Truth Telling

He was out of milk again. Well, so what, right? Grown men don't drink milk, do they? They consume more sophisticated beverages, and no, he didn't mean beer, especially since he was not fond of beer (as in actively disliked beer dating to the night that in a fit of bravado, he chug-a....well, never mind.)

Truth was he liked milk. And tea. Herbal tea. And occasionally a cup of warm, not hot, water, just before bed, an indulgence he mentioned to no one. He would prefer warm, nearly hot milk, but milk seemed unsuitable for a guy his age. Who wanted to open a man's refrigerator door and find milk...organic milk...but milk?

So the untouched IPAs with a lone Guinness were on the refrigerator door, a bottle of white wine (aged from being there so long), in a marble wine cooler front and center, on the shelf, and four cans of Sanpellegrino lined up behind it. 

In case anybody ever looked.

Well, nobody had. 

Yet.

A woman had been to his place once, exactly once, and when he offered her something to drink, she declined, prettily, he remembered, daintily so not to offend him--he who had curated the contents of his refrigerator so carefully.

"No, I don't care for anything," she'd said in a tone that sounded as if she didn't care for him either.

But why did she smile when he invited her up; why did she perch on the edge of her chair like a nervous dove, perfectly arranged and present, just where he pictured her after he stepped on her left foot while in line at the Quick Stop?

"Ouch!" she had said.

"Oh!" he had said, "I am so sorry. Clumsy me."

She nodded. "Okay," she said, or "It's okay," or something like that. After he apologized a third time, she had actually followed him upstairs (making his choice of renting an efficiency over a corner grocery a brilliant choice.)

"So," he said.

"The bandaid," she said. "You said..." She had slipped off her sandal and extended her leg in his general direction, her toe already swollen and showing a faint smear of blood.

"Oh! Right!" he'd said and moved so quickly towards the bathroom that his head hit the door jamb. "The bandaid."

By the time he was back, with the first aid kit finally ferreted out from under the stack of toilet paper he kept in reserve, she was gone.

Just a faint smear of blood on the paper towel she'd left on the sofa.

Oh, well, he'd tried and now, at least, he could tell his mother that he had had somebody up to his apartment, a woman. He could be suitably vague--he was practiced at that, but at least he had an answer when she called to ask if he'd met anyone.

"Yes," he could say, "Yes, I did. A pretty woman."

The truth.

Right on Time

        What was she doing? he did't say it out loud, knew better than to pose such a question out of the blue. Especially out of the blue when obviously she wasn't doing anything wrong, bad, or evil...whatever negative adjective you wanted to employ, but what she appeared to be doing slowly, very slowly, was nothing.

He was dressed, ready to walk out the door. Too early. Well, yes, early, because he liked to be early, and it wasn't that hard to get dressed, tie your shoes, put on the coat and...and...wait.

What was she doing! As far as he could tell she appeared to be dressed: dress on. Shoes on, even earrings. Not the same earrings he saw the last time he looked, but jewelry, a suitable adornment. And she looked good, even beautiful. He'd told her so--a compliment, a sincere compliment had always worked in the past. "You look great!" he said, enthusiastically he hoped, not impatiently. "Really great!" 

Too much. His impatience showing. He should have said it just once.

"Thank you!" she trilled and disappeared into the bathroom. 

Again.

He looked at his watch. Well, still time. If they left now, they'd be 15 minutes early and she'd insist they wait in the car until exactly 6:30 before ringing the doorbell. Nobody likes early guests, she'd explained.

Well. Okay. He took a breath, looked at his watch. Nobody likes late guests either, he should have said. They still had a chance to be on time though, if she'd...

"Are you ready?" She startled him.

"What do you think?"

She laughed, took his arm, said, "You look great," before he could say it to her. "And, we're right on time."

Again.

A Red Letter Day

Valentine's Day. His least favorite day of the year, a revulsion inherited from his father he assumed. "Makes me see red," his dad announced repeatedly, almost triumphantly, every February fourteenth.

The old man would shout out, "Makes me see red," then laugh that gruff almost choking laugh he had when he thought he was particularly amusing or clever. 

    Sam never really knew what his dad meant or how he felt about anything. Now, thinking about his father, the gruff old man, gone now for exactly a year, he started to smile. "Makes me see red," Sam said under his breath.

    "Makes me see red," he said a second time. 

    "Makes me see RED." The third time's the charm, right?

    Or a joke. That angry old man was making a joke, doing his best to rise above himself, to add lightness to his heavy, smoke-stained voice. Uttering or muttering Happy Valentine's Day was beyond him, but maybe he had been...trying, really trying to rise above the constrictions of his life.

    "BE A MAN!" Another of his charges, his orders, his lessons. Him trying to be a man for his son and, maybe, even for his wife?

    Sam knew the old man had had no money for flowers or candy hearts, no way to say I love you without saying it out loud, but maybe, just maybe an acknowledgment, even an admission that he knew what day it was, that he was doing his best to say the day was special, something worth noting, a red-letter day, a day of love, unexpressed love, but love nevertheless.

                                                                               ~

    "I'll take the red ones," Sam said.

    The florist was confused. "The roses? Carnations? Mums?"

    "All of them," he said. "I like to see red.

Super Bowl Monday

"I've been reading Kabir, and..."

"Kabir? Who is Kabir?  Sounds foreign."

"He's a poet, a Sufi poet who writes about..."

"Sufi! What the hell is Sufi?

"Well, I don't really know. Something spiritual, I think. I'm sure. And old. Ancient."

"if you don't know, why are your reading it?"

"Hmmm." She is silent, thinking....If you don't know what you are doing....reading...why are you doing it, reading it? "A good question," she says. "Something Kabir might have asked. A very Sufi-like question."

He's not really listening. He's reading the paper, the sports section, even though the Super Bowl is over.

"I could say that reading the newspaper when you know what happened is something Kabir would do. It's "the breath inside the breath.'"

Silence.

"I said that reading...."

"I heard what you said. I don't remember any Kabir. Is he a sports writer?"

"NO! I told you. He is...or was...a poet, a Sufi poet like I said."

"So he's dead."

"Well, yes. He lived a long time ago."

"So you never really knew him."

"Of course not. He's Persian or...." She stumbles, embarrassed that she doesn't really know when or where Kabir lived and died. "He was a wise man whose words transcend the centuries, whose wisdom speaks to us today even though he never had a cell phone or heard of the Super Bowl."

"Poor bastard. No wonder you feel sorry for him."

"I don't!" she says, too loudly. "All I was saying is that he was a teacher, a wise man..."

"Like Rumi."

That stops her. "Rumi! You know Rumi?"

"Well, not personally of course, but better than you know Kelce."

"Is he a poet too?"

"No. He's just a guy with a famous girl friend, a pretty woman who reminds me of you...she probably reads dead poets too."

"Oh."

Kabir says, Who is it we spend our entire life loving?

Swift says, You're perfect for me.

Happy Thought

 

   The boy seemed quiet today. Unusually still. Didn't look sad, but he just sat there, on his bicycle in front of her house--no, tricycle, three wheels, not bicycle, two wheels. 

Most days the boy was a symphony of movement, of laughter, the laughter she called joy, joy that made her smile, that gave her a reason to sit by the window.

    She'd been watching him for weeks, maybe a month. Or two. No, not two--couldn't be.

    Didn't matter.

    She watched him because she had nothing else to do. Couldn't see well enough to read, nothing up close, but a boy on a tricycle pedaling up and down the sidewalk, nearly out of sight, then coasting back down, making the turn at her driveway--the blur of a child doing what children do.

    Playing.

    Perfect word, she thought. Almost like praying. Close to praying actually. If she could see better, she'd look them up, play and pray, find the etymology, words surely connected by more than a rhyme.

    Well, rhyme itself was almost a prayer, a playful prayer. Rhyme made her thoughts memorable, and that made her happy.

    Something she did well.

    Even with nobody to tell.

Love

Love

"Sun's up."

Silence.

"Sun's up, I said." 

She knew he heard her, knew he was awake because she had seen his left eye flicker open--briefly--but long enough to know that he was in there, conscious, wide awake. . . . well, maybe not wide awake, but awake enough, aware of time and tasks.

That's what he called his days: Time and Tasks. "Time to do this task and this task, and then, if you need to do task number 4, you better have completed 2 and 3 first. It's endless." His signature moan: endless.

"Let's name them," she had said once, brightly. Too brightly, but if that was her only fault, not so bad. "What about 'opportunities?'"

"Tasks. Shorter word. Easier to remember."

"Gifts. Also one syllable and positive."

"Tasks. Indicates contribution and maturity--nothing is free in this world."

Back and forth every morning, a version of the same conversation until she stood up, pulled back the sheet, the duvet (with the silent t), and announced "Sun's up...and so are we!"

He hated that false, early morning cheer, and, if he was being totally honest with himself, hated that it worked, got him awake and moving every morning.

Well, he was up now, could smell the coffee and would....again...whisper in her ear (even it if wasn't true), "Thank you for getting me up." 

        A stretch for him, but, as she had explained to him more than once, love works in mysterious ways.

Chicken Love

    He had chicken on the brain, had obsessed about chicken--actually chickens--plural--after Mitzy left 3 chickens on his doorstep in a cage shaped like a basket and a note: "Happy New Year, for the man who loves chicken!"

Well, he had said that, had said, "I love chicken" when she was deep into extolling the virtues of vegetarianism. 

        "Better for the planet,  ecologically the right thing to do, opens the door to cuisines and foods we've never tasted."

    "But I like chicken," he'd said, repeated like a chorus after her every glowing sentence.

    "Beans and rice are a complete protein."

    "But I like chicken." 

    "Quinoa, farro, couscous, kernza--a world of grains we know nothing about."

    "But I really like chicken."

    "And the pleasure of a variety of curries, stir fries, soups, stews, endless options available."

    "But I do love chicken," he had said, enjoying the game, ready to wear her down, with his refrain to stem her litany of the virtues of a vegetarian life.

    So now that's what he had, on his porch, chickens--plural, three of them, very much alive, and agitated from their long trip from who knows where. And Mitzy nowhere in sight. Just the note on the cage. He turned it over.

Chickens need to be fed and water changed daily. They need to be let out of the coop each morning and put into the coop at dusk each night to protect them from predators. They love vegetables, fruits, greens, breads, and rice--just like us. Eggs should be picked up twice a day. The coop and pen should be cleaned out weekly. With proper care, they will learn to love you as much as I do! 

 

   Illustration by Kate Tucker