I walked her to work, I stopped for a burger at the Plaza and then continued down State Street where I ran into Kyle, a street character who’s been walking State Street longer than I’ve been in town. I’d always assumed he was a stoned-out casualty of the 1960’s, and like someone out of a “New Yorker” cartoon, he always carries a large, neatly hand-lettered, laminated placard, that reads:

“THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR.” I don’t know what came over me, as the expression goes, or what prompted me to do it, but I stopped as he approached me coming down the street. I’d wanted to try talking to him many times in the past but had never bothered.

“So what exactly does that mean, man, THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR?” I asked him, not expecting an answer. He was dressed in antique bellbottoms and a sleeveless army-green tee shirt. Having seen Kyle hundreds of times, I’d never heard him speak or even heard of him speaking. He typically stares.

“If I told you, you’d never believe me,” he replied, his voice hushed.

“Really…” I said, surprised. “I’m a very accepting guy, so try me. Please. I’ll buy you dinner.”

“If you think that’s what I’m after, you’ll never understand.”

“You’re serious.” I said.

“No, man,” he said. “I’m not serious. I’m actually very lighthearted. Things are not as they appear,” at which he smiled at

181

LOVE DEFINED me enigmatically—enigmatically, not dementedly—and took himself and his mystical pronouncement on down the street. It happened that I was carrying a copy of the Listen to the flutter with me, so on an impulse, I chased after him, handed it to him and asked if that was what he was trying to get across. He surprised me again by taking a pair of reading glasses out of his pocket, huffing on them and wiping them off on his shirt. Then he looked at the poem for a bit and began to read the second stanza out loud: “The songs of mean conceal the song That brings the gifts of God to light, The songs of God conceal the song That sings the secrets of the night…”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s part of it.”

“But what does that mean?” I asked. “In practical terms?”

“You need to look outside your skin, man. You gotta look outside your skin.”

“What? Why did you say that? What does that mean?”

But at that point, Kyle didn’t answer; I didn’t expect him to, and of course I knew exactly what he meant. Or, maybe more accurately, I understood exactly what his words meant to me. It was a little spooky. I watched Kyle walk off down the street wondering what it must be to have a life like his, forgetting for a moment that I was about to embark on something shockingly similar.

When I get home, I’m not feeling in the mood to work on any more poetry that outstrips my own understanding, so I direct my fan toward my bed and take a nap, setting my alarm clock early enough to be at the bar at L’Etoile before Gretchen finishes her shift. I wake up about an hour after the alarm was meant to go off.

In a panic, I call L’Etoile but find that Gretchen’s left. I call her house. No answer.

Now I’m sick, and I’m convinced things ARE as they appear, and that I have no control over my heart, something so vulnerable that it expects to be wounded at every opportunity. Then I think, “Just keep focused, baby,” and for a few moments I’m relieved because I do understand that losing temporary contact with Gretchen does not necessarily mean I’ll never see her again. So I lean back and exhale deeply, but then realize that this relief is only

182

THREE OF HEARTS skin deep—or more aptly, within the confines of my skin, because what ails me can’t be cured by having what I want, but only by not wanting—or wanting only what I intrinsically have. And when I ask myself what that is, what I have and can expect will endure, I do know the answer; it comes to me as an epiphany.

And I breathe it in, and I exhale it. That’s what I can trust; that’s what is my own, yet beyond my skin! Breath! I can be certain of my next breath: so I breathe it in, and it is suddenly everything to me. And so is the next breath. And the next. I am unreasonably happy as long as I breathe, as long as I breathe consciously, because it excludes everything not of the moment, yet it leaves no vacuum—at least no vacuum that is not immediately and naturally filled by the world around me. Do I need to say that again? That there’s no room for sorrow or dire expectations when you accept the simplest God-given gift and focus on it and it alone.

Because as long as you live it will be there for you. No effort or sacrifice involved. And I’m thinking maybe that’s what those Hindus and Buddhists and Sufis and other assorted monks and meditators have been talking about for five thousand years, that maybe I’ve rediscovered the secret to happiness, when I hear Gretchen’s key in the door.

There are no lights on in my room; Gretchen tiptoes in.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“I thought you’d fallen asleep and didn’t want to wake you so I didn’t call.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “Come here, cool off and let me show you what I’ve found.”

That was Wednesday night. On Thursday we spent most of the day inside in the direct path of the powerful fan I’m lucky enough to possess. The temperature had risen to the mid 90’s, and of course the meteorologists were going on about the “Heat Index” being 110 because of the high humidity, which is nearly as asinine as the “Chill Factor” they ply us with in the winter.

This supposed “Chill Factor”—for those who live in warmer climates—is calculated when it’s cold out and also windy.

If, say, it’s 10 degrees out and there’s a 20 mile an hour wind, rather than simply stating those grim facts like they did before the post modern era, the public apparently insists on being told that when it’s

183

LOVE DEFINED 10 and the wind is 20, it feels like its, say 15 below zero. Sure, it feels like it’s minus 15. So they call that the “Chill Factor.” Fine... but wait a second here. That’s minus 15 WITH NO WIND, isn’t it! Idiots! And today, of course, we’re being told that with the humidity, it feels like it’s 110! Well, you know what? When it’s 110 with NO HUMIDITY, it only feels as hot as it does today when it’s 95 and the humidity’s high! How about that? Does that make you feel better—or worse, which is apparently the object of it all?

In any case, as long as we kept the door open a crack, the powerful fan helped in this room of mine with only one window, and if Gretchen hadn’t been scheduled that evening I might have ventured out for a couple of six packs of Harp and stayed put with my love in her underwear. It was positively tropical outside; the air was dense, but being the gentleman I was originally portrayed to be, I walked G. down to her air conditioned place of employment, where I lingered at the bar long enough to have two Harps. On the way home I stopped at the Plaza again for a burger and another of the same. Before I sat down I picked up the new issue of “The Isthmus,” Madison’s free weekly newspaper, delivered around town on Thursdays. Leafing through it absentmindedly, something caught my attention. It was what seemed to be an announcement or maybe an ad, one column wide and maybe four inches high: “The Great Way is not difficult for one who has no preferences.”

From “Believing in Mind”

By Seng T’san, the Third Patriarch of Zen At the very bottom of the message there was also a web address of some sort. That’s all. The web address didn’t interest me. The idea that “The Great Way is not difficult for one with no preferences” interested me a great deal, however, since it jibed in an uncanny way with my life much as had Kyle with his “THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR” sign. I’m aware that among the growing population of “New Agers,” it’s been fashionable to carry on a great deal about “synchronicity,” a term apparently coined by

184

THREE OF HEARTS Carl Jung, a man whose work I respect. But being an adamant nonfollower, I’ve ignored this cult-fashion with an aloof disdain. I have to admit, however, that now that my life has risen in its intensity (and with an increased stress level, God only knows what my EXPERIENCE INDEX might be!) things outside my skin do seem to be reflecting and confirming what’s going on inside to a noticeable extent. As I said, it’s a little spooky, so I took the newspaper home so I could show Gretchen the Third Patriarch’s words and also check out the movies and bands in town.

It was not lost upon me earlier in the day, nor was it when I returned to my room later, dripping, that I was soon planning to say goodbye to my powerful fan. I realized that I may have been naïve in my expectations of homelessness, but never in those expectations did the physical discomforts weigh heavy. I’d heard the expression “fielding grounders” regarding the picking up of discarded, smokable cigarette butts; this was something I could picture myself doing in a pinch, even a prolonged pinch. And I wasn’t one to be fussy about food, or even the lack of it. I’d always been able to sit for hours on park benches, in lobbies, or in laundromats; and, particularly in the colder months, I had no problem remaining in the same clothes for longer than it’s polite to mention. Of course I knew there would be physical hardships I hadn’t foreseen, but the moral victory that freedom from captivity promised was enough to ease the way for me, at least before the pavement became my new home.

What was also not lost on me, not entirely, at least, was the broader implication of the Third Patriarch’s sage words. Maybe not lost, but clearly misplaced.

After a hot, humid and languid Friday and Friday night, the air was cleared and cooled by a midnight thunderstorm, and as I mentioned earlier, on Saturday morning Gretchen and I were propped up on our pillows discussing our love and our lives. In light of my epiphany concerning breath, an understanding which Gretchen keenly shared, we proclaimed that we were doing fairly well in our mutual efforts. And we felt like a team, the next objective of which was to walk down to the square and get some strong coffee at the Farmers’ Market.

It wasn’t long before we were stepping out of the quadrangular flow of morning shoppers and mounting the slight rise

185

LOVE DEFINED of one of the verdant lawns surrounding the State Capitol building.

There were others there too, but not too many: couples like us; children, running on the Capitol steps, chasing or just exploring; and single people, some leaning back, taking the morning sun or sitting on the grass among the old trees with coffee and sweets. All these people, whose ranks we now joined, were situated between the bustling flow along the laden tables and stalls on the sidewalk and white marble Capitol with its dome sparkling in the sun.

Considering the hordes of harvest-time shoppers, surprisingly few chose to escape the strong current around the square and take refuge on this island of green, where Gretchen and I, now armed with our hot coffee and sticky buns, found a spot on the grass in the shade of a prodigious oak.

“So you realize that saying can apply to anything, don’t you?” Gretchen said as she took her first sip. She was looking quite spectacular, which didn’t take much: in this case it was simply her glowing skin, blindingly white shorts and a white V-necked top to match.

“What are you getting at, Gretchen?” I asked with some apprehension, forgetting her appearance.

“You’re being a dunderhead again, Felix. Having no preferences should mean you can work for Bernardo as easily as live in the street.”

“Why do you insist on telling me things I want to hide from myself? I asked, poking her in the shoulder and causing her to spill a little coffee.

“Are you angry?”

“Yes. Now will you please retract that statement?”

“That would be the hardest thing in the world for you, wouldn’t it—going back to that job?”

“It would,” I said. “Why do you insist on my facing reality?”

“How long were you going to wait before you mentioned it?” she asked.

“Until I had some coffee.”

“Really?”

“I was going to mention it. That doesn’t mean I was going to do anything about it.”

“You were really going to bring it up?”

186

THREE OF HEARTS “Will you leave me alone and let me drink some of this?”

I swiveled around so I was facing the crowd of passersby and took the lid off my coffee. Despite its storied political correctness, the Madison crowd looked relaxed, unpretentious and psychologically healthy. I could have easily let myself loose watching this parade while sipping the intensely hot and flavorful coffee I just paid an unseemly amount for, but I’d hardly unmoored when I felt a slight finger poke in the small of my back. I ignored this poke. It wasn’t a minute before I felt a second poke, a little higher and a little harder. Just when I was expecting the third, I turned back around.

“You didn’t really think I was angry, did you?” I asked.

“I think I might have been. I have a habit of being glib, which hasn’t been a problem for us so far, but I don’t think I’ve been confronted with anything as serious as this, so… So I think I should apologize.”

“I’ve thought about it, you know,” I said. “Of going down there and asking Bernardo for my old job back. It’s not that I’d be unwilling to do it as I was a couple of weeks ago. It’s a question of being able to. I feel like I’ve changed, but I don’t know if I’m willing to be my new self yet. So…” “So you’re just very smart and very brave. I suppose I’ll have to make do with that.”

“I think I’m going to cry,” I said.

At this, she scooted over and put her arm around me. “I think crying would be a very good idea,” she said. “No one will notice. No one will know but me.”

“You know I cling to you, don’t you, baby?” I said.

“I do know that, Felix.”

“You know how I cling to you, baby?”

“I think I know that too.”

“And how’s that, baby?”

“Like a sure stone path run wild among cathedrals of birds?”

“That’s right. Like a sure stone path run wi-i-i-i-ild among cathedrals of birds.”

I closed my eyes then but tears were no longer pending. I didn’t say anything more though, and we sat there together watching the people flow past, sipping our excellent coffee and eventually

187

LOVE DEFINED eating our sticky buns under that oak tree that had sheltered many loving couples in the past and surely would in the future. But there must have been something about us, something eye catching.

Maybe we were radiant, or maybe it was Gretchen and the way she looked that day, in bright whites in the tree’s shadow against the brilliant green grass, but every five or ten minutes or so, someone making their way around the square looked over directly at us and smiled. And then we waved and they waved back. And it was the widest variety of people who noticed us sitting there: there were two teenage girls who smiled and then returned our wave; there was a middle aged man in a business suit; there was a neo-hippie looking couple in their twenties; there was a matronly white haired woman; there was a child, maybe five-or-six; there was a well-groomed older man with a graying, middle-aged woman; there was a another woman with her mother, there was a bare-chested young man with a python who looked like an body-builder; and more. They all smiled and then walked on smiling even more broadly. By the time we decided to get up and go because we were stiff from sitting there on the grass, we not only had permanent smiles plastered on our faces, but had concluded that the two of us together were a benevolent force in the world. And we still had two secure weeks left.

188

THREE OF HEARTS

THE HOUR KEEPER, BUTTERED

I looked in the Yellow Pages. I bought a newspaper and looked in that, and then I watched television for an evening in order to decide which store I’d visit first. Since I hadn’t watched television, listened to the radio or so much as picked up a newspaper in months, this was jarring to my senses as well as informative. I wasn’t about to be profligate, but the prices seemed competitive and I hoped to confine my adventure to the smallest number of stores possible—even only one, if I could manage.

I realized that my plans would have a significant effect on Lois’ life as well as my own. Both of us would be enriched, of course, though I assumed I’d be seeing less of her in the future, or perhaps I should say she’d be seeing less of me, given the new choices available to her. It would prove interesting, in any event, to discover just how attached the old girl was to me, personally, as a living, breathing being.

189

THE HOURKEPER, BUTTERED The first store my research led me to was the one most appealingly advertised on television. Unsure of the bus routes to that part of town, I traveled by taxi. I mentioned this to my cab driver, who told me that not riding a bus could be the wisest thing I ever did in my life. This seemed an odd joke, but I laughed to be polite. On entering the store, I was assailed more by the smells— the fabrics and the leathers—than by the sights, and it wasn’t until I had strolled about a bit by myself that a sales woman approached me. I believed this to be a calculated tactic, one meant to induce a low key, homey atmosphere in order boost sales, but whatever the motivation, it was successful. I did not feel pressured, and the sales woman didn’t betray even the slightest sign of surprise when I told her what I was after.

I had brought a small sketch of my unusually large living room along to make my plans clear.

She said that it looked like a very good idea, and wanted to know first of all if I had a color scheme in mind. I told her that I hadn’t thought of it that way, but explained that when visualizing, strong colors came to mind. She said that in that case we should probably start with the carpet, and once that was chosen, choosing two couches, one love seat, two arm chairs, four occasional tables, two floor lamps, two table lamps, a dozen or so cushions, and horizontal blinds for the windows would be far easier. I agreed.

I knew that if I went to one of Madison’s Oriental carpet stores, my choices would be far wider and more authentic, but the saleswoman—named Flora—had already won me over, and if it was at all possible, I wanted to make her day as well as mine. And the carpet selection was quite extensive; the new “Oriental” carpets being not only reasonably priced but in some cases quite beautiful.

I chose a large, thick, rich looking one in deep reds, browns, and blues with bits of pink and lavender here and there for highlights.

I’ve never enjoyed taking a long time shopping, and my decisiveness seemed to please Flora. I told her then that for my purposes, I preferred furniture covered in fabric rather than leather, since I was seeking an atmosphere of informality rather than luxury.

She smiled slyly at me then and said that sounded like an excellent idea but that there was one leather armchair she still wanted to show me. I selected the two couches in a matter of minutes then; both of the same style: one a bit longer and less puffy than the other, both

190

THREE OF HEARTS with three cushions and with roundly scrolled, gracefully sloping arms. I chose a cobalt blue (a dark, rich blue) fabric for one and a cerulean blue (lighter with a greenish tint) for the other. Each had matching love seats and I chose the puffier one in a deep red, the other in rose. I then chose the armchairs for deep comfort: the first one in a rose like the loveseat, and the second in dark brown leather just as she suggested. The tables and lamps were a simple matter then; those I chose had classic lines. The selection of mini-blinds was also simple. I gave her the measurements I’d taken and chose an off-white like the walls of the room. She explained that installation was simple. The selection of large cushions at that huge store was insufficient, however; there were only two I liked, both reds, but she suggested a store not far from there that specialized in such accessories. I suspected there would be a problem when I told her just how soon I wanted all this delivered, but I was relieved when she explained that since they had their own factory just outside of Milwaukee, those pieces that required upholstering could be ready quite soon, particularly if she put a rush on them.

Not once did Flora ask me anything about my specific plans, and I was so pleased with the way she’d made everything comfortable for me that after giving her my credit card, I asked to speak to the store manager. She explained that she was the store manager. That was even better, I said, since in that case I could contact the owners and let them know what an excellent employee they have. She smiled at me, gave me a card with the owner’s name, and that, taking only a little more than an hour, was that. I called a taxi from the store and arrived home very pleased with myself. I climbed to the third floor, sat in my own comfortable blue armchair by the window looking out over the garden, but did not look out. I closed my eyes and flew over to the furniture store I’d just visited and I circled it, swooping, several times. I had never enjoyed shopping so much before, I realized as I glided back toward my home, my cape streaming behind me. It must have been Flora, I thought—and knowing how to fly so well certainly couldn’t have hurt.

When Lois approached me by the window, I told her everything I’d done, delighting in her lack of comprehension. She did sniff at me oddly though, so perhaps she knew more than I gave her credit for.

191

THE HOURKEPER, BUTTERED All this happened on a Saturday, one week after the Saturday I said goodbye to Miranda. I did feel some regret that I hadn’t gone back to the Farmers’ Market to buy another bunch of God’s flowers, but supposed that the next week would do as well, late in the season though it was. Putting it in perspective now, I realize that the next week’s flowers were just the thing, in that they’d be fresh and crisp the next day, Sunday, the day for which I’d been preparing so enthusiastically. Much of that preparation may not have appeared enthusiastic since it was unanimated and silent.

Most of it, in fact, took place sitting in my armchair by my garden window, deep in the process of remembering, reevaluating and reorganizing. I also looked at a few books, and took several long walks; though on my walks I was frequently distracted by the sights and sounds of things around me, the memories those engendered, and my own private adventures as Butterman. After the third walk, I concluded that these excursions were of value in and of themselves and should be freed from the expectations of metaphysical research, which, unbuttered, could get quite dry.

As the week passed, more and more of my time was spent walking, but rather than choosing the more picturesque walks through parks and along the lakeshores, I found myself attracted to those spots where students were to be found. And it wasn’t long before my walking was augmented by sitting, in places where students congregated, like the Union Terrace by Lake Mendota, and State Street. I felt I couldn’t get enough of looking at them and listening to their conversations. My furniture arrived on Friday morning, and within an hour was arranged in the big room according to plan. The blinds were still to be installed, but I had until Sunday to accomplish that. I had already purchased the remaining cushions I required, most of these in bright colors. They had already been scattered about the room, giving Lois a taste of what was to come, though only a small one. She reacted to the large pillows at first with suspicion before spending two days sitting on one or another of them in a sequence that only she or another cat could appreciate. It was only after two days that she seemed to have chosen her favorites, perhaps believing that they were permanently installed. Little did she know.

When the furniture truck arrived on Friday, Lois left the house and did not venture back in until the truck had been gone for

192

THREE OF HEARTS an hour, and then only while crouching close to the ground so as not to be seen by the gigantic colorful pieces of furniture occupying the formerly empty, but temporarily cushioned living room. Rather than interfere with her exploration by sitting on one of the sofas and encouraging her to jump up with me, I stood in the doorway and watched. She seemed primarily concerned with sniffing at first; this continued on for fifteen minutes, most of it spent in her feline crouch. After this phase of reconnoitering was complete, she, by keen instinct bred by countless generations of experience, found the one packing slip I had not retrieved from the carpet, a sheet of paper perhaps a foot square, and sat directly upon it, purred for a few minutes and then fell asleep.

They arrived on Sunday evening at 7:00: the fifteen I’d been counting on plus six more, none over the age of thirty, and most under twenty-five. Those who’d brought friends apologized when they saw the size of the room, but said that it had sounded so interesting. I served soda; diet soda; and bottled water, flavored, carbonated and non. I also had fruit, cheese and cookies on hand.

All who attended knew something of what it was about, some a good deal, but as I’d expected and hoped, the evening began with questions such as, “Just what is The Great Way?” and “Does having no preferences mean not knowing good from evil?” The discussion that followed was spirited, but with a sense of camaraderie and mutual support. There was nothing contentious about it.

We eventually agreed that the Great Way was a life that was harmless and without unhappiness, a life that knew serenity and spread goodwill; and that this was indeed an attainable goal despite contemporary cynicism. We concluded that having no preferences meant accepting and embracing whatever circumstances one met in ones own life, inwardly as well as outwardly—not accepting injustice or cruelty against others. Of course, as is always the case in such discussions, extreme examples popped up, and as usual, given the topic, the name Adolph Hitler was mentioned. “Even in a concentration camp?” a young man asked regarding accepting and embracing the circumstances met in life. Having heard questions like this so many times in the past, I answered it by saying that indeed horrendous circumstances like that may be the greatest test of the spirit, but that there is nowhere that a serene and loving

193

THE HOURKEPER, BUTTERED individual can be of more value than in the midst of such horrors. I announced at the evening’s end that all were welcome to return in two weeks, during which time I suggested that anyone who chose to should look for practical examples in their own lives of the benefits of overcoming preferences. I also told them to watch for something new in next week’s “Isthmus.”

People didn’t want to leave. They said they appreciated that I had no dogma to present, that I was looking for the most inclusive approaches to harmonizing the spiritual and material life. They said they loved my cat, that they loved my house. They asked me for lists of books to read; I told them maybe later. They asked what they could bring; I said nothing other than goodwill, that it was quite important to me that they bring no gifts, no refreshments.

They asked if they could help me clean up; and I told them only if I asked. They asked how many people they could bring; I told them to use their discretion, that we’d work out those problems in the coming weeks. And they eventually asked me how I came by everything I knew. I expected this, and intentionally remaining a little aloof, I told them the version of the truth best suited to their age and experience. First, that what I knew was dwarfed by what I didn’t know; and second, that when I was in my twenties I knew about as much as they did, and that I simply kept pondering it and working on it and grappling with it and that the addition of years of experience did the rest. I mentioned no specifics, and did not go into the incalculable value of not knowing, something it takes a certain amount of living to appreciate—as in Miranda’s “The sanctity of what we do not know.”

When they all eventually left, I sat in the new leather armchair and asked Lois if she’d ever had a happier night. She purred, to which I responded that I hadn’t either. After that I cleaned up, something that seemed of a sacramental nature to me, and didn’t stop smiling until I fell asleep, and perhaps not even then.

That night I dreamed of a great, pale green Luna Moth; huge, with eye-like markings on all four wings and long graceful long tails on the hind ones. At first I saw it fluttering outside my window, but when I went to open the screen to let it in, I found there was no screen there, so the moth entered my room where I sat then at my desk. The night moth flitted about me; it hovered in front of my

194

THREE OF HEARTS face, glowing like radium. All else seemed still, frozen in time.

The softest sounds of the radiant creature’s wings against the warm summer air moved me. For a moment, I closed my eyes and listened. The fluttering promised mystery, so I reached out to hold it in my hands then, but it was gone, and I was downstairs in my newly furnished meeting room, listening to the ringing silence that remained after a crowd of some sort had left me there alone.

195

FREDA

FREDA

On Monday I went to the hotel and talked to Carl. I didn’t look up the hours of the gun shop. Then I talked to Peepers. On Tuesday then I had breakfast with Oscar and brought him back to the hotel. I listened as Oscar and Carl talked and joined in to explain and smooth things over where I could. I didn’t think of putting a gun in my mouth. When I got back to my room on Tuesday afternoon the phone was ringing. It was Jolene; she wanted to know how things had gone with Oscar and Carl, and also said she had a message for me. When I told her how the meeting had gone, she said she’d never heard me sound that happy before. I said maybe she was right. The thought of pulling my hands away from Rosie made me feel sick, but I hadn’t thought of my head blown to bits for two days. Then Jolene gave me the message.

Freda, from Madison, Wisconsin, had called her, she said, and Freda wanted my phone number. Jolene told me she asked her why she wanted my number, but that Freda had stammered then like she wasn’t ready to explain and had finally said it was personal.

196

THREE OF HEARTS This got Jolene to thinking, so instead of giving this lady my name and number, she took hers and said she’d give me the message and that I could call her back if I wanted to. She told me that Freda said goodbye very meekly then, thanked her and hung up.

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

“You understand what?” Jolene asked.

“That she needs to talk to me.”

“Why? If it’s any of my business, I mean.” Jolene paused.

“Do you mean… you... know something about her?”

“I think I might,” I answered. But the truth was, I knew I did, but didn’t want to let on—and not because I wanted to conceal anything from Jolene, but because I had the feeling that if I talked about it something would leak away from me. But again, like when Oscar first called, I didn’t have to think. I just knew.

“So you’re going to call her?” Jolene asked.

“You’re worried about me, aren’t you?” I said.

“Of course I’m worried about you, Bernie Schmidt. What do you think? I’ve seen you go from a shy, gentle, helpful man to a deeply depressed and disturbed one and now back to a kind man who doesn’t seem quite as shy as before. Don’t you see how I might feel I’ve got a mental case on my hands—I mean as a friend.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” I said.

“What?”

“I mean I know that’s how it must seem. I know that’s why you’re worried, but I think I’ll be okay now. And I know you care about me, and I know you’ve been good to me when I needed it, but now I’m….”

“You’re what, Bernie?”

“Just fine,” I said. I was pretty sure I’d changed my mind about murdering myself, so telling her I was fine wasn’t a lie, and I didn’t feel too bad about not telling Jolene the whole truth of it.

She sighed. “Okay, Bernie. I’m not your mother—or your daughter—I just want to caution you to take it easy with what you feel, and what you feel you can do. So… keep in touch.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Jolene knew more about what I thinking than I realized. “You’re a good friend, Jolene,” I said. “I hope I never let you down.”

“Thanks, Bernie… I guess. What do you mean let me down?”

197

FREDA “Disappoint you,” I answered.

“Thanks, Bernie, but you could never disappoint me. Why would you think that? I’m just hoping you’ll be happy.” And then she said goodbye and hung up. Of course she didn’t know how terribly I’d disappointed Rosie.

Then I dialed the number in Madison.

The phone was answered right away.

“Hello,” I said. “Is this Freda I’m speaking to?”

“Yes,” she said, “Who’s this please?”

I knew she knew who it was, but didn’t know if she knew my last name. “This is Bernie Schmidt, I’m calling from Chicago.

I met you last Saturday under kind of bad conditions.” I tried to sound as lighthearted as I could about that. “My friend Jolene told me you wanted to get in touch with me. How are you doing? You seemed upset that day of that accident.”

“I’m doing all right, I suppose,” she answered. She wasn’t; I could tell that over the phone, but that’s the kind of thing people say all the time. Then she went quiet.

“So,” I said, seeing no sense in not getting right to the point.

“An accident like that can bring up all kinds of other upsets, it did for me.” That wasn’t the truth, but it didn’t matter.

“Really?” she asked. “I suppose it did for me as well.”

“It reminded me of a long list of losses and disappointments— not that that accident was even serious, I only got a little wet, and I sure don’t blame you, Freda.”

She went silent again. I didn’t think she could figure out what to say. “So what do you do, Freda, up there in Madison?”

“I work for an insurance company.”

“Is that good work?”

“Yes and no. It depends on me… the kind of mood I’m in.”

“Freda,” I said, thinking she must be very smart to say a thing like that, “sometimes I have a knack of knowing how people feel. Is something bothering you? Can you tell me why you called?” I knew this was putting pressure on her but I couldn’t figure out what else to do.

“I called because I wanted to talk to you. And I thought I was crazy until what you said just now. I’m not the kind of person who calls strangers to cry on their shoulder. I’m a conservative person.”

198

THREE OF HEARTS “So am I. But maybe not with feelings. Sometimes it’s good to take risks.”

“Maybe,” she answered. “There’s so much, though. I wouldn’t know where to start, and I feel embarrassed now. I’m really not some kind of loony, calling you up like this.”

I knew I better talk fast or she’d close up on herself. “Freda,” I said. “After the accident, I could tell more was upsetting you than that fender bender, and I was upset too. I wanted to talk to you, even then. I’m not a loony either. If it’s awkward to talk over the telephone, why don’t you drive down to Chicago and we can have lunch and go to the park?”

She went dead silent again. “I’m not asking you out on a date,” I said, “if that’s what you think. We could meet half way in between.”

“I’ve been scared to go out by myself,” she said, sounding stiff, like she forced herself to say it. “I’m frightened of driving.

Yesterday I rode with a friend to work.”

I thought of Oscar’s voice that morning when I told him I’d be glad to talk to Carl. “I can come up there,” I said. “There must be a bus. I don’t have a car, but I enjoy a good bus ride. I really do.

So…” “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Freda said.

“You didn’t,” I answered. “I suggested it and I have some time off of work.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m an elevator operator in the Randolph House downtown in Chicago.”

“O-oh. That’s a fancy place, isn’t it?

“Yes, but not too much. It’s not stuffy. Everything does sparkle and shine there; even after all these years I notice that.” I was hoping telling her about the hotel would put her at ease a little.

“Could you come up this weekend?” Freda asked all of a sudden, sounding scared and brave at the same time.

I thought for a moment, but there was nothing to think about.

“I don’t see why not.”

It seemed then like Freda wanted to get off the phone very quickly; it was like she wanted to say goodbye before anything changed. I told her I’d check on the bus schedule and call her back sometime later. She said she’d be home the rest of the day and that

199

FREDA evening, but only in the evenings for the rest of the week since she’d be at work. She sounded like she was worried I’d miss her. I couldn’t think of anything cheerful to say though, except that I’d call the bus station right away and get back to her as soon as I could.

If it hadn’t been for the good thing that happened with Oscar that morning, I might have been wondering if I was the one who was loony. But it was okay. I felt like someone put a good strong floor under my feet, where there used to be just loose, creaking timbers.

Like I said, when I first talked to Oscar on Sunday, I told him how he’d have to talk to Carl, I asked him questions about his life, and I made him assure me that he was serious about wanting that job back. On Tuesday morning—that was before I talked to Freda on the phone—Oscar and I had breakfast together at the O’Connell’s near the hotel.

He seemed very nervous around me at first, which I took as a good sign, meaning he was concerned about the way things turned out. He was also wearing a clean shirt and a tie. At first, I talked to him about buying a new alarm clock. We’d decided on the phone the day before that even though he already had a clock, he’d been sleeping through it, so he should buy himself a new one, signifying a “new start,” and that it was very important than he pay for this clock himself. That makes a lot of sense to me now, but back on Sunday when I talked to him, I’d just that moment postponed my own suicide, and was just operating on instinct. And thinking back on it today, I remember feeling that I was really only postponing it, not calling it off. It wasn’t till a while after I’d talked to him that my fear began to give way. I mean my fear of being overwhelmed by other people’s misery and my not wanting to be alive started to give way to maybe helping someone instead.

After we’d talked about the alarm clock and a few other practical things like keeping back up money for a taxi if he missed his bus, Oscar looked at me across the table, like he still didn’t understand.

“Why you want to help me?” he asked. “I’m nobody to you.

Not family. Not even the same blood.”

“Everyone needs to be helped every once in a while,” I said.

200

THREE OF HEARTS “Yeah, sure, but why me?”

And then I started talking to him like I didn’t care how he reacted, like I didn’t care if he thought I was some kind of nut case.

I looked him straight in the eye.

“I feel like I can see into your heart, Oscar, and I see sadness and loss there that you don’t deserve because you’re a good, brave person. And you know, I need to help you because I believe the goodness in people is something that needs the help it could get.”

“You sound like a priest,” he said.

“Is that okay?”

Oscar nodded. “How’d you know about my little brother and sister?”

Maybe it was just a lucky chance that my dream about brothers and sisters matched up with his real life—I don’t know, but it did. I didn’t tell him anything specific. This was a big moment for me in my life. I never had any special talent. Even back in the Lutheran Home, I never played the piano or the trumpet like some of the other children did, and I was never good at sports or at my school work. Abby said that I had a talent for loving her, and that’s true, but that’s a different kind of thing. If Oscar’s situation wasn’t so sad, I’d have been proud of myself.

“Sometimes I can catch other people’s feelings, so I knew that you suffered that loss, but even if I didn’t know that, Oscar, I’d have wanted to help you because I can tell you’re a good guy.” And I’m not sure if that was entirely true, but it didn’t matter.

Then he just started in. “My little brother and sister died in an apartment fire; I tried to carry them out, and I could’ve done it, but the fireman dragged me away. I assaulted the fireman. I broke his jaw. My father was a drunk, un pendejo, who fell asleep with a lit cigarette and died in that fire, just like he deserved. Only my moms and my big sister are still alive. Shit, I was fourteen.” Oscar had a stony, frozen expression on his face, and I thought he was going stop but he didn’t.

“My moms has always been the strong one in our house. But my sister’s messed up. She’s twenty-two still needs to live at home and be comforted like a baby. She works and all that, but she hasn’t grown up since the fire.”

We talked for a while longer then, and I finally got Oscar to admit that he was angry. I didn’t want to dig any deeper than that,

201

FREDA though. I could tell he might never have admitted that before, so I told him what I thought was true—I didn’t tell him why, but I told him.

“You need to get some self-respect, Oscar. You already deserve it for being so brave and wanting to hold down this job, and if you manage to really do it, you’ll start to feel better about things.

Believe me, you will.” And then he cried a little. This was a tough seventeen-year-old kid who’d spent time in a gang and in jail. He cried right there in O’Connell’s.

After our talk, it wasn’t too hard to convince Carl to give him another try. Oscar seemed sorry about the way he’d behaved toward him earlier. He told him about the new alarm clock he’d just bought at a Walgreen’s near the hotel and had right there in a bag; he told him a little about the idea of it too; and then, on his own, he said a little about needing to prove something to himself.

Carl didn’t want to hear that though; he said he wasn’t running a group home, and the truth was I thought Oscar was trying to play on his sympathy and con him a little, and that wasn’t a good idea.

But Carl agreed to a two-week probationary period, and then I said that I was so sure that it would work out that I’d come off the elevator and run the Hobart if Oscar didn’t show up. Carl thought that was pretty funny and said Peepers would think so too, and I said that it wouldn’t do Peepers any harm the run the elevator himself for a few hours here and there if I was in elbow deep, and Carl and I had a good laugh about that, seeing as we both knew that Peepers would call a bellman to move a suitcase six inches rather than pick it up himself. Oscar started to laugh too, but I gave him a look to let him know that it wouldn’t be polite to laugh at something that wasn’t his own business, particularly about the hotel steward who he should show respect for. There were some things about Oscar, some rough spots like that when it came to manners—but he was still a kid. § I took the early bus from Chicago to Madison on Saturday morning and arrived at 9:35. I told Freda not to bother picking me up at the station, but she insisted on it, saying that going out to meet me

202

THREE OF HEARTS wasn’t anything that frightened her. And anyway, she lived close to the terminal.

When I left Chicago it was hot and sticky, but as the bus drove northward through Rockford, Illinois and a place called Janesville, Wisconsin, the day cleared and cooled, and as we pulled into Madison, I saw puddles in the street.

Even though I’d looked in Freda’s eyes, I couldn’t have told you much about what she looked like, except that her hair was going grey and she wasn’t dying it to make herself look younger, and that’s something I respect in a woman. But I got a good close look at her before she saw me when she was standing there at the bus terminal waiting. Like me, she wasn’t tall. She had nice, big brown eyes. She was a little stout, also like me, but had a gaunt look on her face—just a shade of that, not enough to make her ghoulish or anything, but enough to make you wonder a little. I can’t say much about clothes, but hers were simple but pretty, and she had on a pretty necklace, little blue stones, small as Tic Tacs but each set in sliver and joined together in a graceful kind of chain. It’s funny that I noticed that. And I noticed that she’d had her hair cut too. It was short now, showing more of her face.

Before I even said hello, she told me how kind it was of me to come all the way up there on the bus. I tried to explain that I really did enjoy a good bus ride. I realize most grown people don’t, but there are a lot of things grown people don’t enjoy that I do— particularly watching things go by and finding the patterns or rhythms of them—but I didn’t bother telling that to Freda.

“I was thinking you must be hungry so early in the morning, Bernie,” she said, “so I have a suggestion. We have a Farmer’s Market here in Madison on Saturday mornings, and it’s right on the Capitol Square only about a half a mile from here. If you’d like we could walk over there where they have good coffee or tea or juice, and good bakery too.”

“Like chocolate croissants?” I said.

“Yes. How did you guess? Do you like those?”

It was funny how a person could ask a question as simple as that and appear scared about it, but she did. I told her I didn’t guess, that last Saturday we’d been at the Farmers’ Market just before we’d… seen her, and that the woman who she’d called to get my

203

FREDA number had just bought a bag of chocolate croissants at the bakery where we were parked.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, we don’t have to go there if you don’t want.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’ll be good to stretch my legs.” I was worried that might make her think I was just being polite about enjoying the three hour bus ride, but I decided that if I had to be walking on eggshells all day, it wouldn’t be fair to either one of us.

When we started walking down West Washington Avenue toward the square, she said that she supposed she should start telling me what was wrong. But she didn’t sound right saying that, and she didn’t look right saying it either. It seemed like she felt she was in some kind of psychiatrist’s office or something, or that the meter was running.

I walked along and didn’t say anything for a moment. The State Capitol Building looked very impressive as we approached it walking down that broad avenue, but I didn’t mention that. I said something that surprised me. “Freda,” I said. “I came up here because I thought it would be nice to see you. If you don’t say anything to me all day about what’s troubling you that will be okay with me. You’re your own person and I’m not expecting anything from you.”

Well, what do you know, just like with Oscar, she starts in crying. “No, no, no, no, no,” I say. “I don’t mean for you to do that.” And she takes some tissues out of a shoulder bag she’s carrying and wipes her eyes. And then of all things I start to feel a tingling in my private parts, which I suppose is natural, but I hope it goes away.

“I’m feeling very emotional,” she says. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“No, no,” I said again. “It’s not that, it’s…”

“I lost my husband two years ago, and you sounded like him just now, the way you were so patient.”

“I think patience is very important, but mostly with yourself.”

And that seemed to quiet us both down for the next minute or so.

But when we got to the square with all the people milling around through all those vegetables and apples and cheese and everything else they have in Wisconsin, Freda started to tell me that since her husband died—he was only fifty-three—she felt like she’d

204

THREE OF HEARTS become mentally ill. And then she started talking non-stop. He had done nearly everything for her, she said, she’d only had a part-time job, and that only to keep busy, but it turned out he hadn’t had much of an insurance policy, and before she knew it she was working fulltime and trying to manage her life. Her son who lived in Arizona had shown her how to take care of her finances, how to maintain her car, and the house she couldn’t bear to sell. And at first the shock of it all was so great that she was numb and went automatic, she said, and just did the things her son had told her about, and then started going to work. But then when she started to feel what she called “the fullness” of her loss, she started to lose grip, to lose track of things—like the bills to pay, and upkeep of the house, and the birthdays, and now things were starting to unravel at work.

“Every time I try to pay the phone bill or the other ones or some I’d never even known about, I think of every little thing about how Howard did it. Like how nicely he’d put his suit jacket over the back of the chair when he sat down at the desk, the way he opened the drawers, the sound it made when he tore out the checks.

You know that little sound? And I just can’t bear to hear that little sound because I miss him so terribly, but I feel like I’m a coward for not being able to face those inconsequential things.”

Freda looked at me like she wanted me to say something, but before I could, she started right in again. “But every time my son calls me from Phoenix or my daughter up in Oregon, I tell them I’m doing fine so as not to burden them any more than they already were with losing their father and raising families of their own. You know? So I feel like I’ve got no one to talk to.”

We were passing a table covered with big, sweet smelling yellow candles. Again she looked at me, but just kept talking. “...Because I was crying and ran into another parked car just a few days before I hit you pulling out on Williamson last Saturday, but no one had saw me hit the other car, at least I thought they hadn’t, and I was so upset I drove away without leaving a note or anything... ” She was working herself up into a real lather, so I stopped her.

Funny, but just then we were standing by the stall that sold the chocolate croissants, which seemed to keep popping up in my life.

205

FREDA “There’ll be plenty of time to tell me all about it,” I said. “But I know they run out of these chocolate ones early in the day, so if you want one you should get it now.”

“I just like the plain ones,” she said. “I don’t know where people got the idea to stuff them.”

I told her I’d never tasted a stuffed one so I was going to try, since my friend made such a production out of getting some last week. Freda insisted on paying and I didn’t argue with her about that.

“Now we just need something to drink and somewhere to sit down,” I said, trying to get her mind off her troubles for a little longer. There was a coffee stand up at the next corner and just across the street. I asked her what she liked to drink with croissants, feeling all of a sudden like the host, and she said she was a coffee drinker. I am too, so we went and bought cups to go.

“Do you like flavored coffee?” she asked, “Like vanilla and hazelnut, because I don’t.”

I didn’t either, but what seemed important to me is that she was willing to say what she didn’t like before finding out if I agreed with her. Right then I knew she was brave, and thought maybe I’d tell her that a little later, but the thought of that started me in tingling in my privates again so I changed my mind.

We found a very nice place to sit in the sun on the lawn that surrounded the Capitol building. I would have wondered if people were allowed on that lawn, but there were others there too and no one seemed to be chasing them off. Once we started eating and sipping our coffee, she withdrew some, and I got the sense she was embarrassed by how much she’d told me so quickly. The chocolate croissant I was eating was one of the best things I’d tasted for a long time.

We were both sitting on the grass, both of us with our legs folded to the side. My knees wouldn’t go cross-legged any more and I don’t know about hers. Along with her blue necklace she was wearing grey pants and a light grey sweater that went with the grey in her hair I suppose. She was a pleasant looking person. All her features were soft, and if it weren’t for that gauntness, that hollowness around her eyes, she would have been the kind of person that made you smile. And then all of a sudden, she teared up again.

“Memories?” I asked.

206

THREE OF HEARTS She nodded.

“You know what I think?” I said. “I think you’re very brave. I was thinking that when you called me, a stranger, to talk about your troubles; then once I got up here and listened to what you had to say, I knew you were brave to open yourself to tell all that about yourself, things that you were ashamed of.”

She looked like she wanted me to go on.

“I know what it feels like to be broken down by feelings,” I said, not knowing where I was going with the thought.

Then she surprised me again. She took my hand, just one of them with two of hers. “It bothers me to think of you being unhappy,” she said.

“Me? Why?” I asked, taken completely by surprise.

“Because you’re so kind. You don’t deserve any unhappiness.”

“And you’re not kind?”

“I’ve always tried to be kind,” she answered, still holding on to my hand, for her sake more than mine, I thought. I could say I’m not used to people holding my hand, but that wouldn’t come near what I felt about a strange woman holding my hand when everything was so up in the air with me. Then words started coming out of my mouth again, all of their own accord, as far as that can be true.

“I know you’re going to be okay, Freda. It’s going to take a little while, maybe. You just have to give yourself a chance to get used to being who you are now. I don’t mean you have to get used to living without your husband, or even living on your own—no, I mean you’re a new person now, and you should notice that and pay attention.”

“I never thought of that before,” she said, which didn’t seem strange because neither had I. Then she asked if I could tell her more about that, and I told no, I probably shouldn’t. I was trying to disguise that I was just making it up as I went along. But she seemed satisfied.

“Because that’s something I have to find out for myself, right?” she said, which sounded true so it was a relief to me. Then I started in again.

“You need to find out what the new you likes. You have to give her a chance, and maybe slip those new things in instead of your bad feelings, like what you’re afraid of and your doubts about

207

FREDA yourself. I lost my wife twenty years ago, and I’ve never let myself stop missing her, or feeling bad that she’s out of my life. But I’m happy with what I’ve become—not bragging happy, just independent.” And that was it. She finally let go of my hand, and all I could do for a moment was stare: into her face, up at the Capitol building, at the squirrels in the trees—it didn’t matter. Here I was, Bernard Schmidt, an elevator man at the Randolph House, and I was telling a stranger what to do with her life, and it sounded like what I was saying was right.

Freda had a kind of glassy expression on her face, which made me uncomfortable, so I stood up and surprised myself again by offering her my hand. “We can finish our coffee while we walk.” I said, feeling really like I wanted to run away, but that walking would have to do.

She hadn’t said a thing. “Do you like vegetables?” I finally asked.

“Sure,” she said. “Most of them. Don’t you?”

“Not many. I was brought up in an orphanage, what they call a group home now, and they fed us canned vegetables every night. I liked the corn, and kind of liked the green beans but everything else was awful and I can’t bring myself to eat it, even when I know it’s not the same as they made me eat when I was little.”

“So…” Freda said, looking at me in a way that made me uncomfortable again. “You’re an orphan and you lost your wife twenty years ago? Can I ask you how old she was?”

“Same age as me. She was forty-five. She died of cervical cancer.”

“So you think about her a lot?”

“I do.”

“And you miss her a lot, and you’re sad?”

“I miss her a lot, and I know she’d understand why I’d be sad, but she’d rather have me happy.”

“But how do you do that?”

“Just with simple things. Things I know I like. I like to watch people’s faces when I walk in downtown Chicago. I like to watch the traffic, just the colors of the cars and taxis, and the stop lights; things that might seem foolish to other people. And I love to see people in the hotel, all dressed up on vacation or on business. I love taking them up and down… That’s what I do. I love to see the

208

THREE OF HEARTS looks their faces when they notice that I stop my elevator exactly, like to the fraction of an inch, at their floor in the hotel. Simple things, nothing hard, ever. And things that would make anybody happy, too, like that,” I said, pointing at two people sitting on the lawn next to the Capitol. They were under a tree, and anyone could see they were in love with each other. They were a beautiful couple.

“See,” I said to Freda. “Look at them.” And as soon as we both looked at them, they waved right back at us. And I was surprised, and without looking at her, I knew Freda was surprised, but we both waved back, just because they were so happy, and then we looked at each other, kind of astonished, and we both blushed because maybe we saw something about ourselves in that couple, and then we kept on walking.

Neither one of us said a word. I don’t know what Freda was thinking, but I know that I was thinking about how good life can be when you get out of the way and give it a chance, and how grateful I was that Marshall Fields was closed that late afternoon a week before when the world seemed too much for me to bear.

We walked back to her house after leaving the Farmers’ Market.

She’d bought some green beans and some sweet corn to cook for lunch, and we just chatted on that walk, which was a relief to me after so much that was serious.

Right off, I saw that her house was probably too big for her, and couldn’t help thinking that she could sell it for a pretty penny and find a nice little apartment with no responsibilities beyond cleaning and doing the dishes. I figured that’s what her son in Arizona had told too, so I just admired the house even though she complained that she was lazy when it came to dusting. It had a very nice back yard, and that’s where we ate the sweet corn, green beans, tomato soup and toast she made for lunch. We stayed in the yard for a couple of hours talking about things that got more serious as the time passed. She had a lot to get off her chest, and she did some crying before it got too hot out and we went inside.

“You know,” she said, “I was always very good at home and in high school, but I needed to get away, so I came to college here in Madison, and I guess I wasn’t ready, because I got wild and got pregnant and had to have an abortion and didn’t graduate.”

209

FREDA Freda put her hands up on her head and closed her eyes like she was going to cry, but she didn’t. “I can’t tell you how bad I felt about all that,” she said, “how disappointed I was in myself. And my parents made it all even worse. I was so young and I made a mistake and they didn’t give me any support.”

But when Freda told me what happened next, it made me think that maybe she was a fortunate woman, because before she’d even left Madison to go back home, she met a man who turned out to be her future husband. He was someone she loved, who didn’t judge her, who was all she’d ever hoped for and her parents liked him too because they thought he saved her. Freda almost laughed when she said that.

But then she kept on talking, and for the most part, it was the same thing over and over that she talked about. Just like with the bill paying and the house maintenance, she talked about the lawn, and about how her husband had kept it so nice and she was still scared of the mower.

“Why don’t you hire a neighborhood kid to do the lawn for you,” I said, “and then think of how proud your husband would be of the way you were keeping it up, and how proud he’d be of your taking charge, and then maybe how good it made you feel that he’d be proud?” That’s what I said to her then, and that was similar to quite a few other things I said that afternoon. “Why don’t you try doing it this way and see if it makes you feel better, and if it does, give yourself a big thank you for what you’ve done.” I repeated that every which way it seemed to me, but I was frankly tired out by around four o’clock and told her that there was a five o’clock bus that I needed to take back to Chicago. I expected her to be reluctant to let me leave after all we’d talked about but she was very gracious instead and didn’t say another thing about her troubles that day.

When I was riding back home on the bus, I thought a lot about how we’d said goodbye. We didn’t talk much on the walk over to the terminal, and the bus was loading early when we arrived. I’d figured out what I was going to say to her long before we got there and I just came out and said it: “Now you call me whenever you like, Freda,” I said just before I boarded my bus.

And she looked like she was completely taken by surprise, and leaned her head toward me like she was looking more closely to see if I really said what she thought.

210

THREE OF HEARTS “What is it?” I asked.

She sighed like she was relieved. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk to you again.”

“What did you think,” I asked, “that this was a visit from the Pope?”

And she laughed at that, and then shook my hand and said goodbye. And what I was thinking on the ride back home was that that was the only time I heard her laugh all that day. And more than that, too, because when I heard her laugh she suddenly seemed a whole other woman to me. I mean she seemed like a woman to me, not just a female person I might be able to help who made me uneasy by holding my hand.

It was an eight block walk back to the Horatio hotel. I didn’t see anything in the faces that passed as I walked across the loop—not a thing. What’s going on with me, I was wondering? Why couldn’t my mind settle on one thing or another? Everything had stayed the same for so many years and now it was topsy-turvy, and by the time I got back to my room, I couldn’t think of anything to do but get right back on the telephone and call Freda up in Madison. I also thought how weak and shameful I’d been pulling my hands away from Rosie when she was so frightened on the corner of Michigan and Washington that terrible day in my dream.

211

SPEECHLESS

SPEECHLESS

“Holy shit! Look at this, Gretchen! There’s another one!”

“If one does not count on the harvest while plowing, Nor on the use of ground while clearing it, It furthers one to undertake something.”

We should do every task for its own sake as time and place demand and not with an eye to the result. Then each task turns out well, and everything we do succeeds.

From Hexagram #25, Wu Wang/ Innocence (The Unexpected) Translation from the Chinese and commentary by Richard Wilhelm, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes.

Gretchen was just waking up. I’d gone out for cigarettes and picked up the new Isthmus—so if you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that it’s Thursday.

“Gee!” Gretchen said. “Who’s putting this in here?”

212

THREE OF HEARTS As in the first notice about the Great Way not being difficult for those with no preferences, there was a web address at the bottom of this vertical box in which it was centered. But I didn’t care; I think I’d have preferred the quote standing entirely on its own.

That’s the way I took it—like a letter fluttering down out of the sky.

“I suppose you can find out, if you like,” I said to Gretchen, realizing we were skipping our as you turn to me in a moment forever that never again in the palest of blues will be routine for the first time in days. I lit up a Camel and gave her her pack of Marlboro Lights. “Just don’t tell me who it is. There’s a good chance it’s some off-the-edge New Age cult trying to lure in malcontent housewives and gullible high school dropouts.”

“You know, you could be a little more forgiving, Felix.”

Gretchen scowled at me. “It could be someone very sensible and wise trying to attract like-minded people… like you. Or maybe not you, because of the sensible part.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What would I do without you?”

Gretchen was still in bed, but she was sitting up. She was wearing the extra large Brewers tee shirt we’d bought at the game in Milwaukee and nothing more. I was hoping she’d flip that big blue shirt up over her head and say something like “You’d be missing out on this,” but no, that didn’t happen. In my experience, things as brazenly sexy as that only happen in movies or books, or in life only when one is least expecting them. What Gretchen did was quite the opposite. She drew up her knees, still under the sheet, wrapped her arms around them and leaned forward.

“You’d probably perish from this earth; that’s what you’d do without me. Now stop being a ninny and tell me what you think about this. I’m going to check this website out as soon as I can get to a computer.” She held out the folded newspaper and shook it a little.

“I think it’s one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard.

How’s that? And I never thought of it before—except in my one, single published poem. You know, the one I said for you that first night? ‘The Long Hunt in the Sun?’ But I never put those simple ideas together before, and it’s so brilliant and obviously reasonable.

It cuts right through everything extraneously human. And my God, Gretch, it’s the perfect pairing for the first one about no preferences.

I think I just found religion.”

213

SPEECHLESS Gretchen didn’t reply. She looked thoughtful, a mood, like many others, in which she was strikingly lovely.

“It makes me want to dance, Sweetheart,” I said. “That’s how happy I am with that. It’s news; that’s what it is, good news. Do every task for its own sake with out an eye to the result? That’s the missing link, Pinky, the missing link in the great Be Here Now mystery. It tells you what to do with the Now. This is phenomenal news, actually. That’s all this boy needs to live. I’m stoked!”

“I can see that, and you know what? You’re my hero, Felix,” she said. “There can’t be another person in the world that reacts to the truth as wonderfully as you do. I mean that. I suppose I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Tiny little stars, silver and tinselly, came showering down from the white ceiling of my room and dissolved before my eyes in golden sparkles. Gretchen was smiling like a bride. I suppose I was too.

“You’re speechless?” she asked.

I sat down next to her on the bed and put my arms around her.

I was speechless. My head was next to hers, my chin on her shoulder, her blond hair was pressed against my cheek. She gave me a little squeeze. “Felix?” she said, her tone curious. “A lady likes an answer to her proposal.” So I nodded my head.

“Felix?” she said again, leaning back and taking my face in her hands. “Do I take that as a ‘yes’?” I nodded again, rapidly. My face in Gretchen’s hands was perhaps the most pleasant place my face had ever been, but looking in her eyes did nothing to help me regain my power of speech. I was liquid.

Then Gretchen started laughing. For me, at that moment, her laughter was a sweet lyric aria, or the sound of a pastoral brook, or bells. The love of my life had captured me with her eyes and she was laughing me home. But I couldn’t even laugh. She started kissing me then, as if to revive me it seemed, to bring me to my senses, a place I had no desire to go, but apparently there was a practical matter to be considered.

“Are you going to be able to walk me to this class?” she asked, wagging an accusatory finger at me. “Or have I just proposed to an invalid?”

Gretchen was taking only two classes this semester, these toward her second graduate degree. She wanted to be sure of things

214

THREE OF HEARTS before she committed herself full time to her ambition, which she intended to keep undisclosed to the all academic cynics until she was fully qualified to undertake it. Today’s class was her first and I knew she couldn’t skip it. Suddenly my power of speech returned along with my power of worry. “Of course I’ll walk you, sweetheart,” I said. “But what will this do to, you know, my… my decision?”

“O-o-oh, the poor dear can talk but can’t make decisions.

Mmmm,” she said, standing up and stroking my cheek. “Poor dear…”

Then she opened her pack of cigarettes. I held out my lighter.

She inhaled deeply and blew the stream of blue white smoke over my head. “I just had to tell you how I’ve been feeling,” she said. “I gave no thought to… to the result. I didn’t know if you were going to say yes, or no, or nothing at all—and actually all you did was nod. And I don’t know what effect this will have when your rent’s due. It’s a new ingredient in our pie, Sweetie. You take your time and think about—maybe think it’s like World War II and I want to be your bride before you go away, maybe never to return. I had to tell you because it’s part of our reality now, but I’m not going to hold you to anything, you know that. You can jilt me if you need to, but if we don’t get out of here soon, we won’t have time for coffee.”

Yes. Coffee. It was the idea of coffee that occupied my mind momentarily as Gretchen slipped out the door to the bathroom, tooth brush and paste in hand. Coffee, something I’d craved every morning for… oh, seventeen years, maybe, and consumed freely, mostly during the early parts of the day. But now it was something different. Gretchen would soon return from the bathroom, dress, and we’d leave my room without making the bed. Then, on the way over to her class, we’d stop at Boston Blacky’s for some of the very good coffee they served there. Then we’d drink that coffee as we had on many recent mornings, but the difference today would be that… And that was as far as my little brain would go. Of course I knew the words that concluded that thought and also the bizarrely contradictory ones that would necessarily follow. But, I was feeling a lot like I believe a hamster must feel, or some other small brained mammal, some other small brained but friendly mammal, and like a hamster, or a gerbil, or maybe even a mouse, I’d feel perfectly

215

SPEECHLESS content burrowing in the soft flooring of my cage or taking on the captivating challenge of my wheel. There wasn’t much I could say to Gretchen about that, though, but I assumed she’d remain pleased with me as long as I remained a pleasant little mammal. People are always aspiring to become greater than themselves and I’d never wondered why before.

216

THREE OF HEARTS

BUTTERMAN AS POET

This new life as Past President of the American Metaphysical Society and current bearer of the flowing yellow cape and great yellow “B,” has its contradictory aspects. Just moments ago, for example, when I prepared my morning coffee, rather than RESPONSIBLY considering the order in which I’d approach my morning’s tasks or concerning myself with the effect of caffeine on my aging heart, I IRRISPONSIBLY sang (out loud): “I-m-m-m going to make some coffee, I’m going to make some coffee, I’m going to make some coffee To drink right down my throat!”

To accompany this ditty, I danced a little foot-stomping-dance around the kitchen as I waited for the coffee to brew. What troubled me as I danced and sang was not what an observer might think of a supposedly distinguished gentleman behaving like a six-year-old,

217

BUTTERMAN AS POET but rather the use of the future tense my song. Because the truth was, I wasn’t “going to make some coffee,” I was already making some coffee (to drink right down my throat.) It was dripping through the filter as I sang. The problem was that, not being a poet of any sort, I couldn’t fit the word making into the meter of the song. It would feel rushed and awkward to sing: “I’m-m-m making myself coffee, I’m making myself coffee…” or “Right now I’m making coffee, right now I’m making coffee…” or even “Here’s how I make my coffee…” The absurdity of “drink right down my throat,” didn’t trouble me at all.

Now please understand that at the moment, these were serious considerations, though serious seems not quite the right word, does it? Maybe I should say absorbing or even perplexing considerations.

But those weren’t my sole considerations that morning in my kitchen; I had others, also absorbing, though more intriguing than perplexing, to wit: how to exemplify the relation between the two sayings I’d printed in Madison’s weekly newspaper. I’ll call that a RESPONSIBLE consideration.

Just for the fun of it (something I can’t remember the Past President saying, though he must have on occasion,) I took my coffee into my handsomely furnished living room and I settled myself on the puffier of my two couches, the cerulean blue one.

(Though I’d been trying to make it a habit to refer to this large room on the first floor of my house as the “meeting room,” the words my “living room” recurred with persistent frequency.) It occurred to me briefly that had something not interfered with my supposedly inevitable death, I wouldn’t be sitting in this formerly bare room now transformed into something as inviting as this. Needless to say, I wouldn’t have had anything to sit with either. But that hardly matters to Butterman, who’s unconcerned with the past and future.

He’s only concerned with fun. Call him IRRESPONSIBLE. But perhaps that’s my RESPONSIBLE solution! Joy in the moment, in “the task at hand!” It frees one from “preferences,” since in truth, preferences arise only from memories of the past and imaginings of the future. And that, certainly, is reflected the concept of “not counting on the harvest while plowing.”

So, to sum it up and tie it in a nice bow: if someone were to ask, I might suggest the following: That any person who (while cleaning a bathroom prior to a party for most distinguished guests)

218

THREE OF HEARTS can delight in scrubbing the toilet for 1) The renewed gleaming whiteness of the porcelain, or, 2) The ideal of sanitized surfaces, or, 3) the joy of meticulousness itself, is indeed a person taking a sure step on the “Great Way.” Yes. Indeed.

Once my coffee was finished and drunk right down my throat!

I returned to the kitchen and opened the double doors beneath the sink to reveal the dank and clammy storage space reserved for my household cleaning agents.

Why, I thought, as I extracted the Ajax, the Windex, the Clorox cleaning spray, and the sponges and scouring pads, why on earth should these dedicated, hard working, citizens of my household be relegated to such low end housing? Thinking about the cabinet space in that kitchen and the distribution of foods, dishes and pots and pans therein, I realized that with a little planning, a change could be made, leaving the under-sink for only those things (buckets, scrub brushes, used sponges, etc) that actually got wet, thus honoring the hardworking citizen cleansers, many of whose names end in “X”, with some IRRESPONSIBLE consideration.

That I felt great joy in this decision might serve as another example for my distinguished guests, but then again, there was a balance I wished to maintain to preserve an image of… of maturity? Of dignity? Of sanity?

More significantly, though, there was a bathroom to clean.

The process took only fifteen minutes since the room was, in fact, “a powder room,” the only bathtub and shower in the house being in my own, larger second floor bathroom. Feeling in a creative mood, I cleaned that too, a more demanding task that actually left me a little tired. I went back down to the kitchen to (temporarily) replace my cleaning supplies, I found myself thinking that Miranda would be proud of me for cleaning the upstairs bathroom as well as the one for my guests. I’d hardly thought of Miranda for days. Not that I’d forgotten her; she hovered just outside my consciousness as a sweet, reassuring presence. She hovered there as a free floating smile, like that poem, “The Long Hunt in the Sun.” A very nice arrangement, I thought.

Then Lois, the other significant female in my life, followed me upstairs as she most always does when she meets in the kitchen, also a very nice arrangement. She began behind me and finished ahead,

219

BUTTERMAN AS POET waiting for me at the top of the stairs. When I lay flat on my back on my bed then, she looked up at me from the floor with a politely inquisitive meow and an expended paw. When I answered that by patting my stomach, she leapt with apparently little effort and settled there in her customary sphinx position.

“So,” I said to her. “How’s life, Lois?”

She purred and looked beautiful to me, her symmetrical black and white markings reminding me of the mysterious orderliness of the natural world; her pink nose and startling long white whiskers reminding me of nothing at all—nothing, not even that beauty needs no qualification. Which reminds me of a creation myth in which God is a child playing with Euclidian solids... or were those dice... or were those stars... or brightly colored sofas and chairs arranged in a cryptic pattern in a multitude of rooms, was that it...?

But apparently Butterman needed more coffee to “drink right down my throat!” because before I knew it, I was awakened from my unplanned morning nap by the telephone. Lois sprung up instantly and disappeared down the stairs.

I answered the phone, regretting having lost a wisp of a dream.

“Hi, Mr. Guthrie, this is Gretchen…” “…Oh, Gretchen. Hello. How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“There hasn’t been any more trouble with that… old friend?”

“Oh, no. He’s vanished from my life. Never to return, I hope.

It’s funny you mention that because it seems so long ago even though I don’t think it’s been a month. Things change.”

“Life does go on, doesn’t it? Even at my age.”

“O-oh, you’re not old.”

“You’re right, I’m not, but I could be if stopped smiling for too long.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Gretchen said. “I agree with that.”

I thought of telling her about the Sunday night meetings, but let it go, preferring the attendance to be governed by those invisible forces that operate outside my volition.

“So,” she went on, “I’ll try to come by some time soon to take a look out back and do some late summer chores.”

“Wonderful. Whenever you like. It’s looking lovely out there these days. Are you finished with your course work?”

220

THREE OF HEARTS “Yes, but no. I’m thinking of landscape architecture, which would mean quite a bit more school, so I’m taking a few classes to see if I’ve got the gumption.”

“Gumption,” I said. “You don’t hear a lot about gumption these days, do you?”

“I guess you’re right. I think I got it from my father… The word, I mean.”

“I wonder what the root is. It’s a strange word, isn’t it?”

“It is. I like words. I’ll ask my friend who’s a poet. If he doesn’t know, he’s got one of those dictionaries. Etymological or Entomological, I’m not sure which. One’s bugs and one’s word origins.”

“I have a friend who’s a poet, too. Maybe she’ll know. And I think its Et.” “I think you’re right. So… so we’ll find out about that,” she said, sounding unusually happy. “And I’ll be over to clean up back there soon, and I hope I’ll see you.”

I thanked her, told her I was glad to hear she was well, and that it was always nice talking to her.

“You, too,” she said, and then “Bye bye,” and then I heard the descending C, G, C of the doorbell chimes downstairs, as if scored to sound simultaneously with Gretchen’s final “click.” The last time I went downstairs to answer the door I found Gretchen standing there with her brute of an old boyfriend. That was something I could rule out. When I got down, Lois was staring at the door, and as soon as I opened it she bolted out, startling both people standing on my front porch.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was he supposed to go out? We’re sorry.”

“It’s no problem at all,” I said to the young woman who’d apologized. I recognized her and the young man with her from the Sunday night meeting. “Let me see…” I said. “It’s Rita, and… Oh I’m sorry… It’s…?”

“Evan,” he said.

“Yes, Evan. You’re interested in Krishnamurti.”

“That’s correct,” he said as he extended his hand to shake mine.

“And the cat’s a she,” I said. “Lois is her name. Did you want to come in?”

221

BUTTERMAN AS POET “Is that okay?” Rita asked. “We were taking a walk and we were so close but we didn’t think it was right to barge in on you, so we weren’t going to. But we were so impressed the other night and we saw the paper today and we’ve hardly been talking about anything else since. So we just meant to knock and say hello.”

“We didn’t expect to come in,” Evan added earnestly.

Evan had a scholarly look about him. His rimless, round glasses and trim appearance may have added to that impression, but there was a fastidiousness to his speech and manner that backed it up. Rita, on the other hand, seemed all heart. She’d been taken with the idea of no preferences, and had spoken aptly and movingly about the “Fool” card in the Tarot deck in that regard, intuitive insight beaming from her eyes. I liked her. Her short red hair looked as if she made no attempt to tame it.

I led them into the living room and asked them if they wanted anything to drink. I had the impression that they did, but they politely refused. “It’s all right,” I said, sizing them up. “I’m glad to hear you were excited about last Sunday.”

But Rita didn’t look all right. “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding sincere about it. “I feel like we’re imposing on you, so we should probably leave.”

The two were sitting together on the puffy rose colored loveseat. I didn’t feel at all like my old self—the accommodating past president—but didn’t know just who was going to respond to them, my RESPONSIBLE or IRRISPONSIBLE self. I sat down in my leather armchair and gave them magisterial look.

“Just as I’d asked that no one bring refreshments to the meetings here, and that no one help clean up,” I said, “I assumed it was clear that I wasn’t expecting anyone to appear on my doorstep until Sunday the 16th.”

As I said this, I saw the two of the visibly shrink in size as they sunk back into the well stuffed piece of furniture. “Isn’t that what you assumed?” I asked, looking first at Rita and then at Evan.

“We’re sorry,” Rita repeated, starting to stand. I held out my hand, as much in an exercise of my surprising new power as a way of keeping her in place. She sat down.

“You say you’re sorry, but then why did you knock?” I asked.

222

THREE OF HEARTS I got the sense that Evan felt that Rita was taking too much of the brunt of this. “It was a friendly impulse,” he said, bravely. “We apologize if it was inappropriate. We really should leave.”

“It was inappropriate,” I said. “You read the Wilhelm quote in The Isthmus today?”

“We did,” they said in unison, a little stunned.

“And have you heard the Zen story regarding what one should do if one comes upon the Buddha in the street?”

Apparently they had not. “The story goes that if one finds the Buddha walking in the street, one should kill him.” I paused for an appropriately dramatic length of time. “In other words: be independent thinkers; accept no authority greater than your own.”

They appeared to increase in size a bit, their looks at once insightful and bewildered.

“So, why don’t I try again,” I said firmly. “Would either of you like something to drink?”

They wanted to glance at each other but didn’t—bravely, I thought. “I would,” Rita said, tentatively, testing the waters. “So would I,” Evan followed.

“Good. Get it yourselves. I have quite a bit remaining from last Sunday.”

As I watched these two earnest young people walk from my living room into my kitchen, I stopped restraining my smile. The Past President was lurking behind me, imploring me to explain that I was simply following the principles I was trying to teach them.

But the past president was passé. If I was going to help guide these young people—who probably had far more spiritual potential than I—I might as well play the part: first of all, to toughen them up, to give them the opportunity to come to their own conclusions; and secondly, because it seemed like it was going to be a good deal of fun. Acting. I planned to help them even keeping them a little off balance was required. A BENEVOLENT consideration?

So once they returned—with no further explanations from their new Master—I delivered a fifteen minute, no nonsense lecture on the I Ching, after which they asked a number of intelligent questions. By the time our talk ended, I liked them both a great deal, and though they seemed a little frightened, I think they liked me too. My heart, in fact, was leaping in my chest when I walked them out to the front porch and said goodbye. As soon as I started

223

BUTTERMAN AS POET back up the stairs, Lois joined me and bounded on ahead. I think that it would be fair to say that as I watched her climb and knew how she’d be waiting for me up at the top I was in love with life itself. § I like to think that my mother would have approved of my life as it is turning out. By wishing for her approval I don’t mean to imply as so many people do these days, particularly in public pronouncements, that “she’s smiling down on me.” Whenever I hear this regarding an athlete’s parent, or the parent of some other hero or star, I get the impression that they—and all who share their sympathies—believe, 1) that the deceased have nothing better to do than approve or disapprove of the lives of their descendants, and 2) that they are seated on bleachers in a huge celestial amphitheater that provides an excellent view down onto earthly life, with closeups provided when necessary. I’ve already made it clear that this past president of the American Metaphysical Society (a man well versed in these matters) does not know whether such a traditionally posited afterlife is an aspect of the truth or a hopeful fantasy, but whatever the case, I have no intention of ever entering such an amphitheater, even if a descendant of mine is inducted into one Hall of Fame or another or receives a Nobel Peace Prize. There must be better things to do without a body than exercising face muscles that no longer exist. A JUDGEMENTAL consideration?

What I mean by feeling a need for my mother’s approval is that I hope my present principles are resonant with those embodied in her unusual life. I mentioned earlier that my mother’s shrewd management of my father’s investments depended in part on her astrological expertise, but there is something else I did not mention.

I suppose when introducing her to the reading public I wanted to create an image commensurate with the respected position she held in the spiritual community, just as I introduced myself as the RESPONSIBLE Past President of the American Metaphysical Society. And my mother was a wise, kind, sensitive, studious and extremely knowledgeable woman; but she was also a very successful high stakes gambler, and the undisclosed (but official) astrological consultant to the Nixon White House.

224

THREE OF HEARTS All this I discovered reading her diaries, which she bequeathed to me at her death. Neither of these activities lent themselves to much documentation. To this day I do not fully understand how she concealed her considerable winnings from the IRS, though I suppose her clandestine association with the Nixon administration might have had something to do with that. I have her bank statements and other records, which show irregular and inexplicably large deposits, not corresponding to any earnings statements and hardly in line with her personal astrological services. There are also substantial monthly deposits over a period of several years, during which time there are entries in her diaries detailing her government work, with names mentioned familiar to anyone following the news during that chaotic period in Washington. Apparently, her advice was not carefully followed, not until the last, which concerned the timing for the President’s resignation speech, something that probably wouldn’t have been necessary if her earlier warnings had not been dismissed by one white house aid as “paranoid hippie bullshit.”

The Ford administration retained her services, though no one ever contacted her, apparently either not realizing she was on the payroll or what it was that she did. Only a week after the Carter Administration moved in, she was contacted by an aid and summarily dismissed. This may have been a bad move.

I’ve mentioned all of this because during the years after my retirement from The Society I felt an unnamed uneasiness regarding my wealth, having spent those years in private contemplation and study. Since I have long deplored consumerism, I couldn’t accuse myself of that; yet still I couldn’t help but feeling useless, despite my understanding that we all serve the evolution of the cosmos even if in ways unknown to us. My problem was, obviously, that I didn’t know what to do. Now that I’ve discovered it, I can wholeheartedly revel in my moderate wealth. True, I’ve only furnished one large room, purchased refreshments, taken out two ads, and incurred some computer related expenses, but the knowledge that I can eventually spend what I need enriching the lives of those who may go on to enrich others fulfills me as nothing else could.

It’s with these uplifting thoughts in mind then that I walk back downstairs to the second floor bathroom composing the appropriate bathroom song in my head as I make my approach. This song, like

225

BUTTERMAN AS POET the coffee song, repeats the first line three times and culminates in the fourth. An obvious IRRESPONSIBLE consideration. The last line of this song, however (“To flush right down the drain,”) is problematical, just like the last line of the coffee-making song, though in this case the problem is that toilets do not, in truth, have what we call drains. That’s the wrong word. So is chute. So again, my poetic ineptitude forces compromise, which isn’t much of a problem for me, straddling the cusp of two worlds, since the RESPONSIBLE Past President is pretending not to hear and IRRESPONSIBLE Butterman’s singing right along.

And that, precisely, is what I’ve become, a RESPONSIBLE, IRRESPONSIBLE, possibly BENEVOLENT and possibly JUDGEMENTAL man. Any other suggestions? FOOLISH? UNSTABLE? HAPPY? (FLUSH)

226

THREE OF HEARTS

THE ELEVATOR MAN, BUTTERED

Today is Saturday, September 8th. I started back to work at the Randolph House on Thursday. I also worked Friday, those being two days of my new relaxed schedule at the hotel: Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 4PM—weekends free. I suppose after all these years I deserved a soft schedule. Peepers told me that if I’d asked I could have had it any time I wanted, that I didn’t have to have a fainting spell to reap the benefits of my service to the hotel. I’m not sure if he was telling the truth, but he seemed happy I was back. I guess Jolene had done a good job describing how ill I was, even though she didn’t know the half of it.

I was very happy those first two days back at work, feeling like it was better to be alive than dead, despite the risks. People even noticed it; they said I looked “all lit up,” which I guess was true, for a couple of reasons. The first was that Oscar had started on Tuesday and Carl said he’d been “Johnny on the spot.” I asked him if he’d said those words to Oscar, and when he said he didn’t, I told him that

227

THE ELEVATOR MAN, BUTTERED was just as well because Oscar probably wouldn’t know what the heck he was talking about!

I was also happy because of the way I was starting to see people faces. It wasn’t like before when some of them were so wide open that their lives burst out at me like a gale force wind. No, it was more like some of them seemed open a crack, like a door with light shining through, and if I wanted to I could peer in or not.

And I suppose the third thing that made me happy was that I was coming back up to Madison to visit with Freda, who is a person I feel like I understand and I’m glad is someone I can help. And like I said, that’s also affecting me in a private way I haven’t felt for a long while, having to do with hygienic matters, like they taught us to say in the Lutheran Home. Feeling so good like I’ve been, the bus ride up here was very pleasant for me; the air around me seemed to get sparklier as we headed north into Wisconsin. When we made our plans, I said that since it was going to be a Saturday again that she didn’t have to meet me at the bus terminal, but that I’d like to meet her at the Farmers’ Market. So we planned that we’d each be at the State Street corner of the square at 10:15. I decided on that particular time so I’d be able to walk there from the bus terminal and be able to shop around a little to get something for Freda. It took me a while to find the flower stand I was looking for, but I did find it, and when I told the woman there I was the one, two weeks ago, who told her that her flowers looked like they’d been picked from God’s garden, she said she told some of her customers about that and that everyone thought it was a wonderful thing to say. But before we even talked, I saw the flowers I wanted to buy. They were on stalks: light green, pearly pink, and the softest yellow, like cream. They were gladioluses, the woman told me, and I bought a bunch of the three colors mixed.

My heart was thumping in my chest when I walked up to Freda. I don’t know about other men my age, but I felt awkward with that, and I tried to ignore the feeling when I told her I picked some flowers especially from God’s garden for her, because God wanted her to be happy. The part about God wanting her to be happy just slipped out, I never thought of saying that. And I haven’t given God much thought in my life; it’s always seemed to me the goodness in people is the best we have to work with, and that God, if there is such a thing, doesn’t matter much. But like a lot of other

228

THREE OF HEARTS people, I think, I’ll mention God like I did to Freda just then without meaning anything religious, just something otherworldly or allpowerful.

Freda lit up when she saw me there with that bouquet of flowers for her, and I thought she might be feeling this was some kind of a date she was being taken on. That idea made me blush, enough so that she noticed. And she still hadn’t said anything, so it probably seemed to her that just seeing her there was enough to make me blush. Then she blushed too, which made it all kind of funny. I knew she was going to hug me then, which was fine and also not fine, so in order to avoid it, I put the bouquet in her hand.

That didn’t stop her though. She hugged me, holding the flowers off to the side, and she whispered in my ear that I was a sweet man.

“It’s another beautiful day we’ve got,” I said.

She tilted her head and gave me a suspicious smile.

“You’re a very shy man, aren’t you? For having so much emotional insight, you’re very shy yourself.”

I don’t know if I was a little wary or even more embarrassed. “You don’t want to say that to a shy person,” I said, and she laughed.

I know I was red as a beet by then, but I kind of chuckled and looked right at her.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I’m sorry I laughed. It just popped out. I’m not a teasing person. And these are the most beautiful glads I can ever remember seeing. I didn’t know they came in these colors.”

“Do you want to get coffee again and some rolls like last time,” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “And then I can tell you how well I did this week.”

So we walked over to the coffee stand, the one that was nearby the place where they sold the croissants, and we each got the same as we had the week before, which was something we laughed about even though there really wasn’t anything funny about it.

Once we sat down on the grass in between the crowd of moving people and the State Capitol building, she started talking a blue streak. She went on and on about how much happier she’d been during the week because of the new way she’d started thinking of herself. She said she’d been thinking of herself as a newly born

229

THE ELEVATOR MAN, BUTTERED person, just like I’d suggested, a new person who had the chance to discover what it was that she really and truly liked.

I couldn’t help thinking that she must be exaggerating some, because I know people don’t change all that quickly, but I didn’t want to spoil her enthusiasm. And there was no doubt that she looked better, brighter; some of the worry in her face was gone.

She talked all the way through the coffee and the rolls, telling me about some sad experiences too, mixed in with the all the good news, then she mentioned how well groomed I was with my nails manicured and hair cut so neat, and how nice and conservative my clothes were, too; and then she asked me if I’d let her cook dinner for me that night. I didn’t answer right away, but she was never at a loss for words, so she asked me if I had a favorite food.

“I have a favorite dessert,” I said. “Pumpkin pie.” But I told her she was going to have to narrow it down a little for me if I was going to tell her a dinner I really liked.

“I’m not a gourmet cook,” she said, “but I make a good pot roast. I even have a recipe for a quick one, and I roast pork with rosemary and thyme, and I fry chicken—I’ve got a deep fryer. And I cook prime rib, and spaghetti and meatballs, and beef-barley soup and corned beef and cabbage and chicken and dumplings...” And she started to laugh because she was going so fast, but that’s where I stopped her. Chicken and dumplings.

Then all of a sudden she looked shy herself, even a little afraid, and I knew why.

“Just so you know,” I told her, “I’ll never say I’ll stay here or have dinner with you to spare your feelings.” But by the time I finished saying that I was as warm inside as an oven, so I changed the subject.

“Do you already have the chicken or should we buy one of those fancy organic ones they sell here?” I’d never said anything like that in my life before. She stood up and took my hand to help me, even though I didn’t need any help.

“Let’s buy one here,” she said. “The free ranging kind.

They get to peck wherever they want to, and they taste much better than the kind that are raised in boxes and never see the light of day.

And I’ll get some fresh green beans, I think those’ll go better with chicken and dumplings than sweet corn. Now you have a choice,” she said as we started around the square to the chicken stand. “We

230

THREE OF HEARTS can have chicken and dumplings like a stew, with carrots in there too, or I can make a roast chicken with dumplings on the side and gravy. Or, if you like, we can have a salad, and…”

I was happy listening to her talk about cooking dinner. The chicken stand was quite a ways away from us, and when we realized that, we wondered if we should have walked the other way around the square. But what was the hurry? Freda asked. And there wasn’t any. We hadn’t gone much farther then when a coincidental thing happened. Just like it was the week before, we saw those same two people sitting on the grass: the fella who looked to be in his thirties and the pretty younger blond woman. They were sitting on the grass under the same tree. And just like last time they had their arms around each other and were smiling at us when we noticed then. So Freda waved at them and I did too, and of course they waved right back. This time, Freda suggested we walk over and introduce ourselves. I didn’t want to; that’s not the kind of thing I usually do, but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing the old Freda would do either, so I said okay, it would be nice to introduce ourselves—but just then the young couple started in kissing and we chuckled a little and turned away.

Once we had all those groceries with the chicken needing to be refrigerated, we decided to go back to Freda’s house and drop them off. It was a beautiful day and once we got there it seemed a shame to stay inside, and Freda said that with me visiting she might feel sure enough of herself to take us someplace in her car. So I asked her where we’d go.

“Well,” she said, like she was thinking about it. “We could go to a mall. We’ve got some nice ones here.” But then she said that wouldn’t be taking advantage of the good weather, would it?

And I said it wouldn’t, and I laughed and told her that I was the kind of man who only liked to go shopping when there was something I needed to buy; and she didn’t laugh, but smiled and said she understood because her husband was like that, too.

Then she suggested that we could go out to a State Park or a County Park and walk around there; and that idea I liked, so she was off to the kitchen saying she’d put the chicken and some things in the slow cooker before we left.

But things didn’t turn out the way we expected. We hadn’t driven all that far from her house, a mile or so, when I noticed how

231

THE ELEVATOR MAN, BUTTERED jumpy she was behind the wheel. She wasn’t driving carelessly, but she was nervous; she wasn’t comfortable. I asked her if it was working out okay, or if she wanted to stop for a while or even let me drive a little, and she said no, it would be okay, but then she pulled over and parked. She didn’t say anything at first; she just stared out the windshield at the traffic coming and going down the street, and I didn’t think I should say anything either.

“I’m not going to be able to drive all the way to that County Park,” she said in a very sure and steady way that surprised me.

“But I have another idea. We can go to the Arboretum; it’s only around five minutes from here, and we can walk around there as well as anywhere else. It’s a very beautiful place...”

“Do you want me to drive over there?” I asked.

“No, Bernie,” she said, still sounding very deliberate. “That far I can drive.”

And I thought she’d made an excellent decision, but I didn’t say anything in case it didn’t work out. And she did seem nervous again driving there but there were no real problems; from the passenger seat, the short drive through busy streets felt normal.

We have a large Arboretum outside of Chicago that I’d visited once years ago, and though this one wasn’t as large, it’s planted right there in the middle of the city. I’d never known of anything like it. There was a forest and a lake and open fields and marshland, and there were trails weaving every which way through it, so it was like being in town but very far away at the same time.

We parked in a little circle just off the road through it, and when we’d set off a downhill trail made up of long, broad steps with logs for risers, I told her how impressed I was with her decision. She didn’t say a word back to me about it though, and that’s funny because she’s a woman who’s never short of things to say.

We spent a few hours walking the trails of the arboretum; making small talk mostly. By the time we left, I knew that she was more at ease than when we first arrived. I could tell by the way she drove back to her house. It was like she hardly noticed she was driving at all.

The dinner was as good as I expected it to be, and so was the pumpkin pie. Freda was a gracious hostess.

232

THREE OF HEARTS “You know, Bernie,” she said to me after we washed the dishes, “you don’t have to go back tonight. You can stay here with me.”

What happened to me then was something I wouldn’t feel right talking about, but just then I wanted to see Freda naked, even though I still felt like a married man; and then what I said wasn’t even true, that I needed to go back to Chicago on the late bus. ` “Are you going to come back next Saturday?” she asked.

And I said, “That’s something you can count on,” which seemed the best possible thing for both of us to hear. I tried to think of putting a revolver in my mouth and pulling the trigger, but all I could think of was a little plastic gun.

233

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE

“Just a second,” Gretchen,” I said. “You wait here. I’ll be back.”

It was Saturday again, and we’d been sitting on the Capitol lawn by the Farmers’ Market for a while already. Gretchen was ready to go home when I set off around the square to buy something for her. This was the third day since Gretchen had proposed to me, and the first that I’d fully regained my powers of reason and speech—a statement that may sound like an exaggeration, but I assure you, is not. § On the first day, Thursday, the day the quote about “not counting on the harvest while plowing” appeared in The Isthmus, Gretchen and I stopped for coffee as planned and I’d walked her to class. I was silent on the walk, as your typical hamster would be, unable to combine the images of pledging myself eternally to her (something I wanted to do from the top of my head to the end of my little hamster weenie) and fulfilling my own pledge of independence which she

234

THREE OF HEARTS claimed lay at the root of her love for me. I could not focus on those images simultaneously (but what little rodent can?) It helped a little when I remembered that she’d said she loved me because I was brave, and bravery, I knew could entail a variety of actions, even surrender. But Gretchen had raised the stakes with her proposal, because it was not a loosely framed sentiment, but an actual invitation to marriage, to a legally binding marriage ceremony.

“A… a wedding?” I had asked the next morning, Friday, after we’d lain in bed awake silently for fifteen minutes, again having skipped our morning routine. These were the first words I’d spoken since early the day before.

“No,” she said, “not in a church or a hotel or anything like that. Not now at least, not with everything so up in the air. I was thinking just a little formality at City Hall, and then a nice dinner afterward.”

“A last supper?” I asked.

“Very funny,” she said.

I didn’t say much else for the rest of Friday until I said goodbye after walking her to work. That’s when I hugged her and told her that I thought no man had ever had the love of a woman so fully devoted as hers, to which she answered that she was sure it had happened before, though probably not often. That’s what I’d meant, anyway, but saying it that way wouldn’t have brought the slight moistness to her eyes that had moved me even more. And I had to wonder then as I walked down the stairs from the restaurant and out onto the square, just what her parents must be like to have participated in the upbringing of a woman who could love so deeply that she’d pledge herself to someone who might leave her, and love him for that as well. It sounded operatic. City Hall?

When she returned from work on Friday night, I still wasn’t talking much, but we made love so passionately and completely it hardly seemed that we were two separate entities by the time it was all over. I felt as if I’d known what it was to be her, fully and deeply, and she said she felt the same of me, and there can be no greater mutual joy than that. Anything frivolous, anything capricious or reckless about our romance was washed away that night, in our sweat and in our tears. We slept unmoving in each other’s arms. When I awoke the next morning, I felt complete—in

235

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE that I could speak and think clearly again—and that the course of the future seemed clear because I finally believed her, and believed in her, entirely. It was in a state of sleepy adoration that we made love again, very early, just as the sun was rising. She spoke of the kind of child we could create then, were we to put this love to a purpose, and I told her I had no secrets and she told me that my life was shining through my face. And then I asked her if she wanted to hear about the violets and she did, so we did that, too.

And then I got up and wrote her a poem. It was just there, waiting in the wings. All I had to do was write it down.

I find you on a bridge, bleached white timbers, dry and smooth like clay.

Barefoot, you are standing there, you point across to planets, they are rising, big as fruit.

I’ve brought a basket with me, filled with peaches, plums and apricots; we eat them sweetly, juices running down our necks and chins.

Leaning on a rail, your hands run smooth across it as I lick you clean.

Last night I dreamed I found a shell And followed, curling through its chambers Past the whisper of forever; There too I found you, And now without a question, You take my hand and lead on across.

The moon, a crescent face with ancient, wizened features, sets. No stars rise.

Kneeling in the grass you bow your head, your eyes have taken on the indigo; the whippoorwills are silent, and the bells, and the flutes. Your hair, like water, flows into the darkness. Beneath the bridge, a dark boat parts the water gently.

The rubies have descended into earth.

236

THREE OF HEARTS The pool we’ve found is deep, violet and still.

Smooth round stones, grey-white, cool and silent, wait forever in the darkened greens around it.

Treetops enclose us, they hardly stir.

You are resting, crosslegged in shadow.

I see you brush away a wisp of hair— nothing more is needed. I slip across and tell you I remember this from another time: the dragonflies, the violet pool.

I tell you I have no secrets, you say my life is shining through my face.

Your fingers in my hair, I search the chambers of the shell.

The blues give way to black. A whisper, and we disappear.

I call it “Twilight.” Gretchen tells me to read it again. Then she says it makes her want to make love. Then she tells me to read it to her every night before we go to bed. A bedtime ritual. I say that sounds like a good idea to me. Then she says maybe we can get some peaches, plumbs and apricots so I can lick her clean. I say that sounds like an even better idea. § Later that Saturday morning, we talked of the future in hopeful detail sitting happily on the Capitol lawn. We had talked of it playfully, though, not seriously, and certainly not counting on a harvest of any sort. Then I told her to wait for me there, that I had something to do, even though I knew she wanted to leave. But the ten or twelve minutes it took me to make my way around the square proved frustrating and spoiled my fun. The object of my search was nowhere to be found.

“What’s wrong, Tweet?” Gretchen said, as I walked up to her.

“I wanted to get you some of those flowers, those beautiful glads that woman was carrying, but there weren’t any. There

237

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE weren’t even that kind in any colors at all. I’m so sorry. I wanted to give you those as a gift.”

“O-o-oh, thank you, Sweetie, those were beautiful, and it was so nice that you tried to find them.” Gretchen stood up. “But we really have to go,” she said. “I need a nap before work tonight— you probably do too even though you don’t have to go anywhere.”

At which she took my hand and led me away. I watched us leave as in a movie about two lovers who dared. After a lingering close-up, the camera backed away as we left the square until we we’d become tiny specks moving east on the isthmus between the two lakes, Mendota and Monona—tiny specks but still distinguishable, still discernable among the careless tumult of life around us.

We were nearly back at her house when she first spoke.

“So are you going to do it now?”

“Uh huh,” I said. “It all seems very simple, and it’ll probably work.”

She looked at me then, buoying me up with her smile. I felt able. When we arrived at her place we brought the telephone into her room. The Great Way is easy for one with no preferences. It works both ways. Gretchen sat cross-legged on her bed and looked at me. She was my audience. I adored her. I dialed.

A woman answered whose voice I didn’t recognize. “Good afternoon, Bernardo’s Restaurant and Café.”

“Hello,” I said. “May I please speak to Bernardo?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Yes,’ I said with some hesitation. “My names Felix Kotka and I worked there as Maître d’ until just recently.”

“Yes, sir,” the receptionist said, recognizing either my voice or my name.. “Mr. Bellini just left, five minutes ago.”

“So… When will I be able to reach him?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s not expected back for two weeks. He’s gone to Europe.”

“You’re sure of that?” I asked. “I mean the two weeks part.

He won’t be back before that?”

“No, sir. He’s expected back on the Saturday the 28th. I’ll be glad to take a message for you and have him call.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. May I ask who’s managing the place with him out of town?”

“Mr.Pendwicki. He’s the…”

238

THREE OF HEARTS “I know. I know Scott. Thanks very much.”

I didn’t even look at Gretchen before I made my next call.

“Hi, Clare… This is Felix again.” ……….

“No, I didn’t catch him. I missed him by five minutes.

What’s the story, anyway?” ……….

“Oh, Jesus. I guess I should be sorry. But two weeks?” ……….

“Oh, I know I didn’t say anything about a time limit…

There isn’t one, and it’s going to be fine, I’m sure. ……….

“No. I don’t feel you misled me. You had no way of knowing. And anyway, you can mislead me whenever you want.

And I hope the same’s true for me.” ……….

“Okay, I will. Thanks, Clare.” ……….

“Me too. Bye.” I sighed.

“Clare says ‘Hi,’ Gretch. Bernardo’s mother died and he’s gone back to Italy and won’t be back until the 28th. He’ll be in Milan, and a hell of a lot of good that’s going to do me. So… I suppose I need another plan—to follow another of my nonpreferences. I missed him by five minutes. Can you believe that?

Five fucking minutes. Is that fate or what?”

Neither Gretchen nor I had any money to spare. Gretchen’s roommates had already expressed dissatisfaction with my occasional overnight presence in their apartment. I’d heard from Clare that Bernardo had felt my loss more acutely than he’d expected; that he didn’t care for the job himself, and that many customers had asked after me. She said he’d probably welcome me back, and her judgment was sound. I’d also felt confident that as soon as I’d apologized, he’d give me a cash advance to cover my rent. He’d always been very generous with me. It had all seemed zipped up in a tidy little package. I’d counted on an ample harvest.

239

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE Gretchen looked a little shaken. “A blessing in disguise,” she said, not very convincingly.

“It’s going to have to be. Let’s show up at City Hall first thing Monday morning, okay?” I said, which seemed to perk her up a little. “And then we’ll borrow a car to move my pictures and lamps and worthwhile books and things for you to keep over at your place, so by next Saturday there won’t be anything there I won’t mind leaving behind.”

But Gretchen still had a concerned look, one I’d seen a few times during the last few days when I was silent. “My life is so easy,” she said. “You’re the one taking all the risks.” And she’d said that before, in the same words.

And in a way, I was taking a risk. The chance that I could remake myself in a matter of a month seemed slim. The challenge of taking my restlessness and arrogance and transmuting it into acceptance, into an outlook that clung to “no preferences,” seemed a lot to expect from myself, but I had no choice. None. I’d learned more of value in the past weeks than ever before in my life, and I couldn’t unlearn it. Once I was presented with the key to living more fully, I couldn’t possibly toss it away. I could never view my impatience or my arrogance the same way again. I could never justify it again. I could accept it as a way I felt, and let it be just that. But it’s one thing to have patience with one’s own selfishness and weakness, and another to let them take charge. That would be stupid, and it would be unworthy of me and even more so of Gretchen, because none of my new understandings could have ever penetrated my pride if it hadn’t been melted away by her love for me. That’s the story. But I really wasn’t taking a risk.

“No,” I said to her. “Sorry to disagree with one so clever, Dearie, but you’re wrong there. About risk, I mean. I’m not taking one. Do people die from trying to live in the moment? From trusting in the universe? From loving each other? I suppose there’s the risk of going mad from failure. Who knows? Maybe trying to be patient with a humdrum job would turn me into a raving lunatic; and maybe you’ll become clinically depressed because your beloved husband has taken to roaming the streets in rags and raging against the unfairness of life. But we’d probably get a grip before either of those got that far. We’re not really risking anything, Gretchen, we’re investing in what we’re doing. And maybe it seems like I’m

240

THREE OF HEARTS investing a little more than you are because I’m older, but that’s crap too, because we’re both investing all we have to offer for our happiness. So as long as we keep making love and one or another of us keeps making encouraging little speeches to the one who needs it when they need it most, we’re going to be fine. Whaddya think?”

“That I’d like to have a picnic after we get married Monday, but we’ll have to see a weather forecast to make sure it’ll be nice.

Will you read me that part of the poem about the picnic basket again?”

I find you on a bridge, bleached white timbers, dry and smooth like clay.

Barefoot, you are standing there, you point across to planets, they are rising, big as fruit.

I’ve brought a basket with me, filled with peaches, plums and apricots; we eat them sweetly, juices running down our necks and chins.

Leaning on a rail, your hands run smooth across it as I lick you clean.

It wasn’t bed time, and I only read the beginning of the poem, but as far as we were concerned, it had its desired effect.

Later that Saturday night, as we were walking back from her work, I told Gretchen my bus stop story, the bus stop I used to wait at every morning when I worked my early shifts at the Cafe. It seemed like I waited there for several years, though it was only one. I remember watching the dawn in all the seasons there, and how grateful I was for that shelter in the winter on windy mornings at 6:00 AM. Of course I never knew who it was that drew the red line on the metal bench in the bus shelter and who inscribed it so interestingly, but I wasn’t surprised when I saw it. I was, after all, living on the near east side of Madison at the time, the source of great irreverent creativity.

But by the time we got back to my house, the subject had changed to our plans for Monday, a day when the weather was to be, in the words of a local meteorologist, seasonably warm and

241

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE clear. Earlier in the evening I had asked my old friends (and Gretchen’s new ones) Clare and David to be our witnesses, an apt choice for a civil wedding with David already an attorney and Clare in her last year of law school, and were debating whether to ask them to join us on our picnic. After I told them our plans, they called me back suggesting that we have our picnic alone in a lovely room they’d provide for us in the nicest old hotel in Madison, but we were still undecided. It felt like we’d been through a lot that day and we fell asleep, skipping our newly planned bedtime routine, and hardly managing to say good night.

I woke at six, exhilarated. So exhilarated that I only spent a few minutes gazing at sleeping beauty there next to me, her hair again fanned out on her pillow. I kissed the top of her head, but I could barely wait for the coffee to brew, and once it had and once I lit my first Camel, my fingers were on the keys. I must have dreamt the whole thing again, planned it for that day, poised on the brink as I was with the secret and the invitation: The Palest Script on the Slightest of Scraps Two-thirds of the way along the bench in my bus shelter, someone in the neighborhood has taken care to stencil a wavy red line with the words “Logical Limit” alongside it.

The smaller third of the bench I assume to be the one beyond that limit, and it is there now that I sit while waiting for my bus at dawn.

It has been weeks now I have waited there, and though my life has hardly changed, the line remains, and will remain: And I know that there is only goodness here, in this darkening as July unfolds and folds its dawns ever later into the fullness of the trees, each day paler as I watch and wait. For this is the quintessential moment, the dawn of a thousand birds, where all false tales of past and future shrink away, and though I have been told of evil, it is a dream that speaks, and dreamers who weep:

242

THREE OF HEARTS And if I love them I will tell, for there is no pain or folly here, but only in future and only in past, and only so in dreamers and in dream. And if I love them I will tell them in a thousand ways of forgiveness and beg them to wait and stop forever in the goodness of time.

Even yesterday, returning home, I searched my mail for news among the shells of moments dying in the breath of their inception, for there will be dancing the Wedding of Only and Forever, and singing of these thousand birds and dawns that have borne them. Again today when I return I will sift through circulars and letters, through cobwebs at the door, through dust on wooden stairs among the shadows of your dreams and mine, for the message will be couched in secret, the announcement in the palest of scripts on the slightest of scraps: for it is you who will also sing at the Wedding of Only and Forever, difference dissolved: you again, alone in the goodness of Dawn. your yesterdays and tomorrows unfolded in the fullness of trees.

“What does it mean, the end?” Gretchen asked after reading it through a few times.

“I know what it means, I feel what it means, but I’m not sure if… I wholly understand it? If I can back it up? It’s beyond logic, that’s just the point. That’s why I sat beyond that line. But I have a feeling it’s true, out beyond us somewhere. It means that if there can be such a thing as the Wedding of Only and Forever, the wedding of the particular and the infinite, difference will dissolve and all will be one—everything—and it won’t be just my dawn anymore. It will be your dawn, everyone’s dawn I’m writing about and everyone’s yesterdays and tomorrows.”

“It will be our wedding tomorrow.”

243

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE “It will, and the poem’s about us, too, about what we’re really doing, secretly, what no one knows but us. How we’ve committed to transcending ourselves, right, goofy? Offering ourselves up to a mystery, really.”

“You’re going to be a famous poet someday, my Sweet Tweet.”

“Not if my poems require a paragraph of explanation, I won’t.”

“No,” Gretchen protested, “I had a feeling for it, how inside became outside at the end. It’s okay if something mystic like that gets explained. It’s not that way with the others poems you’ve just written... The way you cling to me certainly needs no explanation.”

“And how would that be, baby?”

“The way you cling to me?”

“That’s right.”

“You cling to me like a sure stone path run wi-i-i-ld among cathedrals of birds.”

“You said it, baby.”

“No, sweetie boy, you did. And just what was that that you tell me? Remember, about secrets?”

“You mean that I have no secrets?”

“Uh huh. And me?”

“You say my life is shining through my face.”

“That’s right, and what happens then?”

“You mean: Your fingers in my hair, I search the chambers of the shell?”

“Uh huh. And then, baby? What then?”

“The blues give way to black. A whisper, and we disappear.”

“Yeah. You wanna disappear again?”

We shopped for four. We decided to take Clare and David up on their offer of a hotel room, but not until the four of us had picnicked together. Knowing Clare for a few years through the restaurant scene, and David hardly at all, Gretchen had to do a job convincing me that she wanted to share part of her wedding day with them. At one point I had told her that of anyone I knew, those two were the most likely to understand our commitment to each other; and she

244

THREE OF HEARTS used that as ammunition to badger me into believing that she wasn’t merely acceding to my wishes to invite them.

All we bought was Champagne, but two bottles of that. We had just enough money left for some French bread and cheese which we’d pick up the next morning. We managed to get through the better part of the day without discussing my approaching employment problem, a concrete problem that seemed about as long a stretch from anyone’s yesterdays and tomorrows being unfolded in the fullness of trees as you can get—but then again, maybe not.

When Gretchen and I went to secret the Champagne away in the big communal refrigerator in the kitchen of my house, we found Tina drinking tea at the kitchen table, that same kitchen table I wiped a piece of ham on less than a month earlier before being punched in the stomach and writhing on the floor. Could that be?

Was that me?

“Hi, Tina,” I said. “Have you met Gretchen?” That seemed the polite thing to say. And I also felt great goodwill toward Tina, a pleasant side effect of being madly in love. I knew, though, that they had met in the hall more than once.

“We haven’t been formally introduced,” Tina answered.

“Nice to meet you, Gretchen—in the kitchen rather than coming or going from the bathroom.” Did I detect a note of annoyance in her tone? I wasn’t sure. Gretchen apparently didn’t.

“I know,” she said. “That’s a little embarrassing. You must think I live in there.”

Tina laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. That shower’s the best thing about this house.”

I’d already turned away and rolled my eyes, but Gretchen kept up her chummy chatting. After I put the brown paper shopping bag, folded to disguise its contents, on the back of my shelf in the fridge, I started for the door but had to wait while Gretchen and Tina finished talking about aromatic oils. It made me kind of hot thinking about the two of them applying oils to each other, not a possibility, but lovely concept which I let sink in for a moment.

Once Gretchen had followed me back upstairs but before we were in my room she whispered, “I can’t believe you actually rubbed meat on that woman, Felix.”

245

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE “I didn’t rub meat on her. Jeez! I rubbed it on the table in front of her. And where did you think I rubbed it on her? On what part of her body, for Christ’s sake?”

“On her arm?”

“On her arm? Above or below the elbow?”

“Below, I guess. I thought you rubbed on the inside of her forearm.”

“You thought I rubbed meat on her the inside of her forearm! That would be a lot more intimate than on the other side, the hairier one.”

“I guess you’re right. That would be an intimate place to rub a piece of meat.”

“How could you consider marrying a person who did a thing like that?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of it.”

“You hadn’t? So what kind of person am I committing myself to here?”

By this time we were inside my room. “Maybe a careless one, come to think of it,” Gretchen said. “I probably should have considered it. Little things like that can affect the destiny of great men.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have been able to consider it if I’d done that, smarty, because the woman would have charged me with assault and I probably would’ve done time for it and never had a chance to fall in love with you.”

“Oh, how life hinges on such a delicate balance,” Gretchen said. “And speaking of that, I need to make a phone call and I don’t want you in the room. So go to the bathroom, or back down to the kitchen to talk to Tina, or outside.”

Would it be possible to tell Gretchen I loved her too often? I wondered before I took the chance and said it again. Obediently then, I went downstairs, and then outside and sat on the small front porch. Tina saw me pass the kitchen and poked her head out. “You have a nice girlfriend,” she said. “She’s a lovely person.”

It was as if her punch to my stomach were suddenly and stunningly retracted, leaving only warmth to rush into the vacuum left behind. “Thank you. That’s very nice of you,” I said, filled at that moment with such an unreasonable amount of love that, had I

246

THREE OF HEARTS not been concerned with another possible assault charge, I would have kissed her.

It was over an hour later and getting dark when Gretchen returned with an armful of flowers.

“Since you couldn’t get them for me, and since according to today’s poem…you know: mine is yours?” she said, looking at me expectantly. “These are from Mr. Guthrie’s garden,” she said, “and once you snap out of it and get me a vase, I’ll show you what else I got.”

What she also got was a fifty dollar bill, a post-season bonus, her employer had called it. She called it “A wedding present.”

“Did you tell him?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t have to. I think he operates on a higher level.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded. “I’ll take you over to meet him some day.”

“That would be nice,” I said, putting the flowers in the center of the table. “Maybe we could learn something from him.

Oh, by the way, I asked him if I could use his computer, but then I couldn’t remember that website. So I guess we just don’t know.” § At noon on Monday, September 9th, Gretchen and I were married by a Judge named John Goodfriend. My other good friends, Clare and David were also in attendance. Gretchen hadn’t stopped smiling since we got up. She wore a creamy yellow dress I’d never seen before. I wore sharply creased white linen slacks and a soft grey silk shirt. We were a beautiful couple; we knew that without being told, and told we were: by the Judge, by his clerk, by David and Clare, and by other couples waiting to be married themselves.

From the City-County building we drove in David and Clare’s antique Volkswagen Beetle to Wingra Park, where we picnicked on blankets under a willow tree next to Little Lake Wingra, the friendliest of Madison’s three lakes. I’m quite certain

247

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE that light was streaming from my eyes the entire time; it was from Gretchen’s, and when I asked Clare if this was true, she confirmed it. We ate French bread, cheese, ripe pears and peaches, chocolate truffles, and drank copious amounts Champagne (our friends had brought two more bottles) without feeling any effects from it.

Sailboats went past us on the lake. Gulls flew above; ducks swam nearby. Insects approached but kept their distance.

Happy people wandered past us as we toasted: each other, our lives together, all flowering members of the vegetable kingdom, the poetry of Dylan Thomas, cirrus clouds, our children and their children and theirs as well, the sanctity of devotion, the flutter of the night moth’s wings, the “Isthmus Sage,” the bubbles rising from our Champagne glasses, the wedding of Only and Forever, all nicknames—particularly Ninny and Tweet, the songs of Cole Porter, The novels of Tom Robbins, the Upper Midwest, all the Simpsons—particularly Lisa, the enduring power of faith, the Great Lakes, the sculpture of Michelangelo, Bach’s left hand, the color of Gretchen’s hair, the paintings of Vermeer, the game of baseball, the Beethoven Symphonies—particularly the Fourth, the bubbles continuing to rise from our Champagne glasses, the sacrament of marriage, the transformative power of landscape, the seven colors of the visible spectrum—particularly violet, and art for art’s sake.

Then I recited “Humble Citizen of the Mystery.”

Humble citizen of the mystery, Turn to your father and your shadow, Your mirror and beloved; Honor death and turning, Yet never hear a voice A crystal clearer than your own.

Turn for guidance to the stars, To ancient virtue, prudence, folly, Honor gods and words of gods, Yet never know a vision burning Brighter than the guise In which the world appears to you.

248

THREE OF HEARTS Humble citizen of the mystery, There is nothing beyond this: Every moment is a wedding And a wedding and a child.

“It means that every moment is itself and something more than itself at the same time. It contains a mystery, which is also the future.” I said when Clare asked me what the end meant. When she still didn’t seem sure, I jumped up and did a stupid little dance.

That seemed to clear things up.

We were wafted then, in as much as an antique VW Beetle can waft, to the Edgewater Hotel, where our friends had rented us a luxurious room with a commanding view of Lake Mendota (the largest of Madison’s lakes, and for a lake its size, not at all unfriendly.) After they exclaimed about the room and we promised to name our children after them, they left us to ourselves—perhaps more completely to ourselves than we’d ever managed before, which seemed only appropriate on that day. We then spoke at length about the importance of remembering the day and all its details, and must have fallen asleep in the process. It was nearly six in the evening when we roused ourselves to order room service coffee. It was perfect. We’d be up all night.

249

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED

THE HOUR KEEPER, BUTTERED AND TOASTED

It was Saturday morning. 7:35 Saturday morning, to be precise, and I’d been lounging in my comfortable living room—taking pleasure in it. I had already been on the two blue couches (cobalt and cerulean) of different springiness, and had just settled myself into the rose colored and cushier of the two love seats. Being out of coffee, I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to sing my coffee making song. The Past President, of course, never ran out of anything; he was compulsively well-stocked. And that I’d run out of coffee today didn’t indicate a trend of carelessness on my part; it was an isolated incident, but being the man I’d become, it did afford me the opportunity for a new song: I-i-i-i-i-i’ve run right out of coffee, I’ve run right out of coffee, I’ve run right out of coffee, So I have none to drink!

250

THREE OF HEARTS A song that had no syntactical inconsistencies or linguistic artifice I could detect—other than the right in “I’ve run right out of coffee…” but that I attributed to alliteration. I knew that eventually I’d have to go to the store to stock up on coffee, probably to Boston Blacky’s, a coffee house in my neighborhood that sold French Roast coffee that had me spoiled. The very thought of going there started me off on: “I-i-i-i-i-m going to buy some coffee…” but the compositional problems the last line of that one posed cut my singing short. There’d be plenty of time before I went to buy coffee; I wasn’t about to wither from lack of caffeine, and an unstructured day awaited me.

I did have one thing in mind, however, which was to read through the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching (“The Book of Changes”); to read all the original ancient Chinese text to be sure, and as much of Richard Wilhelm’s commentary as possible.

At the age of thirty, I could recite all sixty-four hexagrams—so named since each is comprised of six lines stacked one above the other. The lines are either solid — or broken - - , representing yang or yin respectively. I could recite all “The Judgments,” which are the meanings of the Hexagrams, each representing one of sixty-four archetypical situations or stages of change. I could also recite “The Images”: more symbolic and poetic explanations for the meaning of each. And finally, I could recite “The Lines” of each Hexagram (all 386 lines,) these the qualities attributed to the six varying aspects of these symbolic situations.

Each Hexagram has six lines, just as: If one does not count on the harvest while plowing, It furthers one to undertake something. is the “Second Line” or in other words, the second of six aspects of the situation known as “Innocence, the Unexpected,” the 25th Hexagram.

In light of my next meeting, and in order to maintain my inscrutable, sage image, I felt I should demonstrate a casual but dazzling familiarity with the text, so some review was in order. And besides, looking back through my worn copy and rediscovering things I’d forgotten sounded like fun.

251

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED So I went upstairs, brought the old yellow book back down and opened it up randomly before I began at the beginning. As an exposition of sixty-four typical stages of change, the I Ching was designed to serve as an oracle, a means of divination, or more aptly, a mirror for anyone wishing to find their place in the greater flow of circumstances. There are formal ways of tapping into this, but the book works informally as well—like simply opening it up. I opened to the Hexagram “Modesty”, and in particular, The Image of that hexagram: Within the earth, a mountain: The image of MODESTY. Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much And augments that which is too little.

He weighs things and makes them equal.

Considering the way my life was turning out, that was right on the mark, I thought as I sat back down on the rose colored loveseat in my newly augmented living room. But the synchronicity of the moment may have gone beyond even that, because just then, precisely then, without having called, written, e-mailed or even so much as knocked, Miranda, red hair aflame, came bursting through the front door.

“Horace! My, oh my!” she declared. “This is beautiful!

Whatever came over you?” she declared.

“Good morning, Miranda,” I said, as deliberately as I could manage. “Nice of you to pop in. I thought you’d be in Boston by now.”

She came over and gave me a hug. “You’re not happy to see me?”

“Happy? Is there a compound of happiness and surprise?”

“Amazement?”

“Yes, that’ll do, and it looks like the same’s true of you?”

“I’ll say!” she said. “Have you been secretly married? To a woman who likes to entertain?”

“No. I’ve been entertaining, though. Earnest young aspirants. Sit down, will you?”

252

THREE OF HEARTS “No-o! You’ve done it? Already? That’s fantastic. How? Who? When?” But rather than sitting down she’d begun to prowl.

I started to tell her the story of the mystic announcements and the meetings but had hardly begun when she interrupted me.

“What about the walls?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to put anything on these walls?”

“I was thinking about it,” I answered.

Miranda was walking from one end of the room to the other.

I was back on the cushy loveseat watching her. “But let me tell you about…”

“Thinking about it?” she broke in. “What are your thoughts?”

“Fine arts prints,” I said. “Colorful. Simply framed.”

“Who?” “I don’t know. I was putting it off. I actually thought you might be able to help—somehow I imagined that. Odd, isn’t it? I don’t want anything down here as formal as upstairs—nothing baroque or renaissance. I was thinking of the impressionists, maybe. Lots of landscapes. Maybe lots of Monet—the haystack series, even, the Houses of Parliament. But… ” “No, Horace. Not in this room. This is not an impressionist room. That would be sappy. You want…” she continued to prowl, but more slowly. “You want the moderns, I think. You want Matisse. You want Picasso. You want Chagall. And Kandinsky, and Klee, and Mondrian. You know we can go on line and select the prints right now? We can have them delivered, framed and ready to hang. There are lots of sites and thousands and thousands and thousands of prints. I’ve wished I had a house to furnish so I could do this.”

“You feeling quite at home here?” I asked.

She laughed and took off her shoes. “What do you think of those choices?”

“You don’t want to hear about my newfound role of mysterious guru and about my devoted followers?”

“Not with blank walls, I don’t.”

It seemed I had no choice. “Okay,” I said. “Yes to Matisse.

You’re right. Bright and splashy. That’s just the spirit. Picasso, maybe, except not the grotesque ones. I can understand a hideous painting portraying a hideous war, but that’s about where it stops. I

253

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED think he’s way overrated; I think he foisted ugliness on the public to satisfy his ego. Some of it’s like “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

But he has attractive paintings, too. Let’s get some of those. And definitely Chagall. And I love Kandinsky—wild Russian abstractions are good, and I like Klee’s little world. But I’ve got no use for Mondrian. What is it, tri-colored geometry? That’s sterile to me. I like that Italian… the one whose name I can never remember. Who died young and painted those beautiful long necked nudes?”

“Modigliani?”

“Yes, I love those.”

“Most men do. So, it’s simple: Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Klee, Modigliani… anything else? What about Miro?”

“Sure, Miro’s fine. How many prints are you thinking of?”

“Enough to make the walls an outstanding part of this already outstanding room.”

How could I disagree? “Now can I tell you about what’s happened here in your absence, Miranda?”

“Over coffee.”

“I’m afraid I’m out of coffee.”

At this Miranda joined me on the loveseat. “So we’ll have to go out and get some, won’t we? Let’s go to that Café again. The one downtown. But then we’ll come back here and go on line and start choosing the collection. And then…”

“What?”

“Have you given any thought to the empty dining room?”

I shook my head.

“And the entire second floor?

“Are you sure you need coffee? You’re positively electric.

An electric pixie. And how is it you arrived so early? Have you been driving all night?”

“No, father, I haven’t been driving all night. And I do need coffee. You’re mistaking the joy of reunion for a caffeine buzz, Horace. You should be flattered that I take such an interest in you, not accuse me of immoderation. And don’t call me a pixie.”

“Fine. It won’t happen again,” I answered. “But how did you manage to get here at this time?”

“I was hoping to get here last night, but I made a mistake the way I came around Chicago and got muddled in a horror of

254

THREE OF HEARTS Friday rush hour traffic. If I’d taken the right roads, I’d have been here last night just in time for bed, but as it happened I only got as far as someplace with the odd name of Janesville. I’d been driving all day and I was getting very sleepy; I was practically nodding off behind the wheel. And you see, I’d always associated Wisconsin with my friend Jane who’s lived here all her life—and there I was, I’d just entered Wisconsin and I was in Janesville. It gave me a touch of the willies, which you know I never get, so I took that as a sign that I was compromised, and pulled into the next motel. And I was up bright and happy, and it was only an hour or so here.”

“Any interest in telling me why you were anxious to come back?”

Miranda gave one of her looks. “If you must have an answer, I suppose it’s that my unconscious knew that Butterman had found his way into a furniture store. But I think your flattery receptors are impaired. It must be all that meditating. We’ll have to cure you of that.”

I told her I agreed, and then about the Hexagram “Modesty”—about reducing that which is too much and augmenting what is too little.

“Really,” Miranda said. “That reminds me of that passage in the Handel’s ‘Messiah.’ You know, where the baritone sings that beautiful aria about God making the crooked straight and the rough places plain?”

“I always thought that was the Christian version of The Law of Karma.”

“Well, that too, I’m sure. You are a very comprehensive thinker, Horace... But you say you opened the book to that passage before I came in?”

“Moments before.”

“And has it occurred to you...”

“Yes, it has, Miranda?”

“What?” she said, coyly.

“That you reduce what is to much in me and augment what is too little.”

Miranda beamed: an unmistakable pixie beam. “Making your crooked straight, you mean. Very good, Horace. I was hoping I still did that.”

255

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED It was a fifteen minute walk down to the cafe, during which I presented her with a condensed version of the events of the last few weeks. She made me go to lengths about Butterman in the furniture store, and spoke approvingly of the way I’d made my decisions and how I’d comported myself.

She also complimented my arrangement of the furniture. When she told me she wanted to see the announcements, I told her that if she hadn’t been so impatient I could have shown them both to her at the house, but that we could still pick up the issue with the Wilhelm quote at any store on State Street. Then I told her about the surprisingly large turnout at the first meeting, and the delightfully earnest and insightful group of young people who’d shown up at my door. By the time we arrived at Bernardo’s Café, I’d already outlined the discussion we’d had about ‘The Great Way,’ and she was studying the new announcement in The Isthmus. As luck had it, we were seated at the same table in the window overlooking the street as the first time we’d been there. The other window table was occupied as was every other one visible in the restaurant. We popped right into place. When I commented on the coincidence, she scoffed. “What do you expect after those flowers? It’s the God’s Garden effect.

That’s what we should call it when incidents coincide for us, don’t you think?”

This was her second casual use of ‘we,’ and that, along with her remark about trying to be here just in time for bed, was having a felicitous effect on me. She looked lovely sitting across from me there with her enchanted face, her red hair and her dark blue eyes gleaming like sapphires. Her neck was long, not Modigliani long, but long and graceful, her hands delicate, and as I recalled the small compact breasts beneath her shiny green blouse were nippled with pink rosebuds. This clearly wasn’t the same man who’d sat across from her weeks earlier; I’d been awakened, aroused in more ways than one, and I laughed.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re laughing at, you wicked man?”

“No, never. But you are looking beautiful, Miranda. How old exactly are you now? Thirty-five?”

“Close enough. And you’re looking well for a man of what is it, nearly forty?”

256

THREE OF HEARTS I found myself staring across at her then, gazing maybe, through an ether, through a viscous atmosphere alight with dazzle and sway. And it seemed then that it was not merely one prodigious event that had brought me here to this; that it wasn’t just that my life had been spared or saved or had slipped through a death trap—real or of my own imagining—but that it had also been the accumulation of myriad little happenings, like grains of sand in an hourglass. But that wasn’t quite right either, they weren’t grains of sand that had accumulated, they were these bits of dazzle that I saw now filling the air. “Are you staying?” I asked Miranda.

“If I’m invited.”

I leaned across the little table toward her, feeling the divine embrace of happiness and idiocy. “Then it’s true love, is it?”

She laughed. “My, oh my! Yes,” she said. “It’s true love.

I recognize it.”

“You do?”

“Of course. You don’t suppose I haven’t felt it before, do you? For you, and then for others, but true love, unlike lightning, can strike in the same place twice.”

“I’ll have to take your word for that,” I answered. Then after a pause: “Miranda? When I was young someone asked me if I’d heard Beethoven’s late quartets, and when I told them I hadn’t, they said “how lucky you are!’ So you see what I’m getting at?”

“No. You’re going to have to spell it out, Horace.”

Just then a waitress arrived, apologized for not getting to us sooner, and asked what we’d like. We told her we wanted coffee and those sticky sweet things, and she smiled at us like she knew we were… in love? I had to say that to myself a few times before it stopped sounding ludicrous. But then Miranda was waiting for an answer about the Beethoven, and smirking a little.

“Do you know Beethoven’s last string quartets?” I asked.

“No, Horace, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Then you’re lucky too. I’ll play them for you. And wouldn’t you say it’s lucky to be a man my age who’s just discovering his real self and life and who’s also in love?”

All signs of smirk gave way to a beaming smile and shining eyes. “We shouldn’t be here,” she said. “Shall we get a room, or do you think we can make it back to your place? Can we hail a cab?”

257

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED “Don’t you wish we had a tape of ourselves together in 1978 so we could watch it and see the seeds of everything that’s happening now?”

“The seeds and the thorny husks enclosing them?”

“Those too.”

“I’m an astute observer, Horace. I can play most of it back from memory.” She looked across at me with a beguiling smile.

“Like what you said to me when we awoke the first morning we were together in that apartment of yours in your narrow little bed where we had to sleep like conjoined twins?”

“Which was…?”

“Which was ‘Miranda, has anyone ever told you you slept beautifully?’”

“I said that?”

“Yes, just before you told me that every other woman you knew snored. You were a piece of work, Horace.”

“I thought I was just shy.”

“Oh, you were, most often. It was when you tried to break that mold that you faltered.”

“Tell me something else,” I said. “Something hopeful.”

Miranda shook her head, but then waved my alarmed expression away.

“I think what attracted me to you so was that you were such a paradox, Horace, such a darling trapped inside a shell of formality.

To me, you were transparent, and I was flattered by the way you struggled to let yourself out. You never really did, but that didn’t matter to me at the time; I probably wouldn’t have been free enough to embrace you fully if you had. You see, I acted like a free spirit, I tried to be spontaneous, but in my own way I was as far from myself as you. What amazes me is that something in both of us made that crazy pact of honesty. You know, how we’d be together only insofar as we could remain ourselves? What nonsense, what selfdeception; we couldn’t be ourselves! But what brilliant intuition at the same time, what prescience! It was almost as if we knew this time was surely coming. Isn’t that wonderful… that life’s like that?

Is that what you meant about the tape of us back in ’78?”

“And aren’t you glad I didn’t die,” I said. “That something artful and impetuous intervened?”

“I am,” she said.

258

THREE OF HEARTS “Miranda? I do love you.”

She looked at her watch, and then slantwise back at me.

“Twenty-four years, a few months, a few days maybe and an hour or two— Of course I’m just guessing—that’s how long it took you to finally say that? I love you too, Horace. Okay? Good. So now that that’s over with, what about getting a room?”

“I have a lovely room,” I said. “We’ll be there soon.”

We were locked in a gaze when our coffee and gooey things arrived. “I-i-i-t’s time to drink our coffee…” I sang softly across to her. “It’s time…”

She looked slightly incredulous as she too her first sip, but I stopped singing and took a sip of my own. I wondered then if a man could change too fast, if he could damage himself, like with too much exercise or too stringent a diet. But if there would be damage, it was inevitable, because there was no turning back.

Given the robust state of my health and spirit at sixty, it’s my intuition that I have a good twenty years remaining of life as we know it. I realize that estimate may be flawed, that my record regarding life span estimates is hardly the best, but still the vastness of that expanse of time impresses me, particularly when I remember myself at forty. I shudder at the thought of that caricature of a man whose judgment was based on such a dearth of experience. To others, apparently, I seemed a normally reasonable, moderately mature man, as reasonable and mature as they saw themselves to be, I’ll assume. But if that’s what they thought, they were wrong about me and probably about themselves as well. Today I wonder how I could have lived when I was forty, how I could have walked around and talked and interacted with others in such a state of abject selfignorance.

How, for instance, could I have been so unaware of the effect I had on others? How could I not have realized that modesty I so often expressed was anything more than a mask for my conviction of spiritual superiority? And how could I have believed that didn’t show? Who was I kidding? And who was I kidding when I claimed to have a retiring nature when I was frightened that getting too close to others would expose me for the insecure man that I was? And how could I have lived believing that my strength and position gave me any rights to dismiss the feelings of others?

259

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED Like the feelings of that young man who worked in the Society library whom I accused of incompetence? Can there ever be reason to say that to someone without an expression of support as well? Or the overweight girl who worked in the kitchen? Who did I think I was? A competent man? A competent man who’d not yet learned the world was a reflection of himself?

But really, how do I differ from the physicists of twenty years ago or forty or sixty, those intellectuals whom I deride for claiming over and over that this time they definitely had found the smallest particle, or the doctors who over and over have been so God awful certain that their most recent study had led them to the best possible diet for healthy living? And what is it that I don’t know now that I’ll know in twenty years? What about these thoughts themselves will I find embarrassing or shortsighted or prideful? Maybe I’ll find it absurd that today, when so wholly in love, that I’m still moved to reflect back on what a miserable wretch I consider myself to have been, rather than extolling the eyes and heart of my beloved who’s sitting across the table from me at this very moment? Maybe I’ll find it negligent that I’d not recited sonnets to her loveliness, her cleverness, her charm, her forgiving view of life. And I hope that’s true. I hope I grow into that. That will make it much easier going for the next twenty years: proclaiming my love in any and every way to whomever it applies and singing stupid songs about household tasks, bathroom procedures or anything else I choose, whenever it seems apropos.

“That’s how an old man should live, don’t you think so, Miranda?”

“Don’t I think what?”

“Ha, ha, ha, hahahahahaha!”

“What, you crazy old fool? What?” “‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…?’”

“Do you know that poem?”

“Just that line.”

“Do you know who wrote it?”

“Shakespeare?”

“No, sexist. A woman wrote that. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Do you want to hear how the whole thing goes?

“Of course.”

260

THREE OF HEARTS Miranda took a sip of coffee and struck a pose.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I like the middle part best.”

“This part?

‘I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise…’”

“Um hm,” I answered, taking a sip of coffee and a bite of my sticky bun. “‘To the level of every day’s most quiet need...’” I repeated.

“That’s my favorite too,” Miranda said, glancing at my nearly empty cup and empty plate. “Are you finished? Are you ready to go?”

“Isn’t it grand how things work out, how certain things can fall in place so strikingly, like our God’s Garden effect? And don’t you sometimes wonder about the coincidence we never see or recognize?”

“I do, Horace.”

“And isn’t it grand, too, that there’s enough goodness in the unexceptional, on “the level of every day’s most quiet need” that can sustain us along with the extraordinary?”

“Yes, dear. Are you finished yet?”

261

THE HOURKEEPER, BUTTERED & TOASTED “And do you ever wonder what affect our thoughts and feelings have upon the microcosms with in us?”

“Horace?”

“And what about animals, Miranda? What about Lois, my cat? But you know, now that I love you, knowing the mind of my cat isn’t quite so important any more...”

“Horace?”

“And now that I love you, I don’t feel quite such a need to operate an elevator. But think of this. Being an elevator man: being able to rise to the level of every day’s most quiet need! What do you think of that?”

“Horace!”

“And have you ever wondered how King Wen and the Duke of Chow wrote the I Ching? How they figured it out? 3,000 years and it still works?”

“Horace!”

“And do you ever think that trees are such contented beings that they have no need to wander the earth?”

“Horace! You’re doing this on purpose!”

“You’re right, I am. And you can’t hail cabs in this provincial capital. I’ll go call one. It should be here in minutes.”

And then, perhaps for the first time in my adult life, I winked.

“The long hunt in the sun,” I said as I got up to go to the phone, “will not have led you here until I find my heart as well.”

“You sure about that?” Miranda asked.

“I am. I AM SURE!” I said, and winked for the second time in my adult life.

Then I realized I’d forgotten to get more of “God’s Flowers” for the next meeting. But so what?

Then on the way to the phone, I did a little dance, stamping my feet, twirling and snapping my fingers with my arms extended high above my head. People in the café clapped. (Everyone except the Past President, who actually wasn’t there.) Then I took a little bow. In all four directions. Yes, it was as simple as that.

262

THREE OF HEARTS

THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED

Freda told me she wanted to take me someplace nice for breakfast, and somehow that sounded like the kindest invitation I’d had in years. Just that. A simple invitation. Not to go to Niagara Falls or the top of the Empire State Building or Hollywood or anything— just someplace nice for breakfast. It made my heart flutter. And it was nice place; cute, I think you’d call it. Freda said it had been one of her favorite places in town for years. We were seated at a table with a view out the window by a very nice hostess, and a little later an even nicer waitress came over and took our breakfast orders.

“So I suppose you’re going to invite me to all the others, too? Your other favorite places?” I said after the waitress left. “It seems like I’m going to be spending a lot of time in Wisconsin.”

But she looked embarrassed when I said that. She must have taken it wrong, and that isn’t surprising for a person who’s been used to blaming herself for everything. So I explained that I really meant I hoped to keep coming up to see her: this made her

263

THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED smile but me blush. But it’s funny how things happen sometimes, like they’re part of a script or a story, because just then I heard someone say something at the table right next to ours. It was a woman whose back was to me who was talking to a man, I think.

She said, “True love, unlike lightning, can strike in the same place twice.”

I don’t know if she made that up or if it’s a quote from someplace, but hearing that much nearly shocked out of my pants.

I’d never realized that was true, and it was like a puzzle piece that suddenly fit right into my life. Because I guess I’d never thought this might be my second true love until that morning. I don’t know if Freda heard what that woman said or not, but I kept it to myself like secret message and started talking about how nice it was to sit and look out the window from behind those nice green café curtains on that shiny brass bar, and how good those omelets were we ordered. And I felt like a page was turned in my life.

After we finished breakfast, Freda asked me if I was tired of going to the Farmers’ Market. I said that I wasn’t tired of it at all, so we set off towards it. It was just down the street; The Capitol Square was only two blocks from Bernardo’s Café, which happened to be the name of the place we were. When we were walking, I asked her if she thought we’d see that nice looking young couple again, the ones that waved to us from the same spot the last two weeks, and she said she thought we probably would, and we decided we’d introduce ourselves this time for sure.

But it turned out we didn’t see them after all. We saw all the other things there, though; things that all looked familiar to me now—all the vegetables and flowers and bakery and honey and such. And I chatted with a few of the friendlier vendors who I’d seen before, including the woman with the flowers that seemed so beautiful to me that one sad day. Talking to those people made me begin to feel at home in Madison. But we didn’t stay at the market all that long, just long enough to buy some sweet corn for dinner.

We left because Freda asked me if I’d be interested in going to the University Dairy Barn, a place right on campus, in the middle of town, she said, where there’re cows living—where they’re milked and taken care of. I didn’t quite know what she was getting at until she told me that her uncle had a dairy farm right across the river from Minnesota where she’d spent her summers, and that the

264

THREE OF HEARTS University Dairy Barn made her feel at home. I’ve never had much interest in farms, I’m not sure if I’d ever been on one, but of course I said yes, I’d like to give that a try. Then she asked me if I minded getting cow manure on my shoes. I told her that in sixty-four years I’d never been asked that question before, and she thought that was very funny and said I was a prize. That’s when I noticed that nearly all the gaunt shadows were gone from Freda’s face.

Before we even got into the big barn I was surprised because I smelled something I liked, not what I expected when I was about to go into a barn full of farm animals. It was a tangy, spicy smell, which Freda told me was silage, a kind of fermented feed they give to the dairy cows. It didn’t smell so nice once we got into the big barn though, which must have held seventy-five cattle.

There was a little radio playing pretty loud and there were a couple of people in there tending to the cows and doing other things done in a barn, chores, I guess, but these people didn’t seem to mind us walking right into the middle of things. And that’s where we were, in the middle of things. We were on a walkway no wider than a sidewalk right down the middle between the hind ends of cows who were lined up there on each side of us, one right next to the other. I could see that they were held in place by stanchions that went around their necks. As soon as we started walking along there, Freda began to go on about Holsteins and Brown Swiss and how they used to have Guernseys because of the high butter fat that was now out of fashion—but all I was aware of was the occasional PLOP! that landed not too far behind us or in front of us, and the occasional PSSSSS! that splashed there in the place she called the gutter. And for the life of me, I couldn’t see how a person could walk calmly through all that with the awful mess and the cow’s rear ends and their big udders and their tails whooshing around and all.

“C’mon Bernie,” she said, laughing again and taking my by the shoulders and pushing me right in front of her down the middle of the walkway. “I’ll take you around by the heads.”

And once we got past the business ends of all those cows and turned down the narrow track where their heads were and their feed was piled, it all of a sudden seemed like a very different place—it didn’t smell any different, but it sure looked better. There were some twenty black and white heads all bending down and chewing, but as soon as Freda said the word “Bossy” loud enough to

265

THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED be heard over the radio, each and every head turned and looked down toward us—twenty pairs of big brown cow eyes. And I was surprised and happy at the same time by how pleasant and gentle they looked, that whole line of them there. Once we started to walk along down the line, most of the cows got back to the business of eating, but some kept looking up at us.

“See how sweet they are?” Freda said, holding her hand up in front of one of the huge heads and then slowly moving it down so she could scratch it between the ears. The cow was looking right as me, and when I looked into its eyes, I saw more than just two big brown eyeballs staring back at me—and you can believe me when I say that.

There’s no way I can explain what I felt from that animal.

Most of all, that animal had a goodness in it that filled me so full I might have drowned. It wasn’t kindness, or sympathy, or friendliness, it was a different kind of goodness that cow had, one that didn’t have a name—it just made you feel love for it; big, wide love, bigger than human love. I felt like I’d discovered life on Mars when I saw what was behind that cow’s eyes, and I suppose I forgot myself and forgot that I was standing with Freda there, someone who knew all about how to act around cows, because it had bent back down and was going at its feed again when I leaned over it to pet its neck. I do remember what happened next: the cow raised up its head, maybe to see who it was leaning over it, but I understand now why it’s not a good idea to lean over a cow like that, because when the top of its hundred pound head snapped up and met my little human chin, I saw bright sparkles in front of my eyes and nothing else.

I was out cold on the spot. But I guess it was just for a second. Freda said I went down on my heinie and then slumped over forward like a rag doll before I popped back up again looking bewildered.

That part I don’t quite remember. I do remember a tremendous fuss being made over me, even though I knew right away that I wasn’t hurt badly. My jaw ached but I was relieved that I hadn’t bitten my tongue, because of the way that hurts for so long afterwards. I didn’t have a headache, so even though Freda and the people who’d been tending the cows protested, I stood right up.

266

THREE OF HEARTS I said, “Wasn’t it funny to see an elevator man from a fancy hotel in the big city who’s never even been on a farm get k.o.’d by a cow?”

And I did think that was funny. I always laugh on those America’s Funniest Home Video Programs when people fall down.

People falling down is funny. I wished we’d had a video of that; we might have won the $10,000. And finally then Freda smiled and even laughed a little, and said that as long as I was all right it was very funny.

I wanted to keep walking down the rest of the row of cow’s heads, but the people in charge said they thought I’d had enough and something else about insurance which is what I expected them to say, so our visit to the University Dairy Barn was cut short.

When we got back to Freda’s house, she served ice tea for us, and I was sitting on the comfortable blue couch in her living room sipping that when all of a sudden I felt like the flood gates had opened up inside me. Maybe when I was knocked out, something broke loose inside me.

I told her about Oscar and the dreams I had about Oscar with his brothers and sisters, and about what I saw behind the eyes of the woman with the umbrella who was hurrying along that day, and all about Rosie who thought I was her priest and the terrible dream I had about her plight and how she was dumped out of that truck that was so real I was sure it was true, and how I betrayed her by pulling my hands away. And I added in about the way I knew what that woman felt in the truckstop when she heard about that fire that burned everyone on that bus.

She seemed stunned at first.

“So what about me, Bernie?” she said. “Did you see my sorrow too? That day of the accident?”

“Yes. That’s true,” I said, because that was all I could say; and like I expected, she took it hard.

“So I was just another… person? Another… charity case?”

“I can tell you right off that that’s not true, but I understand if you don’t believe me,” I said. “But think about it, Freda: I’m telling you about this. I think maybe that cow knocked enough sense into my head to realize that since I liked you so much it was time to tell you about everything that’s been happening to me.

Everything—you see, because after twenty years of nothing

267

THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED happening, in the last month it feels like everything has happened including meeting you which feels the best of all.”

I was waiting for the blush to rise up in my face but it didn’t. “Okay?” I said to her. “You want to hear the rest of it, too?”

She was still looking very fragile, but she said she did want to hear. She probably didn’t expect to hear about my almost blowing my brains out. And that was the first time then that I connected meeting her with my life being saved. All that time I’d been thinking about Jolene and the chocolate croissants that someone else bought, but never Freda who kept us right there in Madison long enough for Marshall Fields to close. I had her to thank as much as the person who bought the last chocolate croissant and baker who made just so many of those croissants that day and everyone else who bought them before the last one was gone.

So I told her the whole story: about how at first I was just troubled; about how Jolene said I might be having a religious experience; and then about how Jolene and Jack brought me to Wisconsin where she thought I could relax and recover, but then how I’d had that one dream that convinced me I wasn’t strong enough to cope with it anymore, that it was an affliction and not a blessing, and how I decided I’d rather be dead than live with that burden any longer. And even though it was hard to say out loud, I told her about the Men’s Store at Marshall Fields in the sporting goods department where they sold guns, and that I was planning to put one in my mouth.

Freda stood up from where she was sitting when I said that and ran to the bathroom. I didn’t want to listen but I think she threw up. She didn’t come back for some time then and when I went to knock to see how she was doing, she said she was okay but didn’t want to come out yet, so I went back and sat down. As sorry as I was about upsetting her, I was glad that I’d told her the truth about myself, because if I hadn’t, I’d have a secret eating away at me.

That only makes sense, but I wondered if I’d told her the right way, if maybe being knocked silly by that cow had led me to do something rash. But I hadn’t told her about the cow yet, about how much I loved it, about how there was something about it so worthy of love—mine and everyone else’s.

Then I went back to the bathroom. “Freda,” I said through the door, “I’m going to go out for a little walk. I should be back in a

268

THREE OF HEARTS half an hour or so. So if you want to come out of there, there won’t be anyone in the house. I think you’ll feel more comfortable that way.”

But I guess I was wrong, because she opened the door right up then and hugged me. I didn’t know what to say to her because I didn’t know how she was feeling. I wanted to be sure I didn’t leave anything out though, so once we went back in the living room, I did tell her about the cow, which started her laughing, of all things. I was worried about her crying. And then she started doing that, but there I was, Bernie Schmidt, sitting on a couch in a woman’s house with my arm around her and her all schooched up against me.

“I won’t ever tell you less than the truth,” I said. “That’s what I did before, even though I knew it might upset your feelings—and I think that should probably be a good thing to know, the kind of thing that might make you happy. But after things worked out so well with Oscar, I realized that my life might be worth living after all because I could help someone I knew and was concerned about. Then when I came up and visited you, I felt even better. But before long, everything went and changed perspective on me, and nothing seemed as important as being with you. And if that somehow got taken away—you, I mean—I’d be as fragile and breakable and heartsick as anyone could be. But things have changed so fast I can’t be certain about anything quite yet. I’d like it if I knew what I had for my own and that it wouldn’t disappear or die on me or become too much for me to bear. But just like you, I’m not quite used to my new self yet.”

And it seemed to me, all of a sudden just then, that my new self felt something like that clear blue sky I’d already forgotten about.

Then Freda said that we were going to be just fine.

That’s what she said, “Bernie, we’re going to be just fine,” and her telling me that started me off talking about what it was like before the Severson’s, when I was little and growing up in the Lutheran children’s home.

“I never knew any different,” I told her. “I never knew my mother or father, so that it wasn’t as terrible as most people think— the way people react, at least, knowing what a home life is for children and imagining that being taken away. It was still hard for me, though. It was hard trusting anyone, because I remember there

269

THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED was a lady there who I used to go to when I was scared or hurt or being picked on, and then without much explanation I can remember, she was gone and there was another lady in her place.

The new lady tried to be kind and understanding—everyone there did—but she didn’t know me, she didn’t know what foods I liked or what kids I liked or which ones I was scared of, and sometimes she smelled funny. So that bothered me.”

It was funny, but I hadn’t thought of that lady in all these years, and then I started talking about other things I never really thought before. I think it must have been because I was knocked on the head. Old memories came loose, like they were pouring out.

Kind of like having a screw loose.

“Once I got a little older,” I told Freda, “I worried a lot.

You see, it wasn’t long before I got to be friends with some of the younger children; I kind of took care of them. They liked to follow me around. They were like my little brothers, and I was scared I was going to lose them, so I always held their hands and took them with me where I went. You see, I was scared they would be taken away from me. I even dreamed about it.

“And I worried a lot about no one understanding me, of being alone with no one to help me or even listen. I worried that the second lady who smelled different would go away and there would be no one to comfort me anymore. I worried about that a lot.

“I was scared of Hell too. I had this crazy picture in my mind of being on some kind of elevator that took me down there, but I couldn’t get back up. Funny, isn’t it now? That I operate an elevator. I never thought of that before.

“I was scared of being taken away by strangers, too, who weren’t kind people; I think I used to cry about that at night. And I used to imagine about being driven away with those strangers to a different city where people spoke Chinese. But you know what scared me most, Freda? Being lost. We were all scared of that.

Being lost and alone in our own big city, Chicago, the one we lived in, lost without bus fare or a dime for the telephone in a neighborhood with unfriendly people. We talked about that a lot, we wondered if anyone would help us get back to The Lutheran Home, even at night when it made me scared to go to sleep for fear of what I might dream.”

270

THREE OF HEARTS I didn’t say anything for a while until I remembered what I’d started out talking about, even though it didn’t seem the same any more and a long time ago that I said it. “All those things bothered me,” I said, “and probably more that I’m not remembering just now, but still I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, Freda. I didn’t, really, because the things I didn’t have were the same as all the children I grew up with.” But I wasn’t so sure I meant that anymore.

Freda looked concerned. I didn’t tell her what I’d said made me feel dizzy just then, and that’s just as well because it went away.

She said that it made her sad to think of me as lonely little boy with no mother though, and I told her it made me sad to think of it too—now it made me sad, but not then. Then Freda told me what she was frightened about when she was young.

“Mostly,” she said, “I was scared of ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’ coming up out of the lake near the bottom of their back yard. Coming up with seaweed all over it and looking in over my windowsill. And sometimes, Bernie, I was afraid my parents would abandon me with the babysitter—Mrs. Fry. I thought she was mean. And I was afraid of being picked on at school, too.”

I could tell she was trying to think of things to tell me so it wouldn’t seem like her life was perfect while I was forgotten in an orphanage. She was trying to try to think of more things that scared her, but I interrupted.

“It’s all right, Freda,” I said. “You don’t have to do this.

You can tell me your childhood was happy. My life as a child was okay, it really was. I turned out okay.”

Then all of a sudden we just looked at each other there on the couch and smiled, because all the pressure was off. And then she said it again: “Bernie,” she said, “we’re going to be just fine.”

And there was something about the way she said that that made me feel like I didn’t have to say or do even one more thing, because she’d taken the wheel. She could do it. It made me feel like I was in a car and I could just fall asleep, fall asleep and let her drive for a while, a feeling I hadn’t had for a very, very long time.

As far as sleeping is concerned, I did sleep at Freda’s house that night. Freda slept on her bed and I slept on the couch, which

271

THE ELEVATOR MAN, UNWRAPPED seemed the right thing to do at the time. But in the middle of the night, Freda came and sat down next to me on the couch, and she put her hands underneath my undershirt and asked if I’d like to come to bed with her. Her hands were so soft and were rubbing up and down on my chest. It felt just like Abby touching me there then, and all heated up as I was, I suddenly sobbed.

“You want to come up tonight, Bernie, or wait until we know each other better?” Freda asked.

Her face was right up next to me when she said that.

I know it takes a long time for people to change for good; but it’s possible. Sunday morning was as happy as can be, in the simple kind of way I like best. It was like when Freda told me she had someplace nice she wanted to take me for breakfast, except that this time she made a big pancake breakfast for us in her own kitchen, and touched me on the shoulders and neck every time she came over to the table. About the most important thing that happened to me recently was how I felt when I looked in that cow’s eyes, and by the time that morning came around, I’d completely forgotten about that.

After breakfast we went out for a long walk downtown.

Freda reminded me of how we’d seen a man doing a dance as he left out of Bernardo’s Café the other morning, and she asked me if I could do that dance. I laughed and said no, I didn’t dance. But said she did, so she went and imitated that dance that man did. I watched her, right there, dancing on the sidewalk under a clear blue shy, not shy at all. I was happy as can be. So that’s how it all turned out. As simple as that.

272

THREE OF HEARTS

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR

We did stay up all night on our wedding night, Gretchen and I, carefree and frivolous, luxuriating in our rich accommodations: the hotel bar; the restaurant, the sauna; the big pier on Lake Mendota; and our own cushy room, abusing our room service privileges and selecting shamelessly from the dizzying selection of cable stations.

We also took a few walks, late night and early morning, during which Gretchen repeatedly assured me that she was only following the example of her own parents, who had married secretly and lived together for months before informing her grandparents. She told me it wasn’t at all odd, that she’d call her parents as soon as things “sorted themselves out a little.”

“By which you mean…?”

“As soon as we find out what’s going to become of you, Tweets.”

It should be noted that by the time our marriage had been consummated, Gretchen had already begun to call me, variously, Ninny, Pinhead, Tootsie, Silly, Sweetie, Tweetie, Tweet, Tweets,

273

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR Nitwit, Dunderhead, Lamebrain, Lulu—and of course, but only occasionally because I disapprove, cat-man. I, on the other hand, called her Blondie, Birdie, Goofy, Pinkie (which made her laugh), Sweetheart, Dearie, and Love ’o my Life. On the evening described, Blondie insisted that her parents would love me, that I was an embodiment of the ideals they themselves had been unable to practice in full, and that when the time came, she’d take me back to Iowa where I’d have a home away from home—or just a home depending on how things turned out.

My own parents were less relevant, father was already long gone to whatever Las Vegas Hotel he supposed the afterlife to consist of, and I spoke to my semi-intelligent mother (Mildred the Cat) most often only on her birthday when I called her. She’d become quite withdrawn in her later years but didn’t seem unhappy, living with other oldsters in Arizona. She might have wished I’d notified her before I got married again, but given the choice, I’d rather leave her somewhat deeper in the dark than lie to her about what I was doing in my life. I didn’t miss her company, yet still, I wouldn’t want to distress her. But when Gretchen spoke of home in Iowa, I waxed nostalgic for a dining room table with a gingham cloth spread with bowls of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits, all surrounded by fresh faced, homey relatives. No, she corrected me; it was more like two middle-aged intellectuals, maybe a little high, with Theloneous Monk on the stereo and Thai takeout.

I told her that would be fine too.

When we checked out of the Edgewater the next morning, we were blessedly exhausted. Blondie didn’t work that night and she skipped her class so that we could go back to my real life room and sleep.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could dream together?” Gretchen said as we headed up the hill from the Edgewater toward The Square.

“I heard once that if two people fell asleep looking in each other’s eyes that would happen,” I told her. “Sounds too simple to be true, doesn’t it?”

“We can try,” she answered, sounding very hopeful.

“Between now and Saturday.”

“But there’d got to be more to it. Maybe if we make a pledge, a pact...”

274

THREE OF HEARTS “How would we do that?”

I shrugged. “Spit on your hand.”

Blondie didn’t hesitate. Then I spit on mine and we shook hands.

“That should do it,” I said.

Even though Gretchen was very enthusiastic about it all the way home, she was literally asleep once her head hit the pillow, so I dreamt by myself as usual. When we woke, we went down and scrounged around in my quarter of the refrigerator trying to find something to eat. We could only come up with a few bagels, but as luck would have it on our second day of wedded bliss, Gretchen’s new dear friend, Tina, appeared, saw us eating plain bagels and offered us cream cheese and even some orange juice. When Gretchen told her we just got married, Tina actually squealed.

The rest of our week was like a honeymoon on a precipice.

“Do you think any couple has ever been as anxious as we are after their wedding?” Gretchen asked me that first night once we got in bed.

“Lots of them, Gretch. Think about all the terrible circumstances people can be in. During war time, or illness, or running from the law...”

“But ours is different. Our principles led us into danger.

It’s brave, romantic anxiety we feel...”

“You know, that sounds kind of stupid.”

“You’re right, tweetie, it does. Forget it. But I’m still stressed.”

“Me too. Let’s try that eye thing.”

Again it didn’t work: this time because we couldn’t stop laughing.

I’d arranged with Clare and David to borrow their car to ferry my lightweight worthy possessions over to Gretchen’s, where they had the impression I’d be staying. Before I could dissuade them of this idea, they told me that David’s sister and a friend were coming from Santa Barbara on Saturday and staying with them in their tiny apartment for four or five days. I didn’t say a thing.

Not having giving proper notice of my departure, I didn’t expect to be refunded the security deposit on my room, despite

275

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR leaving the place nicely furnished. So it looked to me like when Saturday did come along I’d indeed be close to penniless—on my own, that is. My wife, my better half, the distaff side of the family, would have pennies of her own which she’d be anxious to share, but I’d have to see about that. I was focusing on the safe, grassy side of the precipice where I was blazingly in love with marriage.

Gretchen, too, was amazed that the two of us had found, recognized and married each other in the space of a month. Our life together, with all its vagaries, even teetering on the edge as it was, was at once perilous and grandly secure for us.

It didn’t elude us that perhaps our heightened feelings of refuge in each other were brought on by just that condition of peril, but this was no time for second guessing. We looked forward to waking together with our Ritual of the Violets, to having breakfast together, to walking to Gretchen’s class, to meeting afterwards, to lunch together, to walking to L’Etoile together—every facet of our routine was elevated to a minor sacrament. And we did that every day, until eventually we were both fragile projections of ourselves, our hopes and fears indistinguishably entangled.. And then it was Saturday, the 15th of September.

We say goodbye to my room early in the morning and walk to Gretchen’s carrying some papers and poems, a few books, and an umbrella. It is a still morning and a cool front has moved through, wiping away the clouds. The day has a hushed singularity about it: it seems that any spoken thought will send waves through the tranquility of the atmosphere, washing and resounding through the city, startling birds from trees. And we willingly comply. We protect the world with our silence; but then with a sudden burst, a siren wails round a corner in the tumult of a fire truck’s roar, filling the street with shattering mechanical thunder.

Then, unceremoniously, as if there’d never been a paradise, anything can be said, anything spoken, disturbing nothing, and with no meaning of any consequence. Breakfast at Gretchen’s is toast and jam. We don’t go to the Farmers’ Market. We’ve already made my plan.

When Gretchen goes to work, I’ll head out with her feather-light, sky-blue sleeping bag strapped on my back with a few things more in a pack: a pad of paper, pens, a toothbrush, a comb, a change of underwear, socks—that’s all. When I’m tired that night, I’ll go to

276

THREE OF HEARTS the homeless shelter at the big church on the square. And maybe, Gretchen and I say, I’ll have written something; maybe I’ll have been frightened, or maybe I’ll be seeing things in a new way; maybe I’ll be bored. Maybe they won’t let me in.

It’s difficult to know how to spend the day. We finally decide to read aloud to each other. We prop ourselves up on pillows, shoulder to shoulder in Gretchen’s cinnamon flavored bed. She reads from Willa Cather: “Death Comes for the Archbishop.” I read Hesse’s “Siddhartha”—the whole thing. It takes all day. On the walk to work under the cool, cloudless sky, she says, “You’ll call me first thing in the morning, won’t you?”

“Let’s make it three in the afternoon,” I say. “Like the first time, okay? Let’s wait until three and see how we do. Remember?

I was commanded to do that, and I did it until poetry intervened.

We’ll see if that happens again. All right? We’ll be fine, sweetheart.”

It was then that I saw my wife years hence, standing there, at fifty, maybe, her smartly hawk-like look no sharper but more refined, instilled with a dignity, a remove; she is taller, fully in command, yet with eyes an even softer brown: A mistress of all within her parcel of nature’s domain. She is looking at me with a smile that says I told you so; there was never any doubt.

“Felix?” she says.

“Um hm.”

“Where were you just now?”

“Just lolling in the eternal present, sweetheart—the future face of it. Your future. When you’re a grown-up goddess. You looked fine, by the way. Hadn’t gained a pound. Nothing to be concerned about.” I tried to smile her I told you so; there was never any doubt smile, but felt for some reason looked somehow ironic— like Daffy Duck. “You’ve never called me Daffy,” I said. “That’s a good name; I’d like that. I love Daffy.”

She gave me a gentle goodbye kiss. “I’ll try to work it in,” she said. “But I thought Daffy was gay.”

“I think he is,” I said. “But I don’t see why that’s a problem.”

“You’re a very brave man.”

She gave me a second kiss.

277

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR I watched the door close behind Gretchen as she climbed the long staircase up to L’Etoile, and around the time I imagined she reached the top I realized I was standing in the middle of NOWHERE. Yes, I was there, on the square, downstairs of the restaurant where my wife worked, the same square that just this morning had been the venue for a Framers’ Market we did not attend, but meaning seemed drained from my surroundings, insubstantiality reigned.

These were ghosts of buildings, of trees, of buses, of earnest Madisonians. As I walked away from the door, I gazed down at the sidewalk, jokingly, to assure myself that I still cast a shadow, which of course I did. And that, quite simply, the reassurance of my own shadow, reminded me that nothing around me had changed, but that I’d gone and done it, that I’d finally stepped free. I wasn’t quite ready. The closest thing to me was a mailbox, which I bent over and hugged; it had the same cool reassurance of the stoplight pole that had saved me from madness only weeks before. A young man, dressed like a banker or a lawyer, looked at me with a typically shallow scorn, as if imported from a TV sitcom. “It’s a great mail box we’ve got here. Don’t you think?” I said, looking him right in the eye, just what he’d wanted to avoid, and did, hurrying off, looking down at his shoes as if there were something important about them he’d forgotten.

My shoes were probably more important than his, anyway.

Half my life depended on my shoes now. Just yesterday when I was writing those last two poems, there was a bathroom down the hall I could go to; there were books I could pick up and read, or put down, or rearrange; there was a bed I could lie down on; there was a chair whose angle to the light I could adjust; there was a floor to sweep or even wash. I was enclosed; my options were discrete, familiar.

Now my options were two: to walk or to sit. There might have been a few others as well; I did have bus fare, enough for coffee or another pack of cigs, but walking or sitting was what it all eventually came down to. My new life. And my shoes were in good shape. So I decided to walk and then sit. Brilliant! I headed for the Union Terrace, one of Madison’s most popular outdoor attractions. On the lakefront with its round umbrella tables: part study hall, part café, part bar, hang-out, place to feed the ducks, watch the sailboats.

278

THREE OF HEARTS It was about a fifteen minute walk, and my happiness quotient (trust in self, plus focus in moment, minus any physical discomfort) was in the high nineties—wind chill and heat index not being applicable on this fine September day in the upper Midwest.

The sights and sounds and smells of State Street, that Madison domain of students and tourists, delighted me. It was the students in particular whom I loved; I’d resolved more than once that if I ever became one of those elders who claimed that the music the young people were listening to was trash, that I’d have myself summarily incinerated. At one point, though, as I was strolling past a multiply pierced and tattooed couple at an outdoor table of a coffee house, it entered my mind that I’d like to write a poem while sitting at a similar round outdoor table at the Terrace. That foray into the future was all it took to trigger a precipitous dive in my happiness quotient (HQ), but my wellbeing was reestablished when I returned to the immediacy of watching the faces that passed me to see who’d return my smile. It just goes to show. The poet in me even said something about that once: “Smiling is wider than wishing is deep.”

Once on the terrace, I purchased one cup of coffee, which I drank slowly with my sleeping bag and backpack on the seat next to me as I gazed off into Lake Mendota with its sailboats and kayaks, only blocks from our luxury honeymoon accommodations at the Edgewater. Only blocks, maybe five, but a far greater distance in light of my new life. During my residence at that table, my solar plexus was occasionally clutched with the notion of what an ideal, if not classic, opportunity this would be to write a poem. Maybe it was my experiences of the last month, but more likely those of my entire life that gave me the sweet freedom to ignore such grappling from below: since this was, after all, an ideal, if not classic opportunity to write nothing at all! So I inhaled, recalling what now seemed an epiphany of my youth (though it was only a week past) that inhaling was all I ever needed to look forward to, all I required to satisfy my concern for the future; that I was an automatic mystery machine. I stayed there breathing until the first stars appeared, my HQ soaring..

Before I left, a man alone at the next table spoke to me through the semi-darkness. He was gazing out over the lake. The outdoor light behind him made it impossible to see his face.

279

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR “It’s the kind of night that makes you good to be alive, isn’t it?”

“Particularly when you’re in love,” I offered.

“What a coincidence!” he said, but at that I heard a woman’s voice call out from some where behind us. “I’m over here,” she said, at which the man stood up, said good night and walked off into the night.

Feeling like everything was somehow settled then, I got up myself, strapped my lightweight burden back on my back and set off back toward the square. I’d heard I could get a meal at the dropin shelter at the church, which may or may not have been true, but I wasn’t hungry. I was actually feeling full—not with food, though I’d had a big lunch, but with buoyancy; I was packed to the gills with it. If there was ever a time to attempt a flying dream while wide awake, this was it, maybe even ideally so—but the thought itself brought on a wishing pain in my solar plexus, securely and uncomfortably nailing the idea down and killing it.

So I didn’t fly, and decided not to go to the shelter. I kept walking; not far, just over to James Madison Park, also on Lake Mendota and not far from Gretchen’s house, and the sight of our first kiss. My plan was to get comfortable there, perhaps lay back propped up on my sleeping bag and pack, and look at the lake and the sky until I was tired enough to sleep right there.

Funny how it was, though, once I was settled in my contemplative position, I found there was nothing I wished to contemplate, nothing I wished to observe. A memory did pop into my head, from wherever memories pop, but as far as I could tell, it came unheralded.

Gretchen and I had been sitting in L’Etoile after hours on a Monday night. We were alone. Odessa was upstairs in the office again, and the two of us were talking at a cozy table by the big windows overlooking the brightly-lit Capitol building on the square.

Gretchen already knew that I loved her, but we were still starting out.

“What do you think happens after we die?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but I think I’m going to like it. What about you?”

“I think this is it.”

“You mean we’re dead now?”

280

THREE OF HEARTS “No, that’s not quite it. But I don’t think dead is anything like we think. It might as well be this. It might be this.”

“Gretchen! That’s not satisfactory! That’s disturbing.”

She smiled, lustrously, despite her still-black eye. “I like thinking everything’s inside out, Felix. I’ve been doing it since I was a little girl. It lets me see the truth. That’s how I recognized you.”

“How? By pretending you were dead?”

“No. By pretending you were.”

But it was a little too bright where I’d planted myself, and all I really wanted now was to sleep, deeply; and that, I told myself, would be more easily accomplished in a quiet corner I saw across the park. So I walked over to a very dark place near some bushes, rolled out Gretchen’s sky-blue sleeping bag with my nearly empty backpack inside down at the foot of it—for safety’s sake, just in case—and closed my eyes.

As I started to fall asleep it occurred to me that I’d been seeing everything backwards, that I’d been reading a book upside down, or was it a pillow I was reading? Whatever it was, when read correctly, it stated unequivocally that it wasn’t my own life that had been so graciously and lovingly and essentially augmented by Gretchen, but the contrary.

The story I was living was the story of her, the story of Gretchen, whose life I was augmenting, whose completion, whose goals, whose destiny I was helping to fulfill. I’d had it backwards.

It wasn’t a pillow, it was a sweater, and I’d put it on inside out. Of course! It was such a simple thing; I couldn’t imagine how I’d had it wrong all this time. I’d tell her as soon as I got back from the laundromat—but she’d come with me, hadn’t she? Wasn’t it her laundry we were doing? Weren’t her things what this was all about? Hadn’t I finally got it right?

The next thing I knew, I’d fallen and was sliding on the ice. It’s surprising how quickly one can come to one’s senses, though.

There were three of them. All drunk. All frat boys, or would-be frat boys, big bulky ones, maybe even UW football players. Two of them had yanked the foot of Gretchen’s sleeping bag out from under me, and the third one was getting me wet. For an instant I thought

281

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR he was actually pissing on me, but then I knew it was beer, cheap American beer, even, a bottle of it empting itself on my neck and shoulders as he howled. They were all three howling, with laughter, drunken laughter with a piteously unaware quality to it. I tried to get up then, but the one with the beer bottle seemed to want to hold me down, ripping my shirt and flopping me over on my face, but then: “Sorry, piss-ass homeless jerk!” he blurted out, the “Sorry,” I understood to be referring to my shirt. He didn’t look back as he charged off after the others who were dragging the sleeping bag and its contents behind them, whooping and hollering as they went as if they were dragging the robe of a dethroned king.

“Hey, you stupid, thick-necked fuckers!” I called out after them, but I didn’t have the inclination or energy to say much more.

Being attacked in one’s sleep is exhausting. I walked down to the strip of beach, took off my torn shirt and washed it in the lake.

I also took off my socks—my shoes, the shoe’s on which I’d been relying, were lost in the bottom of the sleeping bag—rolled up my pants, waded in a bit and scooped water to wash the beer off my face, out of my hair and off my shoulders and chest. That revived me some, but when I’d been flopped over, my face had hit the ground hard and my left eye was now swollen and sore. I noticed that only when the cold lake water touched it.

Then I thought of the Hindus who made their ablutions in the Ganges, and everything changed a little. As I continued to scoop up water and bathe myself in it, my anger, which had already begun to diminish, evaporated in the cool air. And that would be my only problem: it was hours till dawn and I might be cold. But I wasn’t cold yet. I was washing away my sins; or I was bathing in the waters of life, which probably amounted to the same thing—or I was washing away the sins of the frat boys; it really didn’t make much difference. Once I sensed that my shirt and I were relatively free from the stench of American factory beer, and my soul and I were free from the taint of my anger and pride, I walked out of the lake feeling somehow undisturbed despite the probable blackness of my eye.

I found another dark place by some bushes on the other side of the small park where I sat down on the grass, my hands around my knees while my shirt lay spread across the bushes to dry in the slight breeze. It took a while to find a comfortable way to sit; I had

282

THREE OF HEARTS to change positions frequently, and eventually lie down with my head propped up on a little pile of dirt I’d made for it. Before I fell asleep, I remembered what my friends and I did, driving in that white Lincoln convertible. § I woke up with the sun, a stiff neck, and a damp but no longer dripping shirt. It occurred to me then that there was an all night laundromat just a few blocks away; and there, for some of my pocket change, I bought myself twenty minutes in an orange plastic chair watching my torn shirt tumble dry, and people too, and early downtown Sunday traffic. I also had the opportunity to see my face in a mirror After the dryer had obligingly finished its work, I found that my shirt still smelled Miller or Coors or whatever crap those dolts were drinking: but that one, I knew, I had coming.

There was going to be a lot to tell my wife about: the other man in love, life inside-out which was her life—and it wasn’t yet seven o’clock.

I admit I felt a little uncomfortable walking around the city barefoot with my torn shirt, black eye and stinking like a collegiate bar, so I lay low, hanging around the park and the student neighborhood around it where I wouldn’t look too terribly out of place. Happily, I wasn’t concerned about my embarrassment; I didn’t blame myself for it; maybe someday I’d get over feeling conspicuous, but it was too much to expect on the first day out.

And I think is was this, this allowance I made for my own discomfort, that buoyed my spirits back up to ninety degree range again—and if, as when calculating the wind chill or the heat index, your realize that without the ten to fifteen percent embarrassment factor, my adjusted HQ would exceeded one hundred. Well! Here you have one unbelievably happy man!

It was around ten o’clock that this happy (though in theory even happier) man dared to sally forth from side streets and shadows and entered mainstream life. Disreputable looking though I was, I walked straight to the Square where I sat on a bench directly below the second story window of L’Etoile where Gretchen had been that Tuesday night. Symmetry! The bench was warm with sun and I listened to the church bells ringing from that same church

283

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR I planned to visit the night before, and which I may be visiting well into the future.

Since I’d already spent many joyful hours with my thenfuture-wife sitting on benches and on the grass by the Capitol there, the Square itself had become a hallowed place in Madison’s geography for me. And even though I’ve never been a champion of ceremony, I decided that since I found myself so conveniently here on this my first full day of freedom from the demands of the conventional world, that I’d say a little something to myself to commemorate the occasion.

A number of things came to mind, some of them words attributed to myself, and some to others, like the Isthmus Sage. But none of them seemed quite right; none of them captured the feel of the time. There was only one thing that did seem appropriate as I sat there on Sunday morning, and that was what had occurred to me so strikingly the night before: that I’d been wearing the sweater inside out; that this was not my story, but Gretchen’s. I was playing a part in Gretchen’s story. But that wasn’t quite it either. Not that alone. So what was it? Was it that in the end all difference dissolves? Perhaps, but then I recalled something I’d written a few years earlier when I was in love with the poetry of ee cummings. It was also one of those things I’d written above my means as I so often did, but it said what I wanted, and it was the best I could do.

The long hunt in the sun For the jewel hidden in the leaves (Which is also your heart) Will not have led you here Until I find my heart as well.

And this is a mystery.

And never again, my fair friend, Never again in the long sun Will I search for you, nor you for me, For I will have found you (you will have found me) In my heart.

Maybe that explains how it can possibly be that there’s really only one heart; how my life can really be about Gretchen, because sometimes, in a very real way, you may also be me, or you may be

284

THREE OF HEARTS my love, or you may be your own love, or anyone’s love—and that , my fair friend is a mystery; a mystery that suits this unreasonably happy man as perfectly as can be. It’s just fine. Not complicated at all.

And so, pleased as I was with my commemorative thoughts, I selected my walk option, stood up and headed off towards State Street. Once I arrived, I’d walked only a little over two blocks when I saw Kyle coming toward me with his sign held high: “THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR” “I’ll say,” I said to myself as I approached him, wondering if even he understood that as fully as I now did at that moment.

I noticed that the lamination on his placard had cracked or peeled off at one place and that moisture must have seeped in, because the R on APPEAR was streaked and little faded. Kyle was dressed as usual; his clothes threadbare, disheveled. Not that different then me—at least he had shoes. His appearance was typical; his look blank, glazed. But when I approached more closely, his eyes flashed with a glimmer of recognition—he had, after all spoken to me; he had even read my poem and commented on it.

But a glimmer of recognition was all I was in for that morning, that was clear: perhaps because it was Sunday; perhaps because the State Street crowd was not typical and he’d drawn more attention to himself than usual.

Kyle was standing stock still, like a statue, and a noble one—not so much a Statue of Liberty as a Statue of Functional Bewilderment. I was standing next to him. Across the street two people sitting on one the comfortable State Street benches were staring at Kyle, looking both wondrous and concerned. They looked familiar. A dapper elderly man and a woman, a little younger, with graying hair, both on the short and stocky side. I thought I recognized them from someplace, but having worked in restaurant business as long as I had, there was nothing surprising about that—people looked familiar all the time, though these two seemed to be looking at me as well as Kyle.

285

THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY APPEAR But also quite close to me, standing next to Kyle, were two more people whom he seemed to have stopped in their tracks.

These were a tall, thin, patrician looking gentleman and a shorter but no less impressive red haired woman of brilliant intensity. They too stared rapt at Kyle’s pronouncement.

Maybe it was because I felt I resembled Kyle that morning, barefoot and wearing a torn shirt reeking of beer, or maybe it was because I’d once spoken to him, or maybe because I’d seem him so many times on the street, but I felt a certain proprietary feeling for him as we stood there together. So when I glanced back across the street and saw the slightly bewildered stocky couple still staring across, I waved at them; and when they tentatively returned my wave and started to walk in my direction, I called out, pointing up at the sign, “It’s true, you know. It’s true.” And then turning to the other couple, who now looked even more astonished by Kyle, and me, and God knows what else, I said the same thing to them.

“It is,” I said. “It’s true. Thing’s aren’t as they appear.

They’re not,” I repeated, feeling that in saying that I’d somehow fulfilled my commitment to the cosmos as it presented itself to me at that moment.

So I left them standing there to work out their own conclusions, and set off down the street, barefoot and full of promise—particularly when I saw a “Dishwasher Wanted” sign in a long established Greek restaurant across the street and just down the block from Bernardo’s.

That was a great piece of news, maybe even great enough to break through that only structural element of my day. Great enough to cause me, impetuously, to give in and call my one true love before the agreed upon time of three in the afternoon.

Or maybe it was the other way around: maybe it was she who needed me to call. After all, I had been seeing things inside out; this was her story—a snapshot of Gretchen as a young woman—not me. That possibility along with a breakfast signal from my stomach quickened my pace and sent my right hand deep into my pocket for the correct change as I approached the phone booth down the street.

But something told me to look back toward Kyle then, and when I did, I saw that the couple who’d been sitting on the bench had joined the distinguished one across the street and both were

286

THREE OF HEARTS attempting to speak to Kyle, or maybe not, because it looked like they were speaking to each other, and then it seemed they might be looking back at me. But I couldn’t be sure, because by this time I was too far away to tell, and wasn’t overly concerned, because I, Felix, was as unreasonably happy as any impetuous upperMidwestern young man can ever hope to be. That’s ever. It’s as simple as that.

287

GRETCHEN

GRETCHEN

Gretchen Hollis—Journal entry 9:00A.M. Sunday, September 16, 2002.

When I first met Mr. G. last year, we had a long talk sitting on a bench in his back yard. He was interviewing me but it seemed more like we were just having a good conversation. We were talking about how important it is for there to be beautiful things in the world. I suppose he wanted to see if I felt that way before he entrusted me with the care of his garden. I told him that I believed that beauty had the power to transform people or at least to bring out the best in them; and he said he agreed, and that he believed that it was beauty and only beauty that could transform people and bring out the best in them: beautiful ideas, beautiful emotions, and beautiful order among things—that beauty could serve as a kind of “truth check.” I’m glad he pointed that out because it changed my perspective a little. It also got my attention and made me want to continue our conversation, and that’s when he said something else,

288

THREE OF HEARTS something that struck me much more deeply, though I’ve only recalled it a few times when I was falling asleep or by myself, and haven’t even remembered to tell Felix about it.

Mr. Guthrie was still talking about beauty, and he asked a me question that someone had asked him once; he asked if I’d ever wondered if we were only tools, and that our lives were great statues, etched outside of time, and that here, as one day follows the next, we chip away, a tear, a dream, a love at a time—but at statues of what? Or of whom? And what strikes me so strongly today is how much that says about Felix, because Felix is no ordinary man.

It’s not just any one of his qualities, but the whole of him and more that inspires me, and that’s not necessarily tangible or even something that can be named. He’s chipping away at a magnificent statue, something invisible, but it’s made from everything I hold dear: it’s made of honesty, nobility, of romance, of bravery, of great art. And that idea has an even wider compass, because feeling as vulnerable as I do this lonely morning with no idea where or how my sweet new husband is, it inspires me to imagine what it must be that Felix and I are chipping away at together, what we’re creating out our brave love; and I wonder what it can be, and even what effect it has. Our love is so powerful, I wonder what it does, or has already done.

And that takes me out of myself and makes me feel more secure. Still, I truly hope that my dear cat-man is roused by another poem or one of his loveable, unruly passions and decides to break the bonds of constraint and call me earlier than three this afternoon—maybe even soon? Maybe even now? I’m no one to say, but it feels to me like that would put everything in perfect order, like that would be a perfect end to this little piece of our lives.

289