LBWG Anthology: Past, Present, and Future
Long Beach Writers Group
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Long Beach Writers Group
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Table of Contents
Every Magician Needs a Volunteer from the Audience
Street rhythms (10th and Alamitos, Long Beach)
Kiss homeless on foreheads while
they sleep on the knoll
in front of the library
at City Hall; drink their dreams dry
and spit out seeds from their nightmares. Wipe the soil from their
brows; grind it into
skin: tatted euphemisms yet to come.
Tiptoe, naked through the ghetto; genitalia is universal, neutral,
and you’re less
likely to be mistaken for having gang ties.
Ignore single mothers’ cries, curbside memorials,
and barricaded
cul-de-sacs. They occur too frequently.
Sift sand on the shore smirking at the sea, once cerulean currents
of non-conformity now
jaded, gagged, bound by breakwater.
Sit Indian-style in garages, sifting through “medicinal” haze
lifting to the rafters. And chew on songs birthed from wombs
of empty Corona bottles
pardoning indie bands swum mainstream.
Follow the gulls.
They know where the best places in town are
to eat.
Near the Port of Long Beach, the small hours crowd a long block of low slung buildings shuttered against a hot August night. A black metal door set in a stucco façade is sandwiched between a bodega and a dressmaker’s shop advertising First Communion and Quinceanera dresses on layaway in its window. Over the black door, a blue neon sign flickers “B /- R,” an uncertain beacon of its trade.
Inside, the place is grimy and poorly lighted. The main source of illumination comes from behind the shelves of liquor, an amber wash that spills over the bar and bleeds out among a handful of tables and chairs. Several shaded lamps seem to hover in midair along soot stained walls, and the green glow of two exit signs – one above the front door, the other above a door to the backroom – create the illusion of escape.
Several stools line the front of the bar. A man in loose fitting jeans and a short sleeve guayabera sits on one of them. On top of his right hand is a tattoo of two fanned cards, an eight of spades and an eight of hearts. The ink on top of his left hand is two aces, spades and hearts. On the bar sit twin shots of tequila, glimmering in the dull glow like gold coins, and a small glass bowl of lime wedges. No salt shaker. Sitting for near an hour in a windowless bar with no air conditioning, the salt from his sweat is enough to season his liquor.
A squat, bald man with a pencil thin mustache slumps behind the bar. He has sweated through a white dress shirt, which clings obscenely to his flabby chest and hairy back. He keeps looking at the door and checking the time on his cell phone.
“He’s late,” the bartender says.
“It’s so damn hot.” The tattooed man licks the sweat from his wrist, knocks back one of the two tequila shots, and crushes juice from a lime wedge with his teeth. He taps the empty shot glass on the bar, and the bartender refills it.
The bartender furrows his brow. “What if he don’t show?”
“We get paid either way. So what?”
“But even more if he shows up and falls short. ”
“Depends on how short.”
“I need money bad.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“El Chingon’s business been slow, huh?”
“It’s a recession, dummy.” The tattooed man downs the shot and bites into the pulp of a fresh lime wedge, spitting the rind out on the bar. “Where is this pinche cabron?”
The bartender rubs the stubble on his fat cheeks. “I hope he shows and falls way short.” He reloads the empty shot glass, leans back against the cash register, closes his eyes.
The heat and the waiting and the hour and the quiet conspire to lull the men into a stupor. The front door opens. A humid gust, weighted with the stink of dead kelp and spent diesel, blows in from the street and stirs the scent of stale beer around the room. The bartender puts his hand on a baseball bat stashed under the bar. The tattooed man spins on his stool, slips his right hand into his jeans pocket, but stays seated.
The door closes behind a man in a tan suit, his shirt collar unbuttoned and tie loosened. The suit is cheap and old. The cuffs of his jacket and pants showing individual threads, and scuffs mar his brown loafers with ground down heels. Carrying a battered attaché case, he walks cautiously toward the men at the bar. He extends his hand to the tattooed man and says, “Hello. I’m −”
The tattooed man cuts him off. “I know who you are. You’re Mr. Late. That’s why we’re here tonight, right? Sit down.”
Mr. Late sits on the stool next to the tattooed man and sets the attaché case on the floor. He looks at the second shot of tequila in front of him on the bar. His fingers twitch toward the glass.
“Go ahead, amigo,” says the bartender. “That’s for you.”
Mr. Late licks his dry lips. “Thank you, but no.”
“It’s on the house.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t like tequila?”
“I don’t drink. Anymore.” He touches the shot glass, just his finger tips.
“That really sucks,” says the tattooed man, “especially on a night like tonight, no?” The tattooed man and bartender glance at each other and laugh.
“I’ve been clean and sober for ten days.”
The other two men laugh harder. Mr. Late slaps the attaché case onto the bar.
“Don’t be mad, esse,” the tattooed man says. “It’s just fun. All work and no play.”
“I have half of what I owe,” Mr. Late begins. “Is half enough?”
“The deal was not for half,” says the tattooed man. The bartender scowls and roughly leans against the back bar.
“True. But that’s all I could raise for tonight. Is that enough for now?”
“The deal is for all.”
“Correct, but −”
“You fell short. Half is short of what you promised.”
“The economy has been really slow.”
“It’s always something with you people.”
“There’s half here. A little more, actually.” The latches of the attaché case click. Inside are wrapped bundles of hundred dollar bills. “Twenty-four thousand.”
The tattooed man looks unimpressed. “But you owe over $40,000.”
“It’s more than I borrowed.”
“But you were supposed to pay back my boss, like, six months ago. You’ve had all this time.”
“Your boss’s meter’s still running, right?” reasons Mr. Late. “This here covers his principal plus. He’s still collecting the vig”
“He wants it all tonight. Like you say, times is tough.”
Mr. Late clips his words off, one by one. “But I don’t have it all tonight.”
The tattooed man looks down at the floor, shaking his head slowly, and the bartender wipes at an imaginary spot. The silence hangs like a swollen thunderhead.
Jumping up from his stool, Mr. Late explodes, “Hell, all I’m paying is the vig now, for Christ’s sake! Give me a break.”
“Whoa, settle down, cowboy.” The tattooed man puts his hand on Mr. Late’s padded shoulder. Dark circles of perspiration ring the underarms of the tan suit jacket. “You should have that drink.”
Breathing deeply, Mr. Late says, “I don’t want a drink. Is half enough for tonight?”
“I was told to get it all or to close the account.”
“I can have the rest in a month.”
“Then it’s time to close the account.”
“Look, there’s a lot of money here. I can get more.”
“You’ve had all this time. Why should my boss believe you?”
“My lucks changed. I’m on a roll.”
“It’s too late. El Chingon already made the call.”
“But I called him earlier. Told him what I had.” says Mr. Late.
Looking confused, the tattooed man asks, “What’re you talking about?’
“I called, told him I would have half.”
“Oh, you did? And what did he say.”
“Nothing,” says Mr. Late. “Nothing.”
“There you go,” says the tattooed man.
“Let’s call your boss now.”
“You’re crazy? He don’t want to talk to your ass.”
“I need time. My luck’s changed.”
“It’s too late. He’s bangin’ some bitch, or sleepin’, or some shit.”
“Look, your boss can’t collect from a dead man.” Mr. Late’s face is pale stone. “I’m sure he’d rather have all the money.”
“I don’t know.” The tattooed man runs his fingers through his damp hair while blowing sour air past his lips. “But I get what you’re sayin’.”
The bartender, eyes wide, turns to his partner. “We’re gonna catch hell if you let this cabron call the boss.”
The tattooed man glares back. “Shut up. We’re gonna use the phone in the backroom.”
“Use my phone.” Mr. Late pulls a cell phone from his jacket. “Let’s call him from out here.”
“Someone might walk in.”
“No one’s going to walk into this dump at two thirty in the morning.”
The bartender slams his hand down on the bar. “Show some respect!”
The tattooed man walks behind Mr. Late, gently pokes his back, pointing him toward the backroom. “I can’t conduct my boss’s business out here for everyone to see.”
“But there’s no one.” The tattooed man jabs his back. “Wait, what about the money?”
“Take it with you,” says the tattooed man.
Mr. Late re-latches the attaché case and moves toward the backroom door. The tattooed man walks behind him as they enter.
Mr. Late says, “It’s dark in here.”
The tattooed man flips the switch.
Bright light from a bare bulb hanging on a cord blinds both men. Pressed close together, their eyes take a moment to adjust. Plastic rustles under foot. The door closes. A bayonet point butterfly knife slips easily from the tattooed man’s jeans pocket and whispers open in his right hand. The aces seize the front of Mr. Late’s shirt, spin him around, and then the eights rapidly punch the blade repeatedly into his throat. Air gurgles in the severed windpipe as he begins to drown in his own blood. Fingering the torn flesh in his neck, bleeding from the mouth, empty eyes fix on nothing, nada, nada, nada, nada, as he slumps to his knees and collapses face down on a plastic tarp that covers most of the cramped room’s floor. The tattooed man tosses the knife on the tarp. At a sink in the corner, he washes with coarse soap the blood spatter from his hands and forearms, the flecks off his cheek. He throws the used paper towels on the body. After unlocking another door that leads to an alley behind the bar, he pries the attaché case from the dead man’s hand and returns to the front.
The tattooed man places the attaché case on the bar and says, “Make the call.”
The bartender presses a speed-dialed number on his cell phone. “Yo. Si. Come pick up the trash.”
“My throat’s dried up,” says the tattooed man.
“Water?”
He taps his empty shot glass on the bar. “Quit bein’ funny.”
The bartender jerks his head toward Mr. Late’s tequila shot still on the bar. “What’s wrong with that one?”
Rapping his empty glass, “Pour, baboso.”
“He didn’t even touch it.”
“It’s bad luck stealin’ a dead man’s liquor.”
“Hate to waste good liquor, is all.”
“Why don’t you drink it then?”
“I never heard . . . .” The bartender squints at the shot. He grabs at a jowl, flicks a nostril a few times before scratching his forehead with his thumb. “Bad luck, eh?” The bartender refills the tattooed man’s empty glass.
The tattooed man raises his wrist to lick off some sweat, smells the soap, and returns his hand to the bar. He empties the shot glass, doesn’t bother with a lime wedge. He says, “Twenty-four thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
“He fell short. We were told to close the account if he was short,” says the bartender.
“But only if he fell way short.”
“El Chingon said nothing when the guy called him about bringing half.”
“If Mr. Late even called.”
“You think he didn’t call?”
“I don’t know.”
“The boss said nothing,” says the bartender.
“All I’m sayin’ is he showed up with a lot of cash. Said his luck had changed.”
“Well, he was wrong about his luck.”
“True.” The tattooed man spins his empty shot glass on the bar and they both watch it slowly wind down.
“So was half enough to keep the account open?”asks the bartender.
The tattooed man growls, “How the hell should I know?”
“The boss didn’t say nothing.”
“Just shut up for a minute, will you.”
Both men gaze at battered attaché case. The tattooed man reaches over and opens it. He counts the twelve two-thousand-dollar bundles. He tosses three bundles toward the bartender and stuffs three bundles in his waistband under his guayabera. The bartender stashes his bundles in a coffee can under the bar. Both men return their gaze to the remaining money in the case.
Before the tattooed man can close it, the bartender whispers, “You think taking half is enough?”
They turn toward sounds coming from the backroom: a plastic tarp being wrapped around a body, a body being dragged across the floor and wrestled into a vehicle’s trunk, a trunk slamming shut in the alley, then silence. The tattooed man quietly latches the attaché case. A tall man dressed in a black running suit, wearing sunglasses and black leather gloves enters the bar from the backroom.
He approaches, ignoring the two men, and opens the attaché case. “Not even half,” he says.
“Nope,” says the bartender.
“He called El Chingon earlier tonight, guaranteed he would have at least half,” says the tall man.
The bartender wicks perspiration from his upper lip using his lower one.
“Well, he fell way short,” says the tattooed man.
“The boss will be disappointed. Thought the guy was good for it,” says the tall man.
“You can’t trust these losers. They’re all liars.”
“El Chingon hates liars,” says the tall man as he removes his sunglasses and looks at the tattooed man.
“He was a bad debt, deuda perdida,” says the tattooed man. “So we cut El Chingon’s losses.” The tattooed man and the bartender laugh at the joke.
The tall man does not. “Come see El Chingon tomorrow. Both of you.”
“Why?” asks the bartender. The tattooed man shoots his partner a murderous glance.
The tall man jerks his head toward the untouched shot of tequila on the bar. “Do you mind?”
“It was that guy’s,” says the bartender.
“He won’t mind.” The tall man drinks the shot, takes a lime wedge from the bowl and sucks it dry. He places the wedge inside the empty shot glass, and the shot glass into a pocket of his running suit. Looking at the tattooed man, he tosses a set of keys onto the bar. “His ride is out front. Dump it at the brake shop on Tenth, next to the donut place.”
The tall man exits with the attaché case through the backroom. The two men stare down at the floor until the sound of the tall man’s automobile can no longer be heard. And then for a few minutes longer.
“Bad luck stealin’ a dead man’s liquor,” mumbles the bartender.
The tattooed man raps his empty shot glass on the bar. “Just shut up and pour.”
End
Jeremy lay down on the bed and allowed the slight spin from the drinks at the Observation Bar to pass as he looked over his accommodations. Beautiful wood paneling surrounded the porthole windows and moonlight streamed through, adding to the soft light from the old-fashioned lamps in his stateroom. Attending his ten year high school reunion on the Queen Mary seemed silly at first, but Jeremy was enjoying his stay on the ship and looked forward to the rest of the festivities planned for the weekend. Still wearing the sharp blue officer’s uniform from the costume party that evening, he fell asleep in the downy softness of the bed, the brass buttons on his lapel shining in the soft light.
Awaking several hours later, Jeremy shook his head to clear the fogginess and observed only the moon’s glow streaming through the two round windows. He remembered the lamps in the room had been on when he fell asleep and he wondered if he had gotten up at some point during his rest and turned them off.
Then he saw her.
So lucid was the image that Jeremy gasped. She stood in a coquettish pose at the end of the bed, wearing an old-fashioned white evening gown, glowing as if she generated her own light. He knew she wasn’t human, but didn’t know if she was a figment of his alcohol-fueled imagination or the genuine article, one of the many ghosts who were known to haunt the ship. Slowly, Jeremy sat up in the bed.
“Are you real?” he asked the apparition.
Lifting a glowing white hand to her face, the woman covered her mouth and giggled, the lilting sound echoing through the stateroom. Jeremy squinted into the darkness, trying to get a better look, before switching on the bedside lamp. As quickly as light filled the room, she was gone. He flipped the switch back off, hoping she would reappear, and waited there in the darkness, breathing in the scent of Chanel No. 5 which lingered in the air.
In the morning he woke with a start. The alarm clock read 9:30 and, remembering he had a breakfast scheduled at 9:00, he jumped out of bed. Rummaging around the room looking for his cell phone, he finally gave up, dressed hurriedly and rushed out.
At the Promenade Café, Dave sat shaking his head. “Where you been, man? I called your cell like ten times. You get lucky or what?”
Jeremy paused before replying. “That’s weird. I never heard my phone ring. I must have left it at the bar last night.”
“I doubt it. You were punching my number in when we were walking out, bro. But what was that look on your face just now?”
Sitting down, Jeremy shook his head. “Man, we drank too much absinthe last night. I thought I saw a ghost in my room.”
“We didn’t drink too much absinthe last night. Maybe you drank too much absinthe last night.” Dave leaned over and elbowed him. “Did you think you saw the green fairy?”
Jeremy stared off across the room. “No, she was all in white.”
Dave surveyed his friend. “You don’t look so hot, and you’re not talking right, either. We better get some food in you. Let’s order.”
During the Haunted Encounters Tour in the afternoon, Jeremy learned he was not the first to see the ghost of the woman in the white evening gown. She had appeared many times over the years, usually in the Queen’s Salon, dancing alone in the shadows. No one knew who she was, who she had been when she was alive, and her reasons for haunting the ship remained a mystery.
After the black tie reunion dinner that night, Jeremy and Dave returned to the Observation Bar, already a bit tipsy. Dave ordered a Jack Daniels on the rocks and Jeremy, loosening the collar of his tuxedo, ordered an absinthe.
Pouring the green liquid into a shot glass, the bartender smiled and said, sliding the glass toward Jeremy, “Glad to see you’re getting into the spirit of things, Sir.”
For an hour or so Jeremy and Dave recounted the weekend and reminisced about their high school days, but soon Jeremy began to make only perfunctory comments. Sipping the last of his third absinthe, he made his excuses and left.
Jeremy waited in the doorway of his stateroom before turning on the lights, looking around in the shadows, searching for the woman in white. Not seeing anything, he reached for the light switch, but froze when he heard a woman’s soft voice whisper, “No.” Following the sound of her voice, he slipped into the darkness and he closed the door behind him. Only a moment passed before he felt a wisp of breath on his neck. He turned his head and saw no one, but the smell of her perfume swirled around him. Sensing the touch of soft fingers caressing his chest, Jeremy felt shivers of desire shoot through this body. He looked down and saw a glowing white hand move across the breast of his tuxedo. Gracefully, the hand gestured toward a beam of moonlight falling across the bed. Lying there was the blue officer’s uniform, its brass buttons shining in the light.
The next thing Jeremy remembered, he was in another part of the ship, dressed in the uniform, his arms positioned as if he were slowing dancing with a woman. One of the stewards shook him gently.
“Sir? Are you alright?”
Jeremy looked around. “Wha..? Where am I?”
“The Queen’s Salon.” The steward grinned. “Perhaps you were walking in your sleep?”
Jeremy mumbled, “I guess so,” and allowed the man to escort him back to his room. He felt disoriented, but exuberant, and when the door closed behind him, he turned out the lights and waited for the return of the woman in white.
The ringing of his cell phone woke him in the morning.
“Hello?” he answered in a scratchy voice.
Dave, on the other end of the line, sounded far away. “Hey, man, I guess you found your cell phone. Listen, I’m checking out now, but let’s keep in touch when we get back to the real world, eh?”
“Yeah, Dave, of course, I’ll call you when I get home.”
When he pushed the END button, Jeremy realized he hadn’t seen his cell phone in over twenty-four hours and checked his missed calls and messages. There were several from Dave, a few from back home and one new text message. He clicked the icon and saw the message contained a picture, which began to download. Halfway through, the scent of Chanel No. 5 filled his room again. Slowly, the woman in white appeared on the screen of his phone, smiling and posing in the self-conscious way people do when taking their own picture. Quickly checking the phone number to see who sent the message, Jeremy caught his breath. The picture had been sent from his own phone.
A strange sense of nostalgia filled him, the memory of dancing with a woman in white, her arms resting on his shoulders, the smell of her perfume, the sound of her laughter. Caressing the cell phone in his hand, his fingers moved slowly over the woman’s image, and he was overcome with emotion. The ghostly woman seemed more real to Jeremy than anything waiting for him back home. He felt indifference about his job and his off and on, currently off, girlfriend, all of which paled in comparison to the feelings he felt for this ghostly woman.
Jeremy hurried down to the registration counter and waited impatiently in line for others to check out. When he reached the front of the line, he stumbled making his way to the counter and breathlessly addressed the woman there.
“I-I need to extend my stay. Jeremy. Jeremy Stewart.”
The woman smiled. “Of course, Mr. Stewart. You’re in Stateroom 227.”
Jeremy relaxed a little. “Yes. I’d like to book another week.”
Clicking the keys on the computer, the woman said, “It shouldn’t be a problem, Mr. Stewart.” She paused. “Hmm. It looks like 227 is already reserved. There’s a another stateroom avail-“
“No!” Jeremy hadn’t meant to yell, but saw he had startled the woman. “I’m sorry, but I need to keep the same room.”
“I see.” The woman looked down at Jeremy’s shaking hands. “You must really like that room. Unfortunately-”
She was interrupted by a steward who appeared beside her. Placing his hand gently on her arm, he said, “I’m sure we can accommodate Mr. Stewart in Room 227, Shelley. Please arrange a different stateroom for the other guests.”
Jeremy, who felt as if he had been holding his breath during the entire exchange, breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
The steward nodded toward Jeremy. “Whatever you need, Mr. Stewart.”
Jeremy handed the woman his credit card, and, watching the man who had secured his room walk away, remembered he was the same steward who had found him in the Queen’s Salon that morning.
With his friends from high school gone, Jeremy spent his time alone, sleeping in until 1:00 or 2:00 each day and wandering around the ship until nightfall, capping off each evening with his nightly absinthe cocktails at the Observation Bar. Early each morning, the steward would find him, in the Queen’s Salon, dancing alone in the shadows, and escort him back to his stateroom. The smell of Chanel No. 5 permeated his bed and his clothing, its scent intoxicating him further into his obsession with the woman in white.
On the seventh night, Jeremy thanked the steward once again for escorting him back to Stateroom 227 after his nocturnal dance. He lay down on the bed in the darkness, waiting for the woman in white, as had become his routine. Not much time passed, the ship was still shrouded in darkness, when she appeared, as she did every night. This night proved different in only one way. Instead of hovering at a distance, the woman in white lay down beside Jeremy, her weightless body more full of life than any he had ever known.
In the morning Jeremy hurried down to the registration desk. Handing his credit card to Shelley with trembling fingers, he said, “Another seven nights in 227, please.”
“Of course, Mr. Stewart.” Shelley slid the card through the machine and frowned. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stewart, it seems your credit card has been declined.”
“What? Oh. Wait.” Jeremy tapped his fingers on the counter. “Try it for six nights.”
Shelley slid the card through the machine again and shook her head.
“Try five.”
She ran it again and looked back at him sadly.
“Keep trying, please. Try for four, three, two, even one, to see if it will go through.”
At the fourth try, Shelley smiled. “You’re good for one more night, Mr. Stewart.”
Jeremy wiped away the beaded sweat from his upper lip and sighed. “Thank you.”
Back at the Observation Bar that evening, Jeremy spent the last of his cash on an absinthe cocktail.
The bartender, noticing the empty space in Jeremy’s wallet, poured the drink and said, “Running a little short, are we, Sir?”
Jeremy felt his face turn red. “Yeah. I’m afraid this high-end living has taken its toll on my cash reserves.”
The bartended smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Sir. These things have a way of working themselves out.”
Smiling back in spite of himself, Jeremy took a sip of the green liquid and felt its warmth flow slowly through his veins.
After finishing the cocktail, Jeremy returned to his stateroom, leaving the lights off as usual. Moonlight streamed through the porthole windows and illuminated an object sitting on the bedside table. Moving closer, Jeremy saw it was an old apothecary bottle, beautiful in its design, but with no writing or description of the contents. Removing the cork cap, he sensed the woman in white even before her ethereal, glowing arms enveloped him from behind.
In a sweet and lilting voice she whispered in his ear. “Drink.”
The following afternoon the steward knocked tentatively on the door of Stateroom 227.
“Mr. Stewart? It’s past checkout time.”
Receiving no response, he knocked harder. Hearing no sounds from inside, he used the master key and entered the room. Jeremy lay there, lifeless on the bed, wearing the blue officer’s uniform, its brass buttons shining in the afternoon sun.
The staff managed everything quietly, not wanting to cast a shadow on the reputation of the Queen, and permanently closed off the stateroom where Jeremy had spent his last days.
In the Queen’s Salon that night, the bartender and the steward watched Jeremy’s ghost, in the dashing officer’s uniform, and the ghost of the woman in the white evening gown, slow dancing together in the shadows.
“This is good,” the bartender said.
“Yes,” the steward agreed. “She had been alone for far too long.”
I nearly died
when I was ten years old.
I went to this outside pool in Long Beach
full of kids shrieking the way kids do
on a scorching afternoon when school is out—
girls in micro swimsuits spread over the grass―
guys performing the mating dance―
the whole place as congested
as Clancy’s bar on
St. Paddy’s night.
I was in the pool practicing with one foot on the bottom,
when one of the Me-Tarzan-You-Jane jocks
decided to demonstrate his cannonball act.
The tidal wave hit me like a tsunami
and shoved me out of my depth―
the top of my head bobbing
like a cork on the briny blue.
I struggled to stay afloat
but the chlorine cocktail spiraled down my throat,
and I felt myself going
under for the third time.
Some girl saved me. She hollered:
You dumb Shit!
If you can’t swim, stay in the shallow end!
She was built like a Sumo wrestler―
one of those domineering types
I’ve tried to avoid all my life.
She reached out and grabbed my hair (I had hair then)
and dragged me, spewing
my guts, to the side of the pool.
Sometimes I wonder what became of that girl.
She must have gone through her own life
never realizing she had saved mine.
I like to think there is a hereafter
and we’ll meet again―
so I can tell her she gave me thirty years
of drugs and booze and re-hab and divorce and jail time
and I’ll say to her:
Why the fuck didn’t you let me drown?
Every Magician Needs a Volunteer from the Audience
Mina and I entered Khouri’s Restaurant on Marina Drive thinking we would be mistaken for diners, but the host on duty without a speck of hesitation stated rather than asked, “You’re here for the Sierra Singles Dinner. It’s in the room to your right.”
This did not deter us, rather it sped us along, certain that we had departed from the general stream of the human race to be consigned to a pitiable subcategory called SINGLES. I, for one, do not like to be pitied, and, if that was to be my fate, I would enter into it maintaining as little contact as possible with those from the other world.
Before we took the final steps that would carry us into the Singles Room, we noticed that the outer dining room looked out onto the water, which gently supported several yachts strung with Christmas lights. The reflection of the lights on the water hinted at excitement, but we dutifully turned right, stopping at the table just outside the room to pick up the papers held out to us by a sixtyish woman whose hair hung jaggedly as if she had cut it herself over the bathroom sink.
“This will get you started,” she said.
Each paper contained a list of statements about activities that someone attending an event like this might have engaged in. The first statement was, for example, “This is my first Sierra Singles event.” Another was: “I love cross-country skiing.” Beside each statement was a blank space within which you were supposed to insert a name and phone number. I made an immediate decision not to participate. I was not about to go through this ridiculous charade designed just to get me talking to the other singles in the room. Was it simply that I wasn’t prepared to admit to that level of desperation? I had, after all, entered the room. Or was it that strange thing within me that would not allow me to fully participate in anything I didn’t initiate? Mina, however, grabbed up her sheet and went off in search of signers. I watched her a moment in admiration as she approached a man with gray hair and a name tag identifying him as Richard N., then decided I had better find us some seats.
After lingering briefly to stroke a velvet suede jacket hanging on the coat rack, I found a table in the corner and sat down in the hard plastic chair that touched the wall, staking out the chair beside me for Mina. A man who was bigger than a bread box took the seat across from me and a nice-looking short-haired woman in the forty through sixty category sat down next to him. He immediately thrust his paper onto her plate for her to sign. For a moment I allowed myself to look around the room that was now filling and observe the odd things that can happen to men’s hair as they age, or perhaps more accurately, the odd things men do to compensate for the change in quantity and texture: swirling hair like an eddy in a stream gathered around a bald vortex, dying it black to make up for in color what it lacked in volume. Such thoughts, I told myself, were hardly productive; after all hair is hair is hair or is not hair, but in any case, I was supposed to be meeting people. I waved to the man across the table. Jake, his name tag said.
“Hi Jake. I’m Jessie. Both our names start with a ‘J’ and end with an ‘E’.”
“Interesting. Have you ever climbed to the top of Mt. Whitney?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Have you ever stayed at the Harwood Lodge?”
“What’s that?”
“Here,” he said impatiently. “Take a look at this list. There must be something you can mark.” He handed me his sheet, which was half-filled in. The names were mostly women, I noted, but this was a singles event. I found nothing I could sign off on, and it didn’t occur to me that I could and probably should have lied.
“Sorry, Jake.” I handed it back.
“You must not have been a Sierra Club member very long.”
“Actually I’m not a member; I came with my friend Mina.”
“You don’t seem to get outside much.”
“I like to sit in outdoor cafes.” He really didn’t look like Mr. Nature himself, with his shirt unbuttoned half-way down to reveal a gold chain that rested on a nest of gray and brown chest hairs.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m in sales.”
“What do you sell?”
“I don’t sell anything. My products sell themselves.”
“Well, then, what are the products?”
“Marital aids.”
“Marital aids?”
“Sex toys. Blow-up dolls. Things like that. You know.”
Lord. The first man I spoke to was just a half step away from female mud wrestling. Which is not to say that sleazoids can’t go on hikes. Why is nature necessarily pure? Perhaps outdoor porn is a concept whose time has come. Green porn. Promiscuous penguins stealing each other’s mates. Dogs humping each other on the front lawn.
“Let me ask you something, Jake. If you had to choose between always being inside or always being outside, which would you choose?”
“What kind of question is that?” Mina pulled out the chair I’d saved for her and sat down.
“You’re right,” I said, “It’s ridiculous. How about this? If you had to give up sex or movies, which would you give up?”
Jake was eager to answer this one. “Movies, of course, what about you?”
“Sex,” I said.
At that moment the waiters began to serve plates of not-in-its-prime rib. Out of the desire to look busy as much as to taste the meat, I cut into the piece that had been set down before me. It made a slushy sound that gave me pause. There is something inherently disgusting about watery meat. Nevertheless I couldn’t just sit there cutting up meat and not eating. I put the smallest piece it was possible to position on a fork into my mouth. Yoiks! It tasted like it came from a nursing home, where neither taste nor texture mattered to most of the elderly residents. Unfortunately, texture was even more important than taste to me, and I had to stifle a gag as my teeth found a piece of gristle. Its sinewiness triggered the unpleasant image of nerves threading through muscle. Eating meat is not a problem when I don’t think about it, but it’s another thing altogether when it calls attention to the animal it came from. Like beef tongue. You can almost see it licking clover away from the corner of its owner’s mouth. Not to mention the taste buds dotted across the pale gray surface. I tried chewing the gristle into a smaller bundle, but it was like a cross between rubber and gravel. Not something my stomach was anxious to accommodate. Without thinking, I edged my knife off the table. It made a clanking sound when it hit the floor, and I bent over to pick it up, spitting the meat into my hand when it was below the table.
“Don’t pick it up,” said a man who had just sat down at our table. I couldn’t quite read his name tag. “You don’t know what might be on the floor in a place like this!”
You’re right about that, I thought, as I dropped the piece of meat beneath my chair.
Now there were six of us: three women—myself, Mina, and the woman whose name was Joanne, and three men—Jake, Richard N., and the man whose name tag I couldn’t read. For a while we just ate or pushed our food around—everyone, perhaps, contemplating the fate that had carried them here, to this small table of individuals who happened to live in Long Beach in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. But Jake was not one to contemplate for long. He looked directly at Mina. “Where do you come from?”
“Where do you think?” Mina was from India, had long black curly hair and the kind of smile that actually generates heat. That combination, plus being from a place outside the experience of the average Long Beach man, brought her constant, not always welcome, attention.
“Thailand?”
“No.”
“The Philippines?”
“No.”
After several countries, Jake finally hit upon India, at which point he launched into a chorus of “Don’t worry, be happy.”
It was then that Mina aligned the salt with the pepper shaker and pulled up the cream pitcher to form the third point of a triangle. to show us that she had once lived by the Meher Baba. “His house was here,” she said, pointing to the pitcher.
“What advice would the Mayor have for us singles?” Jake asked.
“He says that love must spring spontaneously from within—it cannot be coerced by inner or outer force.”
“In other words,” I said, “This whole thing is pointless: we’re trying to force something that should come spontaneously.”
“I think perhaps he was speaking about the problems caused by our egos,” said Mina.
“Did he have a wife?” Joanne asked.
“I don’t know, but he lived with two brothers when he was my neighbor.”
“So why should we want his advice?” I asked,
“We must, I think, not worry about it so much and allow ourselves to interact freely with others so love can ignite if it will,” said Mina.
This reminded me vaguely of advice my mother used to dispense: “If you’d stop worrying about yourself so much and think about others, you wouldn’t have so many problems.” Unfortunately, the only time I could truly forget about myself was while smoking grass, and even then there was a certain awareness of forgetting myself. Just as I was thinking about not thinking about myself, a man in his mid-forties whose dark hair had not suffered any of the usual ravages of the aging process—no vortexes, no eddies—stood in front of the podium that was on the stage at the front of the room. Something about him looked corny, though at first glance I wasn’t sure what it was. He wore dark pants, a white shirt and a suit jacket…a name tag! I tore mine off and crumpled it.
He identified himself as John McQuinn, President of the Sierra Singles Club, South Bay branch, which made me wonder how long he had been single. Perhaps this club was for those who would always be single. I could see the bumper stickers: SINGLE and PROUD, SINGLES DO IT BY HAND or SINGLES DO IT ALONE. Honk if you’re single. Odd. The word single has two syllables of equal length. I was pleasantly surprised when he told a funny joke about two non-Sierra Club hikers who came unexpectedly upon a grizzly bear. It seems that the first hiker opened his back pack and frantically searched through it until he pulled out a pair of Nikes. “You can’t outrun a bear,” said the second hiker. “I don’t have to. I only have to outrun you,” replied the first hiker.