Fictions Nonfictions Imaginings

2

Fictions Nonfictions Imaginings Writing from the SAGE Center

NY Writers Coalition Press Spring 2017 3

Copyright © 2017 NY Writers Coalition, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-9986029-2-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939158

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Upon publication, copyright to individual works returns to the authors.

Editors: Barry Blitstein, Mario De La Cruz Layout: Daisy Flores Cover: Book Design by Michelle Baker, Collage by Beverly Gross, Back Cover Image by Chelsea Dreher Fictions Nonfictions Imaginings contains writing by members of NY Writers Coalition’s creative writing workshops for LGBT elders at the SAGE center.

NY Writers Coalition Press, Inc. 80 Hanson Place, Suite 604 Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 398-2883 info@nywriterscoalition.org www.nywriterscoalition.org

4

5

6

Contents SAGE I Barry Blitstein Introduction

13

Michelle Baker Seeds Of The Past Rise In You Like Gardens

15

Luggage On The Platform and Cigarette Butts

17

On The Ground A List Of What We Mistake For Love

19

January 12, 2016

21

I Liked The Place; I Liked The Idea Of The

22

Place Chelsea Dreher Rebekah

24

Summer Hour

24

A Drying Time

24

Her Name Was Frieda Pushnik

25

Remembering — a Conversation

27

Charles Fatone An Unimagined Invalid (1/6/2017)

30

Forgive and Forget (2/04/2017)

34

7

Beverly Gross I Walked, I Walked

37

Perfect Little Things

39

The Present Moment

41

Our Minds Are Like Crows

43

Constance Gruen The Nuances of Communication

45

An Instruction Manual for Life

48

Conversational Snippets

50

Writing as Ritual

52

Adrienne Margolis My Hands Already Knew

54

Tom Marsh The Cry of the Witch of Lenoe

57

Jim Murrell The Journal of the Poisoned Light —

59

October 2009-December 2009 Roger Silva Toto

66

Gloria Zimmerman Happy Endings

69

Notes from the MRI Tunnel of Love: April

74

2016 at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS).

Expiration Dates

8

77

SAGE II Mario De La Cruz Introduction

81

Ralph Gray Blue Towel

83

A Dream

84

Dear Diary

86

Bill Larmer The Hamptons - A Remembrance of the Mid 1970s

89

Stuart Mager Untitled

96

A Recipe

99

Acknowledgements

103

About NY Writers Coalition

105

9

10

SAGE I

11

12

Introduction

It was my good fortune to have been offered one of the two SAGE/NY Writers Coalition groups when I completed my leadership training nearly two years ago. I began as a participant in these workshops in 2007 and so the reward of presenting the work here is that of an old friend sharing with readers pleasures he has long enjoyed.

The NY Writers Coalition method of ensuring a safe space in which writers may either improvise on a theme provided by a prompt or develop an independent theme produces remarkable results. It is all written in-the-moment in an atmosphere of trust and creative energy and shared if the writer wishes to do so. What you will read has been developed from that work, revised and finished.

It is important, I think, to note that while we are identified as LGBTQ elders we write very much to our individual experiences and sensibilities. As do we all, the writers within have multiple identities and express them. Our experience of community has given us a common purpose, one of whose primary characteristics is to be naturally and assertively uncommon.

Inside are adventure stories, revelations made by the young self to the old, essays of perpetual renewal and discovery; all manner of witnessing. You will read wry, precise narration on the exasperating mechanics of hospice care. You will read stories about undergoing examinations and treatments for illness whose brave, true, incisive observations surpass mere clinical detail. In our workshops we assume everything written is fiction. It is for the reader to distinguish among FICTIONS, NONFICTIONS, IMAGININGS, or not.

Barry Blitstein NYWC Workshop Leader, SAGE I Spring 2017 13

14

Michelle Baker

S e e d s O f Th e Pa s t R i s e I n Yo u L i k e Gardens* Been reading Kerouac Jack and feel the seeds rising, hoping anyway.

Jack was long on hope, heavy with fruit, a seedy seer, the founder of a new style, a whole new literature, complete with How-To instructions. The man was the greatest American writer of any generation. Fight me on that and I'll hold to it tight. Hit you back with Big Sur ocean sounds, sharsh, sha sharsh, sheeer, sha shish ah….boom, plop. Then I'll throw you a Railroad Earth San Francisco afternoon lum drum lazy nothin’ to do, watch the gray-suited commuters with their Chronicles and write the sun beating time, beatin’ beat time 5:31 5:32 5:33 5:34…. all the way to 5:46. All that time the blacks waiting, gangs with nothing and nothin’ to do, no jobs, hangin’, pitchin’ dice, swaggin’ Tokay with Jack. Listening Jack, watching Jack, lazing Jack leaning back to wall, Jack with his notebook, scribbling furiously fast; always his notebook. The man had the dedication of Saint Anthony. Downing booze and pills and pot and writing; slumped in the corner of a noisy party, writing; all night on Obetrol, writing. Writing a novel in a 72 hour binge purge, holed up in a dingy hotel room in Mexico City, lost to family all afternoon because he was writing in a clearing in a forest alongside North Carolina farmland, more writing in an isolated ranger station in a remote Cascade wilderness.

Oh Jack grew gardens and spread seeds, threw words, cultivated words in his mind, read Budda works and Yeats and the Bible and Poe and Joyce, always Joyce. And in his mind he sifted and swirled the words while he sat in forests alone and watched the mice and

15

the birds and sent them words like prayers, like love songs for the earth. Jack loved the earth and men and women and the poets and the sea and the stars and the sky. Jack was earnest and reverent and always in love, in love with beat up cars, in love with Neal Cassady, in love with Frisco, with the starry universe, and with words. Jack's goto words, his favorites, say much: tender, sad, and great, as in the “great American plain” or the “great heaving throat of the sea,” or that “crazy great frenzied enthusiasm of Dean Moriarty.” The only things that mattered to Jack, more than the universe and loving, were his writing and his mother. So sad and tender that they were to dog him and consume him and both, in the end, to outlive him.

*Prompt from Der Sänger Singt Vor Einem Fürstenkind, Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. Barry Blitstein

16

L u g g a g e O n Th e P l at f o r m a n d C i g a r e t t e B u t t s O n Th e G r o u n d * Luggage on the platform and cigarette butts on the ground. Train'll be roaring in an’ no one here but me. That red light down the track's flashin' already. If I'd a ticket I'd pick up that suitcase, big as it is, and ride on in to Memphis. Hell I'd even take up smokin'.

Afternoons I come down here and watch the train come in. A couple of weeks ago Mel and Meggy's boy came back home. Been all the way to Japan on an aircraft carrier and up by Arab land too. He'll be goin’ back after Christmas. Probly won't see no’ne else comin’ off that train 'til he comes back visitin’ on leave next time. That's what so strange ‘bout that there suitcase. I ain't known nobody round here would keep a thing like that. Rucksack, that's how folks round here travel.

Big whistle blowing an’ I look on down the track. Next thing there's a hand on my shoulder and standin’ over me is a bug-eyed slickback fella, big guy breathin’ hard an’ his eyes poppin’ out like that.

Black dots in there feel like they'd burn a hole like a hot poker through the skull.

"Hey man, you wanna make some money? Thousand dollars," he says to me, pinning me with that stare.

I guess my mouth opened or somptin. He grabbed my hand, held it up, and stuck a ticket in it, waved it in front of my face.

"Free ride to Memphis and a grand. All you've got to do is take up the suitcase, get on the train, and leave it like this near the track when you get off in Memphis. Simple. Leave some butts around it and you're done."

I looked again at the luggage, the butts. Probly full of drugs or drug money. Engine was coming through now. I didn't want to get mixed up in none of it. Probly get 'rressted or killed.

17

He whined, "Please man, two grand. ok? And you tell me where you live. I'll go there, find your wife or whoever and tell 'em about it, tell them you'll be back in a day or two with your big pay check."

Train's slowin’ down, cars passin’ in front of us.

"Don't want no trouble. Don't like drugs." I try to pull away from him but he had my arm.

"Man, there's no drugs." He might as well scream it. I look around glad ain’t nobody to hear. He's draggin’ me over there, bends and opens the suitcase, holdin’ tight to me with the other arm.

I see the thing’s full of paper, like those hole-punched paper, blue lines we used to have in school. There’s writin’ on it, an’ typin’, an’ yellow folders stuffed up. The whole thing, paper, ‘lest there's drugs hidden somewhere in there. But I have a feelin’ there's somptin real bad there. Papers worse 'en drugs.

Train's stopped now. Conductor lookin’ down from his window at the end.

"Five grand," he says. I shrug. He yells, "What's wrong with you? You can see there's nothing here but paper, a manuscript."

I pull away.

"God damn ignorant Okie," he yells. "Can't even recognize an opportunity when it lands in your lazy lap."

Trains moving off now. And I'm walkin’ fast away. Look back and see that guy standin’ there smokin’ with that luggage just sittin’ there.

Trouble comin’.

*Prompt from Small Town Station, 1918-1920, Ernest Farrés, tr. Lawrence Venuti

18

A L i s t O f W h at W e M i s ta k e F o r Lo v e * Ovel evol velo velcro Cro-Magnon. Did Cro-Magnon man love? Is it a deep animal impulse or something recently evolved? I felt something good when she caressed me with her eyes, her smile. I felt something emanating from her, the human heat, love photons, like the warm breath of the sun on your cheeks in the cool early spring.

Light, heat, love: are they made up of different particles, particles that stream forth like water drops from a shower? I felt touched by something when she looked on me with complete, completely affectionate, intense interest. She leaned towards me, silent though gushing, eyes bright, to listen, to encourage anything I might wish to say. Was it an electrical storm emanating from inside me or was my body taking in subatomic particles of love that she was shooting my way? My reaction was as instant and automatic as a reflex. I was overcome with the feeling of something good, an impulse to open all the avenues into my body, avenues I hadn't known existed, an impulse to take in everything she might pour forth, to fill myself with the stuff of her making, with a material substance yet to be discovered by science.

Cro-Magnon crovelc velcro olev evol obliv. Oh void. Did I send the same back to her? When my skin and muscle and bone suddenly softened, melted, and expanded, no longer a protective, tensely poised, and self-protective boundary-making cage, but instead it became a diaphanous misty thing, drifting ever outwards, was that love? Is that how it feels to release particles of love? Was what I felt the sensation of taking in or was it sending out love particles? Did she feel the same? Was there an oscillation too delicate to distinguish in which first she, then I, flamed forth? Or did it all mix together, her love and mine? And where did I come by those that emanated from me? Can they be packaged up somewhere inside us?

Do they circulate with our blood or the electric currents of our nerves? Is there a reservoir somewhere, down deep in the gut or, perhaps, closer to the heart, where we store them up? Can we create more or is love like all the other forms of energy, passed from

19

one body to another, shared and reconstituted, but ultimately subject to the law of entropy, dissipating with each use, ultimately becoming bland, undifferentiated substance, joining light, heat, and electricity in a thick nothingness that will, in the end, overcome all life? Is that the state of heaven, the Zen Nirvana, the goal to which everything is headed?

I must be brutish and unevolved because, even in my best moments, like that evening on the couch in her company, even when my body and mind seek a kind of merging, another part of me holds back for this life of variety and separation. I want the distinctions, the differences, the joy of feeling warm particles enter and leave me, be they light, heat, or love. No empty uniform Nirvana for me. Despite all desire, despite surrender to oblivion, we return to my individuality and hers. The ebb and flow, it’s nature’s trick, perpetuating us atomic, amidst the other mysteries and singularities this multitudinous universe holds.

*Prompt from Dead Mule Zone III, Laura Clarke

20

January 12th, 2016 One idea is enough to organize a life and project it into unusual viable forms.* People want so much to take the easy way out. The more unsettled the world, the more appealing it becomes. Grab that simple idea and hang on. A life organized around one idea is the easy way, and often dangerous for the rest of us. Now we have Trump.

There's one beefy idea, the strong man straight-shooter, who speaks the unspeakable and goads vile sentiments that have simmered unconfronted in the semi-conscious ire of unhappy masses. They're happy to organize around the single idea that truth has, with the blunt bold blond, been finally unloosed into the world and it is good.

No matter the specifics. The man speaks his mind. They feel it: finally relief from the lies and media manipulations. Trump the true. I will follow you.

Most of us long for order and grasp at it. Even those who resist constraints and shirk all responsibility establish comfortable habits, turns of speech, food preferences, and truths. When Adolph Hitler roused the German masses to take pride in their broken country it came down to one idea: Germany. German blood; German industry; German mythology: an idea to fling at France, Britain, the US, and the Russians, the oppressive victors of World War I with their tyrannous reparations. A single idea projected onto angry despairing masses who took the usual, only too viable, form: they became a blood thirsty mob, of exquisite organization in their clean tan slacks and jackets, Nazi youth saluting in well-ordered ranks. The people, one body brought together by one idea: German glory. Give me a chaos of ideas, ideas bumping against one another in all their contradictions. Give me pagan Gods in their glorious multiplicity.

Give me Zeus and Hera and Odin and all the man-gods, half immortal Hercules and Aeneas and the Nymphs, some special deity for every occasion, mood, man, and woman. Let them vie against one another.

It keeps the field free. Uncertainty reigns but isn't that better than The Donald or the Inquisition or any of the other great single ideas that have captured people's faith. *Prompt from A Wave, John Ashbery

21

I L i k e d Th e P l a c e ; I L i k e d Th e I d e a O f Th e P l a c e * Colors of wheat and olive, houses with red tiled roofs notched into steep hillsides and connected to one another by winding paths.

Down at the bottom, a two lane asphalt highway, bordering a rocky coast, the sea deep blue, the sky a little lighter. No clouds, never any clouds. I never saw it rain, the whole of July was like that. I'd wake early while the air was still cool. My bedroom had a single rectangular window nearly a foot deep, cut through bare stucco whitewashed walls. The floors were tan Spanish tile and always cool to my bare feet at that time in the morning. There was a little sink against the wall and a toilet out back between a shady elm and a chicken coop where my landlord collected eggs each morning. I spent my evenings reading and writing and my days exploring the lands along the coast on foot. Sometimes I'd come upon a shepherd with a few sheep or vineyards high back in the hills where it was cooler.

Gnarled plants trimmed in neat carefully tied rows now showed hundreds of tiny green infant grapes. They would soon turn purple and balloon and bend the vines under their weight.

I liked the place. I liked the arid breezes and the constant sun. I luxuriated in the colors. But I loved the idea of the place. Everywhere I looked for ruins. Once I came upon a tiny amphitheater that three thousand years ago might have featured Sophocles for Greek settlers, the great merchant families of the Mediterranean. Often I found honed cut stone along a path, perhaps once a Roman villa amid ancient gardens terraced into the hillside. Oh Italy, where is your lost grandeur? Where the Greeks colonists with their literature and philosophy? What happened to the Romans who brought order and law to all of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East from their tiny capital in this land? And what about Byzantine priestly kings who invented a new ethic and spiritual life with their Christianity and built cathedrals across Asia Minor and the Western world?

22

All was lost in the end to the Renaissance. Brutal battles among the cities raged and condottieri mercenaries were paid off with great chunks of the countryside to build their private fiefdoms. They fractured the land into tiny feuding districts. The Popes had gone evil, facing off for power against one another, the aristocracy, and the Holy Roman Emperor. Here the most ruthless, licentious, and avaricious among the people took power. But somehow the painters and artists persisted. They ducked their heads and kept on creating: Michelangelo, Fra Angelico, Dante and Petrarch, scores more. Where are you now, Italy? A small island, a minor nation among many, your art is in the past. But the colors are here and the quiet beauty of the land remains. You are a respite, a comfort for an American contemplating the end of a nation’s era. In your most forgotten places one finds a certain kind of paradise. The land and the art persist when all else is lost.

*Prompt from SantarĂŠm, Elizabeth Bishop

23

Chelsea Dreher Rebekah She sleeps by the river The shush, pat, shush of water Sliding past the tent Disturbing nothing aging Never She moves slowly towards the source As we all must In our fashion

Summer Hour After the meal Sneakers off and one with the rhythm of passing clouds Patterns emerge and mutate Sun and growing things numberless, vast complete and complex I muse.

It is late now Another day on which to leave my print.

A D r y i n g Ti m e Mountains looming over newly cut fields Dry bales of once green rippling grass require Monet’s brush and paint to capture Time

24

H e r N a m e Wa s F r i e d a P u s h n i k The early days of the Barnum and Bailey circus were raw, unsanitized and very politically incorrect. At age ten, the circus challenged whatever logic I possessed. Beautiful ladies in my world kept their heads out of the mouths of lions. An elephant’s foot hovering inches from her face? Never. In my Bronx neighborhood people didn’t ride bicycles across thin wires or get shot from cannons. But here, in the Big Top, everything and anything was possible. It was thrilling to watch daredevils risk life and limb for our amusement. There were loud cheers and drum rolls at the climax of a well executed landing. With a relieved sigh I returned to my Cracker Jacks and the less fraught of the spectacular spectacles. We were regaled with clowns, jugglers, parades of prancing horses, acrobats flipping madly, sequins flying and circus music blaring throughout. It was an experience of sensory overload guaranteed to make children drunk with excitement. I was transfixed by the trained seals. What poise and dignity they displayed as they balanced and juggled balls on the tips of their noses. They were sleek, boneless and brilliant. They were an oasis of tranquility in the roiling sawdust sea of confusion and excitement.

There was nothing more real and nothing more unreal than the raucus, smelly, noisy reality of The Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Despite all of the magic I had witnessed in the main arena, it was Frieda Pushnik who captured my imagination. She was one of the exhibits in the Freak Show. Frieda had no arms and no legs. She wore a velvet dress with a lace collar. She was placed upright on a tall chair and looked straight ahead, making no eye contact with the crowd.

Frieda seemed to be smiling but I couldn't be sure. There was a typewriter set before her and Frieda hit the keys with a stick which she held between her neck and stump. I daydreamed as I gazed at Frieda. What was her life like? Was she sold to the circus by her poverty stricken parents? Where did Frieda live when she travelled with the rest of the displays? Who bathed her? What foods did she

25

like and how did she eat? Was there a special box with a velvet lining where she rested between shows? Who combed her hair and put a ribbon in it? Was she my age and did she have any friends? I could be her friend, I thought. Each time I returned to The Big Top I headed straight for Frieda's spot, fearful that she would have vanished while I was gone. It was the circus after all.

Why did I have feelings of connectedness to the armless and legless girl in the Barnum and Bailey Freak Show? Helplessness is my response. Frieda was helpless, and so was I. Helpless to change my only, lonely child state. Helpless to help my parents find their families who were lost in the Holocaust. At age ten I wanted to populate my life with other lonely children like myself. Outsiders. I was an outsider child of immigrant parents. Frieda Pushnik, Oliver Twist, Peter Pan and The Little Match Girl all had something in common with each other and with me. We were all on the outside, looking in.

26

R e m e m b e r i n g — a C o n v e r s at i o n They were inseparable. Yes. Always together. He was a handsome man. Quiet. She kept her hair red. They wore red a lot. Yes. They often dressed alike. Oh? I didn’t really know them. They were private people. Yes. Not her so much. No. She liked to chat. I knew her a bit.

Oh? We talked in the lobby and elevator. Always friendly. He didn’t say much. No. He was a quiet man. She had been a singer. I didn’t know. Yes. And tall. They were both tall. And thin. Yes. Were they vegetarians? Hmm. Don’t know. Maybe. Health conscious. She still had music students. Really? Yes. Was she a pianist too? Don’t know.

Might have been. They were always together. She took walks alone. I saw her walking in the neighborhood. Yes. She had an annoying habit of taking peoples notices down. I saw her doing that. Ha! Like she wanted to help clean up the neighborhood. Like that could happen.

She was an Alexander Techniques Practitioner. I didn’t know that.

Yes. All that walking. She had trouble walking. And back problems too. Had back surgery years ago. Oh. They were up there in years.

Yes. Up there. Schooled in body mechanics. They kept up. He was pleasant. Quiet. A quiet man. Never spoke. No. Maybe hello. I didn’t know him. Them. She kept going. Didn’t stop. I once saw her on a bus. She was going to Lincoln Center. Huh. All dressed up. Don’t remember seeing her dressed up. She was alone. Oh? Did they have friends? Don’t know. Maybe she had some from her music days. He was a nice looking man. Yes. She had a brother. I think he died years ago. Not sure. Huh. Any other family? Maybe a distant cousin.

Maybe. Not close. No. They were devoted. Yes. Couldn’t bear to be separated. Last time I saw them together was at the party for the couple who moved. Oh yes! Red sweaters and black pants. I took a photo! A group photo? I think one of them both. I want to see it. Yes. Her mother lived in the building. Really? I remember. She was retired. A retired public school teacher. Really? That’s a long time ago. Yes. A long time. So it was a rent controlled apartment? Yes. Rent controlled. No more. No. No more. The landlord will be happy.

So few of us left. Yes. How many? Huh. Dunno. Half a dozen maybe.

Maybe. Not many. No. Hope they wrote a will. Yes. Wouldn’t want to

27

see all their stuff in the street. No. That would be awful. Yes, awful.

They were smart. Yes. They were together? At the end? Yes. I mean how? How were they found together? They didn’t answer their phone and a student of hers got worried and came here and got let in by the manager and found them. He found them? Yes. How. How did he find them? In chairs. They were sitting in chairs? The neighbors stood around and didn’t know how to feel. We just didn’t know.

It felt empty—and other things. We each had our thoughts and were hanging on to the facts. The facts we thought we had. The many “truths.” Maybe some of us thought—I thought—Good for them!

They had made a plan and they had carried it out. They ended their lives on their terms. Not many people could, or even would do that.

Even if they wanted to. And, I thought, she had made the decision to end her life when she could no longer take her walks on her own. No canes. No walkers. No aids. On her own terms. He might have thought that life without her was no life at all. He might have thought that. I sort of wish I could have seen them one more time.

But, apartment 12A was filled with activity. It was a crime scene. It had to be treated as a crime scene until it was proven otherwise. The criminals were seated in the living room. Victims of their crime. For it is a crime to kill yourself. It’s against the law. A law that cannot be enforced. There is no punishment for making a final exit when you decide that the time is right. We old tenants will be having a memorial soon. What will we or can we say beyond the fact that she loved strawberries? That is such a human and personal piece of information.

28

Drawing by Chelsea Dreher

29

Charles Fatone

A n U n i m a g i n e d I n va l i d ( 1 / 6 / 2 0 1 7 ) There were many times when I thought “Peace has come.“ I recently came across a Buddhist saying, you can always begin again.

But at 83 I began to list my disabilities.

For most of my life I’ve been legally blind. Five years ago I started losing my hearing and now wear hearing aids. During the last 3 years my strength, balance and stamina have disappeared.

When I recently noticed a growth on the sole of my right foot it was MRI’d and after being surgically removed will keep me off my feet for three weeks. After taking a stress test my nurse asked how much I weighed, I said 212. She asked my height, I said 5’10” she said,” No, You’re 5’8.” I said, “How can that be when I’ve been 5’10” since I was 19?” She said, “Have you noticed your pants are longer?” Then at a recent check-up my doctor said I was now 5’7” and my pot belly was caused by the compression and shrinking bones due to aging. It was not a comfort.

All the storage shelves I built when I first moved into my apartment 50 years ago were set just high enough to be easy to reach. But for the last three years with bursitis in my right shoulder that’s exacerbated by a tear I got stretching out of my reach so often to get almost everything from those damn shelves. It’s still painful after a steroid shot and therapy.

When passing young people in the street deep in talk or reading their i-phones they give me no quarter and force me into the gutter even while I’m carrying big heavy packages. It must be the lost 3 inches

30

they don’t see me go by and it’s adding to my increasing sense of isolation.

In a brilliant book review in the New York Times of Michael Chambon‘s newest memoir “Moonglow,” the author quotes his grandfather who says, “After I’m gone write it all down. Explain everything.

Make it mean something. Use all your fancy metaphors. Put the whole thing in perspective, in chronological order.” That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do for the last 6 years, recording what I remember of my family‘s story.

When I was with my analyst last week I told him about all this. He said, “My mother is 81 with arthritis and she takes two sculpting classes a week.” I thought again of the saying, “You can always start again.” “I’ve got it!” I said, ”I’m having an instant insight.”

I was an art major in school and was always easy with pictures as opposed to printed text. Now instead of noting the growing list of all my disabilities, why don’t I start listing the things that I still can do?

The NY Times Sunday Magazine prints in pink mini-font on pale gray background using less than half the page. They no longer think of it primarily as information but as an occasion for antic and festive design, or that politics is really an entertainment. All I see is a lot of wasted space.

So I decided to join a life drawing class at the 13th St. Center. I love buying art supplies. When I asked the clerk if she had something I could put the $23 14 X 17 drawing pad in, she said, “A shopping bag?”

“No, a case of some sort.“ She said, “Yes, we have a smaller black plastic carrier like the big ones you see.” She brought from the back a 14 X 17 black case.

I said, “Excellent How much?”

With a straight face she said, “It’s just $94.“ I passed on it. There’s nothing just about $94. With the current prices for art supplies you have to be a Trust Fund kid to be a struggling artist.

31

When we spent Thanksgiving with our old friend Stephen in upstate Red Hook, I noticed his 6’ X 7’ foot wooden chest which had 24 drawers. One drawer had been removed leaving the space blank in the middle of all that finely polished wood. I suddenly had a thought “That’s exactly a picture of what my memory has become. One empty drawer that used to hold all the names and nouns I needed to use.” I took a photo of the chest.

I just finished reading Joel Grey’s autobiography which is a wonderfully candid story of his show business career and personal life. We have something in common. Both our mothers refused, to the day they died, to accept their son as a gay man.

I met a young man dressed in a thin brown monk’s robe and sandals.

He held two cardboard boxes of candy and used clothes on the corner of Stuyvesant Place and 2nd Avenue. He had Scotch-taped a hand printed sign in the fence that read, “I’m just here to help.

Please take what you need. You are loved. Brother Angelo, Order of Franciscans of Mercy.” He radiated such optimism and good will as I passed, I stopped and said, “Did you sew that monk’s robe yourself?“ “Yes,” he said.

“By hand?”

“Yes, we don’t have the machine.”

“The material is really too thin for this weather.“ “It will do.”

“I think it’s very good to be simple but you don’t have to freeze your ass off.“ He smiled and asked my name. I told him and asked him his. He said “Brother Angelo.”

I said, “Really?“

32

“Yes, I had it legally changed.”

“What was it before?”

He smiled simply and said “Dudley.” I had to hug him. He was so full of optimism and good will. The next day I bought him a Monk brown wool turtleneck sweater he could wear back at his Brother House.

But when I went back the entire block was taken up with Christmas trees for sale. Brother Angelo had been evicted. I’ll just have to wait until after the holidays to give it to him.

33

Forgive and Forget (2/04/2017) I’ve had recurring visions of episodes in my life that still haunt me.

Among others two filled me with shame and guilt. In my late 20’s before going out to cruise the gay bars I had a ritual of downing a juice glass of vodka. It helped smooth the way. I was a trained actor and had an easy facility with anecdotes. One night around midnight I was holding forth among six guys. There was no remark, jest or witticism made that I could not best with better one. It was an ability I had learned from my training for theater. So there I was nicely cushioned by booze, enjoying the laughter and approval, while considering the date I’d choose later. In the middle of the revelry there was a pause when a good looking young guy standing on the edge of our circle tried to contribute a clever remark. I paused for an intense moment then cut him down. He blushed, confused, and backed off. That’s the whole episode.

The next morning, no longer under the influence of vodka, I had a flash memory of that scene and cringed, hating myself for the clear abuse of power I’d committed. It was so much like my experience as a kid with my unrelentingly demanding mother. All that rage, anger and undigested bile were in a cauldron that still remained. The emotional scars were still there.

The other story is completely different. I was bartending at the Showplace on West 4th St. working off a $600 debt. I played the job like a performance. I treated all the customers as though they were my best buddies and I was hosting a scintillating party not chintzing on the drinks. I was 28, weighed 178 pounds and thought I was ‘hot shit.‘ One night a nice very conservative looking guy about 30 sat at my bar. He looked at me as though he was looking at Mecca. Bartenders often have this effect on customers. You know, “Set ’em up, Joe“ etc.

It’s compelling to have that kind of attention and adoration shown to you without any effort on your part. He didn’t realize he was seeing a

34

performance. I radiated young energy and fun and treated everyone like a close friend. He stayed the course until closing time. So I granted his wish and took him home. He was on vacation from his job as a teacher of creative writing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was educated, closeted, awkwardly uptight, sweet and needy. I simply responded. During the next week he brought me to the upper West Side to introduce me to Carl Van Vechten whose biography he was writing. I had never heard of Van Vechten or his reputation as an influence in the 30’s Harlem Renaissance. Van Vechten took a shine to me. He was 82, we shared the same name and being 28 gave me a pass I guess. He said, “I’d like to photograph you.” And my 28-yearold ego impulsively said, “Sure, if you let me photograph you.” He agreed. When Bruce‘s vacation was over he returned to Iowa.

Carl’s assistant Sol called and made an appointment for my photography sitting. Carl and I had a natural rapport and quickly became good friends. Afterwards I reminded him of his promise to sit for me. So he came downtown to E. 9th St. When he rang my bell I buzzed back saying “Take your time Carlo.” I went back into the apartment arranging the background and lights I wanted to use.

After 10 minutes, I walked out onto my fourth floor landing and looked down the stairwell. I could see Carlo’s hand on the banister of the third floor. I said, “Take your time, Carlo.” I never considered how difficult it was for an 82-year-old man to go up four flights of stairs since I did it easily several times a day. When he slowly walked into my apartment clearly out of breath he said, “Carlo, I want to see exactly how you live because you realize I can never visit you again.”

Our sitting went smoothly and he said the portrait I’d done of him was excellent.

One Saturday morning, he called me and we met at the Thalia on upper Broadway for the first showing of Les Enfants du Paradise.

Fifteen minutes after we settled in our seats and the show had begun he was fast asleep at my side. Afterwards we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant for lunch and then I took him home. This continued for a few months.

35

In the meantime, Bruce was writing to me weekly. He wrote about school, students, other teachers and Iowa in general and always how eagerly he looked forward to coming back to the city. The letters were piling up and I was conflicted because I did not feel that deeply about him. When he asked for some response, I did not know how to tell him in writing so I sent him a postcard that simply said, ”I’m listening.“ It was sufficient and the letters kept coming. Infatuations are like that. Ultimately the time came when he returned to New York. When he called I told him to come by. I told him about my ongoing friendship with Van Vechten and showed him the portrait taken which he liked very much. I was careful to keep us away from the bedroom and I suggested we go up to the roof and look at the stars in the night sky. He thought that was a swell idea. But in the open air on the roof I felt like my back was up against the wall and I would have to face the problem. I broke the news as sensitively as I could but he was shocked, devastated and confused. What had he done? What had he said? I said, “It has nothing, nothing to do with you.” I was relieved that it ended civilly. He asked my permission to use my portrait of Carl in his biography and I readily agreed. When the biography was published a few years later there was my portrait of Carl which made me feel very proud. About a year later I heard through a mutual friend that Bruce had married and had a son. I saw Bruce only one more time. It was at the Memorial for a mutual friend whom I had also photographed. God, how the time went by!

But these memories of how badly I behaved during that long infatuation was unpardonable: it was an abuse of power.

When my mother did pass away I still had the emotional scars which I picked at like scabs bringing back fresh bad blood. Now, looking back at it all I ask myself what did I gain from it? Holding on to all that long ago pain? Did it benefit me or any of the people I had abused? Well yes, I think I learned some hard lessons in growing. So I decided to forgive myself and forget old injuries and just get on with it.

36

Beverly Gross

I Wa l k e d, I Wa l k e d Because I have a bad cold the subway stairs are giving me a hard time. I was relieved to see a three-year-old holding her mother’s hand ahead of me on the stairs exiting the 23rd Street Station. Good, I thought, I can take it slow. The child’s legs were hardly longer than the height of a stair, yet she bounded upward alongside her mother, leaving me behind in the dust, trying to catch my breath.

I am by nature a walker, but having a cold for a week has transformed my habits. I cut corners. I take transit. I stay home. I have a glimpse of what life with infirmities is like: freedom, spontaneity, recklessness are unthinkable. My doctor has vetoed any exercise for a week. I am to walk outside with a wool scarf covering my mouth and nose. There goes my life, I think. I will hate these days of inactivity. How I envy the little girl with her short legs who will probably cover more distance this week than I will.

In better, healthier times I walk around the city, often with a camera hanging from my neck to encourage real looking and expanded walking. I would not think of having groceries delivered since food shopping is one of the ways I get to travel to odd parts of the city— the East Village Cheese Shop, the Indian markets in Curry Hill, the three [now four] Trader Joes. Walking the city is one of its chief joys.

And when I travel it always seems imperative to spend the entire day exploring on foot. My favorite foreign cities are ones that reward the walker—Rome, Paris, Prague, Marrakesh. I have gone on a week-long trekking adventure in Burma, have walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. And in the course of my life have bicycled on every continent.

37

Bicycling is a kind of walking with wheels. It still uses your power and enables you to see and smell and greet the world you’re traveling in.

I have probably through my life biked more miles than I’ve driven. In the city I’ve probably walked more miles than I’ve taken by subway.

That is, until this week. My doctor’s office is about a mile from my apartment, but this morning I went both there and back on the 6 train, two local stops. I look forward to the day, may it come soon, that I will laugh at the idea of taking the subway two local stops. I am lucky. Head colds do go away. My life will come back to me. I will hike in the woods. I will return to the gym. I will walk to Kalustyan’s on 28th Street.

I will race that little girl up the subway stairs and I will win.

38

P e r f e c t L i t t l e Th i n g s I was at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store early this week. Michael, my particular genius, solved the problem with my computer pretty quickly, but not before I happened to notice his fingernails. They were beautifully shaped, perfectly clean, slightly glistening. Is it possible that Michael, a young skinny guy with no other distinctive features and no discernible vanities—is it possible that Michael gets manicured? I debated for a while, but finally as we were saying goodbye and I was thanking him for solving my software problem, I plunged ahead and complimented him on his hands. I figured if he had some male sensitivity better to mention his whole hand rather than singling out for commendation his perfect little fingernails, so beautifully shaped they reminded me of the Arch of Triumph.

“Really?” he asked as though hit by surprise, as though nobody had ever noticed his hands before, as though he didn’t make any effort to groom them.

“Yes,” I said. “Your hands are very nice, especially your, uh, fingernails.”

We looked at each other. He said nothing. I thanked him again and left the Apple Store.

I will never know if Michael goes for manicures. And if so, does he get his nails done with the hope that nobody will discern his strange predilection. Strange, that is, for a young male, a young nerdy male.

Perhaps his girlfriend is studying to be a cosmetologist and he gets roped into occasional manicures with attendant hand lotioning. And if so, if he were merely cooperative rather than vain, might my noticing his perfect little fingernails be less embarrassing?

Had Michael been embarrassed? I don’t know that either. Though I suspect so. And if that had been the case had I overstepped my position as client? The Apple Store is a friendly place, all of us on a first name basis, but there are boundaries after all. If Michael had been a female genius I don’t think there would have been anything

39

untoward if I had remarked on her fingernails. Women, after all, even nerdy women—are there female nerds?—women are the usual client for manicures. For many women, in fact, their decorated fingernails are their crowning glory.

But Michael was a man. His fingernails were not decorated, merely glistening slightly as though tinged with colorless nail polish—though I’m not really sure of that. Perhaps a lot of collagen in Michael’s diet explains the slight shine. I myself take a tablespoon of collagen in the morning to encourage the cartilage in my knees, but I haven’t noticed any extra shine on my fingernails, but perhaps in a few more months, or maybe I should add a second tablespoon.

I will never really know the truth about Michael’s fingernails. Even when I return to the Apple Store for my next consultation I know I can’t request a specific genius. I will probably never see Michael again. I have never seen the same genius a second time. So the questions I ponder about Michael’s perfect nails, his dedication to them, his reactions to my praise—those questions will necessarily go unanswered.

What can be considered, however, is my behavior. In complimenting Michael I risked and produced a certain awkwardness. Should I have just kept my admiration to myself? I have on many other occasions blundered with an uninhibited mouth. I meant no harm to Michael, no embarrassment. I hate the thought that next time his cosmetologist girlfriend needs someone to practice on he will refuse and they will fight and possibly break up.

But is it possible that Michael was pleased to have his perfect fingernails noticed? That I made his day? That my attention and words made him feel that he was not just an ordinary genius but a genius with presence, and that in our client-genius consultation some real human bonding took place, that gave his job meaning, dignity and transcendence?

On that chance alone, I am glad I spoke. And will probably continue to shoot off my mouth.

40

Th e P r e s e n t M o m e n t I wish I truly did live in the present as the Buddhists advise us. I do to some extent—probably more than most people my age who tend to revere the past, mourning the loss of their younger selves and a simpler, less crowded New York. Do children tend to be futureoriented and oldsters past-oriented? It makes emotional sense, but would the Buddha approve?

I’m not sure I even know what it is to live in the moment. But for simplicity’s sake I think of it only in terms of what it is not: Giving undue importance to the past and to the future. Kids who are so programmed for success and whose every move is designed to guarantee admission to a top school are surely future-directed. More the pity because childhood is the least encumbered time of life, and if a child is denied a chance to live in the here and now that is a crime against their humanity. Ambition is the culprit—the ambition of the parents, the school, the society who exert indecent pressure on the vulnerable young.

Nostalgia is the province of the old. Understandable, and yet….

Reverence for the way things used to be is likely to shut the door on the way things are now. Old people are always complaining about the mores and values of the young. The youth of the 60’s, former hippies, yippies, rock and rollers, draft-card and bra burners, now, fifty years later, look askance on the twittering youth of today. How dreary of us. It’s probably been true for all generations in a changing world to presume their own superiority over those who have come later. But now I am an old codger bemoaning the loss of literacy among the young as others of my cohort bemoan their sexual freeness, their materialism, their twittering.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be a successful Buddhist but I’m going to quit thinking the young should be reading instead of surfing the web.

41

It would be better, I think, to enjoy and wonder at the world that now exists instead of burnishing and longing for a past that probably never was.

To say nothing of not imprisoning myself in the scariness of the future.

Yes, I’ll take the present.

42

Our Minds are like Crows * Maybe other people’s minds are like crows. Mine is like a hummingbird’s. I hover in space hoping that something sweet will come my way. Sometimes it does, but mostly I hover. The hovering is the point and the pleasure.

A crow, I imagine, is always on the lookout for some tasty morsel, tasty to the crow, of course, but I’d just as soon pass by the squashed squirrel. How ghastly to scavenge, to scan the earth for roadkill, to enjoy the taste of the victim of careless driving.

We hummingbirds are too squeamish for that. Nectar is our nectar.

We are vegans of the most upright sort. We are responsible for no deaths, no pollution. We are pure in action, thought and desire. How fine the world would be if everyone were a hummingbird.

It is true that we aren’t really musical—Keats has never written an ode to our song—but thank heavens we don’t fill the air with incessant cawing. That’s another thing about crows. They are loud and raucous and entirely unmusical. I’ll say it again: If you can’t be a nightingale do as we do and shut your beak.

What must the mind of a crow be like? If we are what we eat, the crow’s mind must be a sordid grab bag of putrefaction. Can poetry ever come from a crow? If a crow wrote for a newspaper it would be The New York Post; if a TV commentator the crow would be on Fox News. If a crow ran for office he would be Donald Trump. The crow with his own base instincts would try to appeal to ours. The crow cares only for the sordid and sensational. The crow is the least aesthetic, the least spiritual among us birds, the bully among us using its brute strength and invasive song to disrupt otherwise happy meadows and woodlands. When it surveys the beautiful earth it looks mostly for roadways, for signs of blood and squashed fur.

I’m not trying to puff up the reputation of us hummingbirds. We are rather special of course, but so are all kinds of other birds—the

43

stately eagle, the colorful parrot, the intelligent cardinal, the athletic nuthatch, the hilarious emu, to say nothing of our cousins who know how to swim. We’re a great bunch, us birds. We get along famously, even the flesh-eaters among us who wake at dawn to go after worms. I personally don’t get it, but live and let live is the motto we live by.

The world is filled with many creatures far less peaceful than us. Eat or be eaten is the motto of some dysfunctional, highly disruptive species. I don’t know what our Creator was thinking when She dreamed up lions and spiders. Not paying proper attention, I would say, like when She created the crow. I’ll bet She is still regretful about that act of creation, still eating crow.

*Prompt from Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton

44

Constance Gruen

Th e N u a n c e s o f C o m m u n i c at i o n I was a high school art teacher for almost thirty years, a nursery school teacher for three before that. I left teaching nursery school because I had too many anxieties about being responsible for the little ones and I knew I would never meet interesting people at work.

It was a good switch for me. The high school kids were hormonal, often angry and capable of deep malaise. Personally I dealt much better with that age group. I didn’t worry incessantly about them. I could joke with them about misunderstandings that occurred.

They often spoiled the art world for me, because I would find myself enjoying their work more than a trip through the Chelsea galleries.

The amount of production that rolled through my classes—drawings, paintings, prints, books and sculptures would often delight me.

Administration rarely had taste or understanding. Sometimes principals or higher officials would visit the class not knowing what they were looking at or how to respond. One said, Oh, I wish I had your job instead of mine!

The implicit communication was—Oh you have it so easy! Your job is just fun!

And of course it was fun—sometimes. I tried to make it so—but to get real—the amount of time it took to come up with engaging projects—the endless digging around for materials—enough materials to cover 150 students any given day was time consuming.

45

One thing I did have going for me was an absolute certainty that all students could draw well and progress in their capabilities. The discipline was to let go of their controls. I didn’t only teach drawing though because engendering creativity and play was also important.

One morning a student wrote “Check it out Ma” on his work, and me in my utter stupidity said Isn’t that nice—he is thinking of his mother!

Like a stand up comedian I relayed this bit of ignorance on my part to the following class. They laughed hysterically at me for the misunderstanding and with me for sharing it.

I had a last class of the day in another school for recently arrived immigrants. We would take the last 5 minutes of the class to speak many languages Italian Valley Girl Barnyard Sounds We were just on the edge of out of control—but never too much over.

I got angry at 3 parents in 28 years—2 for putting down their children’s art work, and pure frustration with one for arrogantly sticking up for his nephew’s behavior—I was rarely that sure of myself—but that student stabbed another student two weeks later.

Once a student was furious at me for betraying a confidence—but I had to because her adult boyfriend had beaten her up.

She was glad she got the help from the social worker, but not glad I intervened. I accepted her anger as part of my job description. I had to be the adult in the room.

So now—let’s list some of my favorite projects over the years—

46

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Embroidered Graffiti on burlap The Bronx Vases—After studying Red and Black Greek Vases we made our own red and black vases with images of Bronx Life.

James Brown Memorial Books. The week he died we blasted his music and created homages to him in book form.

Claes Oldenburg visits a bodega—and we had large sculptures of candy to prove it.

I still have a relief print, created by a student, of handcuffs with the words arrested development.

Sculptural Books Headdresses, Hats and Royal Crowns.

Once I taught a class with an artist who suffered a detached retina in the middle of the day. While he was out on sick leave, I invited in a science teacher to explain how a retina works. My class sent my recovering colleague get well cards with images of bloody retinas—and he loved them.

One student came from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. His lazy idiot of a bitchy guidance counselor refused to give him credit for the art class he already took and passed, but the records of which got lost in the floods. His name was Max. He had to take art over, so I let him sleep because he was stressed and angry. My other students understood and left him alone.

I wasn’t anywhere near perfect. I often got confused and misplaced artwork. My performance wasn’t even. I was too interested in getting a cup of coffee and not involved enough in tidying up.

The last two years I lost it. I was burnt, cooked and needed a break.

My leg hurt all the time. I often lost my glasses, not to mention my temper. I knew I had to go and the Department of Education came through with an early retirement. There wasn’t much left to do anyway as most of the art classes had been cut.

After I left, I heard from a colleague that the art room had been taken over by an English Teacher who threw out all the art supplies.

He posted a quote by John F. Kennedy about the importance of art.

47

An Instruction Manual for Life 1.

Hugging my self.

2. Elbows grazing ribs, breathing against arms, arms grazing against sides and stomach—stomach breathing into groin.

3.

Again elbows into knees, all me all mine. My source.

4.

Turn around, where are my wings?

5.

Or, where were my wings before I was born?

6.

Now, the scapula—scapula maybe, of my shoulders.

7. Neck, neck, pain in the neck. Take better care of all that happens, let it be as soft and dear as when I started, hanging but upright.

8.

How do people have good posture?

9. Maybe from living upside down at first, rubbing your head and your neck as though they were your arms hugging your sides.

10. Love, love from your arms flowing upside down to your neck to my nose.

11. Nose is a good place to go.

12. Softly down to my lips. Lips muttering, blabbering making sounds making shapes.

13. Letting those jaws loose, loose, loose at least try like you once were before.

14. And fingers? Fingers? Hello! How are you doing today? Soft?

Tight? Dancing, or what? Rubbing skin, skin all over.

48

15. Let’s wrap this baby up round and round with grass, cotton and moss.

16. Rock it to sleep rock it to sleep and let it rest.

17. Okay! Hugging is over now!

18. Move, move where can I go where can we go?

19. Not hugging—stretching, pulling, crawling, moving, moving a bit at a time.

20. Splashing wet!

21. Water, laughing, crying and jumping!

22. Big movements now— 23. Very, very sophisticated now— 24. Dancing, dancing to drums, to music.

25. Dancing alone.

26. Dancing with my partner.

27. Dancing with my mommy, my daddy.

28. Forget about hugging now thinking of splashing. I’m dancing but I’m thinking about splashing.

29. Splash Dancing! And of course mud, mud baths for sure.

30. Sleep and wake up, wake up and talk to people with your mouth and your ears. Tell them you love them or you hate them—use your mouth nose and eyes.

31. Touch, maybe touch. Do that please!

49

C o n v e r s at i o n a l S n i p p e t s Now I’m riding on the 1 train and a 30ish man in a hoodie, his phone attached to his ears with buds is talking.

“But is it doubt or fear? I said, is it doubt? Or fear? No baby don’t you ever doubt yourself. You’ve got me as your trainer and Tina and Eric and (inaudible mutter). Starbucks – no baby that’s behind the scenes stuff. Stuff only you would think about. They wont know about that.”

The man kept talking and I turned to Harvey— “What a great snippet of conversation. I hope I remember some of it when I get home.”

Sometimes overheard conversations can be a new oral tradition.

I mentioned to Harvey that the facilitator in my Wednesday group wrote a beautiful piece about wanting to enter through a door for which he needed exact specifications. Then he was jumping from star to star. At first, I told Harvey, I wish I had that imagination. However, on second thought, he was describing another reality.

“My brain is stuck in the concrete,” I said. Harvey mulled this over and said, “If you are concrete, then what the fuck am I?” J is upset because her stomach hurts. I woke up this morning and thought that it wasn’t her stomach, it was her need to control any thing new that goes on in her life. A perfect example of our two differing approaches is when Zoe’s first boyfriend was disinherited by his father and temporarily moved in with us.

“Doesn’t that impinge on your privacy?” she asked.

“Of course it does!” I replied.

50

I was talking to B about the writing group. She said she briefly belonged to one—but didn’t like listening because it wasn’t as precise as reading. Stories fly better when they are read aloud—but you can pick up every error when you read and so they don’t always pass muster.

“Thank God for the oral tradition,” I said.

Mom came to Bubby’s (her former mother in law) funeral. She bumped into Cousin Sonia who she hadn’t seen in 30 years. “You got fat,” Sonia told my Mother.

Mom then reminded me of the short version of the serenity prayer from AA. “It’s fuck you” she said.

51

Writing as Ritual In writing yesterday, I did something new—I wrote my usual memoir style—only some of it was made up! It was made up because I wanted to invent a ritual—and wrote about it as though it had already happened. It hadn’t happened already but soon would. I had actually begun to keep notes of images I had seen—on the subway for instance. Then I heard a marvelous story on the radio by Yiyun Li in which the narrator began with a journal she kept for her son of things she had seen and/or heard in the course of her day.

So here are three images that I wrote this morning.

1. An enormous man is knitting a sweater with the smallest needles and thinnest thread. He is a bit snobby and, I suspect, kind. I ask him where he is from. Says, “Venezuela.” “Tough times,” I say. “Horrible,” he answers.

2. Lying on the living room floor with my glasses off—I notice a painting leaning against a wall. It had such strong colors! Was it one that my daughter made that I hadn’t seen before? Flowers maybe? I put on my glasses and realize it’s a package of Scott toilet paper with yellow letters on a blue background. It’s Like Getting Three Extra Rolls! it proclaimed.

3. Conversation on the train. Young man and women in their early twenties. She is wearing an employee’s hat from Hale and Hearty.

“You can’t skip abc and d and expect to get to e,” she said. “You have to find your way with or without college. Biggie did it. You have to take steps to find your way.” When I leave the train they are holding hands.

I like to soak people up like a sponge—observe and feel and figure them out. When I was young my parents were divorced and separately they each made the observation that I was a doormat or a sponge. Thank goodness childhood is over! Here’s a thought—that

52

sponge-like quality can be happily put to use towards creative endeavors, without the misery that once attended it. I can’t seem to paint with the same freedom of gesture I once had, but I discovered something the other night when I started to make 2 little drawings before going to sleep. They were unfinished and unsatisfactory at night, but quite lovely in the morning.

Maybe I’ve been torn between gesture and narrative. Perhaps gesture will be left alone now that I have plenty of narrative in my journals. Gesture is the narrative at that point.

So maybe I will continue with 3 written images and three visual images. It’s a ritual I can live with. I hope to discover the life in between these images.

53

Adrienne Margolis

My Hands Already Knew I walked over to the token booth. As I passed my money through the window to the transit agent, a man came up behind me and whispered in my ear, “What beautiful hands you have.”

I looked up into a pair of bright green eyes.

“Oh, thank you,” I said. “I rather like them myself. They are quite useful, even if they are too large.”

My admirer continued to walk alongside me. We passed through the turnstiles…

“Not large, not at all!” He said. “Your hands are elegant, articulate, powerful… You play the piano, don’t you?”

I was stunned.

“My goodness, how did you know?”

“My mother’s a pianist,” he said. “I know the signs.”

He was a quite nice looking young man, well spoken, although a bit scruffy—Torn jeans, dirty t-shirt sort. Had he complimented my eyes or my hair or even my hat, I would have kept walking, but my hands… well my hands really were my one weakness.

54

In fact my new music teacher, a tiny wizened Polish woman, whose musical career had been cut short by a stay in a concentration camp, said to me she would kill for my hands! Her hands being barely able to reach from C to G. When she said this she glared at me. In hindsight, I think she was trying to get me to practice more, but I felt scared of her, as if she wanted to chop my hands off.

Months later, she claimed the musical notes were “turning into bugs” and crawling off the page into her hair. My mother didn’t believe me, of course. She thought that I’d imagined the whole thing.

I was going through a rebellious period, and Masha was my mother’s friend, so I didn’t bring it up again. Nobody believes you when you’re thirteen, even when your piano teacher is going slowly mad and men have begun to follow you down into the subway.

Anyway, getting back to my new friend—“Where are you going?”

Jean asked. (This turned out to be his name.)

“You won’t believe this,” I said. “I’m going to my music lesson right now. My teacher lives on Eighty-Sixth Street.”

“Forget your lesson; you’re coming home with me to meet my mother.”

“Oh, no I couldn’t,” I said. “My teacher’s very strict, and expects me to be on time.”

“My mother will be your teacher now.” Jean insisted. “What is even better, we have a beautiful Steinway grand and you can practice on it. The music room window overlooks Central Park and the birds come to the window when my mother plays Chopin.”

“Oh, that must be beautiful,” I said. “But, really, I can’t.”

The train pulled into the station, just at that point, and we got on.

Jean grabbed my hand and held it as we sat down.

55

“I will not let you go, now that I’ve found you.”

I laughed, “Found me or found my hands.”

Even at thirteen, I’d heard of fetishes. Men who couldn’t stop looking at a woman’s feet or something. When we reached Sixty-Eighth Street Jean pulled me off the train.

Now, believe it or not, as it turned out he did live on the park, way up high, and there was a beautiful Steinway grand piano just like he said, and the window behind the piano had the most wonderful view of Central Park—But his mother wasn’t there.

I thought to myself then—something’s not right here. But my hands already knew that.

56

To m M a r s h

Th e C r y o f t h e W i tc h o f L e n o e Saul, Saul, why do you disturb my slumber?

The shepherd boy who sang at the edge of your bed.

That skinny lad who strummed his goat skinned harp, While you weepingly pled, For safety from “He” who has no name.

“EL” who gave you good fortune and much fame, You repaid “EL” with pretentious arrogance.

Saul, you caused “EL” shame.

“Aihee.” Saul. Saul. Why do you disturb my slumber?

Your son Jonathan will die in battle.

Pierced by a Philistine arrow, he falls from his saddle.

Stumbling, choking blood, crying out “David, my love.”

That skinny shepherd boy will reign in your stead.

For you too, of great king, you too are dead.

Jonathan’s great heart will reign in your stead.

“Aihee.” Saul, Saul. Why do you disturb my slumber?

You dispatched my sisters and I to this land of dread.

For the practice of magic, that’s the charge your priests read.

Your heir, Jonathan, will die.

Oh great king, you too are dead.

That lonely shepherd boy will reign in your stead.

The comely David who denied your bed.

His house will rule in your stead.

Mark our words well the sisters of Lenoe said.

The house of David will rule in your stead.

“Aihee.” Saul. Saul. You are dead.

Why do you disturb our slumber?

All hail great king of the dead,

57

Why do you disturb our slumber?

Cohorts of servants to wait on your ringed hands, and slippered feet. Embroidered gowns, perfumed beard and the fatted calf’s choicest meat.

Costly incense in golden cups before you sway, Saul, you will rue this day.

Instead of Samuel’s rough sandaled feet and home spun brown cowl.

A golden crown upon your arrogant brow.

Hail Saul, king of the dead.

“Aihee.” Saul, Saul, why do you disturb our slumber?

David, that lonely scrawny shepherd boy who, For lack of warmth snuggled and slept with his sheep.

On a cold winters night that was so deep.

The house of David will rule in your stead.

While all of you are dead.

Saul. Saul. You and your sons walked so proud and tall.

Now you will see how the mighty can fall.

The House of David will rule in your stead.

“Aihee.” Saul, Saul. Why do you disturb our slumber?

58

Jim Murrell

Th e J o u r n a l o f t h e P o i s o n e d L i g h t October 200 9 -December 20 09 ( A n E xc e r p t ) No… this is not a forgotten Conan Doyle story, although it involves a sort of locked room full of a mystery to be unraveled.

Sometime in late August … perhaps early September of 2009 (it has all sort of run together in a muddle of memory) I was diagnosed at Weill-Cornell with prostate cancer. In response, after reading as much as I could stand, going to meetings of prostate cancer survivors, visiting and calling a few specialists in New York, a series of emails between myself and the father of a friend and researching Sloan-Kettering online—I opted to be treated, at Cornell, with external beam radiation without the additions of chemotherapy and/ or hormone treatment. This is pretty much the plain and unembroidered fact. An accomplishment really, since as you all know, even under the most ordinary circumstances my mind is full of embroidery.

It has to be said that “opting,” such as it was grew stronger and more emotionally logical as I daily created a new horror film concerning the possible consequences of the alternative: Surgical removal of the prostate. I mean folks, honestly, my penis! my testicles!, all the glorious internal plumbing that made them work, these shining, wonderful, steadfast comrades who had served me so faithfully, so interestingly since I became aware of their existence. What sort of friend would I have been to subject them to the possibilities of impotence, incontinence and mutilation at the hands of a mad, robot

59

–manipulating surgeon. A machine! A scalpel wielding machine is employed whose obedience is demanded remotely! My mind floods with successive images of Homer Simpson simultaneously wolfing pastrami on rye and in cheerful ineptitude fumbling isotopes down the back of Lenny’s pants—the lives of Springfield and the nation held in the balance. (“I’ve done more than a thousand of these …” he tosses off, by way of encouragement, through the sieve of a glazed, affectless blue-eyed smile.) How is it possible to trust shiny, rimless glasses after “Marathon Man”?

Prostatectomy. Usually accompanied by “radical,” as if the noun unclothed is not gruesome enough and deserves more costuming.

Radical for root, rootedness, rooting out, torn out by the roots, an extirpation, flashing knives sent to solve the root of the problem.

Then, everywhere inside the ugly climate of that word, for me, was pain, butchery, finality. My maleness, broken and disfigured for always.

Perhaps, I was just chicken-shit frightened at the idea of being cut open (the urethra must be severed internally and then reattached once the prostate is out … think of all those ruined, weeping garden hoses, wrapped in duct tape to see them through the summer, sputtering rainbows in the sunlight. That is what I thought of). In any event, it became increasingly clear that the alternative: Lying naked on a metal platform receiving needled beams of high-powered X-rays for fifteen minutes a day over a course of forty-five days was not going to be the equivalent of a sumptuous eight-course meal, followed by a visit to a sumptuous male whorehouse, either (the sorts of things that would make a simple mind happy—a prize maybe, on a very gay “Price Is Right”).

I emotionally geared up. And in the course of gearing, I thought I should keep a journal of what these days would be like. It was meant to be daily reportage … impressions. After all, a boy from the Bronx doesn’t do battle with cancer every day, at least, not on such a theatrically technological stage—a chance, at last, to take center stage and overact for all I was worth. Of course, as it turned out, me being me, it became less a daily record and more a sporadic look

60

through the changing window of an anxious fever dream. And there was the struggle for shape: Disordered and achronic, the new laid over a palimpsest and that painted over the original experience, orders of iteration in a hall of mirrors—changed, changing almost as it happened, the product of a mind—racing, racing and rage-filled and scared. And untrustworthy. …

Stich Radiation Center—“Dramatically raising cancer cure rates.”

The waiting room: Wood paneled, deep carpet, quiet … except for the tasteful and barely audible flat screen. Everything is comfort and comforting. During these morning arrivals, Regis can be seen but not heard: which is, if civilization is not to crumble into dust, how it should always be. Large portraits of Cornell’s moneyed benefactors observe us beneficently from the walls. “Yes!” it occurs to you. There are, in fact, unexceptionally pleasant, apple-cheeked and elderly, men and women who are able to write million dollar checks for linear accelerators while musing on the trellises of woven climbing roses (cream, blush at their hearts) and clematis (explosions of fragrant, purple starfish) in their gardens. And, for a moment, in a carved block of remembered sunlight, a Maine garden stands up: green and flowered, crystalline and redolent, the breath of the sea sweeping through my clothes, across my skin. Pollen storm glitters. pennants of spider silk in shadow and then suddenly out, the dusted air gilded and visible. A man who loves me calls me to lunch, “… come the fuck on, it’s gonna get cold.” If I am murdered by this assassin, this ridiculous whoops in a line of code, I see this, too, will be murdered. There are irretrievable musics. Didn’t Roy, puzzled, tell us as much for always in the vanishing blue truth of Rutger Hauer’s eyes, sapphires bayed by winter: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C- beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All of these moments will be lost in time … like tears in rain … time to die.” (Blade Runner, 1982) But … I think I am choosing to not go gentle.

61

8:30—8:45 The morning’s ritual begins. I check in with the receptionist, the sour and unpleasant Joyce (more of Joyce, later), receive my identifying paper bracelet—God forbid I should be zapped with more gys (81) than I’m entitled to (seriously, God forbid!)—drink 3 cups of water (the bladder should be full, Peter, the technician, says)—this watery fullness in my nether dark creates of the prostate a prominent target for the linear accelerator’s lethal searching. I call her Harriet, a great, thick articulated arm with a merciless, alien face. Something like a small fluttering, Venetian blind seems to register my existence.

Open: Kill. Closed: Killing is done for today. She hums in a few pitches but not enough that she’d ever bring back vaudeville. I wait for Peter to call me.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s have a more exacting recall of that August and beginnings. It occurs to me that today is August 31, 2011 and I am two years out from Dr. S explaining the essentials of the pathology report that give the week-ago, painful biopsy its real meaning. The biopsy: An anesthetized yet nonetheless excruciating probing in your ass that allows an ultrasound guided spring-loaded hollow needle to sample several small tissue cores from various regions of the prostate. A troublesome lobed plum, our prostate: An Edenic fruit capable of pleasure and various reproductive assistances but in middle age and beyond, in the male of the human species, enlarging and causing a reign of terror regarding urination. And then, of course, every now and then, at random: Nurturing seeds of riot, overthrow and death. A very Christian organ—all genetic innocence with, perhaps, a little core of time-lined programmed, Old Testament spite at its center.

In an unused blue room, (Let’s call it Air Force blue; mingling a gray gravity holds this blue to life saving seriousness—no frivolity here.) V makes part of the initial record that dictates how I shall lie beneath the volleys of X-rays to come. She explains patiently as she goes. I hear only … Barbados? And it eases me. All the walls and ceilings of the accelerator rooms are muted in this blue. A white concave oval is

62

inset in the ceiling above the examining table, like a halved Faberge egg, its recessed light opalescent against the hushed light required of the examination. Think Art Deco, think Radio City. Best of all in the rooms is the inspired thought of a filigreed expanse of stars flung across these ceilings’ heaven. In gold tracery, the constellations remind you of the vastness and perspective of a larger, less threatened self. That Cassiopeia, the Dippers, Orion, the Southern Cross are all in the wrong places is beside the point. They are here to offer succor.

In preparation for the poisoned light, a series of precise measurements must be made of the ventral face of my lower body, waist to knee. A cast maker will create a molded form that captures these numbers and which the technicians will use to insure the accelerator’s focus and distance and angle for my 15 minutes of supine, naked passivity. Fame, alternatively, will remain elusive. During these days I’ll lose all sense of body shyness, the remotest inkling of physical shame or modesty evaporates.

(At once, all the air in the locker room has moved perceptibly to the left. Philip, Wesley and I stand in the vacuum, still wet from the showers, trying to pull on our tighty-whities as quickly as we can; the rich humid dankness is mined in mixing layers of eight-year-old boy, Lux soap, chlorine, urine from the toilets, a history of jock straps and feet. We are being judged; we are being pushed outside of the giddiness and fun of the day. The drunken excitement of Mr. Ciccetti taking us to swim and pizza and away from school and the third grade science prize and the boys of class 3-1 in togetherness, prideful, self-congratulating—we are pushed outside. We three examined, assessed, judged by our ten classmates. Roman appoints himself spokesman of a congealing consensus. “I just think it looks weird.” Frank chimes in, “Yeah, I don’t know nobody like that.” and snickers—he has a lazy eye and smells unwashed on most days—I think tomorrow, I’ll find an opportunity to accidently stab him with a pencil. Wesley, only slightly daunted, tries to explain this … circumcision from a learned perspective. He and Philip are Jewish. He knows that it has to do with God and a sign. The faces, impassive but

63

ungenerous, say they are not buying the probability of a Godordained, special club for pee-pees. I don’t even know that. I don’t know anything. It hasn’t occurred to me that I am maimed or that I would ever need a defense surrounding my injury. Humiliation: hot, electric, prickling … liquid over the skin, behind the ears. High up, just under the roof, a row of Palladian windows cannonades bolts of bright afternoon down on to the floor. Too late to be invisible.)

Yet, how easily the constraints of being an eight-year old proper, little black Episcopalian fall away. The shadowy always-chorus of West Indian women, their disapproving, pursed lips, their mauve Sunday hats, too, are made cinders beneath the scourging of the poisoned light. I’m mildly irritated only by the unfashionableness of this tired hospital gown, its silly, repeating print, its complicated arm holes—all hiked up to my waist. Each day, before they seal me in and scurry away to the safety of their triple glazed window, Peter and D. arrange my limbs; adjusting the exact shape of today’s petrification (it will change as new areas of my prostate are perused). They are kind, with a practiced cheerfulness (well … not D, particularly, a frowning bitch who seems always to be having a bad day). In turn, I wear my pleasant, cooperative face, my eyes sparkle bottomless “thank you”s. I strangle my detachment. Of course, my vulnerability swings wide open. It’s a hateful game of Whack-a-Mole. Dammed, the scalding lagoon behind my forehead pushes out against my temples. So, yes, there it is – the selfish cliché – WHY THE FUCK ME?!

I resist treating them as body slaves to a Caliph whose behind they wipe and for whom they must throw themselves on any daggers should the cutthroats show up. Maybe, I’m the bitch.

This chilled room, my chilled ass. The freezing, sealed space counteracts the build-up of heat in the accelerator, I think. I feel I’m performing a burlesque in a morgue.

Somewhere, I look at magnified, microscopic pictures of the cancer’s cellular unruliness and disorder. In black and white, they show “before”—normality, governance, control and “after”—mindless expansion, distortions of shape, kidnap and corruption. Like James Whale’s Frankenstein mob of torch bearing villagers they flow and

64

flow, in wonderful chiaroscuro, round and round hills and knolls and copses, and up night mountain ridges to lay burning waste to the mill. Well … in this case, me. In fact, in their wildness, the disintegrating patterns of this mutating anarchy are really quite beautiful: a fractal’s idea of melting order in the cross section of a bee-hive. Wouldn’t you know it? Death would be pretty.

The pathologist’s assessment? I am a Gleason grade 7. For no good reason, I see wholesale buyers, in fall farm sheds, judging a season’s batches of maple syrup or honey—the world heaped in windrows of fallen vermillion and yellow leaves. The Gleason score is (should we continue the theme of revolution?) the oncologist’s means of establishing an overall baseline of chaos, by comparing the varying states of raised fists and grumblings in the harvested tissue cores.

There are cellular communities in which murmurs of dissent have not been heard—loyalists, for whom the word of the Central Authority still has meaning. While elsewhere, rock-throwing is rife, the tumbrels are full, and to the cacophonies of rabble excitement the heads and blood of rulers roll in the streets. (I am trying my damndest to wedge Madame Defarge in here, she just won’t fit.) By contrasting these relative levels of innocence and drama and then adding them a number is arrived at, a quantifier of concern, an alert.

To enhance the complexity, (Why should any of this be straightforward?) all 7’s or 6’s or 8’s are not equal in their comparative criminalities. A seven cobbled of a six and a one core, for instance, or say a five and a two might carry greater menace than, perhaps, a three and a four. I am three and four. I flee, immediately, into the fortified and optimistic tower of “perhaps.”

(To be continued, wherein, among other things, Dr. P belatedly discusses further possible consequences of prolonged radiation treatment. “Oh! So this painful urination, this diarrhea I’m experiencing …?” Really, I’m only concerned to know if my semen will eventually glow in the dark. It’s always entertaining to have a parlor trick at an orgy.)

65

Roger Silva

To t o More than anything, Teddy loved mornings. As the sun cleared the horizon, he’d leap out of bed, take his morning pee, splash cold water on his face and slip his overalls over his pjs.

Mona, his mother, was already preparing breakfast. Toto took a post close by, hoping for food droppings. “Morning,” he’d yell, grabbing the navy blue sweater his Nana knitted for him. “Come on Toto,” and dashed, barefoot, out the kitchen door. Reluctantly, Toto deserted his post and followed Teddy.

The grass, wet with morning dew thrilled him. It’s soft caresses between the crevice of his toes tickled and delighted. And then it came, as it did most mornings; the sun, at first peeking, then rising above the corn stalks. Their silken crowns glistening gold, by the first rays of sunlight.

“Good Morning. Good Morning,” Teddy cried out with a joy that only children possess.

By the time he and Toto returned to the back porch, the dew had left and his feet were almost dry. Mona draped an old towel over the arm of a rocker for Teddy to dry his feet and Toto’s paws, before entering her kitchen.

Toto knew the routine, he sadly curled up on his blanket as Teddy grabbed the wicker basket, slipped into his sneakers and scurried off to the hen house. In every farm, everyone has their assigned task.

66

Collecting the eggs had been his sister Emma’s chore. “Because I’m older,” she informed him, “and been promoted to helping mama in the kitchen, you have to learn how to do this.”

Teddy needed both hands to collect each egg; their shells still warm and soft as he gently placed them in the straw lined basket. He never understood and was awed as to how rapidly the shells hardened by the time he placed the basket on the kitchen counter.

But by summers end, the year he was five, the wind came. That morning, Teddy had reached the edge of the cornfield when he heard his mother’s call. It had the “Get in the house NOW” tone. He ran back, expecting Toto to follow his lead. But Toto was occupied in chasing the rabbit he had spied.

Fred herded his family to the storm shelter. Teddy looked for Toto, he was nowhere in sight. He started to run back to the cornfield but Mona grabbed his arm and pulled him into the shelter. Teddy kept yelling for Toto, the wind kicked up, the sun retreated behind darken clouds. He struggled but Mona held him firmly in her arms. The shelter door closed. The deafening wind roared above them and the boy wept in his mother’s arms.

The storm passed, the house was spared, the roof of the barn was nowhere to be seen, nor was Toto.

After a fruitless search, Mona placed Teddy on her lap and told him that, “Toto went back to Oz. He liked it so much, he had to go back one more time.”

“Will he come home?”

“Sweetie, Toto is home. You’ll understand when you’ve grown up.”

Teddy hated when grownups used that “When you’re grown up” malarkey.

All he understood was, he missed Toto, and wanted him back. Emma had recently watched the movie Moonstruck and decided to channel

67

Cher. She looked Teddy in the eye, slapped his face and said, “Get over it.” He ran crying to Mona, “Mommy, mommy Emma slapped me.” Emma never channeled Cher again.

That Sunday, after church, Fred disappeared. An hour later he returned in his pickup with a year-old German Shepherd. “He’s yours son.”

The ritual of dog meets boy began. Teddy hugging the dog, while his face was getting a tongue bath.

Fred asked Teddy if he’d thought what he’d name the dog. Unsolicited suggestions were coming from every direction but Teddy looked into the adoring eyes of his new best friend and said “Oz.” Dead silence followed the announcement.

Mona broke the silence, “Are you sure that’s what you want to call him?”

“Yes, he’s my dog and I’m calling him Oz.” Fred asked, “Why Oz.” “Because I love him and when I look at him, I’ll see Toto in his eyes.”

Ted awoke, the sun was inching up the horizon. “Was I dreaming or daydreaming?” he wondered as he slowly dragged his body from the bed. These days, his arthritis woke him before the sun did. At eightyfive, he needed his spectacles to see, and hearing aids to hear. “What the hell brought that on?” he wondered. And glanced at the calendar on the night table. Slowly it came to him, this was the day, eighty years ago, that the tornado struck and carried Toto away. He couldn’t believe that a tear escaped his eye; that after all these years he’d still miss Toto. Wiping tears away he told himself “Well, they say you never forget your first love.”

68

Gloria Zimmerman

Happy Endings November 9, 2015.

Just one of those things. A trip to the Room on gossamer wings. The recovery room, Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Hospital. As she caressed my hand, the nurse whispered in my ear, “You’re gonna be OK, honey.” I heard her.

What was she talking about? Oh, they took out half my gut and a bit of liver for chopping. Aww, this is my third cancer in 5 years. I beat the kidney one and the woman one. Piece a cake.

I slept, while ice chips dissolved in my mouth.

February 4, 2016.

11:30am with my first at-home 36 hour chemo drip of FU5, (no kidding) strapped to my body, I crawled carefully into a cab. 10PM looking at my MacBook Air, I didn’t know how to use it. My son called from Utah, a business trip. I told him. He called back ten minutes later. “Get to Urgent Care at MSK now.”

“No, I think I’m OK now, Ed.” “Mom!” “ I just need to rest. Nothing hurts…let the chemo run it’s course.”

Midnight. I pushed the green button on my Alert One system. I felt like an imposter but dragged myself to the living room to wait. They came. Kind, blue clad EMT’s and cops.

69

Saturday morning, Dr. Zipzap, my hand-picked oncologist, walked in looking very sad. He was so sorry. Apparently my heart hated the chemo. No more chemo for this old lady. “We’ll keep a close watch on you though.” He patted my knee, smiled sadly and left.

I recovered my strength, frequently seeing my multi-doctor team at MSK. I felt safe.

July/August, 2016.

Terrible headaches from very high blood pressure kept me daily company. I was given stronger hypertension meds. Finally, they sent me back to MSK. After nine days of tests, mysterious visits from various specialists, and a kidney biopsy, I was told I also had a rare kidney disease, Fibrillary glomuroliephritis (FNG). “Probably a sign the cancer is back,” said my nephrologist and her team.

“So how can I be treated for the kidneys and the cancer?” Logical question. Doublespeak from everyone. Days after my discharge, Dr. Zipzap arranged a conference call with Ed, Betsy, and me.

“There is no treatment you can have even for the kidney disease; your heart and already compromised kidneys from the earlier kidney cancer rule it out. Besides, any treatments rarely offer a cure. What you need is in-home hospice from now on. No sense ping ponging you from doctor to doctor.” Dr. Zipzap softly cleared his throat.

Silence.

Ed, convinced and comforted by this solution, softly suggested, “It‘ll give you a better quality of life, Mom.” Betsy offered, “More time to do the things you enjoy.”

I did not ask how long. The inside chorus in my brain was silent for once.

Dr. Zipzap instructed, “Call any hospice you choose. Tell them to call me. My team and I will take it from there.”

70

We all hung up with grace and dignity.

I sat numb at my desk, my notebook blank. My inside brain chorus came to life. It made an ugly sound. Then…

“Really! Shit! this is not the way it’s supposed to be… stay cool, kid.

He told you to pick any hospice.”

I chose Calvary, the best. I knew that because my dear friend, Cathy, was dying there. But I would not have to go there if I didn’t want to.

Just stay at home and “do the things I enjoy.” Until it’s over.

My outside brain told me, “Don’t wait. Call now. Right now.” I couldn’t.

My inside brain shouted, “Remember, the doc said you’ll remain in inhome hospice.”

“Yeah, right, what the hell does that mean anyway?”

My inside chorus gently stroked the front and back of my brain and called down to my heart, “Listen, just call Calvary and let Dr. Zipzap know. He’ll set it all up.”

I reached for the phone: “Hello this is Maggy Shaughnessy, nursing supervisor at Calvary Hospice. How can I help you?”

Inside chorus reneged with “you know what, Maggy Whoever, hang up on me. Let’s pretend you never got this call.”

Outside mouth opened with, “I’m to arrange for in-home hospice… for myself.” Myself had just become a needy stranger.

Inside chorus: “Wow! What a grownup we actually harbor. Never knew you could reach calmness so quickly.”

Ignoring that comment, outside mouth continues, “Dr. Zipzap from MSK blah, blah, blah, blah.…”

71

Maggy of Calvary: “Thank you, Gloria. We’ll be in touch with blah, blah... a nurse and social worker will call to meet with you shortly blah blah.”

Inside chorus: “No compassion there? WTF? Oh yeah, they do this stuff all day long. So fake compassion is the password.”

Outside mouth: “Their compassion is in their action.”

An hour later the Dr. Z’s NP (nurse practitioner) calls me. “yes, Gloria, we’ll take care of things on this side. And don’t hesitate to keep in touch.”

Inside Chorus: “What for, you white-coated useless bastards? You’ve all easily abandoned me to strangers!”

Outside mouth: “Oh, thanks so much Miranda. I appreciate that.”

Over the past six months I have had visits from in-home hospice safety cushions: My nurse, my social worker and my choice of a pastoral counselor, an irreverent Catholic priest with a sense of humor. He anoints me with virgin oil from the Vatican; he prays for me saying the sh’ma in English. I’m covered three different ways to heaven. I meditate and take bereavement classes at a Zendo in Chelsea. It seems the grief over the deaths of my husband and our daughter have returned tenfold.

Life goes on. In the beginning of this exercise in kindness and lovingness, my smug cardiologist advised me, “Try to fail at hospice.”

Inside chorus snarked, “How funny he is—no information—just jokes.”

Outside mouth to cardiologist: “Thanks, doctor. I’ve never failed at anything, except my relationships. But if you say so, …I’ll try.”

October 31, 2016.

I sell my car. Doesn’t pay to keep it as I’m often too tired to drive. I miss it like another piece of me gone. My boundaries continue to shrink in tiny human increments.

72

Inside chorus: “Oy vey, poor kid. So much she can’t do anymore.”

Outside mouth: “Get off the pity pot. I still have plenty to enjoy and learn.”

So I continue to fall down then drag my body up to adjust once more and find something else to be grateful for, to laugh about. I teach myself new things all the time. Hurry up. It’s late. I tell my grandchildren, how much little things can mean. Ben’s homemade video playing the guitar. A moving and complex piece of music. Becca’s artwork greeting me in my entry way every time I come home.

How lucky a person can be and recognize it in the moment. That’s an achievement for me. Good friends, good books, poker games, writing class, new adventures and no kissing up to folks I don’t care for. Yet learning how to exercise patience and tolerance: Two virtues I’m earning cum laude honors in these days. There are days I take a pass on virtues and don’t get dressed.

That night at a local restaurant I tell my friends that I sold my car.

They all murmur something staring down at their drinks. I order 6 raw oysters and a glass of Gruner Veltliner.

Inside chorus: “Good for you. Celebrating a loss. What a good act you put on.”

Outside Brain silently reacts: “It’s not an act. This is how you get through a challenge with grace. Flip the coin to the other side. I’m celebrating being car free in Manhattan.”

Drinks are ordered all around.

Outside chorus of friends toasts me: “Cheers, Gloria. This is the first and best shiva party we’ve ever attended—for a car.”

Inside chorus and outside mouth in unison: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.” (To be continued: March 2017. I am about to fail hospice.)

73

N o t e s f r o m t h e M R I Tu n n e l o f Lo v e : A p r i l 2 0 1 6 at H o s p i ta l f o r S p e c i a l Surgery (HSS).

After several months of relaxing in my new in-home hospice environment, I began to suffer terrible head, neck, and shoulder pains which neither medicine, heat nor ice could relieve. Ergo, an MRI from head to gluteals is approved by Hospice. We all do not acknowledge but know it’s arthritis and stenosis acting up. Of course there is no surgical option. The test is a tease of kindness.

Most of us, my agey cagey peers will recall, with some familiarity, being rolled backwards into a narrow circular tomb filled with arctic air. The pleasant young technician, Patricia, reminds me at the last minute to remove my hearing aids. She puts them in a paper cup on her desk assuring me they will be safe. She helps me position my behind in the exact right spot on a large disposable diaper, which despite my rigid belief that I still have great agility and strength, manages to push the backside of my gray shroud-like garment up to my waist. There is no way to pull it down as my arms are smack up against the tight walls. But Patricia covers me with warmed blankets in a second.

I am now the solitary prisoner of this Magnetic Resonance Imagining Machine. She places a special foam pillow comfortably under my neck. She then plugs my quite deaf ears, screaming, “It gets very loud in here.”

Patricia is a gently irresistible force. I am an old immoveable object.

She leaves me and sits at her desk in the safe room with a window between us. She speaks into the mike, “This will take about 30 minutes. It’s the newer, faster MRI.” Oh goody. How bad can it get in 30 minutes? I ask myself. I obediently reply, “OK.” I don’t want to upset her. To myself I mutter “Damn, should have said, copy that.”

Now come the weird heavy-metal sounds. Prepare yourself, g.z., I warn me.

74

First the warm up in high C: BURPBURPBURPBURPBUMPBURPPURPPURP “This first one will take about three and a half minutes” Patricia informs me.

The robo talk begins in rap rhythm in low B flat.

YOU’RE A BAD EXAMPLE YOU’RE A BAD EXAMPLE YOU’RE A BAD EXAMPLE YOU’RE A BAD EXAMPLE I successfully slow my brain down to remove the negative rap from the hammering sounds. My auditory slowdown confirms that I’m in control in this freaking contraption.

YOU’RE A BAD ASS APPLE YOU’RE A BAD ASS APPLE YOU’RE A BAD ASS APPLE YOU’RE A BAD ASS APPLE This is so much more agreeable. Being a bad ass from the big apple is cool. I smirk in egocentric electro-magnetic euphoria. Control is my strong suit.

Long silence.

Patricia’s voice startles me, “Ok, this one is 4 minutes.”

Okaaay! seven and a half minutes total. That means only 21.5 minutes left to go.

In this silence I have time to worry. Did Patricia use the paper cup on her desk for a drink of water? My hearing aids may then rest in wet peace.

I take a deep breath to calm down. One elbow is jammed against the cold wall in a painful position. An AK47 starts its violent attack on my ears. BABABABABABABABABA…

75

Desperate for distraction, I begin to enjoy what I’m hearing, but can’t wait for human sentences to begin the transition from those primitive sounds — and it does because once again I can slow it down.

The AK47 beat, defeated by my apparent stoicism, fades into a damning but rapid fire weak surrender: OHGOTOHELLOHGOTOHELLOHGOTOHELLOHGOTOHELL….

This is not nice. Again I slow down my brain’s listening app, only to be surprised by a damning confirmation: GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU Enough! Now I’m fighting mad. I respond in a staccato whisper, I DON’T NEED HIM EITHER I DON’T NEED HIM EITHER I DON’T NEED HIM EITHER The AK47 swoops in again this time with a punishingly rapid pounding.

BABABABABABABABABABABA Silence. And more silence.

Finally, Patricia announces, “This is the last one…”

“Good,” I’ve had enough abuse for one test.

I wait for the next alien message. But for the life of me, I cannot recall it now. And who cares anyway?

76

E x p i r at i o n D at e s Now that I’ve become more or less adjusted to a “Hospice State Of Mind,” my most reliable defense, humor, has come up with a fiscal benefit for hospitiates (we needed a universally applicable identifier, hence, the neologism—hospitiate. We need a resistance movement to overturn our invisibility and have some returns on our investments.

Herewith my plan: Every time I see an expiration date or have to enter one online, I laugh. I’m thinking that item’s expiry date will probably outlive mine.

There should be a digital contract for the growing hospice demographic. Yes, amusing but it’s also an overdue consideration. If I buy a case of some commodity and I expire before I use it up, my next of kin should be able to return the remainder. If I pay for a membership or a class and I expire before they do, shouldn’t my heirs be able to get some cash return or credit?

So, If bitcoins and blockchains can be developed, (digital exchange of dollars under a digitally controlled ledger known to all), why cannot someone design a digital contract wherein when a hospitiate expires before an owned commodity does, the hospitiate’s heirs can collect on leftover investments. This proposition would call for a unionization of hospitiates to negotiate the contracts. Let’s face it, folks, this group does not consist of medicine’s failures. Rather, this group should be recognized as nature’s way of reminding the world that life inevitably precedes death, no matter how long the former takes.

That is a message of great value both fiscally and emotionally. Think about it. Someday you may be a hospitate.

I recommend the following name for our worldwide union: Hospitiates United Globally (HUG)

77

78

SAGE II

79

80

Introduction

Over the past few years it has been a great honor and privilege to be a part of the NYWC writing workshops at SAGE. Each cycle has given us the opportunity to meet new writers, as well as the good fortune to welcome back returning participants eager to explore their creativity together. Week by week, in every session, we have explored diverse themes and broadened our artistic boundaries, using imaginative and inspiring words to express meaningful emotions and highlight the human experience. The courageous way these writers continue to take risks in their writing and challenge themselves to find new ways to share their voices is a wonder to behold. Through the works shared in the following pages, each of the authors provides us insight into new worlds, some familiar and some perhaps completely foreign, but always authentic and grounded in truth. We hope that as you read their words you will enjoy the journey of discovering these places, developed through both heartfelt memory and conjured reality. It is with gratitude and sincerity that we present this writing to you and encourage you to find your own inspiration which may lead you to join us for our next adventure in a future workshop!

Mario De La Cruz NYWC Workshop Leader, SAGE II Spring 2017

81

82

Ralph Gray

B l u e To w e l No clean towel!.... Amazon? No. First search……there! that fatigued blue How familiar its woven diamond pattern, its Modest HG maiden initials.

Carefully folded it lies, Waiting indifferently….. for 20 years since Mother’s death plus A full 70 ministering to her since her marriage - but Now a faded Mom remnant in my fogged memory.

Do I hear that grieved ‘You Don’t Value Me’?

Vigilantly I extract it.

Older than my 90 it’s peppier, Its faint enigmatic old World aroma infiltrates My comfort zone, rouses shards of Ancient familiarity.

My fingers dab it as it hangs by the basin, A fresh faux cotton Amazon product Serves the larger function.

Time was when it and a twin Were her favorite Wrap arounds.

83

A Dream Wooh—...this bed...This room? Why? - NO!....Go back….I belong there…..Fading….Nooooh!... HE!..? Don’t lose him!...Natural beauty….pure…….He. It’s breaking apart...rushing away...Grab quick!

I belong there….that world...I’m sharp there, alive! He...sold…..

Dark-blond...man-boy...steady secure...skin gleaming satin...lithe no fanfared muscles…

Lion pixie...Me ageless….no wrinkles….no pustules!! Life!

Nothings here...nothing fits…

SNATCH WHAT YOU CAN!......write!...No...Empty fingers…

Splattering mind...tattering images….

Turgid old klutz….clay feet-hands...Vain...scheming…

He didn’t see?

End of prelude.

A simple, direct beauty...Leaves…..returns….Smiles!...

Sylphy grace….luminous….gentle…..friendly….intelligent, cultured…

Zephyr…….No lusts?...No bathrooms?...

Eternal nighttime, eternal daylight.

We’re playmates! You a wise puppy...your home is you…

I want to be like you…..Swallow you...firm brow, Boy-man chest...sweet young belly…

That simple warmth, primed enthusiasm…

But your easy confidence shields you.

I CAN’T BE WITHOUT YOU! I flop and I flap: A hovering abyss?....You simply are...clear, open….

I pretend...I pose...I hide my despair A happy outcome is up to you alone….

You are not repelled?

84

(Brief interlude - theoretical turnabout: Before me others surely were possessed, schemed colonizing you. But suppose you were bent of conquering me - My reaction?

Why, wrestle free!)

Intense talk - mostly me….Flood you if I can’t swallow you….But suddenly here it’s not you….your lover? Twin? As handsome, as ethereally embodied, ...as casually inviting.

Me-him??....

Quickly you’re back. You are my world!....

You have no masks...don’t even have shoes….

Staid feet...splendidly shaped….vigorous...relaxed….A robust big toe...intriguing, irresistible…

On the bed — spirited and controlled….Touch?...No, but our gutsy talk stirs my Maestro to deliver artful spouts….When you unexpectedly jump up naked to fetch a book….point to a sentence…..he is upended…….

We are clasped torso to torso….Yours conveys ‘boundaries’...Stealthily I am your captive suitor….Mmmight the stars shine for me this once….here where eternal daylight feeds the eternal night? ….your arm is round my sore shoulders, one palm In-between...radiating...You murmur “Is this good?”

‘Oh yes! Oh yes!...

No mortal should be touched like that.’ But I only grunt.

I am cast out; you fragmenting….a fragmenting comet I have no name.

85

Dear Diary Dear Diary, Today I’ve been important! See photo—me front center, held high by elegant hand on fine handle, my sober overhead expanse protecting the master from heaven’s droppings: clear but too infrequent evidence that my life has purpose which, mostly, it lacks as time and life scamper past my drab hallway corner station. What purpose could be imputed to any thing there? And were it not for intriguing distant sounds I might as well shrink into a mousetrap or eggbeater.

Ironically, exposure to a recent storm I should have been kept away from savaged my auditory system, wherefore I hear so very poorly that I’d rather hear naught…...Vile weather evokes many specimen’s worst carelessness, inconsiderateness and blind egotism. Watch them charging foul tempered along a street using ones like myself as lance. Luckily my master eschews weapons.

Three ignominies haunt me: being taken for granted; being called on only episodically—and then as a mere tool! Am I not stalwart, always stretching to do my best, ready for duty? But I shouldn’t be daft, take things personally, right? Hey, I have substance, know my value. I am not churlish, merely realistic.

And I am resilient. Ill chance and disappointment whet my craving for life’s manifold manifestations, especially those suggested by emanations from kitchen, salon, bedrooms and (most keenly), the mysterious hot and cold water parlors and the small cubicle that frequently disburses rumblings, gurglings and intense funk. I am never taken to these wet sites harboring strange activities…

Alright, today’s report: After shaking me so energetically outside that my ribs jangled the master brought me into the house. But oh those virile arms, those deft hands! If only they wouldn’t return me to the dungeon. Well

86

today they didn’t! No. I was spread in the salon parquet, solicitously near—but not too near—the blazing fireplace. Inner sanctum bliss— hot diggety!

Many arrivals, much jabber. I understood little, but what matter—me at a salon event!...further differentiating me from those bonneted, prissy, primped up rag pushers and purveyors of trays bearing tidbits or glasses filled with colorful liquids (their mesmerizing scents evoking strange sensations). Moreover, such affairs enhance my education and thereby my status. No mere servant, I. More colleagues arrived, none interesting; however their masters or mistresses—yes they were! I ponder accoutrements, pompadours, postures, gestures, aromas, tones of voice. But suddenly everyone proceeded to another chamber. Utterly dispiriting...Precaution against further spying?

A spectacularly wet confrere arrived...a paraminus pretending to be a parapluies—smug and pompous, extra ridiculous when rain besotted. Humph! My comportment hews to that of masterparapluiedom, particularly amidst a sea of parapolloi. (I do admit to a bit of scruffiness but after long devoted service, what of it?)

Prime real estate intensifies one’s study of the masters. Deprived of our subjects we gossiped about them, mirroring their rivalry anent status and purported qualities, but also their foibles, shades and shadows...The temptation to fabricate was surely immense; however ours is an honorable society. Rain cleanses.

What should have been the afternoon’s crème de jour—a tropical concoction with incansplendant skin—was thrust into the room by an enraged matron fatuously battling it. Amazingly and fatally stubborn was this gaudy apparition even when whacked across the grille by its beldamish keeper and then tossed into the nearby flames...fliff fluff plopff pop. Our entire cohort paid tribute, hissing silently.

The downpour lingered, rare for our ordinarily merely bedrizzled town. My colleagues left. I was enjoying my cozy solitariness when

87

my lord, late for a rendezvous, yanked me hard. Soon the storm had me in extremis but mortal danger pour moi is mere inconvenience pour lui. Countless casualties on the avenue. Sidestepping them did he too think ‘inferior types’?

Hurricane-fractured...My fading sight clutches at an unfamiliar crumpled jumblr of flowers upon a skin brutally stabbed, shredded...and squamashed. Adieu. Fate did not favor our acquaintance.

The rib mender’s technician-nurse mutters ‘hopeless case… euthanasia’……

The master shrugs. A replacement under his arm?

I am not recyclable.

88

Bill Larmer

Th e H a m p t o n s - A R e m e m b r a n c e o f the Mid 1970s

I was continuing to try to find out where I fit in all of this ménage and finally it happened. I knew it would sooner or later, and it did, they invited me out to their house in “THE HAMPTONS”. Ever notice how no one says I’m going to Southampton or East Hampton, it is always THE HAMPTONS, with an emphasis on HAMPTONS. Other than perhaps L.A., the Hamptons had to be the most calculating place anywhere. I was about to learn if this was going to be a part of my future or if I would just disappear somewhere to the Jersey Shore.

Upon our arrival after the three of us drove out from Manhattan, leaving the city around four, the table would be beautifully set and often the other guests had already arrived or would soon afterward.

Dinner was already in preparation by the houseman, usually hired for the season. Groceries already bought---all with an ease similar to magic, glasses of sparkling water in crystal would enter our hands or sometimes something stronger ---take your pick whatever preferred.

I definitely was on guard of my liquor intake during this opportunity.

I did not want to mess up by becoming an obnoxious drunk like I had gotten to know I could do very easily. Our only responsibility was to shower, and yes we dressed for dinner. Fortunately stopping at wearing dinner jackets, but out came the linen and silk-----that was really the only requirement. Obviously the visuals were of importance and I appreciated all of the attention to the beautiful details, especially in the layout and décor of such a charming tasteful home. I was told that here I was no longer Hubert’s assistant, but a welcomed guest, like everyone else.

89

Socializing is mandatory in the Hamptons----ugh----I learned very early on to get up and head out on a bike and there were several that I was told I could use leaning against the house. Finally, on my first day after waiting for the other houseguests to get up ---it reminded me of waiting for my mother to get up on Christmas morning, so by 9am I decided to take charge. I headed out on my own and wondered if I was being rude to just disappear but took my chances grabbing a croissant and finding coffee just around the corner. East Hampton was small enough to find my way around after arriving the night before in the dark, I didn’t exactly know where I was but to my surprise I was only two blocks from downtown and five minutes to the beach. It wasn’t long before even I knew the short cuts through neighbors’ yards and learned not to go through the yard next door, for a little black terrier---pure evil if you ask me, came chasing every time.

Cool crisp air---mist floating up from water’s edge of the pool---light so sharp with hues of oranges and the brightest of yellows---clear, sparkling barely visible dew---the smell of the ocean as if on a liner sailing to never, never land---discovering the back roads on my bike--passing by potato fields with rows after rows of brightly colored green vines---and long stems of sea grass blowing gently to and fro in the breezes---finding a cheap stand out on a lost back road known for the best of---well----everything-----succulent burgers with homegrown slices of tomato, homegrown leafy lettuce, all tucked into a delicious bun, oozing mayo---crisp steak fries and milk shakes--get the chocolate one that you have to eat with a spoon---so many Mercedes---Rolls Royces and limos lining up by noon, so go early.

It is no wonder just as artists chased cheap rent in SoHo in the 70’s, artists also found their way out to the Hamptons in the forties and fifties for the lure of capturing the light, that in all of my travels I haven’t ever found more exquisite. Let’s not forget the best stargazing anywhere. When I think of the Hamptons, especially East Hampton, this is where I go first in my thoughts of memories, and the wealthy aren’t that much different than you and me----well---yes, they are but do you really want to know that? All of the time I was there; we never set foot in a grocery store nor ate in a crowded

90

restaurant or in an empty one for that matter. As I was beginning to learn how to avoid the crowds of NYC my friends had learned how to avoid the crowds out in the Hamptons. They wanted to ensure their stay, for however long, was a peaceful, pleasant experience.

Jeremiah and Hubert made each of their guests feel special and were generous hosts.

I was given the “Moroccan Room” out from the main house with double doors leading off from the pool. It was Moroccan in its decoration full batik tented ceiling----the fabric was gathered up at the ceiling, in folds, really giving you the feeling that you were somewhere off in faraway lands. In the center was a disco ball---yes--you heard me right. I would turn it on late at night and trip out--not on drugs---but the twirling light that danced around the room. I was a sight to behold for Hubert gave me several long cotton caftans for me to wear. But wait one damn minute, the Hampton’s was where everyone wanted to be----well not everyone, some desired Fire Island, where clothing at times seemed optional and where morals were a bit lax. It would be several years before I ventured back there. Truth to be told, I don’t think I was all that comfortable in my body, continuing to feel shameful and guilty around my sexuality.

Honestly, I never knew what the assortment of guests would be, that changed every time I was invited out but at some point I heard something about cards---and the word bridge----no sir----I wasn’t going to get caught on a perfectly beautiful day sitting inside playing cards. Dragging myself in after a day of bliss, having to leave a perfectly good beach by the ocean, at just the beginnings of a beautiful sunset really ticked me off but I had to get ready for the evening’s entertainment. Dressing was mandatory as well, and I had already learned to bring my linens and silk out to wear, but I had my limits when Hubert would try to knot a sweater around my shoulders ----“not on your life Hubert” I would say. What was exhausting was we didn’t go to just one invitation in an evening; it would possibly be two or even three. We could go to an old Victorian behind one of those high hedges or to a glass house by the ocean. The first was usually just for drinks. Well, by now you know I don’t take liquor lightly, so I was careful not to drink too much very early on in these

91

situations and found that martinis –I love olives----tended not to take me into a blackout. Remember that time----yes, you do---where I woke up under a park bench, in the Luxemburg gardens in Paris, with a Charlie Chaplin look alike---well, god knows where I could wake up in the Hamptons. I knew a good thing when I had it, sometimes.

What I thought was a bit weird were the gist of the conversations, they usually consisted of telling about the house they had lived in before this one ---the house they lived in now----then the house they really wanted, and about SEX----or the cars [notice plural] they had last, the cars they have now or the cars they wanted to have in the future or about SEX or about SEX----SEX----SEX-----you get the idea.

You didn’t need much to know where these conversations were heading. It was the ride back to their house that I loved the most.

Sitting in the back seat of the car with the windows open and feeling the most incredible crisp cool breeze, coming in from the ocean, blowing on my face bringing the day to an end. As soon as I found out Jeremiah liked the idea that I wasn’t the type that had to be entertained, it gave me carte blanche to get on my bike and riddddddddddddddddde.

I seemed to be in a state of observance---of discovery. My previous life—that means before New York City or after Virginia---was so confining and frustrating--I wanted to see things----do things-----even though I was intimidated or at times felt less than---felt unattractive, uncultured, stupid---boring most of the time-----STOP!!!!!!! But those were the messages from before, before what you ask-----before my makeover---the weight loss---longer hair---tweed jackets with boots--Talley ho everyone----going to the best of the best in art schools, Parsons [even though I had to drop out—it still counts} for it got me out of Virginia-----god damn it----even going to Europe for finishing school---ok---ok---waking up out of a blackout ----yes I know----from under a park bench somewhere in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris [look it could have been a lot worse]---well let’s forget about that mishap-----Where were we anyway ?

“Tuesday Weld’s sister lives where Jeremiah?” I asked with enthusiasm but couldn’t quite remember why I was so interested in her anyhow. Was it when she was in the TV show Dobie Gillis—no---

92

oh, now I remember, it was when she was in the movie Pretty Poison –bingo---that’s it.

“Her sister lives just next door but why are you so interested?” he asked.

Well, between you and me I didn’t necessarily want to go into details but I had read an article when I was still in high school and as she described her relationship with her mother it seemed all too familiar to mine. Tuesday, having the upper hand called money$$$$$$, at eighteen got fed up and moved out of where she was living with her mother and her sister and whomever else she was supporting and moved into her own apartment. Go Tuesday---I thought, but I was stuck in my situation for I didn’t have any money so-------Then came along the movie Pretty Poison and solved the problem for both of us--sort of.

In the movie she plays the protagonist [I’ve been dying to use that word] who, let’s be honest, rather loves to kill and unbeknownst to him, Anthony Perkins, just out of jail, was her fall guy. He was the fall of all fall guys if you ask me. Who knew when I was still in high school, watching this movie, that in a few years he would be a neighbor of mine. The point being, she poisoned her mother----you got it right and poor Tony took the fall. Tuesday was no dummy and I just bet she wasn’t acting that much as she took out that mother of hers, in the movie.

Honestly, all through my senior year in high school I slept across the hall from my mother’s bedroom and every night as I fell asleep I thought about getting up and walking over to her bed and smothering her. Oh, give me a break, what teenager doesn’t think of doing away with a parent, and with my mother it seemed the right thing to do. Who to get to be the fall guy----where was Anthony Perkins when you needed him?

Anthony Perkins lived around the corner from me and I would see him and his wife strolling with the baby carriage around the neighborhood. Actually, he was one of the first to see the charms of Chelsea and moved in and other actors took suit. Where else could

93

you buy a brownstone for $50-60 Grand in the Sixties? Most of us who lived in the neighborhood would gather at a store around the corner for the main reason there wasn’t much going on in the area.

It was a friendly place for coffee, picking up the paper and ordering an exceptionally good sandwich. For someone who has never had a coffee pot, this got me up and out and the people that ran it were real New York City characters.

As the story goes, I had stayed up all night working on some art project or another and as the sun was coming up and I was busy, I could feel something. Even though I kept my pace it continued until I looked up and there, staring in my window, was Anthony Perkins.

Oh, there was an iron railing so let’s not go to PSYSHO thoughts but in telling the story several friends would ask me if I had been scared about the Psycho connection. No, that never entered my mind, but I wished he had waited around for I thought he was so handsome and if I could have possibly had an affair, what a good story that would have been. Every time after that whenever I would see him, he would say hi and he would also say hi even if he was with his wife.

She would smile at me but a look came across her face as if to say, why am I saying hi to him? They moved to California soon afterward.

“Jeremiah, could you please introduce me to Tuesday the next time she’s out here?”

“Well, let’s see, she doesn’t come out very often but I’ll try to arrange it.”

It was a situation easier said than done because I wasn’t necessarily invited out every weekend, but bingo, one weekend we---Tuesday and I---were invited out the same weekend. How lucky was that?

We, the weekend guests, had all showered and gotten dressed in our silks and linen. Hubert and Jeremiah had already gone over to Tuesday Weld’s sister’s house next door---when the first phone call came--“Bill, we are here are you coming over?” Jeremiah asked.

94

“Yes, I will be right over” I said-----I don’t get intimidated too often, but meeting Tuesday, I was intimidated by her---The phone call rang the second time “Bill, are you coming?” an annoyed Jeremiah said loudly into the phone.

“Yes,” I answered with an anxiety attack building.

By the third phone call he was furious. “You are being rude, get over here now!” said Jeremiah and hung up the phone.

I sheepishly walked over and knocked on the back door. Tuesday’s sister answered the door and invited me into a very gracious home with paneled wood walls and beautiful antique furniture. There, wrestling on the floor, were Tuesday, her husband and their young son. I was impressed with the playfulness and the sense of play they were sharing in together. At some point they stopped and I was introduced to the entire gathering and we actually all ended up sitting down on the floor together. Tuesday, at the time, was married to Dudley Moore, a comedian that I was not familiar with yet [this was before 10 and Arthur]. I said something about how wonderful it was to see such a nice family playing around together. Tuesday responded with, “If it was the right person it was a nice situation.” It was only a few months later when I learned of their separation. No, I didn’t tell her how much she had inspired me to want to kill my mother-----stupid, I’m not

95

Stuart Mager

Untitled The sky is darker at 9 p.m. on that July for the sharp contrast of the photo lights set up on the beach—I am breathless at age 12 watching photographers and their assistants shooting tall, very thin models in full length mink coats at the waters edge —the tide is coming in and the white foam shimmers like lace on the dry sand.

“Oh my god,” these two tall models barefoot with black hair slicked back in buns on the back of their head, shinny from gloss hairspray.

They are poised and positioned as the incoming waves lap against their legs and the bottoms of the black mink coats, the bottom fur hairs now dripping towards the surf.

Only their white legs from knee down, their white fingers and faces and the white lace foam can be seen against the dark of the sky, the ocean and the fur.

I stand near the stone jetty in a dream.

Oh to be part of this glamour. To be the director, the assistant, the model—any one of them. Just to join.

To step into that world from this summer between the Bronx and the beach—Heinz ketchup bottles and hamburgers grilled outside—wet swimsuits and towels on the line in the side yard of the rented apartment.

“The hamburgers and franks are almost ready!” my father shouts from outside at the grill to my mother upstairs in the kitchen.

96

“Hurry up and bring out the jars of mustard, ketchup, and pickles. It’s all ready,” he says.

“Would you give me a minute?” she says, “I want to put out the plastic table cloth so the table outside doesn’t get dirty.”

“Who cares for Christ’s sake-let’s just eat,” he growls.

She rushes back and forth.

“You and your eating outside,” she says.

The hamburgers and franks get delivered one at a time-nobody sits, nobody talks-mustard on the hot dogs, ketchup on the hamburgers.

“Hurry up and finish-it’s getting dark-I need to get all this back inside,” my mother says.

“You and your eating outside,” she says again.

I am suddenly standing alone outside with the clothes and swimsuits on the line in twilight—it is peaceful without the bickering voices and the clattering of jars and plastic cups and utensils—just me in the tiny yard with the evening breeze on the clothes line—I walk several blocks to the beach.

The expanse of the beach and the ocean always felt exciting and glamorous by contrast to life on the streets of the Bronx but these people on the beach with their mink coats and lights was another view of the world.

It was a shock after leaving the beach and all that glamour entering the harsh glare of the yellow light bulb rooms in our small apartment—my father in his white muscle t-shirt and my mother in her printed blue and white housecoat-both still bickering.

“You should have seen what I just saw-the lights and the cameras and the mink coats on the beautiful models on the beach,” I told my mother.

97

“Mink coats?-ha!” my mother said, “your father never bought me a mink coat.”

My mother didn’t get it when I told her about it but I did-I had seen something different that I wanted.

Oh to get there-to get there—a lifetime of climbing that mountain.

98

A Recipe Pineapple Upside Down Cake  1 Betty Crocker yellowcake mix  1 can Dole crushed pineapple  3 eggs  15 maraschino cherries  1/4 cup vegetable oil Follow instructions on box My mother had never baked before.

She was a glamour girl—her hair and nails were more important.

She started to experiment with boxed cake mixes when I was 14.

Pineapple upside down cake was the one she explored often for our Friday night dinners.

I was watching the first time she made one.

“I have to mix the flour, oil and eggs 100 times so the cake will be light,” she said.

“It’s going to ruin my nails. I just came from the hairdresser. Do you like this new nail color? It’s called Blushed Pink. I am going to wear the brown taffeta dress with the big pockets covered in black sequins to the bar mitzvah on Saturday night.”

“Oy—I can’t remember how many times I mixed it already. Would you mix it for awhile so my nails won’t chip? I need to keep the flour out of my hair.”

“Baking HUH!” she yelled, “I bet Elizabeth Taylor never baked a

99

cake—her nails and hair are always perfect.”

Every Friday night was about roasted chicken, baked potatoes, overcooked string beans and a can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.

Each night of the week had it’s own meal—week after week after week.

My father lived to criticize each meal in the same way—week after week after week—month after month.

“Where did you get this piece of meat, at the shoemaker from his leftover piece of leather?”—the dry chicken—the overcooked fish— the lousy tasting canned vegetables.

It didn’t matter what it was-it was always bad.

He never waited to have the cake with us—he would finish eating and get back to the sofa half sleeping, watching T.V. “Oh honey,” my mother would say, “stay and have cake with us.”

“Leave me alone,” he would bark on his way to the sofa.

End of that scene—same scene every night—it was not difficult to remember the lines.

I hear those lines today—so many years later.

The upside down cake would hang around the kitchen all weekend as slices disappeared—by Sunday night what was left was getting hard and needed milk on it to soften it—I liked that taste.

Me eating cake alone-my father on Sunday night snoring in front of the TV. The lessons that we learn as children and carry with us for a lifetime.

100

“So Doris,” my mother says, “Cousin Yetta’s bar mitzvah is in two weeks. I am going to wear my pink organdy dress. Should I have my hair done in the poodle cut or the Italian cut?”

“Oh,” said aunt Doris, “The poodle cut is so chick (Bronx for chic) and your nails should match the pink dress.”

“And stockings?” my mother asks “Definitely pale, pale pink,” said aunt Doris. The color Maven.

“Enough already,” my father growls in his half sleep, “I can’t hear the T.V. for you endless nonsense about your hair and nails. Get off the phone already so I can relax.”

Cake alone—longing to share that intimate experience with a man, but he never talked to me.

I just knew about all the things he did not like and all the things he said were no good.

The upside down cake was delicious even though it was filled with poisonous maraschino cherries and sugared canned fruit.

But we never talked.

101

102

Acknowledgements

We share our belief that the world is a better place when everyone’s voice is listened to and respected.

Many thanks go to our foundation, government, and corporate supporters, without whom this writing community and publication would not exist: Allianz GI, Amazon Literary Partnership, Nicholas B. Ottoway Foundation, Kalliopeia Foundation, Meringoff Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. NYWC programming is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

We rely heavily on the support of individual NYWC members and attendees of our annual Write-A-Thon. In addition, members of our Board of Directors have kept this vital, rewarding work going year after year: Timothy Ballenger, Tamiko Beyer, Jonas Blank, Louise Crawford, Atiba Edwards, Marian Fontana, Ben Groom, and NYWC Founder and Executive Director Aaron Zimmerman. We would also like to thank the following people at SAGE: Steve Wilkinson, Joseph Petrillo, Bob Downing, World Famous *BOB*, Charles Cole; each of whom has made us feel at home.

To find out more how you can sponsor a NYWC Publication or Program, please contact info@nywriterscoalition.org or (718) 398-2883.

103

104

About NY Writers Coalition

NY Writers Coalition (NYWC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that creates opportunities for formerly voiceless members of society to be heard through the art of writing.

One of the largest community-based writing organizations in the country, we provide free, unique, and powerful creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in our society, including at-risk, disconnected, and LGBT youth, homeless and formerly homeless people, those who are incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, war veterans, people living with disabilities, cancer, and other major illnesses, immigrants, seniors, and many others.

For more information about NYWC programs and NY Writers Coalition Press publications visit www.nywriterscoalition.org

105

Writing from the SAGE Center

F e at u r i n g Michelle Baker Chelsea Dreher Charles Fatone Ralph Gray Beverly Gross Constance Gruen Bill Larmer Stuart Mager Adrienne Margolis Tom Marsh Jim Murrell Roger Silva Gloria Zimmerman NY Writers Coalition Press is proud to present Fictions Nonfictions Imaginings , a collection of poetry and prose written in our two NY Writers Coalition workshops for LGBT Elders at the SAGE Center. For more information about NYWC creative writing programs and NYWC Press publications, visit www.nywriterscoalition.org.

Suggested Donation

$ 7 106 US