A L o v e S tor y CRAIG DER SHOWITZ
Illustrated by CHRISTINA ULLMAN
THE GREY BLACK MAN A Love Stor y Š2013, Tyrian Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Tyrian Press New York, NY 718.757.8738
Design and Illustration: Christina Ullman www.ullmandesign.com
ISBN 978-0-615-88463-9
Order online: www.tyrianpress.com
publication credits
ife is divided into three terms — that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the
present, to live better in the future. — William Wordsworth
dedication
o my unborn daughter.
This book is for you even though I have not yet met you, I already know you. And, already I love you. You are my unborn daughter but you have already birthed within me worlds of hope and of faith. Yours is that which I can achieve while I wait to create you. Your future pulses like the blood within me that will one day enliven your very heart. Your past is every worthy breath I have taken. There have been many unworthy breaths too, sad moments of which I am not proud but they were training so that I could see the human missteps I will guide you through. You shall walk with earthly angels because I pray for you every day. But, your time will be here, on this earth, away from this story and into my arms. I can not write you into being nor can I promise you only beauty and joy. There will be GreyBlack men and silly authorities but there will always be a pen and a heart and a hope and an ability to walk on the air if you only write it so that is may be so. With this dedication, I complete my story and wait for its end to signal your beginning. There is always another future to be born. And, to Sgula — Bo-i-chalah, Bo-i-chalah
t was a terribly
complicated operation. They were attached at the heart but unwilling to be separated.
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“Only enough to breathe,” he said. “Only enough to kiss,” she said. “Isn’t that the same thing,” he said. “Indeed, it is,” she said. And on and on like this until the doctors turned out the operating room lights and walked away, at first frustrated but then, some started holding hands, others, thinking of their loved ones, holding memories. Most were happier for having met the couple with the attached heart. It was better to leave them together forever and for good for to pull and probe or dissect and reject could potentially leave each with a giant hole where the other had once been. Besides, nothing was actually wrong with the couple really. They had one body but four legs that made them incredibly fast and terrific at games like the threelegged race where they had a natural advantage. So, it is easier to walk with some extra weight – a torso and two heads – then with a hole in your heart. Sometimes, emptiness weighs more than fullness. Besides, with two necks they had more room for all the gold medals they won in competitive Twister competitions and games like that. When they got married, it took two extra rings but half the time to say the vows – they did it together. While it might seem odd for the same person to be married to him/herself, it really was not. Where they lived, dogs married cats, boys married girls and in one crazy but very, very wet occurrence, a shark married a surfboard. They are very happy to this very day in their waterfront home, thank you very much! The couple had four eyes and four hands but no ears. Hearing just confuses things when you already know what you mean to say. Because of this, their ability to see was greatly increased and they had the most vivid and vibrant eyesight you could ever imagine. They saw things that were there and some that weren’t. Oftentimes they saw what was once there but not anymore. Better yet, they saw what could be there. We can all see those things, you just need to look with your lover’s eyes and ask for them through that piece of you which is connected to your lover’s heart.
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nce, they asked for a baby.
She was beautiful, brilliant and born perfect. Deaf. But perfect.
Mute. But perfect.
Perfect. But Perfect.
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he had shocking green hair like fresh grown grass and whenever she was happy, flowers would pop out of her head and thank the sun for shining. Her eyes were ocean blue. Not the color, but the actual ocean flowed from within. When she cried, she could flood a field or fill a future. But she only rarely ever cried. Most of the time she was very happy. Her parents had taught her to love and be loved and more importantly, they had taught her to speak to them in a way that even they could hear and even she could speak even though she was mute and they were deaf and Mondays are boring. She would take her hands and draw whatever it is she wanted to say. Flashes of light, swirls of color and, sometimes, even actual drawings would pop and explode, whiz and bang right before her parents’ eyes. Here was a fish riding a bicycle with a tiny hat with a huge propeller and an angry bear watching from the corner. He was wearing a tutu – the bear that is, not the fish. There was a mountain with a mansion and a moat and mini moon on the ground throwing stars at the sun. Her parents laughed – together, of course. “A moat on a mountain” you say. “Impossible!” But true. She drew pictures of unicorns and fairies and even some things that did not exist. There were deserts that blossomed and cities full of factories and farms next to one another like friends. Felines roamed the streets and love was in every picture in the shape of outstretched hand, holding a heart, open and inviting.
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he heart had three circles – one for the love that gives, one for the love that is and one for the love that always lives.
The heart had three circles – one for the mother, one for the father and one for the girl who drew them together.
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All her creation was loud and colorful, bright and banging around the skies like butterfly wings in a very small cocoon. The shark and the surfboard loved it and thought the new town Mayor had created fireworks just for them. The fish stopped cycling long enough to watch the show and even the moon gave up his angry fight with day and settled down for the night. Only one person could not stand the show. The GreyBlack Man lived in a house about the size of a very small cocoon. So, you could imagine the sound annoyed him. But, even worse, the GreyBlack Man found color to be downright appalling. “Yuck” he would say as he spit his GreyBlack spit on his tiny cocoon floor. “What is all this color for?”
“It hurts my eyes, this burning bright color, I swear. It is the start of something terrible, I fear.”
You see, the GreyBlack Man had long ago decided to live within the shadows. He did suspicious things rather than sing silly songs. He once sold his soul to the sky and so had the ability – like a giant cloud – to shine his darkness upon the size of the earth that he could convince himself was sick of sun. It is impossible to do suspicious things or, even, sketchy things when there is all this light and booming and blazing and color. And BAM! There goes another one. Now she is telling her parents about this dream of hers. A dream that the earth would turn inside out and outside in and the trees would grow in opposite and the rivers would grow and the…
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Do you know how loud it is to draw that? The GreyBlack Man could get no sleep. And when she started drawing a picture of a giant bazaar full of friendly people all dressed in clown costumes, he had had enough. After all, there is very little funny business one can get away with when everyone else is dressed like a clown. Even if those clowns are just in one little flowerheaded girl’s imagination. “This is what I’ll do, for once and all. I’ll trip her up and watch her down fall.” So he plotted and schemed and planned the perfect plan.
“Dear Mayor (he began). I beg of you a favor. There is this little girl who gives me a terrible fright. All day she plots against me then keeps me up at night. She is building and making. It feels as if she has the earth and is shaking. I’m quaking in my very black and white boots. And, here is the worst truth. I think she hates us all, can you see? She paints things that don’t even exist! Rather selfish, don’t you agree? I want a friend, not an enemy but it is plain to me that those who shake our status quo must only be considered a terrible foe. Even if she is just a tiny, small, little girl with flowers on her head. “
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ow, the Mayor was a very proud man. He wore cowboy boots because he had once rode a horse, even though he himself was half horse and he wanted to make sure that he was prepared should the great people his town ever need him to ride one again. He also had suspenders. They had cowboy boots on them too. He had a huge mustache and a tiny mustache comb made out of gold that he kept in his pocket. He combed 20 times on the right side. 20 times on the right-center side. 20 on the left-center. 20 more on the left. And 40 strokes right down the middle. Then, he put that tiny comb right back in his pocket… Wait a minute! When did that happen? The Mayor was wearing clown pants. Had this little girl made the Mayor wear clown pants? Clown pants! “Clown pants don’t even fit in with cowboy boots. This was a hootin’ and a hollerin’ gosh darn, rootin’ tootin’ shame,” said the Mayor. Having forgotten that today was rodeo clown day down at the old corral and that the Mayor had specifically chosen the Mayor’s clown pants special for today, the Mayor immediately strode on over to the GreyBlack Man’s cocoon and knocked on the door. It took the GreyBlack Man a while to answer as he was convinced all the buzzing and banging in his beehive were more works of the little girl. When he finally did open the door, he saw a very bewildered and beaten Mayor standing there. “We must get this little girl,” cried the Mayor. “That is all I want in this world,” responded the GreyBlack Man.
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He invited the Mayor in and gave him a trough of water to drink from. Then, he unfurled all his nefarious and evil black prints. He showed the Mayor plans to drown the little girl, ways to electrocute her, ideas to suffocate her, thoughts on beheading her, schemes to marinate her in bbq sauce, grill her up on a stake and make little girl sandwiches to share with the people. “What kind of cotton-picking craziness is this?” asked the Mayor and galloped out of there. This was crazy even by the old standards of Fairy Tale land and, back then, cannibalism was allowed.
Defeated, the GreyBlack Man turned to his next plan.
In the fairy tale land lived some distant relatives of the Easter Island statues. They had the same far-away look even though they were much closer – just down the street, really. Also, rather then just long faces, they also had long, strong hands. Everyone was very careful when the Easter Islanders got excited. If they made one banging motion with their giant hand to exclaim their exclamation – the trees would rattle. The rocks would roll and the hills shake. Although they could create an awesome commotion, the Easter Islanders were really tender beings and the idea that they would even get excited was sort of silly too. They meant no harm to anyone and they preferred to sit quietly and watch all the beauty of the world around them. It is said that they turned into stone from sitting quietly for so long. Just staring. When someone would stop by and ask them to go somewhere they would say, “what is wrong with here?” If they were asked to come see something, they
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would ask, “what is wrong with what I am seeing?” They stared and saw sunrises and sunsets, suns and moons, moons and stars, flowers born and die and re-born and beautiful. If you want to ask how could they stare at the same sunset or the same flower, you haven’t seen enough of either because if not, you would know that no two are ever the same. So, the Easter Islanders were content to watch, with ever-growing interest, all the beauty before them. A tiny bird sat with them too. He would rest on their broad, stone shoulders and tweet “Content” “Content” “Content” all the time. The bird was blue. He was happy too. Of course, having sat still for so long, the Easter Islanders became the guardians of this mystical, magical Fairytale land and they were very familiar with our little girl and her fireworks of drawings. They watched her dance around her mom and dad, drawing music notes and jump and down beside her parents drawing toys and dolls that they would watch while she played. They watched her draw a puppy dog with long, floppy ears and a tail that would wiggle his entire body when it wagged. It also wagged when it wiggled. She drew a big house that was part castle, part amusement park and part building they had never seen before. It had giant staircases going up, up, up to the sky and even more giant slides coming down. Their home had an outside and inside. The inside was filled with trees like a forest and the outside had furniture. There was a fireplace in every room and the fire burned without wood. As soon as someone would walk by – the heat of their love would ignite the firework fireplace and it would warm the sky. It seems weird that an imaginary fireplace drawn in the sky could create such wonderful heat, but the Easter Islanders could feel it and they were warm and happy.
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She also drew her usual heart with three circles – one for the love that is never, one for the love that is better and one for the love that lasts forever. She drew her heart on the palm of the hand with three circles – one for the mother, one for the father and one for the one that drew them together. The family moved into this new house and lived in it like it was more than just a drawing. They packed imaginary boxes with imaginary belongings and made an imaginary move into their imaginary castle. The puppy had a beautiful doggy door and a miniature version of the house all to himself in the backyard, but he never used it, preferring to stay next to the girl. The fireplace was the only source of light or heat and the music came from the notes the girl drew on the walls. They ate fruit from the trees that grew in the living room – dates and nuts and oranges and cherries and more. The parents swayed together, connected at the heart, all four feet moving in unison, like they were meant to dance forever. The little girl was a maestro, throwing her hands in rhythm to the music – creating whole symphonies using her hands the same way that someone in the distant Fairytale land of New York would order a pizza or hail a taxicab. The Easter Islanders had learned to love this little artist so much that it was a great shock when they heard some terrible news. A great shock indeed. One night, when the lights had gone out across the land and a cool, unsettling breeze blew across the noses and cheeks of those who usually were kissed to sleep by warm, gentle caresses came a terrible darkness. It was if a cloud had crossed the sky and set in motion a deepening funk of desperation. And, it was exactly like that because the GreyBlack man had taken the shape of a cloud and set sail to sabotage the joy and laughter of the little girl and her happy family.
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Dropping drips of rain down on the ground before the Easter Islanders’ eyes, the GreyBlack Man in the form of an eclipse sent a message. Each dropped hit the earth and turned into a letter. The letter read
“Remember when you were content to sit and watch the sun. Look what this little girl has done! She has taken your view and worse too – she is making fun of you. Do you see how she shakes and shimmies her hands? Does she do that because you can? No! She knows that your hands are big and clumsy – full of stone. She thinks you all dummies – and that I can’t condone. She laughs with glee when her hands are free. She smiles and thinks she is better. No more. Lets get her! Here is what to do. Take those big, stone hands and in a few….swat her down to the ground then no more will people laugh at your hands when you come around.”
They couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. No way to believe it. But, it was all there – written on the ground – in nature – like truth. How could anyone who spent so much time staring at sunrises and sunsets not believe in what nature said? It must be true. And, slowly, the stone-handed, Easter Islanders grew angry and upset. Like the beasts in Where the Wild Things Are (what, you don’t think people with stone hands can read books?), they turned violent. Sometimes, when we allow our emotions to get the best of us – we can’t control how they control us.
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Moving slowly and stone-like, they made their way to the little girl. They would squash her and stop her, stomp her and slap her and solve the problem of her making fun of them once and for all. They came close and she drew a picture of them as a welcoming sign. They thought she was picking on them again. So, they came closer. She drew pictures of hands holding overflowing bouquets of flowers. They thought about how they could not hold flowers because clearly flowers would be crushed by their giant, angry hands and instead were forced to sit for eternity and just watch the flowers bloom – dying before their eyes. So, they came closer. And closer. All at once, they dropped their staring, stone-like expression and there was anger in their eyes. The day got dark and cold like night; there were fireworks in the sky from the joyful celebration of the GreyBlack Man in cloud form. He had been working on creating the largest lightening bolt ever so that when the Easter Islanders had finished pummeling and pounding, he would be able to finish her once and for all. He really was a terrible man. So, they came closer. And, the little girl, flowers growing out of her head and water running from her eyes, for the first time ever felt an emotion she had never felt before. She didn’t know it – but she felt fear. She had felt many other emotions before: wonder, excitement, joy, love, happiness, confusion, hope, thrill, excitement, anticipation, glee, beauty (yes, it is an emotion) and others of that nature. But, this was a new nature. Not knowing what to do with the feelings inside her, the little girl drew the most important picture she had ever drawn. With all her might and with the greatest boom and bang and bright and beautiful color possible – she drew the love signature that was in every picture – a hand, open and outstretched, with a heart with three circles in the center.
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t was her name. Love Child.
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The Easter Islanders did not come any closer. At once, with a great lumbering labor of love they lifted their own hands. These were hands that had sat, numbly and silently, in the dirt for days and weeks and months and years and centuries. These were the hands that touched the dirt where the flowers they watched would grow and which felt the warmth of the sun or the breeze of the moon. But, no one had ever seen the other side of their slow slumber. So, they raised their hands as if to strike. The GreyBlack Man in his shadowy garb grew excited. Small thunderbolts escaped from the lightening and showered down around them. Everywhere there was gloom and darkness and power and pain. He saw them raise their hands like awful weapons of angry monsters and he waited for the moment they would BANG and crush the girl down, down, down. Up, up, up they raised their hands. Slowly, they unfurled their fingers. With painfully deliberate dedication they unveiled their plaintive palms and displayed‌a heart -drawn in the center. Their heart was like her heart – a symbol of peace and love from those who cannot speak clearly but want to say what is in their heart. There was one circle for the love that tries, one circle for the love that thrives and one circle for the love that never dies. The little girl ran at her new family, dodging the raindrops and avoiding the thunder and lightening bolts that crashed and fizzled around her. Her drawn hand with a heart burnt up to the sky in rainbow fluorescent beauty and the GreyBlack Man unable to see the hands crashed and rained down darkness. As she jumped in the sky and landed, hugging the first Easter Islander she could, they finished raising their giant hands‌the sign of peace and love shining upon their palm, the little girl hugging them in happiness. Their now open, loving hands were so big they reached into the sky and in one giant swoop blocked the GreyBlack Man and his cloud form.
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ithout his darkness, the sky was colorful again. Day returned to day. Beauty returned to beauty and the sun shined on Love Child, her parents, still connected at the heart and the brand new family of Easter Islanders who wore their love on the palm of their hand.
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about the author CRAIG DER SHOWITZ
Craig Dershowitz is the Executive Director of Artists 4 Israel, an organization for which he has received a special commendation from PM Netanyahu and the key to the city of Sderot. Before co-founding Artists 4 Israel, Craig was a writer with a wide range, turning a Holocaust survivor’s memoirs into a narrative book while also serving as Creative Director for an internationally distributed boutique street art magazine that focused on criminality and politics at once (not that the two are mutually exclusive). Today, Craig focuses on his fiction, his fiancÊ and his puppy.
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