1988-Vol24

u

QUARTO

QUARTO The Literary Magazine of the School of General Studies Columbia University

Volume 24

Spring 1988

Submissions Current and recent General Studies students — including special students and students in other branches of Columbia University who are taking G.S. writing courses—are encouraged to submit to Quarto.

We welcome poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and plays, including excerpts from longer works.

Each submission should be accompanied by a selfaddressed stamped envelope. Please include your name, address, and phone number (optional) on your manuscript.

Manuscripts may be submitted elsewhere while under consideration at Quarto; just notify us of acceptance by another publication.

Address all submissions and correspondence to: Quarto 608 Lewisohn Hall Columbia University New York, New York 10027

9

1988 by Quarto ISSN 0735-6536

Executive Editors

Pamela Krafczek Alex Carroll Jeffrey Juillich Associate Editors

liana Aaronson Cheryl Abel Dan Brodnitz Owen Eliot Linda Geatches George Guida Rachel-Anne Hammer Robert Hillman Jo Hirshman Susan Holmes Richard Krulikowski

Eileen Livers Yvette Louis Linda Murray John Paulsen Lawrence Saltzman Gwendolyn Sampson Erin Sigel Loren Steele Rachel Sweet Anna Varsano Joe Zollo

Director, Writing Program

J.R. Humphreys Faculty Advisor

Geoffrey Young

Our thanks to Larry Zirlin of Philmark Lithographies.

Quarto is edited by students enrolled in Literary Magazine Editing and Publishing

Contents 9 If We're Lucky by Donald N. Unger 18 Atlantis by George Moore 19 Nelsons Secede, White House Stunned

by Frank Mason 22 At Rest and In Motion by Joel Beard 48 Force Field by Richard Paul Schmonsees 50 Letters from the Dead by Aimee Imundo 51 What Are You Waiting For? by Frances Snowder 58 Impression on Sunset by Andrew Marlowe 59 Grandma's Rings by Alice Schecter Grunfeld 64 A View from the Train by Claudia Rattazzi

QUARTO PRIZE THIS YEAR'S QUARTO PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT IS GIVEN TO DONALD UNGER FOR THE STORY "IF WE'RE LUCKY" CHOSEN BY ALAN ZLEGLER AND PHYLLIS RAPHAEL FROM THE CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE.

Donald N. Unger

If We're Lucky

"Prophet?"

No one had called me that in a while. But, before I turned around, before I looked for his face in the mirror behind the bar, I knew, I felt who it was.

"Fly," I said, softly, turning, with my eyes closed. And, I know, this recognition pleased him.

"Man sees the future," he used to tell everyone. "Man knows what's gonna happen."

"Yeeeeah," Fly said, slow and soft. "You know. You still know."

"I know," I said, a little flat, and squeezed his shoulder.

He winced and jumped back.

"She shot you," I said, before I knew why.

Fly shook his head and massaged his shoulder. "Yeeeeah," he said.

"Goin' on four months now and the fucker still ain't healed right.

But you," he said, "what you doin' here?" He looked over at my drink curiously.

I looked down at it with disdain, a club soda with a piece of lime, and said, "No, still not drinking. Still some things I don't ever want to see again."

He nodded as if he understood.

"But you look in major need of a beer," I told him. "You look like a man with words to say."

"I been looking for you," he said.

"You found me." And the bartender brought him a beer.

Fly is bad news and it's not his fault. Seeing him gave me a little

QUARTO tingle of apprehension of the sort that wouldn't exist in a world of my design. But the world is not of my design and, for better or for worse, I'm coming to accept this.

Somebody was dead. I watched Fly drink that beer down and I knew he wasn't there to wish me a Merry Christmas. It was cold out.

And I felt the cold come inside the bar, come inside me and make me sad and weak, make me want to shake and make me want to cry.

For his sake, I told myself, for his sake I won't. And I won't tell him until he tells me. And I struggled to fight off the knowledge of who it was. Unsuccessfully.

"Ohhhhhhhh," it came out of me, a long horrible sigh. "Jimmy Roses, oh why, man, why?"

And Fly was crying by then, when I looked over at him. And he couldn't tell me.

"We don't know," he said, not raising his head, "not any of us. He never said nothing... just... he just. Just did it," he managed finally. "Yesterday. With that gun."

I saw a picture of him then, a coroner's polaroid, that flitted through my mind, like a leaf on an updraft, his face almost tranquil, only the ragged edges at the side of his head, the unnatural contour of his hair that implied, very clearly, that the back of his skull had been blown away. But it was the second picture that made me cry. It was vibrant, the second picture, full of beautiful Fall colors and a sweet taste of laughter and triumph. Jimmy Roses was leaning against the batting cage in Queensborough Park and announcing himself into cupped hands.

"Now batting for Caughran's, Centerfielder James.. .ames... ames.. .Rosedale.. .dale.. .dale...."

I floated a little, while Fly blew his nose. And Zap came back to me next, our catcher. I had played second base and Jimmy Roses centerfield. Spine of the team we'd been. And one of the best teams in the Queens Industrial League at that. I anticipate impact best.

And, for that reason, remember it most vividly. I remember Zap, built like the stump of an oak tree, an impression you'd never lose if you'd ever slid into him at home plate, a bandylegged hobbit with his thinning hair in disarray, rising from his crouch like smoke, like an Eastern mystic, flipping the mask away like an orange peel and firing the ball toward me; Spence, our pitcher, going to his knees as Zap rose, his head describing a rapid arc as the ball hissed over him.

10

Donald N. linger

From behind, I could feel the graceful loping stride of Jimmy Roses coming in from the outfield to back me. To my left I could hear the runner, hear Fitz coming, his remorseless beer truck, doomed from the moment he left First, wheezing like a bull, hooves thundering on the basepath. My left arm was already moving in that inevitable arc, that Zap would hit with the ball, before I hit Fitz, before Fitz hit me.

Fitz would be out. And he'd trample me anyway, his fun. And I was trapped there, by the perfection of the moment, by all the grace and competence that went into a play like that, unable to extricate myself from the focal point of all those inevitable impacts. Three and you're down.

"Where?" I asked Fly. He was pensively stroking the tired grain of the bar.

"Burnett's," he said, softly. "Tomorrow."

I put my hand on his shoulder and left it there while we both looked at the floor, silently. And then I hugged him, because I didn't care suddenly what anyone in the bar thought or what he thought for that matter. But he didn't move back. And we stood there for what might have been a long while and tried not to breathe too much.

"Anything I'm supposed to do?" I asked when we'd stepped back.

Fly shook his head. "No. They just wanted me to find you, you know. Everyone did. They want you to be there."

"Yeah, everyone's going to be there, huh."

Fly just nodded. "Burnett's," he said. "Yeah. Around 6:00, I think."

I touched his shoulder again, lightly this time, and he left without our saying good-bye.

It seemed to get darker in the bar once Fly left. But it was a comforting sort of darkness. Jerry-the-bartender watched me neutrally from the corner sink where he spent the day cleaning glasses in a never ending cycle, whether they needed it or not, his therapy.

"Got a half a lime, Jerry?"

And he sent me one in a lethargic hook shot that came in higher than anything Zap had ever thrown. I caught the dry side in my palm, for which, I'm sure, we both silently took credit, and, with the one good fingernail I had, peeled it and ate the sections, saliva sluicing violently around my mouth in lieu of tears. Jerry didn't seem to care.

11

QUARTO Big enough bad news is like being hit with a hammer. You walk around dazed for a while, bumping into things. You decide it isn't true. But it comes back and hits you again and you know it is. It's like being drunk, in that it fragments you, breaks up your vision of reality into nine different shards of a fun house mirror. I keep trying to pick the right one. And I keep missing, keep cutting myself. I keep trying to recast reality to suit myself and finding that I'm less and less able to understand it, let alone influence it. Jimmy Roses was dead.

I filled the evening, night and most of the morning with bad television and wheat thins, surrounding myself, on the bed, with crumbs and fruit and cheese rinds, softening my mind with old half hour sitcoms at two in the morning, an Errol Flynn movie at three and finally going to sleep when the sun came up and they began to talk about who was at war with whom this morning and who would be at war by noon.

When I woke up it was almost four and my only hangover was a parched throat. The water tray on my radiator had cooked dry again and it had to be eighty degrees. I miss hangovers. They make you feel so legitimately rotten, such beautiful penance, such perfect pain.

I haven't had coffee in a year and a half. But Remy is indifferent to this and calls me what he always has.

"Hey, Milk-Two-Sugars," he booms at first sight of me. But he fades to a soft, reverent "hey...." and a clucking of his tongue at sight of the suit.

"Big OJ?" He asks.

And I nod.

"Whole wheat toast, dry," he says, half over his shoulder. I shake my head, no. "On the house," he says. "You should eat, a little you should...."

He fills a glass from the orange juice dispenser on the counter.

The toast appears behind him and he loads a tray for me.

"Hey, Milk-Two-Sugars," he says taking money for the orange juice. "You know.. .ah!" His own attempt at consolation embarrasses him. "You know...."

I nod.

I drink the juice slowly and wrap the toast in a napkin and put it 12

Donald N. Unger

in my pocket.

I half-cross Broadway to John's Park, a mall, a little oasis of cement and dirt in the middle of traffic, right near the Medical Center.

Shards of brown beer bottle glass grow relentlessly there. What John missed this Fall will haunt him all Winter, trapped in the unyielding, frozen, dirt. He belongs someplace warmer. But he'll never get there. And what he holds now is both his first and last piece of property. I sat on his bench and he didn't look at me for a while.

"Was hungry for some medicine this morning," he said. "Bones need it. Too cold. Too old. Too long. Yeah." He nodded. "Yeah.

Think I don't know. Think / don't know? Think I don't know who you are?" He looked at me then, took in the suit.

"Get fired?" he asked, laughing at this until he wheezed, coughed and spat.

I didn't look to see if it was blood. I was terribly afraid that it was.

"No," I shook my head and John let it go at that.

We sat in silence for a few moments. A bus passed by, drowning us in sound, bathing us in sweet, warm, diesel. I gave John the napkin-wrapped toast from my pocket.

"Hungry for some medicine today," John said again.

"Medicine'll kill you, John," I said, squeezing his shoulder as I left.

"Something will," John mumbled.

I got one of the new subway cars, going downtown, like a flashback from another time. But the "N" train is still the same, clacking and rattling its way under the East River.

When I began to think about where I was going, and why, I began to think about the rules, or what they should be. The only sort of murder that should be allowed is murder by strangulation, the only suicide, slitting your wrists. They take time. You have to really want to kill someone, to hold onto their throat that long, to feel life stuttering, writhing and ebbing, beneath your hands. You have to really want to die, to watch your blood flow steadily into a white porcelain sink, as you grow colder as you grow light. A gun is too easy. A gun is cheating. A gun is a lie. And the lie is the moment. You can love anyone in the flash of an orgasm, hate everyone in the shadow of a glance. You can kill yourself with the tickle of a trigger. But it's wrong. And the other mistakes, the other mistakes you repair,

13

QUARTO they're forgotten, you learn from them.

When I got to Burnett's, Ghani and Akshah were standing outside, looking elegant and a little awkward. They wore blue pinstriped suits, as I imagined most everyone inside did, but theirs were double breasted, giving them a sort of anachronistic look, accenting their foreignness. They had been part of a team we had played in the Industrial League, an extended family mostly, that owned a Pakistani restaurant. They shrugged, they bit their lips, they looked down and they embraced me, the two of them, as if we were a football team. I was glad to see them.

When I had first seen them, I'd been unable to tell them apart.

They were all small. And young. And married. And wearing white.

I had told Spence not to pitch low to them. I had a picture in my mind. They reminded me of a cricket team I'd seen once. He didn't listen — or couldn't, we were doing so well that season. It seemed so unlikely that anyone could beat us. They were affable people, as they golfed ball after ball over the right field fence. They smiled.

They applauded softly. They clapped each other on the back and said, "Good show," joining their sari-clad wives to sip spiced tea in the bleachers. They ran the bases with small steps, fast when necessary. They didn't slide. They beat us terribly.

I don't think Spence ever forgave them his humiliation. But I'd thought it funny, maybe even something we'd needed. And there was an appealing quality to the Pakistanis, an admirable esprit, a demonstrated ability to assimilate pieces of other cultures without completely submerging their own, to compromise without being compromised—that.. .and I liked the food.

"We are sorry," Ghani murmured.

"Not what I expected to bring me back here," I said.

I asked about their wives. As we walked inside, Akshah told me he had a new son. So the first thing Zap saw was that I was smiling.

He was little changed, if somewhat harder. He wore a dark suit and hadn't taken off his overcoat. Something swayed beneath it like weaponry, as if he had an Alleysweeper, a twenty gauge, double barrelled, sawed-off on a leather thong, hanging in his left armpit.

Had I entered in tears he would not have been satisfied. But, I'm sure, the smile only confirmed his lowest expectations.

"You made it."

14

Donald N. Unger

Ghani and Akshah nodded to Zap, brushed my hand and walked off to pay their respects to Mrs. Rosedale. Fly appeared from a side room, at the entrance to which there was a bulletin board of black, felt furrows on which the name "James Rosedale" was inscribed in white plastic letters. He nodded to me, rubbed his nose and shook his head.

"So now we're all here," he said.

"Now we're all here," Zap echoed heavily.

Fly alternated his glance between Zap and me, confused, sensing Zap's hostility toward me, unsure of what to do.

"Didn't you know this was going to happen?" Zap asked me.

I limited my visible reaction to an involuntary flaring of my nostrils. But Fly turned his face toward Zap as if he had been slapped, anger and disbelief writ large on his face.

"Don't do this here," he said softly.

"Oh, not just you," Zap amended, "all of us. But you know why," he added. "Right? I mean you know everything." He nodded angrily. "Quite a burden, that. A lot to ask of your friends too. A lot." He took a step toward me. "And maybe some of them couldn't take it."

"Are you trying to upset me?" I asked neutrally.

"Am I about to succeed?"

"It may not be as much fun as you remember."

"It never was."

Fly was more angry than I'd ever seen him; his right hand clenched and unclenched spasmodically around the collar of Zap's overcoat.

"Not here," he said, hoarsely and forcefully. "Not now."

Zap removed the hand gently and walked away.

"I'm sorry," Fly said. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know what his problem is." He shook his head and paced in front of me.

"He's a Narc now."

He continued to pace, shaking both of his hands, as if to rid them of ants.

"It's about old stuff," I said. "It's about hitting the river."

Fly stopped in front of me and lowered his voice.

"It isn't anybody's fault," he said.

"Maybe."

"It isn't," he said, emphatically, shaking his head. "It can't be."

15

QUARTO Mrs. Rosedale approached me and I kissed her, something I hadn't expected to do. She looked surprisingly strong.

"I'd like you to say a few words," she said.

I noticed Mr. Rosedale, standing behind her.

"Instead of a rabbi," he.said, half to me, half to himself, not entirely in approval.

"Someone who knew him," Mrs. Rosedale said fiercely. "I'll be damned," and her voice cracked. "I'll be damned if someone who didn't know him is going to give a form-letter eulogy." She nodded to emphasize her conviction.

Fly got me paper and pen and sat me down in one of the lounges.

But when he'd left, I couldn't write anything.

Jimmy Roses was a good softball player, fluid, unselfconscious.

But he didn't like being heckled, which is as much a part of softball as is getting drunk after the game. The year we won the league championship, I started the rumor that, after being heckled, he'd put a ball into the middle of the East River. He was our good magic that season, I gave him hush. It was so quiet when he came up to bat, you would have thought he was a surgeon at work. Even members of our own team, who had to know that it wasn't true, came to talk about it as if it were.

The night we won the championship I had to take Jimmy Roses home. He was almost too drunk to walk. We had outplayed everyone else in the league, save that disastrous game with the Pakistanis, and Jimmy Roses had been named the league's best hitter. And all he said on that long, weaving, trip, a litany of recrimination, was that he had never hit the river.

"Never have hit the river, never will hit the river, never could hit the river, never wanted to hit the river. Never wanted to," he said.

"Never. But people believed you," he said, leaning against his door. "/ almost believed you. Almost." He drew himself almost upright, looking less drunk than ghastly ill, tapped my chest for emphasis and said, "If you say it, it's supposed to be true. It's supposed to be true! And I couldn't make it true for you, though I tried, / really tried."

When I had finished writing, done as well as I could, I entered the room with the casket for the first time. There were relatives and there were friends; there were weepers and there were stoics; people

16

Donald N. Unger

I knew well and people I'd never seen. The casket was closed. Mrs. Rosedale announced that we were going to start and gestured me to the front. People sat down.

At the front of the room, there was what looked like a little wooden music stand, in front of the casket. I stood behind it and looked out over the people assembled. I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. I took a deep breath.

"James was..." And I stopped. It was wrong, so formal, so hollow. Everything I had written, from the first word, was wrong, was about someone else. My fingers, cold, insensate, marble, lost their grip on the sheet of paper. It fell off to my left and clicked back and forth on an invisible column of hot, stale, air that came from a heat register in the floor, settling gently near my shoe. I looked over at Mrs. Rosedale, to apologize.

I surveyed the people in the audience again, row by row, face by face: Zap, against the back wall, overcoat still on, florid, angry; Fly, in the front row, suit wrinkled, fingers woven and twisted together, crying; Mrs. Rosedale, between Fly and her husband, eyes fixed at a point just above the casket, glassy but not crying, shaking her head slowly back and forth.

"I loved Jimmy Roses," I said, in a voice softer than I had expected. "That's why I'm here. I guess that's why we all a r e . . . . "

17

George Moore

Atlantis

Every mind succumbs to a dream of a world apart from pain Though it be covered by Aegean & volcanic ash we search through ruins destroyed by searing rain Through excavated porcelain half-mosaics, bronze stolen from sacred tables—we reach — for a sirocco unconscious, for a Minoan melodist for a broken necklace fallen from a young girl's neck — I'll purify my feet with rainwater before entering your shrine with swastika, and cross and sun crescent sign I'll consider your commercial relations with Egypt if this is the way to keep from caving in to legendary despair or perhaps to follow Minaros — found face-down in his own diggings — and share his fate — buried alive with dreams of paradise.

(Santorini) 18

Frank Mason

Nelsons Secede, White House Stunned

Life in the sleepy suburban community of Sparksburg was turned upside down yesterday when the Nelsons, twelve-year residents of 321 Grove Lane, seceded from the United States and requested official recognition as an independent nation.

Mr. Horatio Nelson, a recently unemployed law clerk, his wife Marlene, and their two children, ages nine and six, held a half-hour press conference, beginning at 10:58 EST, to outline the causes and conditions of their abrupt disaffiliation.

Mr. Nelson, clad in tight-fitting fatigues, sun-glasses, and a cumbersome sombrero, addressed the gallery of reporters in a confident, optimistic, and pointedly caustic tone.

"The United States government has, for too long, neglected my people, and disrespected our rights as individuals." He continued his declamation, "If we are to realize a brighter future, we must begin again, free from the injustice of an oppressive system." As Nelson read on, flanked by his children and wife, who repeatedly pumped their fists in the air after each of Nelson's resolutions, many of the reporters on hand began to applaud their support. Others were not so enthusiastic.

One reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times asked, "Mr. Nelson, now that you've cut ties completely with a society and government which, in every way imaginable, envelops your tiny nation, how do you propose to feed, clothe, and educate your population?"

Nelson responded, "My people have long been prepared for this 19

QUARTO

event. They have voluntarily agreed to follow my direction in establishing a self-sufficient, agrarian economy and an educational system based on the principle of shared experience. Working together, we can achieve these goals; and we will. Mine are a devoted people, and I am their leader."

Another reporter from the Times quickly interjected, "Are you saying then, Mr. Nelson, that your nation's government will be a dictatorship?"

Nelson was equally quick to respond, "Only until such time as free democratic elections can be held. And then I will let the people themselves decide."

"What we have to do will not be easy; however, we must forge ahead in what can only be a long, but fruitful process." Nelson went on, "After the close of today's gathering, the fence surrounding the yard which you see all around you will be electrified and guarded twenty-four hours a day by German shepherds. As an additional precautionary measure, the casements of the house's four bay windows have been fortified by nine-millimeter, Thompson antiaircraft guns. Anyone attempting to infiltrate our borders without official clearance from the government will be promptly shocked, shot, and devoured."

"Enough said on the issue of defense. Now, as to the composition of the government. I am happy to first announce the appointments of my lovely wife, Marlene, as the Vice President and Secretary of Domestic Affairs; my older son, Harold Michael, as Commissioner of Intelligence; and my youngest boy, Horatio, Jr., as Secretary of Agriculture and Waste Disposal. I myself will serve as Secretary of Defense, Chief Justice, Director of Foreign Affairs, Housing Director, Secretary of the Treasury, and Speaker of the General Assembly.

Nelson closed the informational portion of the conference by updating his incipient government's foreign policy. "Already, we have contacted the government of Lesotho in an effort to secure the weaponry which we perceive as absolutely vital to the security of our growing nation. We indeed feel a great affinity with the Lesothans as a nation and as members of the world community. We have also contacted the White House, and made direct application for foreign developmental aid, which we hope to receive inside of one 20

Frank Mason

month."

With that comment, several members of the media groaned. A feisty journalist from the Dallas Gazette inquired, "How do you justify that request in light of your country's location?"

"Ohio is as distant from Washington as any place on earth," replied Nelson, now perspiring noticeably under the weight of his sombrero.

Nelson then bid the crowd farewell and departed to the wild applause and whistles of the gallery at large. As he walked off into the back bedroom, he gave his wife and Vice President a quick kiss on the lips, and pulled his sons to his side with one hand, while waving back at the paparazzi with the other.

Neighbors of the Nelsons expressed both alarm and satisfaction at the news. A Mrs. Ruth Varling of 328 Grove Lane stated, "I knew all along there was something going on. Sometimes, three in the morning, I'd hear a sound like pipes banging together. When I went to the window, I'd see the wife dragging the metal poles and wires into the basement. And we played bridge. It just goes to show, you never really know someone."

Larry Farmer, the mailman, described Horatio Nelson as "the nicest guy you ever wanna meet. A guy who always had someone at the front door ready to take the mail from me."

Even the neighborhood youngsters had an opinion. Tommy Birnes of 365 Grove Lane commented, "All the kids on the block always thought Harry and Rat had the coolest father, 'cause Mr. Nelson was the only one who'd play guns with his own kids. Wow, and now this. What a neat guy!"

Federal officials have expressed the need to establish diplomatic relations with the charismatic leader and his young nation; a nation the U.S. Government sees as a potentially crucial ally.

As Clarence T. Whitewater, Undersecretary of State, admitted, "It behooves the U.S. to welcome this new nation as an ally. Its position is strategically invaluable. From its location on the Wabash River, a standing army could effectively strangle Cincinatti for an indefinite period of time."

It is rumored now that, indeed, a summit between Nelson and the President is imminent, and that Nelson's requests for aid will be granted before the week is out.

21

J. Beard

m

At Rest and In Motion (Excerpted from the first of two acts) m

Time: around February 1987.

Setting: The playing area includes a garden, which is CHANCE'S area, and TRACY's studio apartment with a ramp system between them, so TRACY can get around the stage easily.

Characters: TRACY is in his early to mid thirties, in a wheelchair. All scenes can be played from the chair, and should be, except where indicated that the two are in bed.

CHANCE is in his early twenties.

MICHAEL is in his mid twenties.

ACT ONE SCENE ONE (A garden, Tracy and Chance on stage) Chance: How I met you. I'm grubbing around in the garden in front of the Studio, getting out the winter weeds, turning over the earth.

The sun is warm on my back, one of those early spring days where the sky is clear blue, and the dirt smell has won out over the exhaust from the buses. I'm feeling—expansive, at one with nature, something corny like that. I set down my trowel, pull up the front of my tee shirt to wipe my face, and look across to this blue car. Slowly, you come into focus, standing there looking at me from over the top of the car. You've been watching me for a while. I'm a little spaced with that empty headed feeling from the sun. Maybe that's what allows it to happen, allows you to slip in, no resistance.

22

Joel Beard

Tracy: Hello.

Chance: That's always how it starts, isn't it? Nobody ever just walks up to you and says, "Wanna fuck?" First we have this ritual of introduction. Courting. Gran used to tell me how Grandpa would bring her flowers when he came to visit on the train. For nearly a year he just brought her flowers. Hi. Tracy: You're so far away. Come over here.

Chance: Everything's turning real slow for some reason and I'm noticing. Nice car.

Tracy: You're the gardener?

Chance: (to himself at first, then to Tracy) Sort of. Yeah.

Tracy: It's beautiful. I always notice it.

Chance: Can't I think of something more to say? Something to get this conversation going? I don't have to. You say— Tracy: Over here. Come over on my side.

Chance: And I do. It's like everything else is shut out, it's all peripheral and we're center stage. There's this thing going on between us, back and forth, almost smooth? I hear the music someone's rehearsing to coming out a window on the third floor. A pair of flutes chasing each other around through this passage for the past half hour and finally through to the end. The sound comes sailing out, and it's like angels. The way music can be sometimes, you know what I mean?

Tracy: Yes. I know what you mean.

Chance: I see the crutches. I couldn't see them before with you standing behind the car that way. I lean down to brush the dirt off my knees.

Tracy: What's your name?

Chance: The crutches are silver, the kind with the bands around the arms, and you must have just put new rubber tips on the ends, yellow and no scratches on them yet.

Tracy: They get worn out.

Chance: I never thought of that.

Tracy: Why would you?

23

QUARTO Chance: I guess not. Chance, my name's Chance.

Tracy: Chance.

Chance: After this movie my mom saw with Paul Newman in it. My mom saw too many movies.

Tracy: All our moms saw too many movies. Mine's Tracy. Are you finished with your work?

Chance: I have to sweep the walk and put the tools away, that's all.

Tracy: Have dinner with me.

Chance: Have dinner with me. Easy as that. A dream man walks into my life and says, Have dinner with me. Of course I'll have dinner with you.

Tracy: I'm hardly a dream. Or haven't you noticed?

Chance: It's my dream.

Tracy: And I'm not capable of walking into anyone's life.

Chance: You're right. I should have said "appears." A dream man appears in my life and says, Have dinner with me. Of course I'll have dinner with you.

Tracy: So here's my number. Call me when you get home.

Chance: And you throw the crutches into the back of the car, slide yourself into the driver's seat — Tracy: I don't have to use my feet at all. Just the buttons. It's my custom made James Bond deluxe special.

Chance: I'm crazy about the turquoise necker knob.

Tracy: Makes it easier to drive with one hand.

Chance: And you drive off without a backward glance, leaving me standing in your dust.

(Tracy wheels upstage, starts up ramp to his apartment) The sun slants low on the horizon. We've all seen too many movies.

Two dancers come out the front door. They're carrying their bags and have that tired look of having worked hard at something and almost gotten it. What was the music?

Tracy: (answering for dancer without turning around) Kuhlau's Grand Duo for Two Flutes.

24

Joel Beard

Chance: It was beautiful. Good luck.

Tracy: Thanks.

Chance: And the evening sunlight sets the motes dancing.

(Music up—Kuhlau's Grand Duo for Two Flutes) SCENE TWO (Tracy's apartment. Chance joins Tracy) Tracy: You're a dancer? I thought you were the gardener.

Chance: That's just my part-time job. One of them. It helps pay for classes. I sort of inherited it.

Tracy: Like an heirloom?

Chance: Like an orphaned child.

Tracy: What kind of dance?

Chance: Whatever I can get.

Tracy: Rockettes?

Chance: In my next life. Post modern.

Tracy: What's that?

Chance: After Graham and before the millenium. With a bow to performance art and a backwards glance at ballet.

Tracy: You do ballet?

Chance: I take classes.

Tracy: You said. That's why you got the job doing the garden.

Chance: What do you do?

Tracy: Rock and roll.

Chance: Really?

Tracy: Just roll. I log star spectra.

Chance: What's that?

Tracy: I look at photographs and put star coordinates on the computer. Do you want coffee?

Chance: Only if it's no trouble.

Tracy: It's no trouble. It's instant. {Tracy starts to clear table onto his lap) 25

QUARTO Chance: Let me help.

Tracy: It's alright. I can do it. I'm the host.

Chance: Okay.

Tracy: Be right back.

(Wheels off. Chance walks around room, measures doorway with his hands, looks at books on shelves, looks in drawer, which is partly open, sees a gun. He takes gun out, looks at it, returns to drawer when Tracy enters.)

Milk or sugar?

Chance: Just milk. Nice books.

Tracy: You mean they look good?

Chance: No, I — m

Tracy: Sorry. I must be tired. Getting cranky.

Chance: Do you want me to go?

Tracy: (holding out cup) No. Coffee first.

Chance: Thanks. Dinner was great.

Tracy: I like cooking.

Chance: And I like eating. We're a match.

Tracy: I don't think it's that easy.

Chance: No. (He looks around.) How do you get into the bathroom?

Tracy: What?

Chance: The doorway's too narrow to get the chair in— Tracy: Most of them are. I manage.

Chance: How? Tracy: I crawl on my hands and knees. Dragging myself across the floor like a thirsty man in the desert, inching toward that tall cool drink that will turn out to be— Chance: I'm sorry.

Tracy: Don't be. It's just you're so—blunt. Most people sort of tiptoe around it for a while. You know they want to ask, only they're 26

Joel Beard

being polite Chance: About the bathroom?

Tracy: And everything else. And I never want to bring it up because I wish it didn't have to always be a major topic of conversation.

Chance: We don't have to talk about it.

Tracy: Only we do. It's always there.

Chance: You don't like that.

Tracy: What's to like?

Chance: It's who you are.

Tracy: Maybe. Maybe not.

Chance: I see.

Tracy: About the bathroom — Chance: You don't — Tracy: No, no—I want to. Mobility tips for the physically challenged.

Chance: The what?

Tracy: It's a nice way of saying disabled. Physically challenged.

Chance: I like that.

Tracy: Do you?

Chance: Sure, it has a nice — Tracy: I roll up to the doorway, lock the brakes, push myself up on the armrests and pitch forward—you want all the details?

Chance: Everything.

Tracy: I catch myself on the back of the tank, turn around and sit down.

Chance: To pee?

Tracy: Leave me some illusion of— Chance: Never— Tracy: Yes, to pee. My legs can't hold me up that long. The results are the same. It just takes longer, everything takes longer. And I never miss.

27

QUARTO Chance: What about-?

Tracy: Let's save that topic for another time. When we know each other a little better.

Chance: How do you know what I was going to say?

Tracy: A seventh sense. Everything works, if that's what you're wondering.

Chance: You can still have sex?

Tracy: You see —they want to know about everything. Yes, I can still have sex. If I want to.

Chance: I'm glad.

Tracy: Well, so am I. Chance: It's just the legs?

Tracy: It's just the legs.

Chance: How come sometimes you use the crutches?

Tracy: When I'm not so tired. It's supposed to be a good idea. Send the right kind of message to the muscles.

Chance: Like dancing.

Tracy: How's that?

Chance: Like dancing. Message. Muscles.

Tracy: I don't dance.

Chance: What exactly's happening — ?

Tracy: With my legs?

Chance: Yes. Tracy: The muscles are atrophying. Late effects of polio.

Chance: Wow. When did you have polio?

Tracy: When I was a kid.

Chance: And it comes back?

Tracy: Not the polio. The little muscles that were doing all the work for the damaged muscles start to give up.

Chance: So you were better for a while.

Tracy: A lot better.

28

Joel Beard

Chance: Walking a n d Tracy: Walking and talking and everything.

Chance: Shit.

Tracy: Exactly.

Chance: What i f - ?

Tracy: There are no what if s. It's permanent neurological damage.

Chance: There's nothing you can do?

Tracy: I can do anything I want. If I put my mind to it. Now let's change the subject.

Chance: Okay. Why do you have a gun?

Tracy: What?

Chance: (gesturing toward the drawer) Why the gun?

Tracy: Oh, man — Chance: I couldn't help — Tracy: Of course you could help — Chance: You're right. But I didn't.

Tracy: You're just one surprise after another, aren't you?

Chance: I want to know you.

Tracy: You might ask me before you — Chance: It was an accident. I didn't realize what I was doing.

Tracy: Does that happen a lot?

Chance: Why do you have a gun?

Tracy: I might need it. I can't evade an attacker. I can't run.

Chance: Have you had to?

Tracy: I came home and — Chance: Someone was here?

Tracy: No. But he had been. The sparse decorating theme —it's not just for ease of getting around.

Chance: I noticed —no television.

Tracy: Not much escapes you, does it?

29

QUARTO

Chance: Or stereo. At least he didn't get the computer.

Tracy: I got that later.

Chance: Where'd the gun come from?

Tracy: Twenty questions? I found it. At a friend's place in the country where I used to go — Chance: By yourself.

Tracy: With who?

Tracy: Don't be nosey. With Mat. Matthew. My ex.

Chance: Oh. Tracy: I found the gun when I was cleaning out some drawers — Chance: You went in drawers?!

Tracy: Very funny. There were ants. And I found the gun.

Chance: Where was—Mat? Tracy: Off on a hike. He was very big on hikes.

Chance: So there you are, all alone in a remote cabin with a loaded gun.

Tracy: Only I'm not sure if it's loaded or not. And I don't know how to open it to check. So I go out on the porch and aim it into the woods.

Chance: I could show you how to — Tracy: I know now. For a moment I thought about putting it to my head and pulling the trigger. All the times I'd thought about killing myself, here was my chance.

Chance: I'm your chance.

Tracy: I mean, I didn't know if there was going to be a bullet in the chamber.

Chance: Russian roulette. I know what you mean.

Tracy: And I know what you mean.

Chance: It was loaded? It went off?

Tracy: I squeezed the trigger, just like Montgomery Clift in Red River— 30

Joel Beard

Chance: The scene with the cigarette — remember? The Duke sitting on one horse, Clift next to him. He rolls a cigarette, passes it thorough his mouth to wet it, passes it through again, hands it to him, slowly. He takes it. Remember that?

Tracy: Not as well as you do.

Chance: My first homoerotic experience.

Tracy: I'll bet.

Chance: It went off?

Tracy: The gun? The biggest bang I ever heard.

Chance: Those little colts have a real kick.

Tracy: And I just kept it, brought it back with me —for protection.

Chance: Maybe what you really wanted was to shoot this Mat guy.

Tracy: I don't think so.

Chance: No. I haven't met anyone — Tracy: In a wheelchair? There's lots of us. Only we're invisible.

Chance: That wasn't what I was going to say.

Tracy: What were you going to say?

Chance: Since Michael. I haven't met anyone I was so attracted to.

Tracy: Michael?

Chance: My ex.

Tracy: Then we're in the same boat. You'll grow tired of it. The stationary object.

Chance: Is that what happened with Mat? Tracy: You're too smart. How old are you, anyway?

Chance: Twenty-three.

Tracy: The voice of experience.

Chance: Just the one.

Tracy: Michael?

Chance: Yes? Tracy: One's enough.

31

QUARTO Chance: I like you. A lot.

Tracy: I don't know why.

Chance: Because you've got a great mouth and I want to kiss it.

Tracy: Thanks. But not yet.

Chance: I keep making all the wrong moves, don't I? Saying all the wrong things.

Tracy: Not all the wrong moves.

Chance: Just saying all the wrong things.

Tracy: Not all.

Chance: Then there's hope?

Tracy: There's always hope. But now I am tired.

Chance: So let's go to bed. Just kidding.

(Chance gets up to go.)

Tracy: Thanks f o r Chance: I'll see you again?

Tracy: Sure.

Chance: You'd like that?

Tracy: Yes, I'd like that.

Chance: Soon?

Tracy: Call me.

Chance: I will. Thanks for dinner.

Tracy: You're quite— Chance: I'll see myself out.

(Chance leaves apartment area.)

Tracy: — an unusual guy.

(Lights crossfade so Chance alone is lit.)

SCENE THREE (Chance crosses downstage) Chance: Michael. My ex. Who died. How do you tell someone that?

Without scaring them off forever?

(Michael enters behind him) 32

m

Joel Beard

Dream time, I can have him right there with me. Giving instructions. It's not so big that way —his absence. He's teaching me to graft roses now.

(Pulling two potted roses forward) The stock supplies the root system. The scion — Michael: (staying in shadow) —is the piece of stem you're going to graft onto the stock.

Chance: Stock. Scion.

Michael: The cambrium is the layer between the outside of the stem and the woody core. It's where the growth takes place. When the cambrium of the scion unites with the cambrium of the stock, you have a successful graft.

Chance: Whoa, slow down. What do I do first?

Michael: First you get your tools together.

Chance: (pulling tools forward) You sound just like Gran.

Michael: How is she?

Chance: Oh, fine. Sends her love. Michael?

Michael: Chance?

Chance: What do you think—about him, him and me?

Michael: I think you're irresistible.

Chance: I wish.

Michael: It's a little early to tell.

Chance: I want romance!

Michael: I don't think he does.

Chance: I want shadows in the moonlight, dancing under the starsMichael: I don't think he can dance.

Chance: I want candlelight, champagne — Michael: You want to have your head examined.

Chance: —sex!

Michael: That's what I thought. But you're meeting some serious resistance.

33

QUARTO Chance: Don't I know it? First this guy calls me over to his car and gives me his number, cooks me dinner, then he talks about killing himself. Am I doing something wrong?

Michael: No. But you should think about why you're attracted to him.

Chance: Think? How can I think when all I want to do is — Michael: Give him a massage?

Chance: How'd you guess?

Michael: Familiar territory.

Chance: What do I do next?

Michael: You'll figure something out, I'm sure.

Chance: No, I mean with the roses.

Michael: Oh. Take a sharp, clean knife— Chance: (holding up knife) I still have yours.

Michael: And some plastic tape. Ready?

Chance: I can picture you doing this. Ready.

Michael: (looking over Chance's shoulder) Make a vertical cut about one inch long in the stock branch.

Chance: Here?

I Michael: A little lower down, where it's thicker. There. Now a horizontal cut across the top of the first cut. Good. And pry up the corners where the cuts intersect.

Chance: Like this?

9

Chance: Like this?

Michael: That's it.

Chance: I'm sailing now.

Michael: Now slice under a strong bud from the other plant.

Chance: This is the part t h a t Michael: Careful. Make a shield shape, that's it. Good. Now, take thatChance: Making a graft. Joining one to another— 34

Joel Beard

Michael: -and push it into the loosened bark flaps on the stock.

Chance: Scion. Stock.

Michael: You have to line it up so the cambrium layers match.

Chance: Cambrium. How do you know?

Michael: By feel. You'll get it. Line up the top of the shield with the top of the cut. That looks right. Now bind the cut with the tape — Chance: Wounds heel.

Michael: —leaving the top of the bud exposed.

Chance: There.

Michael: When it starts to grow, you're going to cut off the old stem.

Chance: Which is when?

Michael: After a week or so.

Chance: How do I know?

Michael: If the leaf stalk withers but the bud stays green. Then you have a successful graft.

Chance: Hurrah.

Michael: But if the bud shield withers or turns dark, it's failed. So you try again.

Chance: Wish me luck.

Michael: Always.

Chance: I love...

(Michael exits. Lights fade.)

SCENE FOUR: SYNOPSIS Lights up on Chance, in garden, as Tracy enters, paying an unannounced visit. Chance surprised, but happy to see him. As Chance tends to his garden, they talk. Tracy becomes interested in a particular blossom, but angrily stops Chance from helping to maneuver the wheelchair closer to the flower. Chance, confused, tries to change the awkward moment into a pleasant one by inviting Tracy to dance. Chance hums a waltz and they attempt to dance, unsuccessfully. Tracy, frustrated, leaves abruptly.

35

QUARTO SCENE FIVE (Chance joins Tracy in apartment) Chance: Why'd you run away from me?

Tracy: I hardly ran away.

Chance: You know what I mean.

Tracy: Then say what you mean.

Chance: Hey—you don't have to attack me.

Tracy: Who attacked who?

Chance: I just wanted to know—how long were you and Mat together?

Tracy: Eight years. Almost.

Chance: Long time.

Chance: Did he leave because of your legs?

Tracy: Short and to the point. That's my Chance.

Chance: Did he?

Tracy: No. The legs became a side issue. Avoidance of the bigger problem.

Chance: What was that?

Tracy: My legs.

Chance: You just said — Tracy: It was a joke.

Chance: It was a joke?

I

a

Tracy: I guess not. He always thought I was excusing myself, that I wasn't trying hard enough. And I was always ready to agree with him, to see it as my failing, my weakness. Forgetting it was out of my control. But then as it became obvious this was going to be something I could not overcome, it drew more and more of my attention.

Chance: Away from him.

Tracy: Attention must be paid, or else people diverge, head off in opposite directions. But you read the stories —the valiant husband caring for the crippled wife—you read the stories and you wonder why you didn't luck out with someone like that.

36

Joel Beard

Chance: Maybe you read about them because they're so uncommon.

Tracy: Maybe. Not everyone can do it, that's for sure.

Chance: Michael didn't just die. I mean, he might even have lasted another — Tracy: Hey, wait a minute — Chance: What.

Tracy: Michael died?

Chance: Yes.

Tracy: When were you going to tell me?

Chance: I'm telling you. I don't know. I didn't want —fuck!

Tracy: What happened?

Chance: Pneumocystis— Tracy: But I mean — Chance: He was afraid of it getting in his brain. The last time he got sick, I didn't take him to the hospital, that's all. That's what he wanted. To die at home, in bed. But it's where I still see him — Tracy: In the hospital?

Chance: Too thin, with the fucking i.v. needles in his arm. When they let me take him home the last time, we pretended it was because he was getting better, but it was really because there wasn't anything more to be done. You think you're more prepared for it, watching him get sicker. Fading away.

Tracy: You had the test?

Chance: Yes. Tracy: And? Chance: Negative. I'm clean. For whatever that's worth.

Tracy: It's worth something.

Chance: It doesn't mean I'm safe.

Tracy: Hard to think of you as safe.

Chance: He wouldn't have sex with me anymore. After he found out.

37

QUARTO Tracy: Nothing?

Chance: No. Nothing. Guess he didn't feel much like it. And now he's dead. Do you believe in something else?

Tracy: Something else?

Chance: You know—after we die. More than dust?

Tracy: In each one of those photographs, there's hundreds of other worlds. Spiral galaxies. Clusters.

Chance: So you do believe there's more—?

Tracy: We have no idea what's out there. Or how it got there. As close as we get to knowledge of the beginning, the Big Bang, within fractions of a second since the universe began, we can't get the final bit.

Chance: A non-event. Insignificance.

Tracy: Or the most significant. Words like vast, expanse.

Chance: Smaller than small. Abandoned. That's what Michael's dying seemed like at the end.

Tracy: I always think imagining it is like trying to get out of yourself, off the circle.

Chance: Like sex. Like when you go on and on for a while, and then when you finally come you're thrown out of yourself, just for brief seconds.

Tracy: Sex and death? What happened to Mr. Romance?

Chance: You talked me out of it.

Tracy: I was lost in his arms. He overwhelmed me with his brute masculine strength. I took him into me and we were one. With each powerful thrust of his tool — Chance: Too pornographic. You want it to sell.

Tracy: Right —manhood. With each powerful thrust of his manhood I pulled further away from the shores of consciousness — Chance: Bells rang.

Tracy: Trains roared.

Chance: Buildings fell.

38

Joel Beard

Tracy: Rivers overflowed.

Chance: And suns set. I haven't had sex like that in a long time.

Tracy: I don't know about the bells and the trains part.

Chance: So where do I stand?

Tracy: You look great where you are.

Chance: That's not what I mean.

Tracy: The light's very — {Chance kisses him) Chance: Can I stay?

Tracy: No. Chance: Why not?

Tracy: Not yet.

Chance: I want to stay, Tracy.

Tracy: I can't — Chance: I'm going then.

Tracy: I'm trying.

Chance: Are you?

Tracy: I am trying.

SCENE SIX (Lights up on Chance, alone) Chance: Can I stay? No. It's okay, don't feel bad. I'm sorry. Hey, I'm sorry too. Call me tomorrow? Maybe. I don't know. Fuck — what am I, Godzilla? Who fucking needs it? All I want is to get laid, right? And this fucking twerp keeps pushing me away, holding me at arm's length. He's not a twerp, Chance. No, you're right. He's definitely not a twerp. He's fucking crazy is what he is. Or you are.

One kiss—count your blessings. What is this, high school? You want to get laid? So go to a bar, pick someone up, let them pick you up. Michael was the pro, now it's your turn. Here we go, take a deep breath. You walk in, a few heads turn and look at you. Am I attractive, am I alright? Do I pass the test? Doesn't anyone want to talk to me? Hey, I don't want to talk, I just want to suck your cock. See you on your knees, get my rocks off. What were you expecting — 39

QUARTO true love? We're all here for the same thing, right? Next. Howdy stranger. New in town? Is this guy for real? I . . . I . . . I . . . Hey, don't talk—it ruins the effect. You want a beer? You're back at his place, one room in a hotel, yellow walls, it overlooks the park. Real class.

You stand at the window, looking out at the lights. I've never done this before. What —never had sex? He grips you by the shoulders, kisses you hard. Your mouth feels raw when he stops. He backs away, pleased with himself, sits down on the narrow bed to take off his boots. Boots? Oh god, Chance, you're the fucking crazy one.

I've never done this before. So what? I should be tender with you?

Yes. Be tender, love me. Stay with me till morning. Count me out buddy, you've got the wrong guy. Where's my belt, where's the door? Next.

(Michael enters, watches him) Tracy? No. What do you want, Chance? What I want is not to be here. What I want is a shower, steaming hot water on my face, my back, my shoulders. What I want is his hands on me, caressing me.

Get over it Chance. Go to a bar, pick someone up, let him pick you up, some tall dark stranger with brooding eyes. Go home to my house, go to his house, take off our clothes, fall on top of each other, feign passion, come, roll over—and wonder what you're doing there. Always wondering what you're doing there. Always wondering why you're no longer here.

Michael: (standing close behind him) You have to stop it Chance, you're making yourself crazy.

Chance: I can't — Michael: It's going to be alright.

Chance: Sometimes it's like I can't stop it.

Michael: You can stop it.

Chance: I think about you all the time.

Michael: It will be alright.

Chance: I keep having this dream—you're in this cell. You have to live by yourself. There's no windows, just a heavy iron door that opens onto the street. It's night, and the streetlights are on. When I pull open the door, you're lying there on a cot with a scarf around your neck and a jacket on. It's cold. You don't have any heat and I 40

Joel Beard

want to bring you a radiator, one of those portable ones like Gran had with the coils that heat up red — Michael: I feel fine. I'm not cold.

Chance: (turning around, confronting him) Isn't there anything I can do?

Michael: I don't feel sick, really I don't.

Chance: I brought you this —I didn't know if you had anything to read.

Michael: Thanks.

Chance: They got the lecithin in at the health food store. I checked.

Do you want to go out?

Michael: I was about to.

Chance: I'll come.

Michael: Fine.

Chance: Aren't you scared?

Michael: O f - ?

Chance: Dying.

Michael: No. Chance: That's what you said —that you weren't scared.

Michael: It's not exactly something that hasn't been done before.

Chance: Only not by you.

Michael: True.

Chance: Michael.

Michael: Chance?

Chance: These people?

Michael: What people?

Chance: People that I've been with, people that I've loved—when they're gone — Michael: You still carry them around inside, part of you.

Chance: I wondered.

Michael: And then every once in a while they come out.

41

QUARTO Chance: Reveal themselves.

Michael: Sort of.

Chance: Old conversations.

Michael: Or ones you never got around to having.

Chance: You can have them now.

Michael: Or else imagine they're part of the air, watching you — Chance: After they're— Michael: Yes. Chance: Like angels.

Michael: Maybe. I don't know about angels.

Chance: Angels have wings.

Michael: And they wear long dresses and funny little round hats that just sort of hang in the air over their heads. Like magic.

Chance: Is that only with me? It's what I was trying to tell him. But I don't think he understood.

Michael: Give him time.

Chance: He wants me too, I know he does. I'm not making it up.

Michael: A little invention — Chance: But then he just wipes everything out, like none of it counts.

Michael: Don't be so dramatic.

Chance: So what should I do?

Michael: It's complicated.

Chance: No kidding. He keeps pushing me away—back, back, get back. What am I supposed to do now?

Michael: You'll figure something out.

Chance: What?

Michael: (backing away) Take a deep breath.

Chance: Take a deep breath.

Michael: And another one.

I

(Lights out. Michael exits.)

42

;

Joel Beard

SCENE SEVEN (Tracy's apartment - Tracy and Chance are continuing a conversation) Chance: I was never a gardener. Until Michael asked me if I wanted to work with him, help him out. It was Michael's job first. I sold the truck when he got so sick. I never learned to drive a stick anyway.

Tracy: I figured it out. You're attracted to me because you think of me as sick.

Chance: What are you — ?

Tracy: I'm not a terminal case, Chance. I have a disability. It's a permanent feature, but it doesn't mean I'm going to die.

Chance: Damn! Do you think I wanted him to die?

Tracy: No, I don't think that. Of course I don't think that.

Chance: I loved him.

Tracy: I know.

Chance: So why won't you let me love you?

Tracy: It's not me you love.

Chance: Jesus, don't say that.

Tracy: Don't cry— Chance: Fuck you. I'll cry if I want to.

Tracy: Come here.

Chance: Come here? I don't get you, Tracy. I don't get you at all.

Tracy: I'm scared. You said it.

Chance: Because of what? Because of Mat? I'm not Mat, don't you see?

Tracy: And I'm not Michael.

Chance: So where does that leave us?

Tracy: A couple of strangers — Chance: The possibilities, Tracy— Tracy: It's the possibilities I'm afraid of.

Chance: And what I long for.

Tracy: Not to be alone?

Chance: A little comfort. I might be able to do that for you too, you 43

QUARTO know. If you'd let me. Don't rule it out.

Tracy: I don't.

Chance: Can't we get past it—all the old stuff? Is it because you still miss him?

Tracy: Of course I still miss him. I wake up sometimes, think I hear him coming home.

Chance: I'll be Mat. Tracy: This is a game?

Chance: Sure. Sort of. Start —you're half asleep and I'm just coming home.

Tracy: What are the rules?

Chance: We'll make them up. What do I do?

Tracy: What do you mean?

Chance: Like work. What do I do?

Tracy: Oh. Lectures —you give lectures. On medieval stained glass.

Leaded rondels.

Chance: Whatever those are.

Tracy: They're round.

Chance: Right. So I walk in— Tracy: Hello? Mat? Chance: I woke you.

Tracy: It's alright. I wasn't asleep.

Chance: You should be. It's late.

Tracy: How was the lecture?

Chance: You didn't miss anything. Except another bunch of dull people.

Tracy: A dull subject.

Chance: What's that?

Tracy: Never mind. I was just imagining you all in evening clothes —you in your shiny patent leather shoes.

Chance: You're talking in your sleep.

44

Joel Beard

Tracy: That's what he'd say.

Chance: Keep going. What about the shoes?

Tracy: Your dancing shoes. Twirling the Duchess. The faded glory.

The tacky elegance.

Chance: You have to start going out more.

Tracy: Why—so the bums on the corner can make witty comments about my mean machine, my courageous chariot? I can order in.

Chance: You need the fresh air.

Tracy: I can open a window.

Chance: And the exercise.

Tracy: I do headstands.

Chance: You have an answer for everything.

Tracy: You always fold your clothes so neatly.

Chance: I do?

Tracy: It's almost frightening how perfect the corners are, how flat the shirt fronts. How old were you when you perfected the air fold?

That's what I really admire, Mat. Chance: Move over.

Tracy: Aren't you going to brush your teeth?

Chance: No. I'm too tired.

Tracy: In a world of perfect lovers, everyone's mouth is like a field of wild spearmint, gently blowing in the breeze.

Chance: I think there's a not-so-gentle breeze blowing through your brain.

Tracy: Kiss me. Make my heart dance.

Chance: I don't feel like it.

Tracy: I just said I wanted a kiss. I didn't say you had to ravish my body and perform perfect and convincing acts of passion.

Chance: There.

Tracy: Thanks. You're a prince.

Chance: Now I'm sleepy.

45

QUARTO Tracy: I'm not.

Chance: So watch television.

Tracy: I called the observatory today.

Chance: Mmm. Tracy: They're going to give me a home computer. They'll have the photos delivered and I can log all the data in here at home. Mat, I'll be the Annie Jump Canon of my generation.

Chance: Who? Tracy: She made the file drawers at Harvard that everyone used to use. She charted two million stars or something. Analyzed the spectra, wrote it down. Probably went blind doing it. I know she went deaf.

(Chance stops pretending he is Mat and stands looking at Tracy as Tracy continues.)

She used to give egg-rolling contests for the children every Easter.

At her cottage at the foot of Observatory Hill. Star Cottage. Little kids in their Sunday best, pushing dyed eggs across the lawn with silver teaspoons. Isn't that something? Don't answer. I'm all alone out here, whirling through space at 36,000 miles an hour. If I concentrate, I can feel the motion, the magnetic force where it meets the solar wind. Annie's mother used to take her up in the attic and point out the stars. There's Betelgeuse, and that purple swirl over there —that's the Orion nebula, remnants of a catastrophic explosion. A gas cloud expanding out into space —where all matter comes from—the center of an exploding star. Only they didn't know that then. I'll have a job, Matty. You see, I did take action. Just like you wanted. I'll be really useful again, not just a paraplegic in a wheelchair. I'll get a paycheck twice a month, I can get off Social Security, I can tell them to keep their measly $346. Isn't that great, Matty? I'm going to have a job. Isn't that something else? To the stars, Matty. To the stars.

(Chance locks the brakes, picks Tracy up in his arms, they kiss) Tracy: This is it?

Chance: This is it.

Tracy: You might not like what you see.

Chance: Never crossed my mind. You don't think I'm scared too?

46

Joel Beard

{Chance lays Tracy down on the couch, starts to undress him) Tracy: You don't seem to be scared of much.

Chance: Sure I'm scared.

Tracy: Of what?

Chance: That you won't want to make love with me because of Michael.

Tracy: I've had my major virus.

Chance: That hardly means you're immune to this one. We still have to be careful.

Tracy: We'll be careful.

Chance: Nothing foolish.

Tracy: Nothing rash. You're crushing my leg.

Chance: Oh God, did I hurt you?

Tracy: No—you have to be careful, that's all.

Chance: I'll be careful.

Tracy: Not too careful.

Chance: A little rough.

Tracy: Things may take a bit longer with me.

Chance: I have no pressing engagements. No lawns to mow.

Tracy: What I meant was, I can't get around the bed so quickly, that's all.

Chance: What I meant was—there's no rush.

Tracy: Gymnastics are not my forte.

Chance: You just need a good partner.

Tracy: Someone to dance with?

Chance: Absolutely.

Tracy: Can we turn the lights off?

Chance: No. I like what I see.

Tracy: What happens next? What happens now?

Chance: (taking off Tracy's shirt) Lift. Turn. Arms up. Slowly. And lights.

(Blackout-end ACT ONE) 47

Richard Paul Schmonsees

Force Field

Ashen cows spill out of the red barn into the green field. So green, it seems to be smoking far off from the illuminating heat rising from it. The old farm house sits in its valley as if rocking on a calm sea.

The people in that house are doomed.

We secretly sense this, my brother and I, as we walk up the dirt road to the decaying gate. My name is Axel, my brother's name is Lost. He was adopted, and they misplaced the records. He changes his name every other day. Today he calls himself Broken Reed. But we are not children any longer, either of us.

My father says, nobody is a child anymore. Our hands and clothes are dirty. We look down at them, then at each other. We do not laugh. Christ never laughed, our father told us. Never once in the Bible did he laugh. Our hearts, we figure, hang down from the white bone of the moon, like a heavy matter, since we heard that.

We are silent and sick.

My brother takes one of his thick black boots off and picks up some horse dung, and fills his boot with it. I don't ask why. My brother doesn't talk to me —to anyone. He sets it by the red fence.

We know in ourselves the unspoken tragedy.

He begins taking his clothes off. Stands there, naked, like a white shiny stick. He's crying, but no sound is coming out of him. I stare at Broken Reed.

There is a woman looking out the window of the house. She is shooing us away with what looks like a shotgun. I am dumb and stare, for this field is not theirs. It belongs to no one.

48

Richard Paul Schmonsees

My little naked brother is shivering, even though the road is baking from the heat. She is aiming the shotgun at his fragile chest.

She fires, and I can see my little brother shake, and he starts to relieve himself standing there. But the gunshot hits a cow—a black cow, who kneels as if praying, and then collapses on its side, its eyes still open.

I want to run. Maybe my spirit is running, but I do not. I'm as still as a statue, barely breathing. My brother has stopped crying, and his mouth is open. He is staring at the black cow, his bare feet red like potatoes.

The woman is crying, sobbing. I can hear her. She has already run to the cow, and is bent over it, running a loving hand over the wound —the wound like a black eye.

But I hear something else. In the house. It draws me to it. I walk across the field toward the farm house, leaving my little naked brother shivering, crying again.

In the red glow of the window is the husband. He is carving up their favorite child on their best china. He is wearing a pilgrim's hat and the baby seems to be screaming silently. The house seems to be rocking slightly like a ship at sea.

I run back across the field to my brother, who is trying to put his dung-filled boot on. I turn. The woman is still pressing a hand to the thick hide of the cow. The cow is murmuring softly through a black pool of blood in its mouth.

The old woman is now staring up at us. She is gesturing to us gently to come forward. My brother is shaking, violently now; and now I too am crying.

She points to the red glow of the window where I saw them, and gestures to us. Then she salutes us while kneeling, stands, goes back across the field to the red glow, disappears.

I turn and look at my brother. I put two tiny hands on his shaking frame to calm him. Finally he is still. His breathing still. His eyes, on fire, igniting mine. His hand, tiny, on my heart.

We look deeply into each other's ancient eyes. We know. We cannot come home again.

49

Aimee Imundo

Letters From the Dead

Letters from the Dead are delivered to the backs of drawers bottoms of boxes corners of bookshelves are tied with strips of ribbons are folded over and over are slowly drying yellow They wish you a happy birthday want you to be their Valentine are having a wonderful vacation hope you're feeling better The letters come every few months always the same words always you want to write back.

50

Frances Snowder

What Are You Waiting For?

O n e ordinary day, when I was eleven, I went into the big pink bathroom my mother and I shared and came out with my panties to show her the little rusty brown stain on them.

"It's started," I said, knowing full well that this was men-stru-ashun which I had been prepared for by the school health teacher as well as the Girl Scouts. Our Scout troop had gone to an exclusive girls' viewing of a program: "Growing Up." We had seen colored slides of eggs traveling down fallopian tubes and red linings being sloughed off on a monthly basis. The adult women who showed us these films gave us literature and were so reassuring and so full of mission, it made us all giggle. They were telling us having periods was natural but they were making an unnaturally big deal about it.

The rust stain was rather a disappointment after all my preparation for gore.

My mother, very businesslike, gave me a little elastic belt with clips on it and a thick cotton pad and showed me how to strap this awkward saddle on. She didn't give me any lecture about becoming a woman or having babies like I'd heard some mothers did. She just seemed sad and I think, to her, this was just another unwelcome sign that I was growing up and away from her.

The pad felt strange. My chubby thighs were already so close together that I sometimes got heat rash bumps from their chafing.

Now this rectangular wedge twisted from side to side as I walked. It was uncomfortable in a skirt but a new concern arose when I wore 51

QUARTO

my new turquoise capri pants to the Girl Scout outing at the roller rink. Maybe it could be seen.

At the rink, I held my bongo-drum purse in front of me and kept my rear to the wall. I read all the messages friends had scribbled on the drum-head over and over and beat a little tattoo.

"Aren't you going to skate, Teresa?" Sally Anne asked.

"I'm just going to watch for awhile," I said smiling foolishly at her. For English class last week, our assignment had been to describe a person and Sally Anne was the person I'd chosen. My piece was not as distinguished as I had thought it would be for all the love I'd had for the subject. Mrs. Selden of the blue George Washington hair said in front of the class that I could do better and asked me who it was that had long brown hair and "cow" brown eyes and I had to squeak, "Sally Anne," and get laughed at.

I watched Sally Anne rumble gracefully around on the polished boards holding hands with Marilyn. Her eyes were cow but her movements were all swan. The angora sweater with the poodle on it attested to her taste and cultivation. As I watched I fantasized that she would run away with me and we would live in a cave and that isolation together would constitute marriage.

"Put your skates on, Teresa," Mrs. Hungerford directed. "What are you waiting for? Get out there with the other girls."

I didn't want to tell her I was in my period so I took a long time lacing the skates and then clung onto the railing. The lace-up white skates were beautiful, even though they smelled used inside. I had learned to skate on the metal shoe-clamp kind with the adjustment key worn on a string like a necklace. Although I'd never been very good at skating, I liked the feel of my weight slowly grinding metal over nubby concrete. The ruts in even new-laid sidewalk were treacherous on gentle down-hill slopes so I had tied pillows on my front and back to minimize bruises, although they did nothing for skinned hands and knees.

Sally Anne and Marilyn swung by on the end of a chain of skaters and Sally Anne held her hand out to me. I clasped it and let loose of the railing, bending over and jerking up until I was rolling along beside her too rapidly to enjoy the fact that we were holding hands.

I looked up and saw that I was speeding into the path of another flailing new skater and somebody was expected to yield. The headon collision left me sitting on one skate, thankful for the little well52

Frances Snowder

placed pillow.

Marilyn and Sally Anne laughed, about to fall down themselves, as they skated back to help me up and then left me in the middle of the floor as they rejoined the chain on its second circling. I tried mince-walking, lifting the skates up and putting them down as I had done successfully with my metal skates on grass, and ended up on the floor again watching the big black rubber wheels spin.

If any Scouts noticed the pad-shaped bulge at my crotch or the V-shaped cut of elastic before and behind, nobody teased about it.

After that, menstruation meant no more than a regular monthly inconvenience until camp the following summer.

Although I would have prefered to be buddies with Holly, Ginny was the best I could do since Holly was already spoken for. Ginny was a skinny kid with very thin blonde hair, lively and not unpopular but not my type either. She and I shared a heavy canvas tent with roof poles that slid down frequently and wooden tent stakes that were forever needing to be pried out of the mud and re-angled to take up the belly from the collapsing roof-walls. We had a raft floor under us and lumbering saggy cots to sleep in. those of us who didn't have sleeping bags learned how to fold blankets and sheets together over a pillow in such a way that they could be jelly-rolled and tied at each end with belts for carrying. Only a fastidious kid could have done it properly and I wasn't. I couldn't even remember the complicated instructions for tying various knots although I could recognize a "granny" or a "half-hitch" when I saw a good effective one. My bed roll got twisted up, gapped and let in the cold air. To make matters worse, ants got into my bag of mint candy under the cot —and I started my period. My mother had foreseen the circumstance and provided me with a full box of Kotex.

We were at Camp Tiak near Wilburton, Oklahoma, thirty miles from home for two whole weeks. I wrote complaining postcards, not because I was homesick this first time away, but because so much independence and usefulness was expected of me —new expectations set against my sheltered passivity. At Tiak, they enlisted us to wash dishes, something I had never done before. When I said I didn't know how to do it, nobody believed me.

We hiked six miles one day in the sweltering heat singing comforting things like, "There's a long, long nail awinding into the sole of my shoe" and "Glug, glug said the little green frog one day." My 53

QUARTO canteen empty and slapping against my shorts, I did my best not to shame Ginny by making us the last campers in line, but I was shortwinded, unused to physical exercise. I did well to keep up.

Having the period was lucky in the sense that I could get out of swimming lessons. I knew how to dog paddle some and wasn't afraid of water. The problem was that each year I got classified as "Beginner" because swimming in a froggish way did not please the counselors who preferred the precise motions of the side stroke, the Back Stroke, and the ultimate egg-beater coordination of The American Crawl.

Not even being moderately athletic at camp, however, had its penalties. Ginny found another buddy. About a week into our ordeal, she got friendly with a girl from Alva and when I shivered alone in my unmade bed roll waiting for the light of dawn, they doubled up together on Ginny's cot, maximizing body heat and solidifying their friendship.

At least I wasn't the camp weirdo. That honor went to a boyish tough named Susan Sturgeon. Ginny and her new friend speculated that Susan S. slept with her boots on. I was curious, but not bold enough to look into her tent.

Sally Anne wasn't at the camp. She'd gone on vacation to Colorado with her parents, but I didn't miss her too much because her place in my fantasies had been usurped by an older woman, a counselor named Teresa. And now that I was actually out in wilderness with lakes, pine trees and mountains and caves all around, my fantasies about the counselor took refuge in suburban houses like mine at home with dish washers, indoor plumbing, and feather beds.

Unfortunately, the counselor of my dreams didn't know I existed even though I'd told her coyly I'd never forget her name as she paused in chopping down a sapling so I could snap a treasured photo of her with my Brownie Instamatic.

During swimming lessons, I would sit with three other girls on the sidelines and watch Counselor Teresa demonstrate the advanced strokes with great skill and strength. Her face looked Swedish; she had deep dimples and a pixieish face, pretty even when her blonde hair was neatly tucked up into a hideous rubber swimming cap. Her lovely breasts bobbed in the water, her shapely legs and feet climbed out. Why she shared a beach towel with a very hairy old counselor I couldn't figure. I glared at the shameless nests that grew under 54

Frances Snowder

Bobbi's muscular arms, the black streaks of it on her legs and big toes, the most awful part, the pubic hair coiling down beyond the leg holes of her suit. I shuddered to think that this was part of the woman hormonal thing along with the period and budding breasts and other indignities of puberty.

Teresa was very chummy with this counselor, Bobbi, and they often disappeared into a cabin during the afternoon to take a nap together. They were also the ones who lead us to do our share of latrine duty for the camp.

Everybody hated latrine duty, had never done it, and grumbled about it. It was bad enough to put a clothespin on your nose and just go into that big tent to pee, sit down exposed on a wooden seat over a hole, one of twenty such holes. I tried to go when no one else was there.

When we arrived for duty, the tent and seat platform had been removed and our job was to shovel dirt into the foul trenches and dig new ones. The digging took all afternoon. I sweated out my T-shirt and I could smell the hair-oil over the residue in my newly permed hair. Just as the counselors were ordering their helpers and getting the tent staked back up again, I needed to go to the bathroom so badly I couldn't wait any longer. We had been told not to go out into the woods because of poison ivy among other things, but I risked it anyway. It was dusk so I just crept off the path a little into a brushy wood-shaded area and squatted. Afterwards, I took off my soiled Kotex and buried it underneath some leaves. Perhaps in my hurry I'd failed to unhook it from the belt in the back and it got caught up under my jacket.

Anyway, I returned to the latrine just as it began to rain. The counselors, who had been listening to storm warnings on the radio, now told us to get our bedrolls and belongings and take them to the cabin barracks where the younger girls stayed.

I was so glad we were going to be inside, I didn't bother with my poncho and got sopping wet. I brought all my stuff in a pile and claimed a lower bunk with it. But after I had dropped my blanket on the bed, one of the little girls started screaming and pointing to something. As unathletic as I was, I managed to vault myself up to a top bunk thinking it must be a mouse or tarantula.

There, in the middle of the cabin was a bloody Kotex. Teresa and Bobbi rushed in.

55

QUARTO "All right, all right, what's all this about?" Bobbi demanded. She stood over the Kotex. "Who did this?"

"Come forward right now!"

Counselor Teresa shook her head.

I wasn't about to admit to dragging a Kotex inside for the whole cabin to see 窶馬ot to Bobbi and certainly not to Teresa. They rounded up all four of us menstruating girls. We got scolded about what one of us had meant scaring the little girls that way who didn't yet know about these things. We all hung our heads over our shame in being singled out as menstruators and each denied she had done it. I didn't like lying, but they couldn't nail me without a confession even if they suspected, so I played innocent and felt justified in doing so since Bobbi insisted on putting an evil construction on a careless mistake.

That night in my lower bunk, I mumbled, "Mama, Mama," plaintively, pretending to be sleep-talking so that some motherly little girl might come to comfort me. But, instead, a gruff voice from the bunk above me yelled, "Shut up!" so loudly that I did and cried silently into my hair-oil smelling pillow, not without noticing the boots of Susan Sturgeon lying next to my bed.

I don't know why after my camping experience I wanted to have a slumber party for my birthday. I guess it was because I wanted to spend the night with Sally Anne who looked even better to me when I returned from camp.

She came to my party and so did Ginny and Holly and Marilyn and three other girlfriends who weren't in my Scout troop. Marilyn brought a wonderful doll with her called Jonesie. It was a delicatefeatured doll with the softest most squeezable rubber body I'd ever felt. As I was engaged in Bible study in preparation for baptism into the Christian Church, I knew that I "coveted" Jonesie and tried to put its sensuous flesh out of my mind. I consoled myself by arranging my bed roll next to Sally Anne's, even though I had to move the piano stool and sleep under the piano to do it.

After the scary stories and popcorn, some of the girls fell asleep and Sally Anne started to doze, too, even though I was wide awake.

I watched her breathe for awhile and then I crawled over and kissed her on the mouth. She immediately started up and asked me what I was doing and that woke some of the other girls who asked each other what had happened and woke everybody up, including my 56

Frances Snowder

mother. My mother came in and said she was going to separate us so that she could get some sleep. Since it was my birthday I got to choose who I would have in my bedroom with me so I picked Sally Anne who didn't protest in front of my mother.

When we were lying side by side in my bed, I thanked the little alabaster angels above the headboard for such good luck. Then I began telling Sally Anne the long story of my loves beginning with the blonde boy, Joel, from second grade, through my crush on Counselor Teresa, leaving the best part for last. "Now," I announced in the confidence that I had crossed the physical border between puppy love and true love, "I love you." Her arm was lying along her side on top of the coverlet. I lay my arm beside it and tried to hold her hand but she slipped her hand out, turned over and went to sleep. I consoled myself with reading the New Testament with my flashlight as I had learned to do at camp.

The next morning after the Happy Birthday song at breakfast, just as I was about to blow out the 12 candles on my cake, Sally Anne complained, "Teresa kissed me last night." I gasped with everybody else.

My mother, totally oblivious to the import of Sally Anne's remark, said, "What are you waiting for, Teresa? Blow out the candles."

57

Andrew W. Marlowe

Impression on Sunset

There is nothing more pleasing than evening pouring all over the face of St. John the Divine.

58

Alice Schecter Grunfeld

Grandma's Rings

Whenever I can I go visit Grandma at the hotel. I don't know why they call it that, hardly anyone checks in and out, just in. As my dad says, you check out in a box. Anyway Grandma would rather be in her own place, but she can't anymore, she kept her own apartment until only a few months ago and it just wasn't working. The place kept getting dirtier, even though she cleaned it every day. My mom and Aunt Ruthie started worrying about her using the stove and taking baths and things like that. And except for Mrs. Reitman next door, who was bedridden to begin with, Grandma had no one; she was alone so much that she began losing track of time. She can't walk that well so she couldn't go out, not from a third floor walkup. She would sit by the kitchen window and watch whatever came by. I'd go over there and it would be eerie, knowing I was the first person she'd seen up close for two or three days. And it made leaving very hard. My mom and my Aunt Ruthie were feeling even more guilty, they're her daughters after all, I'm just a granddaughter.

Though in a lot of ways I'm better than a daughter. I have no axe to grind, so I can be a lot kinder.

Still, even though it was necessary for Grandma to give up her apartment, it wasn't easy getting her to do it. My mom and Ruthie brought her to the hotel for a trial stay. Every time we visited her, she looked happy. She had people to talk to, she could play Bingo, they had entertainment, she put on weight so she was obviously eating even though she said the food had no taste. But she would 59

QUARTO

pull me aside and whisper "They're all old people here," as if the whole thing was some kind of mistake. My grandmother is ninetyone; she's calling other people old, I know it sounds funny. But she had never thought of herself that way before.

At the end of two weeks she wanted to go home. Ruthie and my mother were exasperated with her. They kept arguing about how the place was so clean; how there was so much to do there; how it was so cheerful (which it was in a way, bright colors, a lot of smiling from the staff). They kept emphasizing how it wasn't a nursing home, you didn't see sick people. They didn't even let sick people stay. But nothing worked. I think what Grandma really wanted was for one of them to take her to live at home; if she couldn't have that, she would rather do for herself. And she really couldn't have that. It just wouldn't have worked, I know it.

It was when Mrs. Reitman died that she changed her mind. She used to knock on Mrs. Reitman's door every other day or so, just to check on her, to see what she needed. Sometimes I called her and she'd say, "Mamaleh, you'll bring me maybe a container of milk and a pumpernickle? And for Mrs. Reitman bring a half pint sour cream," or something like that. One day she rang the bell and Mrs. Reitman's daughter answered, and told her Mrs. Reitman had died.

Grandma always has a mixed reaction when people her age die.

She's sad, of course, and probably scared for herself; naturally she would be. But she's always just a little smug about it, as if people who die somehow bring it upon themselves. This was different. The next time I went over there she told me she had decided to move to the hotel. If she liked it, she would stay. "Hey, Gram," I said, "that's great. What made you decide?" I wasn't expecting a real answer, I guess because with Grandma, she doesn't see any point in talking about certain things, not even in thinking about them, it's just the way things are. It's like you wouldn't ask, "Were you happy with your husband?" because there isn't a thing she would have done differently if the answer had been "no." So I was surprised when she let down her guard. "It's true I'm an old woman," she said, as if it was a secret between us, "but I'm not afraid to live alone." Tears began to fill her pale eyes. She dug in her pocket for a crumpled handkerchief she always carries. "And I'm not afraid to die, mamaleh, believe me. But I'm afraid to die alone." I put my hand over hers to pat it, but instead she gripped me, hard. "I want you to have my rings, 60

Alice Schecter Grunfeld

mamaleh, the engagement ring and the wedding band. Someday you should only have a granddaughter like your grandma has." She turned my hand over and slipped her rings off, placing them in my palm and folding my fingers around them. It made me cry. "I can't take these, now, Grandma," I said, "You still have a long time to wear them." But she covered my hand tightly with hers, gave her head one firm nod, and said, "Shah."

My mom and Ruthie were overjoyed to hear Grandma's decision, maybe a little miffed because they thought that I had convinced her, when they couldn't. My mother also asked me to let her give the rings to Ruthie, it was Ruthie who had done the most for Grandma over the years, she said, taking care of her accounts, doing most of her shopping, Grandma had even lived with Ruthie for awhile after my grandfather had died. She said Ruthie would will the rings to me eventually, anyway, since I had always been one of her favorites.

She also said they weren't worth very much; the diamond in the engagement ring was cracked, she thought I should know, in case I was thinking of selling them. I felt a little angry at that, I hadn't given a thought to selling the rings, their only worth to me was that they had been Grandma's. But I could hear that my mom was asking me to smooth out something between her and Ruthie that must have gotten ruffled; and I thought I didn't care very much either way. So I said okay.

As hard as it had been to get Grandma to move, that's how easily she adjusted herself to it. She never looked back. She insisted on bringing only her clothing with her. Everything else, the belongings of a lifetime, she left for anyone who wanted them. My cousin Danny took the furniture, my Uncle Harry and his wife came looking for a lamp they remembered (we never found it). My sister asked for the silver hairbrush and mirror that had lain on Grandma's dresser for as long as anyone could remember. I took three little pictures that had hung in the bathroom, scenes of people working in fields; women in long black skirts, men in rough clothing and brown hats, children with serious faces. All the time I was growing up I had thought of them as pictures of Grandma's village in Europe. Once I was grown I realized that that was impossible, they were cheap prints of some popular paintings and had nothing to do with Grandma.

Still, they were the only things I wanted, and of course no one 61

QUARTO complained. But Grandma wouldn't take along so much as a picture frame, literally. If someone gave her a current photo of a greatgrandchild, she stuck it in the rim of the hotel mirror. It was as if she had no past. At first my mom and Ruthie suspected she was being difficult, punishing them for sending her there, by depriving herself of the things that had always given her pleasure. But I couldn't see it. I couldn't find any false note in Grandma's new life. It seemed to me that she had just made up her mind. She thought the food was a little boring, but on the other hand there was a lot of it. Sometimes the entertainers were third-rate, but it was still nice to hear a song from the Yiddish theater. And she loved her roommate, really loved her. She was an Italian woman, soft-spoken and neat, who had trouble remembering things. Grandma took care of her. She saw that she got to meals on time, helped her find the things she was always losing. And no matter how many times Grandma would meet her throughout the day, even if only a few minutes had passed, Grandma would say to her, "Hello, it's me, your roommate Mrs. Gallant," and spare her the shame of having to ask outright who she was.

So everything more or less settled down to everyone's satisfaction. Now it's a relief to know Grandma is somewhere safe and cared for, not sitting alone in a grimy apartment waiting for the phone or doorbell to ring. But there's a price. I can never leave the hotel without feeling uneasy one way or another—mostly sad, but sometimes angry for reasons it's hard to get straight; small annoyances that add up. For example, I'll walk in and check the patio or the various lounges and dayrooms where people are dozing or watching TV. If I can't find Grandma I have to go to the front desk, and the woman —who is usually nice enough—calls up to Grandma's room, and shouts into the phone, "Jennie, open the door, you have a visitor," and hangs up. There's something about the shouting, and the hanging up without waiting for an answer; and the too-famliar "Jennie" to address by grandmother, who had greeted even her best friend and neighbor of so many years with a respectful "Mrs. Reitman."

And the colors in the place; they never let up. Each floor is colorcoordinated, and everything on it matches. I understand how it would help the older people get a good fix on where they're supposed to go. But one floor is royal blue, and the corridors are lined with 62

Alice Schechter Grunfeld

vivid, textured paintings of royal blue flowers and royal blue sailboats, and the carpets are royal blue, and the couches, and drapes. And the next floor is sunshine yellow, same flowers, same sailboats. And in the main dayroom there's a big bulletin board with slots for changing the message, and it says "Today is Saturday, the date is April 3rd, the season is Spring" and has pictures of lambs and baby chicks, even though it's already October 17th. And I can never keep from wondering why they have to make so many decisions for everybody all the time; why if you want to make something it has to be a tile ashtray, or if you want to sew it has to be a poodle with pom-pom ears; why they can't set up a kitchen for people to bake in, or sewing machines, or a woodshop or a real library with newspapers.

I know, people would say I'm being so picky, that it's a good setup and nothing to complain about. I'd have to agree with that. I'm not such a big-shot; do you think I could take Grandma to live with me? Let me tell you, I couldn't. It's a little like the dog that I've been passing every day on my way to work. It's dead —a black dog, not too big, short-haired. It's on the edge of the outside lane on the Prospect Expressway, up against the rail. I noticed it one day, and felt a stab of pity; not like pain or horror or anything overwhelming, just that melancholy regret that we live in such a fast moving world, one that's not going to stop to let a dog cross the road. Do you know how long it's been there? Five days now. This morning I didn't feel pity or regret. I just thought, "When are they going to pick up that dog?" and wished that whosever job it is to take care of things like that would take care of it, and that it would be gone by tomorrow morning.

This afternoon I went to visit Grandma. Just as I was saying good-bye she put her arm through mine and pulled me close to her.

"Mamaleh," she said, "Your mother was here, she told me you don't want the rings, you said I should give them to Ruthie. It's true, what do you need them for, old rings?" She held up a hand as if to silence any possible argument. "I'm giving you the cash instead."

On the way home I thought, "I'm going to kill my mother." But instead I just called her, and said, "Mom? You know Grandma's rings? I want them back. Grandma gave them to me."

She said okay.

63

Claudia Rattazzi

A View from the Train

livery morning I ride the railroad. I have a monthly pass, so I don't have to wait in line to buy a ticket. Usually, I get to the station early.

Sometimes I buy fresh-squeezed orange juice at the stand right by Track 17. They also sell little plastic bags of assorted vitamin pills, and rolls of vitamin C like Lifesavers. Some people live off those things and they try to tell you pills are healthier than food. The air on the train makes me thirsty, and I sip my juice all the way to the end of the line.

That's my stop—the last one — so I don't have to worry about falling asleep. I always sit on the right side of the train, facing forward, even though I usually have to wait until the train starts to be sure which way it's going. I know by heart the buildings we pass, and the streets we go over, so that when I see something new I have to wonder if it appeared overnight or if I just hadn't noticed it till then.

I used to like the afternoon view best, because north of the tracks is the water; and the sailboats float on the reflection of the clouds; and big flocks of black birds move all together over the grassy marshes. When the train has almost reached the city, there is a low and graceful building where they used to make perfume. It's right by a taxi factory and next to the train tracks, but I'd still like to live there. My mother wants me to go live with her, but I'd rather just ride the train out every day.

Now I prefer the morning ride, where there is no Sound, only brown puddles and burnt, tipped-over cars. There are also a lot of 64

Claudia Rattazzi

cars in people's backyards — sometimes ten cars, all the same model, in one yard. I guess they try to make one car that works from a bunch of dead ones, shuffling their insides around. Or maybe they just collect them. There are also a lot of body shops and collision specialists. And at one point, through the trees, you can see a big rock with SLUT written on it in orange print.

When the sky gets gray it sometimes looks like the train is passing through a foreign country. All the houses look like their windows are made of pearl, and the birds seem to fly more slowly.

When I look at Mother, now, I feel all the love in my stomach trying to rip its way free. She's started talking about the strangest things, like when I was a baby and I used to cry at the same time every afternoon. It's funny, it's happening again; every day, on the way home, in the train.

The airport's just a couple of miles north, so the planes fly low and heavy in the air around the train. Sometimes they fly alongside, slowing down to keep me company, but sometimes they tear overhead and I can only see their pale bellies. And sometimes, when they're far away, they seem to be on fire. The best thing about the planes, though, is the silence with which they pass. Looking out the window is like watching a movie without sound, except this movie doesn't have a plot. Sometimes I make one up.

Yesterday, in the train station, I saw a woman who reminded me of Mother, but she just kept walking even when I said hello. I wish she had stopped and taken my hand and come to ride the train with me. My mother doesn't like to ride the train, now, but I remember when she used to take it every day. In the winter she would get up when it was still dark, and we would have breakfast together in the kitchen with the light on and the rest of the world asleep. Then she would go to work and I would watch cartoons until the school bus came. Now I'm the one riding the train, but I'm going the other way, and I'm not going to work.

"You don't look like you're feeling too well. Is everything alright?"

"I'm a little bit dizzy, but I'll be fine in an hour or two." When she says that, it means she wants you to leave, so you go to the livingroom and pick up the paper.

"I'm tired, darling, it hasn't been a good day." This means she's hungry, so you fix her buttered white toast and weak tea with milk, 65

QUARTO which is all she likes when she's had a bad day.

When she says, "I don't think it's working, I don't believe what they say," it means she is afraid, and you sit on the edge of her bed and tell her everything will be alright.

There's something about the way the train moves that makes me wish I were swimming. I close my eyes and pretend I'm floating in a postcard of the Caribbean, and it sounds just like my ears are underwater and a motorboat is going by. Usually, I end up falling asleep, and I wake up when the train is coming into the station and the people around me start to move. In the city, the station is dark with dull yellow lightbulbs that look like tiny lanterns on the fins of deep-water creatures; so I feel like I've been sinking as I slept. The station near my mother's house is bright and cold and made of pale cement.

My cat's name is Martin; he's white and he lives in my apartment.

He usually sleeps all day and bites my toes at night, but he's a good cat. Maybe if I ask him nicely, if I can make him understand how important it is, he'll lend me a few of his lives. I'm pretty sure he used one up the time I took him out to my mother's for the weekend.

He's a city cat, so he's not used to cars. When I found him, he only had a little blood on his chin, but when I picked him up he meowed really low. I knew there was something invisible, something inside, that was killing him.

In fifth grade my best friend lived down the street from a Catholic high school. One afternoon we found her mother's old school dresses in a suitcase on the third floor and tried them on. Mine was pale green plaid and the pleated skirt skimmed my thighs, shorter than anything I was allowed to wear. We went over to the school, but all the kids had gone home already. Then we found an open door. It was a low-ceilinged room with gold carpet and wooden benches. At the front was a white table draped in a lacy cloth with two red candles burning and a crucifix. We pretended to pray and then we lit up all the candles and ran back to her house.

Just last month a man threw himself under the train at the first station out of the city. Everything was delayed for hours and I couldn't even call Mother to tell her I'd be late. I wonder if he left the house with that intent, or whether, on the spur of the moment, he could not resist the attraction of iron wheels on steel rails. Sometimes at night I still see the twisted corpse of the woman who 66

Claudia Rattazzi

jumped off the roof of my building this spring. I remember in high school, I wrote a poem about suicide, but I didn't mean it.

When I was five, before we moved to where Mother lives now, my brother Joshua and I used to hang out on the fence between our garage and the neighbor's. It was our secret place. One day I leaned back and fell through an unlatched window, into our garage. I landed on my head and when I woke up I started crying, but the garage door was locked and Joshua was gone. I'm not sure if he told Mom, or if she heard me screaming, but finally she came and got me out.

My head was bleeding and the next day when she combed my hair a big chunk of it came out. I didn't need stitches, but we weren't allowed to play back there any more.

When I ride the train out in the morning all the businessmen are going in, and in the evening when I go home to the city, they go home to their green lawns. So my train is always pretty empty. The people sit by themselves and read paperbacks, or sleep, or stare at the seats in front of them. When two people sit together, their voices disappear in the air around their heads, and from their moving lips comes only a low rumble. Sometimes I sing to myself as I look out the window, knowing that no one can hear, and the sound of my voice is like it's trapped in a box.

People are afraid of dying, and they're afraid to touch you if you are.

The people in the waiting room looked particularly unhappy today. The Price is Right was on the bright T.V. screen in the corner, but no one was watching except me. Mother is like the rest of them in there; she just looks in front of her, or at the ground if there is someone in the opposite chair. I am the youngest one there, and in fact I think I'm the only one who appreciates the 1968 National Geographies. They have month-long world tours advertised for six hundred dollars, and are mostly black and white.

The machine where they put you is like a spinning vice. They lay you on a sliding table and it clamps down just above the tip of your nose, then everybody leaves. You can't move or breathe too deeply because the machine is very precise; and then the door shuts with a low hiss. When the machine goes on, it sounds like the buzzer that tells you when your car door isn't shut, only louder. There is also a smell, like metal. When the front is done, the machine turns slowly over and they get you from below. It doesn't take too long, but 67

QUARTO when you come out, you feel old.

Mother unlocks the back door and holds it open for me. I take off my coat and lie down on the couch where the sun has made a bright patch. I feel suddenly tired.

"I'm hungry," Mother says, "how about you?" But I don't feel much like eating, so I drink seltzer while she boils two eggs.

"Won't you stay tonight? It's such a long ride back," Mother says.

She's always trying to get me to spend the night.

"But Mother, what about Martin?" I say this, but I know I'm going to stay.

Before I know it, it's five-thirty and I'm waking up in my old room, which is filled with the shells I found when I was a child.

When I was a child all I knew about death was from books and animals on the side of the road. It's too late for the four-fifty-three.

I think about it slipping out of the station, into the evening, going west without me. In the fall the sun sets early and I watch it from the train, over the Sound, but by the time we reach the city it's dark and lights show in the windows. Mother rustles the newspaper downstairs.

Some people make me want to ask if I disgust them, just to make them say no while I look in their eyes. I become conspicuous and awkward, and I think of things that I could say to make them uncomfortable. It's not that way with everyone, only the people I thought I knew. Strangers can be very kind. They aren't afraid, because they didn't know me before, and I can tell them the truth. And Mother, she understands.

68

Eileen Livers

"' i

The Authors JOEL BEARD, a Columbia General Studies student, has had stories appear in Hanging Loose, Carolina Quarterly and The James White Review. At Rest and In Motion is his first play.

ALICE SHECHTER GRUNFELD is a staff member of Bronx Literacy Program and Camp Kinderland. She resides in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons and would like to say "Thanks, Mom!" FRANK MASON, ne George Guida, is a Columbia College undergraduate.

This issue of Quarto marks his first fiction publication.

AIMEE IMUNDO enjoys writing free verse poetry on a variety of topics.

ANDREW W. MARLOWE is a senior English major at Columbia College, and a writing student of Alan Ziegler. He hopes to find a career that will provide him with something about which to write.

GEORGE MOORE received both his B.A. and PhD in Philosophy. He has published a collection of poetry and songs entitled Audience of Trees. Having traveled extensively in Europe, he now resides in Manhattan. Look for his forthcoming book, Abandoned Skyscrapers.

CLAUDIA RATTAZZI, a graduate of Columbia College, has worked as an assistant to Mr. Giroux of the publishing firm of Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux.

She plans to continue writing fiction.

RICHARD PAUL SCHMONSEES has written and directed Some Have Eyes for the Columbia Players. His work may also be found in upcoming issues of Heaven Bone and Tin Wreath.

FRANCES SNOWDER has an M.A. in American Literature from Oklahoma State University. She is grateful for the advice of her G.S. writing teachers. "What Are You Waiting For?" is her second publication in Quarto.

DONALD N. UNGER, a NYC writer and high school teacher, just won the Bennett Cerf prize for a G.S. writer.

• • * " • * ! * • ? * * ? * ":'

Danny Sakoff

•

' -

'

•

'nit'T

Beginning and Advanced Classes Evening and Daytime

Creative Nonfiction, News and Feature Writing, Science Writing, Criticism and Reviewing:

Offering small classes taught by distinguished authors, editors, and publishers:

JOHN BOWERS JOHN LEONARD Publishing: PAMELA McCORDUCK SAMUEL S. VAUGHAN NORA SAYRE GEOFFREY YOUNG LOUIS UCHITELLE LAWRENCE VAN GELDER SHIRLEY WALTON-FISCHLER KAL WAGENHEIM The Writing Program

Fiction and Poetry: WALTER ABISH GLENDA ADAMS CLARK BLAISE JOSEPH CALDWELL NICHOLAS CHRISTOPHER AUSTIN FLINT J R . HUMPHREYS DAVID IGNATOW COLETTE INEZ RAYMOND KENNEDY BHARATI MUKHERJEE PETER RAND PHYLLIS RAPHAEL LOUISE ROSE ALAN ZIEGLER

Scriptwriting, Filmwriting, Writing Musicals, and Playwriting: BARBARA GARSON A.R. GURNEY NANCY HEIKIN EDMUND LEVY ROBERT MONTGOMERY MICHAEL STEPHENS

at the School of General Studies, Columbia University's liberal arts college for adults, serves students with or without degrees.

For information on a two year MFA Writing Program, write School of the Arts, 404 Dodge, or call 280-4391.

School of General Studies 303 Lewisohn Hall, Broadway and 116th St. New York, N.Y. 10027 280-2752

fi Columbia University Columbia University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution

Cover photograph by Kenneth Sean Golden