Mary Ann Cain
Teetering the Bones    

His face was a mask. Straight out of the motherland, only instead of still wood, it moved.

It registered for a fleeting moment then disappeared. The face; its mask. Something inside her was caught in its gravity. She found herself summoning it, over and over, long after it had disappeared, days, weeks, months later.  Caught in its centripetal pull, she pushed mightily towards recapturing that image.  But only the original mattered, and that was long gone, leaving only the residue of its presence.

     Sometime, somewhere she knew he had been a familiar, despite the exotic intrigue of deeply etched lines and eyes trained on an unknowable horizon. Of hair massed in long, powerful twists like a story whose middle obscures its beginning and end. Of an unexpectedly ambiguous skin tone.

    She refused to let go of that wildness.  She could make his face her prayer, but then what would that be but to destroy it?

 

            Dear black people,

            Stop showing me these ancestors who cannot be mine. Some of you say, We are all connected. Some say, Difference is irreducible. To me, you say I am mixed, as in multiple, but also (implicitly) as in mixed up.  As if being mixed was my burden to bear, alone. Apart. Maybe you ascribe to the one-drop theory? Or maybe it’s about who first walked a human earth? Or maybe you think it’s up to me how to identify?

            Am I enough?  The ancestors refuse to answer. They just are. But you. You raised me up like my lightness made me better. And you put me down because I reminded you too much of what I came from. You twist me in but that is only so that you can twist me out without reaching an end.

            Yours truly,

            Born Out From Slave

 

Faces, all of them, now looked different to her.  She searched for a place where something else, something more, was revealed beyond the mask. Something alive. She clung to the wild she knew was hers like a beam that could slice through all. She danced, she sang, she made up words no one else had ever heard. Wild would seek its own kind.  It could not hide from itself.

And when the great sickness came, when faces, at least noses, mouths, and chins, disappeared behind cloth, it was the cloth that announced a myriad of new selves, like cartoon features plastered slapdash across otherwise careful human pretense.  Making even the most animated faces dull by comparison, more masklike than the masks themselves. 

 

Dear white people,

You know my kind came first from rape and now more from love, but you never really wanted me as long as my face bore the slightest resemblance to ancestors you would never claim.  When it gets right down to it, you act like I’m easier to accept than them, but in fact, I make it worse for you, a sin too close to your own damn selves. If I was darker, you could at least say, Well there but for the grace . . . But me, too close to put so far off.

I will pray for your destruction even though it means my own.

Yours truly,

Faces, all of them, now looked different to her.  She searched for a place where something else, something more, was revealed beyond the mask. Something alive. She clung to the wild she knew was hers like a beam that could slice through all. She danced, she sang, she made up words no one else had ever heard. Wild would seek its own kind.  It could not hide from itself.

And when the great sickness came, when faces, at least noses, mouths, and chins, disappeared behind cloth, it was the cloth that announced a myriad of new selves, like cartoon features plastered slapdash across otherwise careful human pretense.  Making even the most animated faces dull by comparison, more masklike than the masks themselves. 

 

Dear white people,

You know my kind came first from rape and now more from love, but you never really wanted me as long as my face bore the slightest resemblance to ancestors you would never claim.  When it gets right down to it, you act like I’m easier to accept than them, but in fact, I make it worse for you, a sin too close to your own damn selves. If I was darker, you could at least say, Well there but for the grace . . . But me, too close to put so far off.

I will pray for your destruction even though it means my own.

Yours truly,

White girl/not white girl

 

She made an altar out of a trunk she found at a discount store, made in a country where everyone prayed to the same gods. On that altar she placed a candle, beads, and sacred oil, and matches on the windowsill nearby.  She sat on a cushion in lotus, pelvis tilted forward, a purple silk veil from belly dancing days transformed into a shawl. It got cold just sitting, going deep into blue lights at the third eye and green lights for heart chakra.  Fuck anyone who thought she was high woo-woo.  Or that she had no right to cross over into someone else’s cultural practices.

Prayer was something she rejected.  Prayer was something else altogether.  Prayer was what some people wanted to call what she did, calling out for the wildness to bring calm back into her throat, her eyes, her belly, her chest.  She really didn’t care what they called it.  She hated what they called it. 

Once upon a time, it mattered, and it kept her from trying.  But then the ancestor came and showed her masks could be alive. He stayed for a fleeting moment and left her to try to reach him again. 

Conjuring is what she decided to call it. She never met anyone before who did that. He made her want to learn to conjure.

 

Dear ancestors,

I don’t believe in you or any other gods. I think you find me useful.  I have no idea why.

Black people say I have a purpose. They say it comes from you.

White people think you are dead.  And you are.  They think you are a figment of my imagination. 

I am a figment of their imagination.

My purpose is to be a figment of your imagination. I am a figment of your figment.

I believe in figments.  Figments are lies.

Yours truly,

I-will-lie-for-you 

 

In the moving mask, the mask below the mask, time is round. It’s always been there.  It’s never been there.  No beginnings or endings, only middles, twisted like dreadlocks, like spinal columns, like rope.  No straight without twist. Twist without end, amen. The minute the mask moves, it is gone, never to return to its original figmentation.  When it returns, if it returns, it is never the same, though same enough to know it has returned.

She thinks of those Russian nested dolls and wonders if there is anything else besides one thing inside another, one self inside another, nothing moving on the inside. But then she saw her figment.  That ancestor.

He just was.

 

Dear Self,

At the end of  inside is bone skull. Being slave/not slave has blurred this inevitability, but the ancestors have made it clear: we built ourselves on a pile of bones.  Now, in this current sickness, they are taking us back.  Time’s up.  Or down.  Or just gone, gone, gone.

In this sickness, no one will be spared.  No one is chosen, or special.  The boneyard will be destroyed without regard to status.  But also with every regard. 

There will be no poetic justice in the boneyard. Ancestral bones will crush us all. My ancestor, your ancestor. Nothing matters except the foundation of bones will no longer seem to support us.

You have been ready for this your whole life. This time is your moment. You know those moves. The bones have always slid beneath your feet.

Yours truly,

No Place to Stand

 

So now she sees: there has never been any really real for her.  Now everyone else is catching up.

Does that make them like me? Me like them?

She sat before the altar and lit the candle. It glowed, a warm yellow, unscented.  She anointed herself with oil named after an Indian mystic who made objects appear out of nowhere. The beads were actually seeds, strung to hang around her neck and for counting in her hand the breaths she took. 

Conjuring.

Thefacewasamaskwasamaskwasaface. Thefacewasamaskwasamaskwasafacewasamaskwasaface. Wasamaskwasaface.

Breathe in. Breathe out. A big circle of breath. Inside no breath. Between and inside each circle, more stillness.

Some of the most adept could stop the circle, dwell in the stillness indefinitely. A figmentation that has been seen by millions.  But not hers. Not those ancestors.

The circle said, Believe.  The circle said, Don’t believe.

Then the circle disappeared.

 

What happens when there are no words?  When one runs up against their limits and sees their gaping holes, their inevitable flaws?  What happens when comes the realization that that is all we have, and that they will never be enough?  When a great injustice comes home to roost?

Sweet surrender. Give them up. Listen to the rain drops fall.

Is another kind of speech possible?  Was another kind of speech? She decided she didn’t care to try and find out.  It was enough to just sit with the end of it all.  In front of the lit candle. Cross-legged on a cushion, where everything might end, might begin, might just, for once, be.

 

The body knows.  Alive with rhythm and sound, it conjures what cannot be, what never was, what always is. It scoffs at your pathetic prayer and orders a bigger bite of what escapes you, over and over. It says, Just chant. Any sounds will do.  Palm your chest like a goatskin stretched tight and wail like the wild wind you know you are (and aren’t). You are elusive as the deer who watch you without malice. Your predator eyes. You think they don’t know what you will do? 

They never pretended their bones were any foundation.  That was your figment. Their existence is nothing but bones, for their eyes look sidewise; for them to kill is rare and ludicrous. Pray to them, and they will stalk you with big, burning stares that refuse your entreaties for peace and beauty.

Pray and  prey—no accident in the English language, wedded to the death of The Peaceable Kingdom, another figment you so lovingly embrace. Pray/prey for the truth to be known. For this ancestral face/mask to place itself over your own and live again, and kill you once and for all.  The wildness will tear you to nothing.  The wildness will leave you in peace.

You may pray to us but we hear nothing but hands on skin, blood through veins, the pulse of organs blooming without direction from you.

 

She found sitting cross-legged allowed for no lies. Bones held her up.  Bones sank her down. Bones gave her form.  Bones could not contain it.

How easy and soothing it would be to settle one way or the other, into the harmonies of monastic choruses or the ear-splitting howls of hyenas. One way or the other.  Pick one and defend.  That was the way, predator or prey. Tame or wild.  White or black.

Face or mask.

She had seen such masks at a museum or two, viewed videos of dancers who became the spirits they were figmented to hold.  She wondered how to dance while sitting, still.  Or how to be still while dancing.

But they were not her; she was not them.

The deer, she knew, would tell her otherwise. They knew she was a killer, and they knew she would surrender to whatever wound the ancestors required for her to know again the face/mask/face of that beautiful terror some called ancestor.

Conjuring the unthinkable, the never-thought.  That was her.  That was who she was.

The power of it was unbearable: bone crusher. Start the whole thing over again, and do not let them pile up in neat bundles to be buried in mass graves, or no graves, or graves unmarked at all.

 

Dear Mask,

I finally come to you. It’s always been a question of power, hasn’t it? Purpose and power. Inhale, I am filled.  Exhale, I move. Receive. Give. Face. Mask.

My power depends on you.

My power depends on you.

My power depends on you.

You put me on and spin. You see through me. My body is yours. What has been covered—you bring this forward. The One Who Knows. That would be you. You the Not Me.

I had a black mother who tried her best to mother.  I had a white father, too. Their masks were blank. They revealed no ancestors. They had a mother. They had a father, too. I know their names. Their masks were blank, too.

Their masks were bones that piled up and left me teetering.

Maybe that is what you want from me. Learn to move as if my life depends on it.  Teeter as a way to be. There is no set dance.

You protect me from myself. The thinnest of lines between one thing and another.

I need that line.  I need that space.  I need that place in between. I am that.

You are my horizon.

Sincerely,

Your face

 

Africa is everyone’s home, she has been told. She wishes she knew what it was to have a home, any home, even as she knows she did. She wonders if there is such a thing as an original, as in origin. Do we really all come from the same scrap of ground? The same ancestral light? When will the next story shape shift into some entirely different idea?

She prays to her shape-shifter self that living masked will show her the truth of how the bones will collapse, if they will, if someone will hasten to repair or if something else might instead come to be.  Is suffering the only way?  She will not pray to that god, or any others. At least Buddha was not god, was not suffering.  But, she thinks, how can we all just sit down like that?

When sitting is not sitting.  When masks see through you. When the world masks up, it is telling you what you could never imagine. How to get there?

 

She had already been a student of masks but didn’t know it.  Masks were something in between, a liminal something. They were dreams. They eluded capture. Somewhere in between being and becoming. Masks were magic. No wonder so many objected to wearing them: superstitions about darkness and evil overcoming them.  They prayed to their gods to be delivered from such evil.  They shouted, spun, and spit. They would not be contained.

They knew power when they held it. Power over, not power through.

They had to submit to something bigger.  They longed for it.  They loathed it.

She longed for it. She loathed it.

Then she just asked: show me what you know.

 

Dear Face,

So you have asked to receive, and receive you will. The ancestors are nothing if not responsive. You can’t hold me without changing your breath. So change your breath. Maybe you will fall asleep. Fall asleep. You owe me nothing. You owe me everything. Awake or asleep, it’s all the same.  You just might remember more if you are not asleep.

Either way, surrender.

At the bottom of it all is the heart beat. That and the whoosh of blood in the veins. Which is wind. I draw you out into this new landscape. Without me, you are cast to the worst you cannot imagine. The best and the worst. You must go there.  There is no choice in the matter.

You are. You are--?  You have no idea. You think you want barbecue when it’s bleach you should choose. No, not in your veins. Take it down to nothing. Before all this new fuss arrived.

To the bones. Touch them, each one. They are bleached by your stare, your eyes above the mask. From here to everywhere, nothing but bones. I hug your bones, the ones of which the writer asked, What tribe? His mask said Tribe. He just wanted to grab your bones and shake them down. You pretended not to know. Liar.

You touch your lies when you touch these bones.

            Sincerely,

            Your figment

 

She has been a student of masks but until now didn’t know it.  In what they conceal, they also reveal.  It is that aimless feeling she can’t bear. She thought she had purpose, but masks called out the lie. The lie not simply that she lacked purpose; masks had purpose, she had her masks, so she had purpose. No, it was that she needed purpose.

A cruel joke?  A liberatory figment? When the proverbial rug is withdrawn, what is left upon which to stand?

Every god she’d ever known demanded purpose.  Every mask—well, now it seems the ancestor figment has raised the thought that purpose was not hers to claim. Purpose was a mask with a face that laughed.  No purpose was a figment of which she had never caught even the slightest glance.  Unimaginable.  Why else do anything?

Which brings her back to bones, and the slipping and sliding, the awful dance that is her life. What if she stopped?  Could she conjure that figment of no purpose and survive?  When the whole pile was predicated on purpose?

Not her purpose. Not her purpose. Not her purpose.  It became a chant.

Without purpose, nothing to resolve. End of story. Except no story at all then.

Could she survive without a story?

 

She was a mask. The face looking through—no wonder she couldn’t see it. It was the mask seeing her. It was the ancestor finally conjured. Another view; another story.  Only it was twisted in such a way as to deny any beginnings or endings. Twisted in to something larger but still the same, still separate.

The mask spoke her. The mask spoke. She had conjured, and thus it spoke. Shewas a figment of the mask.

And so now she could sit and take in purposenopurposenopurposepurpose.  Twisted in, there was nothing more than a middle.

Middle passage. The bones at the bottom. They refused her dance.

She refuses her dance. She conjures a new figment with no resolution. She’s been conjuring it her whole life but didn’t know it. She is stripped of purpose. She is the figment the ancestors have dreamed.

She looks at them with sidewise eyes. She is as elusive as the deer who watch them without malice. Their predator eyes.  Do they think she doesn’t know what they will do?

 

 

Thomas Healy
Hang Fire in the High Country

i

"Steady there," Parsons whispered, patting the neck of his horse, Cooper, after its left front hoof stumbled a little on a slick stone along the edge of the winding trail. "Steady does it."

The trail was so familiar to the animal Parsons was surprised it had stumbled at all. Maybe it was so familiar it was bored. He had been a trail hand at the Sackler ranch not quite five months and guided riders up the hillside trail several times a week and was never bored. He couldn't really think of anywhere he'd rather be this afternoon or any other time than on this trail.

The nine riders in his care today were patients at the Arcadia Recovery Home, a drug and alcohol treatment clinic in the lower valley. Every few weeks the clinic bussed over a group of patients to the stables to go on a horseback ride. They were near the end of their treatment so this was something of a reward for their apparent recovery. They had their choice of three trails. The easiest was around Diamond Lake, another was through a cedar forest once popular with moonshiners during Prohibition, and the most challenging was the one up Hardesty's Peak. Usually the patients picked the ride around the lake so Parsons was surprised when this group chose the steeper climb. Suong, his assistant, who was riding point, also was surprised. She figured it was more the preference of one person, a retired light colonel in the Army, who seemed to relish the challenge.

"He thinks he's tough," she said of the colonel before they left the stable, "or else he wants others to think he is."

She had only worked at the ranch a couple of months but Parsons trusted her instincts. She was someone he paid attention to when she offered an opinion. An immigrant from Vietnam, she had never ridden a horse until she came to the States but she had watched so many old western movies on television that it was something she looked forward to doing when she got here. She didn't start to ride until she was in high school and got a job cleaning stables at a resort ranch not far from where she and her foster family lived in the valley. There, after her chores were done, she went for long rides so often that she became a very accomplished rider. Her foster family offered to put her through nursing school, which had been her ambition before she arrived in this country, but after she started riding she wanted to continue to work with horses and some day be able to afford to purchase one of her own.

About midway through the ride was a series of abrupt switchbacks that Parsons believed was the most difficult stretch of the trail. He was at the rear of the pack so he tried to keep a pretty close eye on the riders because, if anything was to go wrong, it was likely to occur on this part of the trail. Just last week, a rider made too sharp of a turn and nearly fell off his horse.

"Hold your reins," he reminded the riders. "And keep your heels right under your hips."

Slowly they proceeded through the switchbacks, with a red-shouldered hawk circling above them as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing did, though, and after they made it through, Suong picked up the pace a bit, gently pressing her legs into the sides of her horse.

As always, at the crest of the hill, Parsons had the riders dismount so they and the horses could rest for a few minutes before heading back to the ranch. He then handed out small cans of grapefruit juice to the riders and Suong offered them granola bars. Also, she gave them each two cubes of sugar to feed their mounts. Two the riders were so depleted, however, they ate the sugar themselves.

Hardesty's Peak was one of the highest peaks in the valley so at first scarcely any of the riders said anything because they were so impressed with the view from the top of the hill. To the east, Diamond Lake gleamed in the sunlight and to the west were cedar woods so thick it seemed as if an enormous blanket was spread across that corner of the valley. And visible in nearly every direction were silver streams of water as bright as tinsel on a Christmas tree.

Parsons, standing at the edge of the peak, marvelled at the magnificent view, wishing every day could be like this, but he knew the hard weather would be coming soon and the view then would be bleak with dark rain clouds visible all across the sky. And then the horseback rides conducted by the ranch would be shut down until sometime in the spring.

"I bet you never get tired of this view," the colonel remarked as he stepped next to Parsons.

"No, sir. Not on a day as nice as this one."

"I suppose you shut down during the winter."

"Before that," he said, tightening the bandana around his neck. "People don't want to ride in the rain. The trails are too treacherous then."

Nodding, the colonel looked over at Suong who squatted on the ground beside the horses with her eyes almost closed. "Your partner is Vietnamese, right?"

"She is."

"I figured so from the way she's sitting over there," he said, shading the sun from his eyes. "I've never seen anybody but the Vietnamese sit like that ... almost as if they are getting ready to relieve themselves."

"You have a problem with the Vietnamese?"

"No, not at all," he claimed. "But whenever I see one all I can think of is the beating we took in their country." He paused, touching the large service ring on his right hand.

"Humiliation. That's all that comes to mind."

"You can't blame her."

"Oh, believe me, I don't. It was those damn New Frontiersmen who thought they were the best and the brightest but weren't either. They were just teachers looking for more people to tell what to do." Again, he paused. "I lost a grandson in that shitstorm."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Not as sorry as I am."

Not knowing what more to say, Parsons stepped away from the edge of the peak and told the others it was time to head back to the stables.

*

The small town of Orchards was located in the eastern corner of the Millrose Valley. Parsons had never heard of the place but got off the bus there because that was the end of the line and he didn't have any reason to return to where he boarded it a few hours earlier. He had just enough money to rent a motel room for a week so he knew he had to find some employment soon if he intended to remain in the town. He made inquiries at half a dozen businesses until Mr. Weatherby, the owner of one of the two service stations in town, offered him a job. Mainly he pumped gas and cleaned windshields and, on occasion, changed a tire but he got paid so he didn't complain.

A regular customer at the station was Roger Sackler who owned a stable of riding horses as well as a huge apple orchard and several head of cattle. Parsons often waited on him, hoping always to make a good impression because he very much wanted to work at his stable. Finally, one afternoon, he let him know of his interest which seemed to take the rancher by surprise.

"Have you ever worked with horses, son?"

He nodded. "For many summers I worked at my Uncle Roy's spread in Northern California," he lied.

"Did he have a lot of horses?"

"No, not a lot, but a few and it was always my responsibility to take care of them."

"Well, if something becomes available, I'll keep you in mind."

"I appreciate that, sir."

Parsons smiled to himself as he watched Sackler drive out of the station in his dusty Dodge truck. Uncle Roy, who for many years drove a taxi in San Francisco, seldom ever left the city, and when he did he never went to any place with horses other than wooden ones on some carousel. Parsons had learned all he knew about horses in a state prison where he was an inmate for eighteen long months.

 

*

"So who are we taking out today?" Suong asked Parsons as she staggered out of her Jeep. As usual, she was late but later than usual. Her eyes were still puffy with sleep.

He turned around, slinging a pair of reins over his left shoulder. "You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"That party of disabled veterans that was scheduled today cancelled last night."

"Why's that?"

"One of them overdosed on heroin and it's not likely he'll recover, according to Mrs. Sackler."

"That's terrible."

"I know."

"Just terrible."

"But that anniversary party is still set for later this afternoon."

Yawning, she stretched her thin arms above her head. "Remind me, Dwight, what is the anniversary for?"

"It's a couple's silver wedding anniversary."

"That's how many years?"

"Twenty-five."

She yawned again. "Lord, I can't imagine being with anyone that long."

He smiled. "If you like, you can rest in the bunkhouse until it's time to saddle up."

"Oh, I don't know."

"Armey and Richter," the other trail hands who bunked there with Parsons, "went into town earlier to pick up some supplies so they probably won't be back until dark. You know how they like to stop at the Wagon Wheel and talk and drink for a couple of hours whenever they're in town."

"All right, I'll take you up on your offer," she said, rubbing her right eye. "Be sure to wake me up no later than thirty minutes before it's time to head out."

"I'll do that," and he did wake her, though it took a couple of minutes to get her to open her eyes.

The anniversary party was a sizable one, consisting of nine adults who were all in their fifties. The five men wore pressed jeans and white dress shirts, the women also wore jeans and colorful tropical blouses. Only a few appeared comfortable riding a horse so Parsons knew he had to be vigilant because inexperienced riders were more likely to have problems on the trail.

Before they left the stable, Parsons told the party to mount their horses from the left side and to hold the reins tightly in their left hand. Once in the saddle, he said they should keep their back straight when they ride with their legs turned in as if they were hugging the horse with them.

"As for the reins," he concluded, "keep them loose once we get underway and I'd recommend that you hold them in both your hands."

Suong then headed out on the eastside trail to Diamond Lake with the others following her in single file. Parsons stayed at the back of the pack, gently squeezing his horse's sides with his legs. The trail was the easiest one of the three available to riders with scarcely any elevation except for a sharp little ride near the middle. They moved slowly with the riders barely exchanging a word with one another as they concentrated on keeping control of their horses. Suong identified some plants and wildflowers along the way but no one seemed to pay much attention. Parsons wasn't surprised. People who hadn't ridden a horse before were always very nervous at first. One of the men in particular seemed anxious and frequently looked back as if looking for something he had left behind. Parsons smiled, having come across plenty of watches and keys and pens and rings and even a couple of wallets since he started work at the ranch.

Soon the lake came into view and Parsons was disappointed when he saw someone paddling a canoe near the north end. He hoped the riders could see the lake undisturbed, without anyone on it, so that it would appear as still and pure as an oil painting. That was the way it was when he first saw it. The canoeist spoiled that, however, like a blemish that couldn't be ignored.

Damn him, Parsons thought to himself, leaning over in his saddle.

About a third of the way around the lake was a picnic area and on one of the tables was a three-tier lemon yellow cake. A caterer, hired by the celebrating couple, set it there along with two bottles of champagne in silver ice buckets. It looked so inviting that Parsons was concerned some of the riders might speed up and get out of the file but everyone continued at the same pace.

"I still can't imagine being with anyone for twenty-five years," Suong whispered to Parsons as they listened to the riders toast the anniversary couple.

"I suppose if you're in love you don't even think about how long you've been together."

"Maybe so," she said, taking a sip of champagne.

He also took a sip from his glass then walked over to his horse to share some of his cake.

"Your horse must have quite a sweet tooth," a slope-shouldered man with bushy eyebrows remarked as he approached Parsons. He was the rider who every few feet turned around in his saddle.

"Just like me I'm afraid."

"Say, I've been meaning to ask you something."

"What's that?" he wondered, offering some more crumbs to Cooper.

"Haven't we met before?"

Parsons, tensing up, felt his left thumb begin to twitch and quickly tucked it into his left pocket.

"No, I don't believe so."

"You sure look familiar."

"I suppose everyone has someone they look like at one time or another."

"I suppose so," he sighed. "My name is Gus Rattery, by the way."

"I'm sorry but I don't recognize your name."

"It'll come to me where we crossed paths," he said confidently. "Sooner or later, it'll come."

Parsons watched the suspicious man walk back to the other riders. He was sure he had never seen him before today but he was not surprised that the man thought he recognized him. He had been approached by a few others who thought he looked familiar since he got out of prison. They, too, were mistaken. They knew of him, perhaps, but they didn't know him at all.

 

ii

 

After his conviction for involuntary manslaughter, Parsons received a sentence of three years in a corrections facility. But because of good behavior he was released after serving half that time. He was grateful to be let out earlier than scheduled but still believed he never should have served a day behind bars. He was certain the police had arrested the wrong person regardless of the evidence presented during his trial. He was convinced, without any doubt whatsoever, a grievous mistake was made.

Late one Friday night a fight broke out in the parking lot of a bar and grill where Parsons was employed as a dishwasher. The manager of O'Malleys, a timid man who was the son-in-law of the owner of the establishment, told him and the cook to go outside and break it up before it got out of control. Parsons knew if he didn't do as he was told he would be fired so he went out with the cook who was half his size. And there they saw two guys hitting another guy hunched on the ground. Parsons tried to pull away one of the men throwing punches, and before he knew it, he was struck on the back of the head and stumbled and fell to his knees then was kicked in the ribs.

Immediately he lost consciousness, and when he came to his hands were in cuffs. He was told by the arresting officer he had struck the person he had grabbed with his elbow and the man fell back and cracked his head on one of the stone steps behind the bar and grill and died on the way to the hospital. He could not believe it and swore he was innocent but the few people who were there in the parking lot claimed he was at fault. Only the cook didn't have any idea because he said he was busy looking after the man who was attacked.

"This is ridiculous!" Parsons shouted, shaking his cuffed hands. "I didn't hurt anyone. I am the one who got sucker punched."

He had never been in a fistfight in his life and, even if it was an accident, he was positive he wasn't the one who killed the man.

 

*

Parsons had only been in prison a week when he received a plain white postcard that said, "You're Not Forgotten."

It wasn't signed so he assumed it was from someone at O'Malleys. Possibly the cook, Sanchez, so he sent him a short note thanking him for the card. To his surprise, Sanchez wrote back and said he didn't send it, though he had been meaning to write to him but just hadn't got around to it yet.

The following week, he received another postcard, with the same message and also without a signature. And for the rest of his time in prison, he received a card nearly every week. Not having any idea who was sending them, he asked everyone he could think of if they were doing it but all denied they were the sender. He was baffled and wondered if the cards were sent by someone who had followed his trial and also believed he was wrongly accused of the man's death. Or maybe the sender was just fond of someone who worked with horses.

 

*

Though convicted of a violent crime, Parsons was assigned to a medium-security prison, and like several other correction facilities in the West, it had an equestrian program in which inmates, under the supervision of an experienced trainer, learned how to train wild mustangs so some day they could be used for trail riding. He was selected for the program because one summer he was a counselor at a boy's camp where riding horses was a regular activity. He really didn't know anything about training horses but he was somewhat accustomed to being around them because as a counselor he conducted many of the horse rides at the camp.

The first horse he was given to work with was a dun-colored mustang that was so obdurate it took him quite a while to get it to move in the direction he pointed the long stick the trainer, Rex Hutchens, handed him before he entered the corral. With the stick he was supposed to establish a connection with the animal but it proved difficult. Hutchens, a craggy-faced man in his early sixties, watched closely as he waved the stick back and forth like a wand in front of the mustang which most of the time turned its back on him.

"Come on, come on!" Parsons urged the animal but it continued to ignore him.

Hutchens brushed a finger across the brim of his stained gray Stetson. "You have to be patient, son."

"I thought I was."

"Maybe you did but not the horse," he said, tucking his thumbs behind his saucer-sized belt buckle. "You have to keep in mind these creatures have lived a tough enough life. They aren't likely to respond to the commands of some wobblin' jaw doing a lot of shouting."

"As I am I suppose."

"That's right," he answered gruffly. "You have to be gentle with these bangtails otherwise all you'll get is frustrated."

Parsons nodded, relaxing his grip on the stick.

"Take your time which is something both you and this horse have plenty of," he continued.

"Don't force anything. Sure, it'll be aggravating at times but I've learned that when training a horse a carrot is more likely to get it to obey you than a lot of hollering." 

He stared at the horse which seemed to stare right through him.

"You can't hang fire. Not around here."

"Sorry?"

"You have to make up your mind what you're going to do before you enter the corral and keep at it or you'll never gain the trust of any horse. You can't put off what you're there to do. You have to do it, son."

Still staring at the mustang, he asked, "Does it have a name?" "Well, like most mustangs, it likes to burn the breeze when it's not penned in so I've been calling it 'Breezer'," he said. "It seems to fit."

Once again Parsons swung the stick from side to side and still Breezer ignored him. "It sure isn't paying me any mind."

"It will once it gets comfortable with you so long as you get comfortable with it."

"I'm trying."

Hutchens gritted his teeth. "Trying isn't good enough here, son. You have to get it done or I'll find someone who will. Pure and simple."

It took him a good forty-five minutes to get Breezer to budge from its spot in the middle of the dusty corral and another thirty minutes to get it to take a step toward him. To his surprise, he felt a real sense of accomplishment getting the mustang to do what he wanted without having to raise his voice. And, after a couple of days, the horse relaxed enough that he was able to slip a rope halter over its head. Right away, Hutchens cautioned him not to apply too much pressure because the halter might irritate the horse's face so whenever Breezer responded to one of his commands he promptly eased the pressure. In another week, he was leading it around the corral with a nine-foot-long rope and began to feel as if he really belonged in the equestrian program. He knew it would be quite a while before he could put a saddle on the animal but he wasn't in any hurry and just enjoyed being around the horse.

 

*

"They get to you, don't they?" Rodriquez, another inmate in the program, remarked one day when he noticed Parsons stroking Breezer's head as it rested on his left shoulder.

"That they do."

"I never had anything to do with horses until I got put in this program and now when I get out I want to continue to work with them in some capacity."

"I've thought about that myself."

"I don't know if anyone will hire me, though. I've talked with Rex about my chances and he figures they are better than even."

"That's encouraging."

He nodded, shifting the lunge whip in his right hand to his left hand.

"You definitely have the knowledge."

He smiled. "You know that quote up there," he said, looking at the hand-carved wooden sign above the stable door. "I didn't really understand it when I started here ... thought it was a lot of horseshit to tell you the truth. But now I couldn't agree more with it."

Parsons looked up at the Winston Churchill quote: "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man."

He also was beginning to appreciate its significance because he knew how much he looked forward to working with Breezer every day. He wasn't particularly fond of animals, regarded them as a nuisance he preferred to avoid. So he was amazed by the strong bond that gradually developed between him and Breezer and was sure he might not have been able to survive his stay in prison if it wasn't for this attachment. It wasn't just that the work kept him occupied and kept him from feeling sorry for himself because of what he believed was a wrongful conviction but he came to relish the challenge of taming such a wild creature. It gave him not only a sense of purpose throughout his incarceration but also a feeling of genuine accomplishment.

 

*

On Auction Day he and the other inmates in the equestrian program rode their horses to the arena with three corrections officers trailing behind them in an armored truck. They were side by side as if engaged in one of the many cavalry charges he had watched in so many western movies on late night television. He was full of pride and some regret. Though he was confident he had trained Breezer well and that it was ready for the auction, he didn't know if he was when he entered the arena. Deep down he believed this was going to be the worst day of his time in prison because he didn't want to let Breezer out of his care. The horses stirred up a lot of dust so he told himself that was why his eyes began to water as he circled the arena with the auctioneer calling out the bids through a hand-held megaphone.

He knew there would be other horses he would be asked to train and have to let go but he believed he would be prepared to release them. But this first time at the auction all he felt was a profound sorrow and wished somehow he and Breezer could charge out of the gate and burn the breeze without anyone able to catch them.

 

iii

 

Today, at the stable, Parsons was scheduled to guide a party of senior citizens around Diamond Lake, and as he slipped a saddle on Cooper's back, he noticed a familiar figure walk across the parking lot to the ranch house. It was the guy last week who thought he recognized him. Rattery, he believed, was his name. He couldn't believe he was back so soon, usually return customers didn't come back until a few weeks had passed, if not longer.

"It appears we have a very satisfied customer riding with us today," he remarked as Suong entered the stable.

She wrinkled her forehead. "Who's that, Dwight?"

He directed a thumb at Rattery as the guy stepped onto the front porch. "He was with a party we took around the lake just last week."

"Oh, yeah, I remember him. He thought he recognized you from somewhere."

"That's right."

"But you didn't have any idea who he was."

He nodded. "I wonder what he's doing here? He's not a senior citizen."

"I'll go see if you like?"

"Yeah. Why don't you?"

She left, after handing him a roster of the day's riders, and returned a couple of minutes later.

"Is he riding with us today?" he asked.

"Nope. Mrs. Sackler said he just came by to see if any openings were available later this week."

"He could have called to find that out."

"That's what Mrs. Sackler said."

"I wonder why he didn't?"

"Who knows?"

"He does I guess."

As he led Cooper out of the stable, he watched Rattery step off the porch and he was certain Rattery saw him but the guy didn't acknowledge him and headed straight to his car. For someone who thought he recognized him, Parsons was surprised he didn't at least raise a hand in greeting.

 

*

Toward the end of his stay in prison, the plain white postcards Parsons received nearly once a week reminding him he was not forgotten began to be signeds. First, it was the "Lench Brothers" then just the "Brothers." The person he was convicted of killing was Jeb Lench so he assumed his brothers wanted him to know that they would never forget or forgive what he was accused of doing. And he suspected they also wanted him to know that they intended to square things with him once he was released from prison.

Once, at a bar he sometimes frequented along the riverfront, he thought the older brother spotted him. He wasn't sure but it definitely threw a scare into him and immediately he got up from his stool and hurried out of the place. For a second, he thought he heard his name called but he didn't turn around and dashed around the corner. Then he broke into an all-out run, weaving between people on the sidewalk, until he reached the nearest pier. Out of breath he hunkered under it, his heart pounding in his ears, and counted to himself One Mississippi ... Two Mississippi ... Three Mississippi ... There were other occasions when he thought someone was looking at him suspiciously and he would duck into an alley or inside a doorway until a few minutes had passed. But that was the first time he believed he saw one of the brothers since the trial.

After that close call, he decided he better leave town and went to the high country in the farthest corner of the state and even changed his name and grew a mustache and long sideburns. There, he felt at ease, pretty sure the brothers would never find him in such a remote area, but that sense of security was rattled when Rattery approached him last week.

*

Slowly the party of senior citizens circled the lake, with Suong in the lead and Parsons at the rear. He tried to keep an eye on the riders but it was difficult because he kept wondering why Rattery had returned to the ranch today. When he spoke with him last week, he had a sense the inquisitive man might have remembered seeing his picture in the paper during the trial. Maybe not at the moment but later, after he was back home, it came to him and maybe he told or soon would tell the brothers where they could find him. This was sheer speculation, of course, but why else would Rattery return a week later to the ranch if he didn't have some particular reason other than to make a reservation?

All of a sudden he became aware of Suong calling his name and looked ahead and saw her waving her arms. Immediately he rode up to her and saw that one of the riders, a bearded man with a Dodgers baseball cap askew on his head, sitting on the ground and rubbing his left ankle.

"What happened?"

Suong, kneeling beside the injured rider, said, "He chewed some gravel."

"So I can see."

"My horse saw a snake and got spooked I guess," the rider said, "and reared back and tossed me head over heels."

"Your ankle in much pain?" Parsons asked him.

"Some but not much."

"You want me to take you back to the ranch house so you can put some ice on it?"

He shook his head. "I want to finish the ride."

"You sure about that?"

"I am."

Parsons helped the man back on his mount then started to return to his place in the rear when Suong touched his knee.

"I called your name three times, Dwight, before you heard me."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I guess you were lost in your thoughts."

"Sorry about that."

"Maybe I should have yelled louder."

"No, it was my fault. I should've been paying closer attention."

Back in the rear he admonished himself for becoming distracted while in charge of a ride. That was something that should never happen and out of anger he dug a fingernail into his left wrist until he drew blood.

 

*

After the party returned to the stable, Parsons went over to the ranch house and asked Mrs. Sackler for some ice for the injured rider. She was concerned the injury might be serious but he assured her it wasn't, and while he watched her chop up a block of ice in the kitchen sink, he mentioned that he saw Rattery earlier that afternoon.

"That's right. You must've made a good impression on him."

"What makes you say that, ma'am?"

"He signed up for a ride for himself and three others for the day after tomorrow and wanted to be sure you'd be leading it."

A spasm quivered through his stomach. "Is that so?"

"He was adamant that if you weren't going to be in charge he didn't want to go," she said, handing him the bucket of ice. "That's nice to hear, isn't it?"

"It is, ma'am."

After he delivered the ice to the injured rider, he went straight to the bunkhouse, unlocked his foot locker, and packed the few belongings he had in a surplus duffel bag. With a thud he dropped the bag on the floor and sat down on a stool next to the wood stove and stared at the half full bag.

You have to go right now, he told himself. You mustn't hang around any longer than you have to.

Still he remained seated on the stool, his ankles crossed, as if to make it more difficult for him to get up and leave. He was reminded of the first time he worked with Breezer and struggled to get the mustang to budge from the center of the corral. Curiously he felt just as inert, as if clamped to the stool, even though he was afraid if he didn't leave before Rattery returned, he would likely be in a world of pain. But he was tired of being on the run, tired of what Hutchens called "burning the breeze." He knew he had to go but he just couldn't budge.

 

Diane Lefer
Marrow

What do you owe someone you used to love? Say 25, 30 years ago.

 

Alibi

GoFundMe donation

Bone marrow

Forgiveness

 

You’ll be disappointed in me with my list. A, B, C, or D. You always thought multiple choice an insult to your intelligence, a way to censor you and close off possibilities. In this case, a possibility could be Nothing. And I notice the question I’ve posed says “used to love” which suggests I don’t anymore. I’m not sure. True or false, either way, how much do I owe you?

How about a letter, handwritten by candlelight? The power’s gone out, no telling when it will be back, not with this wind and rain. It’s just a storm this time, nothing as major as a hurricane. Finally a use for all these candles. When did candles become the all-purpose gift? Scented candles, beeswax candles, floating candles, tealights. I don’t re-gift them because I assume they’re as useless to other people as they are to me. I don’t smoke so I have no matches. Luckily I still have a gas stove and I lit a few candles at the burner. Sandalwood, lemon. The yahrzeit for my mother I never used.

I did read your email just before the power failed. So here goes my answer. No salutation. No “Dear”. You were always contemptuous of conventional courtesies. I was the adult, amused by your adolescent posturing or maybe jealous at how much you got away with.

In England or, at least in the English novels I used to read, “dear” means costly, usually too much so, as in “Is it very dear?” said by someone who fears she can’t afford it.

I’m not used to writing this way. Less than a page and my hand already cramps. And my handwriting, so out of use. Will you even be able to read it?

If we were doing multiple choice, which I am not doing, I could go through my possible reactions to your message: worried about you, curious, indignant you would reach out to me after all this time, suspicious – I mean this could be an internet scam, or another of your attention-grabbing inventions.

For years I tried to explain your silence. You’d only call when you needed something so maybe you didn’t need anything, or you might have been in jail, or dead, or you’d found someone more useful to you than I could ever be. I never chose one. I believed all, either all at once, or one at a time, intermittent, the “right” answer blinking on and off.

Oh dear! An expression of worry, or disapproval.

It’s not like I expected anything from you. I just thought I’d get to see you grow up.

 

My email address has changed, but apparently it was easy enough to find me. So, I’m one of the bcc addressees you ask to get tested, and there’s a link to a GoFundMe page which I chose not to click on and just then, the power died anyway as I really don’t want to know what terrible disease is afflicting you.

The wind outside shrieks like a cat being tortured, unless that’s what it really is. The rain beats so hard at the window, it could be hail. Then a thud like a bird blown against the glass.

Why do I owe you anything? You might say I can’t just default. Not after I led you to believe you could count on me. It’s not like you’re asking for a kidney or a lobe of my liver. To go on the bone marrow registry, it’s simple, a cheek swab, and really I could do that. You and I are the same race, but entirely different ethnicities, it’s unlikely I’d be a match, but I wonder if it’s possible to sign up only for you and assume I’d never hear back or if that would leave me open to undergoing a painful procedure for a total stranger who might actually be a nicer person than you are.

Oh dear!

 

That whole list of bcc’s…I wonder how many are included. I have the feeling only now I wasn’t the only person who all those years kept you alive. I always felt you were standing on a high ledge and no one but me could talk you down.

The first time you showed up at my apartment. Remember? Top floor, studio, walkup, a sweltering day in August. I let you in. I had no A/C. “What’s that door in the hall?” you asked. “Does it go to the roof?” Up we went.

Even there, the humidity. Hardly a breath of air.

You stood at the very edge. Your body rocked, just a little.

“Come back,” I whispered.

“If I didn’t die, I could end up so broken I’d be under my mother’s control for the rest of my life.”

“Please come back.”

“Do you think it would hold me?” The air, so heavy, so thick.

 

When I was your age, I had to be Number One. Not to have power over others, but so no one would have power over me. So when you spoke about control, I understood.

Your mother, your father. You were just a kid so I had to meet them. If you were going to be friends with an adult, they needed to see I was not a predator.

That day I learned something about you. The elevator opened right into an apartment that took up the entire floor. So many rooms, so many windows, such views. The world I’d once aspired to enter.

Your parents seemed perfectly nice. Mine were, too, though they couldn’t give me what you had. I envied your private school till I learned it was for problem kids that no one else could handle. While I persevered through public school, made it to the elite college which was also not at all what I expected. You rarely went to class. I dropped out.

Your mother wasn’t surprised you’d latched onto me. “He prefers adult conversation,” she said, “though I do wish he had some friends his own age.” She lowered her voice. “He does get bullied.” She should not have said that in front of you and I still hold that against her.

 

At the time we met, I’d given up being ambitious. A relentless overachiever, I intended to do everything I was told a woman could not do. I expected to be the first woman President, or Secretary-General of the UN. I’d bring peace and justice and equality to every nation on earth and be recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize. I believed that being the best all the time was the only way I could ever be safe.

Now I wonder what it was I thought I needed saving from.

It’s no wonder I never shared any of this with you. Are there any words less welcome to the young than “When I was your age”? And yes, at your age, I suppose part of me wanted to be taken down a peg. Part of me felt such shame. I was so full of myself, it felt empty. Maybe part of me, even from the start, wanted to be not safe, but reckless.

Now here I am, keeping busy with thoughts of myself instead of going back to our shared memories and what we once meant to one another. I don’t think you realize those days were just a blip in my life. I don’t think it ever occurred to you I hadn’t always been just like the person you met. I look back at her now in wonder – Was that really me? I’m sure as far as you were concerned, you were the one in constant change. AlI I could do was get older. I remember your skinny body trying to catch up to the arms that grew faster, your cracking, changing voice. Over the couple years we were friends, your voice settled down into a pleasant and surprisingly resonant register. Your laughter remained high pitched. Is it still? We did laugh a lot, didn’t we?

What I thought would never change was the way you’d taken up residence in my heart and head. It would take Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia or a massive stroke, I believed, to dislodge you.

I did want to get inside your head. Not to control you or diagnose you. I wanted to know the source of the confusion and the pain. You weren’t gay. At least I didn’t think so. You hadn’t been molested or abused, had you? Were you just wired funny? That piece, whatever it was, I wanted to see it.

 

People talked about us on my block when they saw you coming and going. The gossip was that I supplied you with drugs, do you remember? from that day I tried to cheer you up, passing you a small paper bag of Reese’s pieces.

It would have been more reasonable to assume you supplied me. I knew you did smoke marijuana. So what? Nothing stronger, as far as I knew. When you took the meds prescribed for you, you no longer felt like you so you didn’t take them. Marijuana in those days was still not legal but I wouldn’t consider it drug abuse. You needed to modify your reality, you said, just a little, in order to live in it.

I never gave you drugs but sometimes when you asked for money, I knew or should have known what you would spend it on.

So much gossip. That we were lovers.

You were a teenage boy – all those hormones, right? – so it’s possible, I sometimes got the feeling, you wanted to. But you were a child and I would never. Yes, I wanted to reach into the gray matter, the funny folds of your brain. That was the only carnal knowledge I wanted.

I held you once. You showed up, cold and shivering. Something had happened. You wouldn’t talk about it. I wrapped my arms around you, held you close, and felt your trembling. Just trying to keep you warm and if I did feel an impulse to pull your face to my breast, this wasn’t sexual. I wished I could be a mother to you, nourish you and give you sustenance.

Some days, you talked a mile a minute, the torrent so exhausting, I’d sit there, an expression of concern fastened on my face but too overwhelmed to pay attention. You said, “It helps me so much, the way you listen.”

Your mother said once, “Why won’t he talk to me? I thought I’d be the kind of mother who becomes her child’s best friend.”

 

Did you see the movie about Marie Colvin? You know who I’m talking about? I used to think there was nothing you didn’t know. You said you had a photographic memory. You were always offering facts though it often turned out that much of what you told me wasn’t true. At the time, I figured your photographic memory, like all memory, would be subject to bias, confabulation, and revision.

But Colvin. She lost an eye and then her life reporting from war zones. She got the truth out. Not a single policy was changed. She didn’t save a single life. And it’s not just Colvin. There’s journalists targeted and killed every day now. And there’s a president and a secretary-general and many winners of the Nobel Prize and not a one of them has ended war or even brought a cease-fire.

I gave up wanting to save the world. It had to be enough to save one person and the one person I chose to save was you.

 

How many times your call woke me in the middle of the night. You were by the river, you were on a bridge, you were in despair. So many nights – oh, maybe no more than three – I frantically dressed and rushed to meet you.

There were other calls that chilled me to – where else? – the marrow. You’d say you were going to end it all. “Where are you? Let me come to you.” You’d hang up. The first two times, I called 911 and asked if they could trace your call – they couldn’t – or if someone could get there to stop you. You always turned up again after a day or two. Do you have any idea what this did to me?

All those years you contemplated suicide, now at the first chance to die, you’re reaching out, asking us to help you live.

How did you organize the list? Alphabetical order, or the order in which people came to mind? If it took time to track down my address, you might have had to add me at the bottom. How do I know the email is actually from you? It’s certainly written in your style – straight to the point, no social niceties. If the bcc addresses were accessible to me, I would contact them. I could ask, “Has he done this before? Do you think this is for real?” Back then, I did at last conclude you were never really suicidal. Some would say you were just looking for attention, but I thought if someone needed attention that bad, it would be a crime against humanity to refuse it.

 

The cat is still being tortured. I need to stretch my fingers to relieve the cramps, then keep writing.

The year before we met, I had a lover, 15 years older than I was. He used to warn me I needed to make friends with some younger people. “Your age group will die out and you’ll be left alone.” But I’m sure he didn’t mean as young as you.

“My parents figure there’s something wrong with you,” you told me once. “What normal adult would befriend a teen?”

I don’t know why you told me that, to hurt me, or whether your parents had actually said it. None of it was my idea. You were the one who chose me.

What did you see? An outsider, an emptiness, an openness. Here we go again with multiple choice. I hate to think it was my gullibility.

See, I don’t believe your parents ever said that. Your mother was grateful for my influence over you. One day she called to say you were sleeping on the floor. “Why?” she said. “Does he hate us for having money? Does his back hurt? Is he joining a cult?”

“It’s not that at all.” You did hate where the money came from. It’s not like your father was a Master of War. His advertising firm just manipulated people into buying things they didn’t need.

When I saw you next, I asked, “Why are you sleeping on the floor?”

“You sleep in a bed, before you know it, your body’s left a hollow in the mattress. You want to sleep a foot to the right or six inches to the left, you can’t. You roll right over. The mattress has conformed to your body. Do you really want to be known that well by an inanimate object?”

Seeing the world through your eyes – such a delight. I’d always had a knack for standardized tests and there was nothing standard about you.

“Do you really want…?” So many times you challenged me with those words.

What did I need that photo for? Do you remember? You took a whole roll of film and brought me just one print. “Am I really that hideous?” I asked. “Is that really what I look like?”

“Why do you care?” you said. “Anyway, you don’t want to be recognized on the street, do you?  Do you really want to be seen by strangers?”

 

I didn’t like being seen at my awful office job when I spent lunchtime at my desk with a library book. Male executives would pass and say “Not exactly the sort of reading I’d expect,” as though someone like me couldn’t possibly have curiosity or an intellectual life. I might have been reading Being and Time, or Simone Weil, or that novel by Jorge Amado. I loved the character of Pedro Archanjo who wasn’t interested in moving up in the world, only forward.

At the time, my goal was no longer to be Number One or even Two or Ten but to be so far down the list, the list ran out of numbers.

I stopped bringing books to the office. Instead, I went out every evening to attend lectures open to the public. Which is what you did. Which is how and where we met. Do you remember which program it was? Julian Jaynes talking about the bicameral mind? I think that’s the first time I noticed you. My immediate reaction was to keep my distance. You looked like trouble. I don’t know how or why I knew. What I did notice, each time I noticed you in the audience, was you never asked a question during the lecture but approached the speaker afterwards, pushing your way past his or her colleagues or students and interrupting. I never overheard what you had to say, only recognized your hunger.

At your age, I sought adult company too. I was bored in school and by my classmates and teachers who weren’t up to the task. Even if they had interested me, I was not the sort to be teacher’s pet. Even when I was younger, say 11 or 12, I was praised as a “very mature young lady,” old beyond my years, yet not like the girls who were “growing up too fast.” Someone who would bring credit to the school, but not someone you wanted to spend time with.

In the end, instead of an adult, the most interesting person I met was you.

One night we listened to an Australian anthropologist who talked about heroin addiction and child trafficking in Thailand. Maybe it was that night you approached me.

You said, “You drink coffee?”

I said yes, without realizing it was an invitation. We ended up at the counter at Chock Full o’ Nuts. You roped me in that day by ordering “coffee, regular,” then complaining, “I wanted regular.” You didn’t know “regular” meant cream and two sugars. Your attempt to act like you knew your way around only exposed your inexperience and, in that instant, I wanted to protect you. I passed you my black coffee. The “regular” neither of us wanted went cold.

 

Of course I paid. I always picked up the tab. You were ashamed to receive an allowance so whatever your parents gave you went immediately into the cup or bowl or outstretched hand of a ragged person on the street. Often after you visited, I would look for a book and find it was gone. I would have gladly loaned anything you wanted to read but I suppose you would never ask to borrow what you did not intend to return.

If I ever needed bone marrow, I can’t even imagine asking you. But I believe you sincerely wanted to find something you could give me. Do you remember the day you said “Once I have my inheritance, I’ll buy you an apartment. You’ll never be at the mercy of a landlord again.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. I appreciated your making a promise about a future I think we both knew wouldn’t happen. And what was I to make of the implicit wish for your parents’ death?

 

Another benefit to the blackout. I can’t watch the news. Tonight I don’t have to see the slaughter. I pay US taxes – though on my income it’s never been much – so I am not without blame. At least I can sign petitions and tweet incendiary tweets, unnoticed enough to face no repercussions.

You’re too young for Social Security and Medicare – unless it’s disability. Did you ever work enough to qualify? Do you even have health insurance?

 

Remember when you set up my computer? I’d already set up computers in the office. Did you know that? I pretended I needed your help, so you could do something for me, put us on a basis of equality. Do you know, after you went missing I sometimes wondered if I’d someday see your face on a magazine cover – the latest tech billionaire. Then I’d have to decide whether to consider you a sell-out or someone I might ask for a job. Right now, of course, with the power failure, my computer is down but nothing is lost. All that memory, and no regrets.

My first web connection was dial-up. Remember how that worked? The phone was busy whenever I was online. I was anxious when using the internet because what if you tried to call? You left a message once on my answering machine. “Please pick up. You’re not screening your calls, are you? You’re not avoiding me? I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you.”

 

How much money are you asking for through GoFundMe? Though my needs are minimal, I probably can’t afford it. Until someone asks for something, I don’t even notice what I don’t have. I think that’s part of what I meant to you. We were each proud of opting out. It proved our superiority, but you were arrogant about it and arrogance is active. I was just smug. You were probably sick of hearing you ought to think about your future. But you looked at me and figured if that’s where you were bound to end up, the future would be more or less OK. While I looked at you and saw I hadn’t sabotaged myself. There you were, rejecting everything I’d once craved. So I wasn’t wrong to have trashed my chances. You were living proof I hadn’t ruined my life.

 

Did you ever marry? Is there a wife or partner managing your GoFundMe page? What about your parents? Are they still alive? Are they part of your life? Parents are the ones who are supposed to love unconditionally. But whenever you needed something, you didn’t go to them. You came to me.

Until one day I realized I hadn’t heard from you. No suicide calls. No visits. Nothing. I phoned your house. “I don’t know where he is,” said your mother, unless she was just keeping us apart, maybe you hadn’t lied about her disapproval. Or unless she was the one to call me, thinking I’d be the one to know where you’d run to. The memory isn’t clear.

Maybe I didn’t try to find you. There comes a time when enough is enough. Maybe it was a relief you were gone, but I’m pretty sure I tried to find you, that I called your mother, or maybe the memory I have is just of the intention.

For years I wondered where you were and who, in my absence, was keeping you alive. If you were alive, didn’t you owe it to me to let me know? He’ll call when he’s ready, I told myself. I waited and then I forgot about waiting. It didn’t take a stroke or dementia to make me forget you.

 

Do you remember Rosemary Woods? Not remember her as if either of us knew her personally. She was well before your time. But maybe you know who she was. People still condemn her for inadvertently or not erasing 18-1/2 minutes of Richard Nixon’s tapes. I was sure she did it on purpose and I was jealous. Would I ever be so devoted to anyone that I’d erase tapes for him, perjure myself, do whatever it might take to protect him? I got my answer after we became friends.

The windows shake in their frames. I can’t see out. The glass blurred by the downpour. The candles turn the night to a yellow day of wind and water and more wind.

Power. Who needs it?

Then there was a stretch of time when I told myself being devoted to you didn’t mean I had to trust you.

When I get inside Rosemary Woods’ head, what I find is “I know he’s a crook, but it doesn’t matter.”

 

Morning. I fell asleep at the table. The storm has moved north. The candles are just melted wax, except for the yahrzeit still burning. Now I just wait till the crews restore power.

You didn’t know I started out in a basement apartment. Like a cave, a bit of light coming through the window high above my head, the rock walls glistening with bits of mica in the schist. It was dank and dark, thrilling. But during storms like this, basements flood, people drown. It’s safer to be on top.

By the time you knew me, I’d been through several moves, my marriage, then, after the divorce, housesitting and catsitting till landing in the walkup studio which I assumed would be just another temporary stop. I’m still here.

I don’t know where you live these days. I don’t have a mailing address for you. Once the power comes back, I’ll have to type this up for email. With some edits. Words ran through my head onto the page but I won’t let them all run down my fingers when I type.

 

Do you know how to save a hummingbird? You might ask, what does a hummingbird need saving from? Well, for example, it might fly into a window and land, stunned, on the pavement below.

I saw one on the sidewalk in May. It had just a ring of pale pink around its neck, no bright ruby iridescence, like it was fading fast. I thought it was dying. I knelt before it. I wanted to help, but what if it had a disease? When something is sick, I’ve learned to keep my distance.

By that evening, I’d forgotten it, till late at night I checked the internet. Whatever did we do before Google! I learned a hummingbird must take in sustenance constantly or it will die. You have to bring it some sugar water to save it. I read you shouldn’t drop the mixture in its mouth because it will drown. Pour some into a bottle top. Set it down on the pavement. Let the bird sip. But you have to act right away. Once an hour’s past, it’s too late.

I read that faded pink didn’t mean dying. It meant female.

And I didn’t have sugar in the house. I never use it.

Remember the coffee, regular, left behind on the counter at Chock Full o’ Nuts.

 

Do you remember how you told me things you’d done, lies you’d told, people you’d hurt? I thought you were confessing, not bragging, but it was hard to tell. You looked so tentative as you spoke. It was as though you held your breath waiting to see me react. What was it you wanted or expected from me? Shock, absolution? Was I supposed to feel gratified to be the one you chose to confide in, or were you simply looking to see if I believed you?

When I wanted to be exceptional – what I thought of as “safe” – it meant no one could tell me how to be or what to do which, I suppose, was much like being above the law. Is that how you saw yourself?

Why did you include me on the list? Nostalgia, mistake, confidence that I’d come through for you as always. Or a message: small as you are, you have not been overlooked.

 

You’re not asking for a perjured alibi. Though at moments during the night I dared think your being arrested would be less surprising than your dying. GoFundMe? I don’t have money. Well, there’s the forgiveness option. I never withheld it. You were who you were and it was never about blame. I never lied to you – or only for your own good – but I was hardly blameless. I had my own funny gray matter. Between us, forgiveness is irrelevant, but if it’s something you need, you can have it.

As soon as the lights come on, I’ll get this typed and sent. If I can’t read my own writing, I’ll skip what I can’t make out and I’ll end it without any conventional closing. No Sincerely, All best, Warm regards, Take care. Certainly not Love.

But I still have to decide about the bone marrow. What if by some miracle we are a match? Maybe you somehow imprinted yourself down to – where else? – my marrow. What if I do have the power to save you?

In the decades since you went your way, you hardly crossed my mind, but now if you die, you’ll haunt me.

 

The lights flicker on! The computer whirrs and makes noise. So does the refrigerator. My food won’t go bad!

Before I started typing – first things first! – I made up my mind. I went online to register. Guess what? They won’t process a swab from me. Someone my age? They won’t even consider a donation. There goes my last chance at greatness.

I do hope some emails went to friends younger than yourself.

Oh cherished one! Oh dear!

 

 

Tim Millas
I Believe in Horticulture

Their driveway was too icy to climb, so I aimed for the front of the house where the snow was higher but the ground was level. Only by flooring the gas could I force the car forward. Then the door on my side wouldn’t budge. I managed to climb over to the passenger door without crushing the window box and the plastic containers of pots, potting mix, and the Carmina six-pack. Squeezing out, I crunched into snow above my knees. More snow poured into my face out of gray glare in which neither sun nor sky was visible.

I moved here in May for the sun and sky, but this was December and Santa Fe’s worst blizzard ever: three feet of icy snow and more coming. Our idiot municipal leaders hadn’t managed to clear much. Hard white drifts covered everything, making it scary to walk or drive. The town had shut down, every shop and restaurant, even the Palace of the Governors. My other appointments cancelled, but the Ignorellos didn’t, and because they were new clients and I felt restless I drove, or rather crawled, to Agua Fria Street. Sliding all over the road the whole way.

“Mr. Meckler?”

I saw a small slim blond woman standing on the porch of the house, a two-story adobe, dwarfed by snow.

“Call me Wolf,” I said.

“No, I’m calling you crazy. I never expected you to…”

I smiled and shrugged. “I made a promise.”

“You’re a saint. And I guess you need the business.” Her voice wasn’t sarcastic: just unhesitating in assigning me dual motives. “I’m Agnes. Come on in. I’m glad you came, actually.”

Gathering my stuff, I shivered. Because she said that? Or maybe just the sight of the Carminas: deep green leaves freckled with red.

 

*

 

Agnes Ignorello had hired me over the phone, so this was the first time I’d entered their house. Dark, low ceilings, instinctively I ducked coming in. To the left was a small living room, and to the right an even smaller dining area. Beyond was a hallway that led past a bathroom, a narrow stairway, a bedroom, and ended at a kitchen. A mish-mosh of quirky, native furniture and bland stuff from Ikea. Posters of baseball players and women who might have been rock stars or porn stars alternated with Acoma pots and outsider art depicting flying armadillos.

I looked for plants—when I teach someone, it helps to know what plants they have and how they treat them. I didn’t see any. Agnes had told me that her son Ethan loved gardens and planned, when he owned a house, to create one of his own. That was before his illness, of course.

Agnes wore black jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt, both plain, yet you instantly knew she wasn’t from here. The cut of her blond hair was so simple it must have cost a bunch in New York or LA. She had shapely lips parted by an underbite, a man’s nose, and dark blue eyes that appraised you plainly. Her skin was as white as her shirt, with dense freckles on her nose and upper arms.

I remembered from our conversation that Agnes owned a travel business with offices on both coasts. Ethan had fallen in love with New Mexico, decided to attend college in Santa Fe, and then, after he was diagnosed with ALS, insisted on staying in this house that he’d been sharing with classmates. They moved out and Agnes moved in to care for him, “for however long he has,” she’d said.

Now she said, “Look at you.” She was smaller than her voice. But her brisk, decisive fingers liberated me of everything I carried and put it all neatly on the dining table. I stamped on a Navajo rug to shake off snow. “Thanks.”

“Thank you for coming. The way things look, you might be staying.”

A wrinkling at the corners of her eyes made me glad to be stranded.

“Well. I have lots of plants and my other appointments are cancelled.”

“At the hospital?” I had told her I did horticultural therapy programs at St. Vincent’s and the Santa Fe Senior Care Center.

“Yes. How’s Ethan today?”

Her silence reminded me of a girl in my eighth-grade class, who had absence seizures and would, without moving or blinking, disappear. I was about to repeat myself when she said: “He’s fine. Well, not fine, obviously, but he’s glad you’re here. But let’s get you some coffee, Mr. Meckler.”

She turned and led me into the kitchen. She filled those jeans well.

“Please. Wolf is fine.”

“Wolf. Perfect name for Santa Fake.”

Fake? It sounded like she said that, but her voice was so brisk I wasn’t sure.

The kitchen was tiny. The Formica-topped table and rude wooden chairs made me feel like Gulliver. Agnes scooped a booklet off the table and tossed it near the sink. I caught the word “Angels” on its cover.

Religious tract? She didn’t seem the type.

“We’ll have it here? You may break the chair, though.”

I eased myself down; it creaked and held. “No problem.”

“And how do you like your coffee, Wolfie? You mind if I call you that?”

Was this her way of saying that Wolf didn’t suit me? I’m big-framed and fifty pounds overweight, with a broad bare face and head. I’ve been bald since turning thirty and my translucent blond hair makes my eyebrows invisible and lets me skip shaving for days without discernible stubble. After seven months of New Mexico sun my skin wasn’t tanned, just pig-pink.

“No problem. Black.”

“Black it is, Wolfie.” Agnes placed two coffees on the table, and stirred two Ideals into hers. “Is that a professional name?”

“No, it’s real. Wolfgang.”

“I admit, I wondered why someone who works with plants would have such a carnivorous name. Is he confused, or overcompensating―”

“Or just another fake from Santa Fake?”

Her eyes didn’t waver. “In my business I’ve been all over. I like making my recommendations from experience. Some places ring true, some don’t. This town doesn’t. Too many people wearing turquoise, or claiming Native blood when you know they wouldn’t associate with a real one if their life depended on it.”

My left cheek twitched, as it does when I’m annoyed. Then I thought of Benny, my landlord, who came to Santa Fe twelve years ago from Brooklyn. He shows up to take my rent check wearing a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, and a turquoise string tie, plus three turquoise rings on his fingers. I’d visited Santa Fe many times before moving here and already knew it had people like him. But now I was relearning that visiting and living somewhere are different things—especially when you’re alone.

 “Well, Wolf really is my name. Even if I don’t look like—”

“I think you look fine.” And she touched my arm. It felt good. Yet her eyes said: We both need some but my son is dying and you’re here to distract him, not me. “Sorry. Being rude, as usual.”

“No problem.” As a horticultural therapist, I encounter many people who are dying, or watching someone else die. That’s why I take nothing personally and always say “No problem,” like I work for Nordstrom.

“You probably love it here.”

“I do. Always have. The sky and the land are like nowhere else. You may see a desert, but I see a profusion. Plants and flowers and trees....” The edges of her eyes and mouth wrinkled again, and I really wanted to pull her over to me. “That’s why I came here, not for the town. But—ask me again after this winter.” My face felt hot. “Good coffee.”

“Starbucks. Always tastes burnt to me. Ethan can barely eat now, but he demands two cups, extra strong.”

I looked past her at a poster on the wall: a heavy-breasted girl wearing nothing but
a gold chain around her waist.

“His roommates put that up. What you’d expect from horny college males. The primitive art, the pottery—that’s more Ethan’s thing. But he told me to leave everything. I had him late.” At my quizzical expression, she added: “I’m fifty-eight.”

“Wow,” I said, sincerely. “I’m forty-eight. You look younger than me.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m atheist. I realized early on nobody was going to take care of me but me. So I’ve always stayed out of the sun, and I eat fresh food every day. And I guess I’m lucky. Luck is the real reason for anything good, isn’t it? My husband and I never wanted kids, but before we split we slept together one last time. Ethan was a gift. Good kid, smart, modest, no misery. Never given me any trouble.”

For a long moment she was absent.

“And what about you? Have you always done this?”

“Yes and no. Until a year ago I worked in M&A.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I hated it. Oh, I was good at it. Made lots of money. People—my wife—always told me I should go on my own. But I couldn’t imagine creating something I didn’t care about. You built your own business, so you understand.” She nodded. “But plants—I always loved plants. My wife used to say I loved plants more than her.”

“Separated?” Her arm touched my arm again and I stared at her freckles.

“No, divorced. She still lives in San Diego. We were opposites. She’s a lawyer—partner in a big firm. She wasn’t going to throw that up to accommodate my mid-life nonsense.” I sighed. “So she called it. I knew what I liked. I made some money, so I could afford to pursue it. It’s been wonderful—really.” She watched me. “This work. I’ll always remember—I was volunteering at a hospice, and one day they brought in someone who showed my 82-year-old cancer patient how to plant a geranium. The old man was transformed. Asking questions, moving his hands. For a minute he forgot he was sick. And I thought, I want to give that to people.”

“And you became a healer.”

I searched her face for sarcasm, or hope, and saw neither. “No. Don’t claim to heal anybody.” I smiled. “But I did become a licensed horticultural therapist.”

“You need a refill.” She stood and turned toward the counter.

“MOM?”

A booming, hollow voice from nowhere. Agnes stood still, her back to me.

“MOM. IS HE HERE? I HEARD THE CAR.”

The words came loud and slow. There was clicking and I realized it was an intercom system—which made sense, since in his condition Ethan couldn’t stroll downstairs to ask for things. Agnes reached over and flicked a switch on the wall between the cabinets and the counter. “Yes, Angel. Wolf is here—”

“Hello Ethan!” I said.

“HI WOLF. CAN’T WAIT. TO MEET YOU. MOM?”

I could hear Agnes breathe. “Yes, Angel?”

“DID YOU TELL? WOLF? ABOUT ME?”

“Yes. I told him you’re interested in gardening—”

“MOM, YOU KNOW. WHAT I MEAN.”

“Oh, Ethan, the poor man isn’t here for that.” I wished I could see her face. But she kept her back to me.

“Hey Ethan,” I said, “wait till you see what I brought you. A real beauty, with a funny name. People call it the freckle-faced plant.”

There was a static sound—a laugh?—both electronic and youthful.

“THAT’S GREAT. MOM HAS FRECKLES.”

“I noticed.” I laughed. Still Agnes wouldn’t look at me.

“I DO TOO. BUT I GUESS. SHE DIDN’T TELL.”

“Tell me what?”

“SHE CALLS ME ANGEL. FIGURE OF SPEECH. SHE DOESN’T BELIEVE. GOD OR ANGELS. THAT’S IRONIC CAUSE. I’M HER ANGEL.”

“Ethan, why don’t you wait till we come upstairs?” Agnes said.

“THERE ARE ANGELS. RIGHT ON EARTH. GOD PUTS US HERE. FOR PARTICUL. PARTICULAR REASONS.”

In my work I’ve heard clients come out with weird stuff. I usually can talk around them. But Ethan struck me dumb.

 “I HAVE A MISSION. HELP MOM. GET RIGHT WITH GOD. YOU COMING UP?”

“We’re having coffee. We’ll be up in a little while.” She clicked off the intercom. Stared down at the counter.

“Agnes…” I said. “Are you all right?”

I’ve hugged clients, given comfort. But Agnes walked over, grasped my head, and pressed it between her breasts. Then she pulled me up and led me to her bedroom.

 

*

 

 “I’m sorry.”

 She was already dressed, standing over me sitting at the edge of the bed, but I was still able to reach and touch her shoulder. “I’m not.”

“I mean I’m sorry about what he said.”

“Well. Lot of people, when they’re ill, get religious…”

“Don’t you think this is a little beyond that?” She bowed her head. I reached for her hand. She let me hold it. I pulled it closer, wanting to smell her again.

“It’s bad enough, that he’s going to die. I know there’s no justice or cruelty to anything that happens in this world. Part of being atheist, right? And I’m here with him no matter what. But this…”

She went absent.

I said gently, “Was Ethan an atheist too?” Even though I dropped religion long ago, that word, atheist, always felt strange in my mouth. “Before all this.”

“I never had him baptized, and I never told him there’s no God. He came home from school once and asked me what church is and why we didn’t go. I told him some people believe in God and some don’t. And he had to make up his own mind. He went to church with friends sometimes. Later he had a Jewish girlfriend and went with her to temple.”

She reached behind her, and put that little booklet back on the table. Angels on Earth, said the cover. True stories about God’s Angels among us and Their work in the world today. “I got that in the mail,” she said, “and two days later a phone call from my son telling me that he’s an Angel and that ALS was part of the plan. Insanity—” She caught herself. “I always called him Angel, you know. Because he’s always been so good….But Wolfie, now he’s saying he can’t die until I believe. It’s his mission, you heard him.”

“So tell him you do.”

“Lie to him.” She glared, not at me, then shrugged. “I tried that. But he knows.”

“Because he knows you’re honest.” This seemed to calm her. She smiled faintly. In that moment I was ready to take her. Get out of this house right now. Dig our way out of the snow and out of this town. “We should just go.”

“Oh my God, yes. Poor Angel’s waiting...”

I didn’t know how to tell her I meant leave.

“You don’t mind I sit in? In case he needs help. There’s not much he can do on his own.” She pulled her hand away, took the cups and coffee pot to the counter.

“Do you think...there’s any chance he is a…?”

 “Of course not.” Then she turned back to me. “I say that, but meanwhile I’m praying again.” She rolled her eyes. “Ridiculous. I don’t even know how. Get on my knees, ask God to help me, wait…hoping I get something back.”

“Have you?”

“No.”

*

 

 When we got upstairs, I knew why Ethan liked it here. Other than a bathroom, his bedroom took up the whole floor. The space felt open in a way the rest of the house didn’t. One end of the room was all windows. On a clear Santa Fe day the view would have been stunning.

  There wasn’t much in the room, and all of it was clustered near a window that wrapped around the southwest corner. There was a hospital bed, set up so Ethan could look out; today the nonstop snow glare was bright and opaque. Alongside the bed was an IV line and feeding tube on a metal stand. There was a tray table on wheels that could be brought around for meals—fluids, since he couldn’t eat anything solid. At the foot of the bed, a high bench with a Bose system, turned off, and a single moth orchid in a pot mounted on stones to keep it above a pie plate filled with water. I’m not one to talk to plants, but when I saw that orchid I almost called to it like an old friend.

  Next to one wall was a wheelchair. From the look of him, Ethan couldn’t use it anymore.

   He lay stretched out on the flat bed, a pillow under his head, and a sheet smoothly drawn up to his chest, limning his wasted body. He was easily six feet and probably weighed less than ninety pounds. His arms—skin-covered bones—extended on either side of his frame. Like Agnes, he had freckles on nose and arms, but they reinforced his ruin. There was a halting sound; his breathing. He didn’t move when we came in, except his alert eyes followed our every step.

 “Hello, Ethan. Good to meet you.”

 I placed my things on the bench. Then I shook, or rather took, his hand. There are hundreds of bones in a hand, I thought.

 “The real handshake is. How people look when. When they meet you.”

After the boom of the intercom, his voice was shockingly low and feathery. But his eyes had more light in them than the windows; they made me nervous. “Like your look Wolf. Except you don’t. Look like wolf.”

I laughed. So the son had some of mom’s directness.

“Ethan, don’t be rude,” Agnes said, also laughing.

“You look. Like teddy bear. With no fur. On mission from God.”

He wasn’t kidding, and that kept me from laughing again. “More like a mission from the garden center. I’m just here to show you some plants.”

“All created by God. Given life. By God. Not so different. From my mission. I won’t ask. If you believe. I know you.”

I needed to change the subject. “Do you want to see what I’ve brought you?”

“Yes please.”

“First, let’s sit you up, a little. That OK?”

I asked Agnes; Ethan answered. “No wor—” His whisper stopped before the last syllable, but the upper part of the bed started to rise, as if he had willed it. Of course he was using a remote, which I now saw was under his left hand, the one nearer to the window.

Soon his face was level with mine. There was almost no face left, just teeth and freckles and eyes. Physically he looked like he could expire at any moment. It didn’t matter. He had something—presence—or spirit or soul or whatever you want to call it. On a level well above the brave faces we mustered.

“Bring it. On.”

I whispered instructions to Agnes and she put the window box, the bag of potting mix, and the Carmina six-pack on the little dining table. She wheeled it closer and swiveled the table so that it was directly under Ethan’s chest. Then she plumped two pillows around Ethan to give him more support.

 “I forgot to introduce you to my assistant today,” I joked, and Ethan said: “That’s funny. Mom’s a saint. With people. But hates plants. The orchid. Is mine.”

 “Well, it’s doing very well. I hear you like gardens.”

  “Love. I grew up. In apartment so. Never had one. But always loved. First thing I search. When I go some place. Where the gardens. You been. Lotus Land?”

   “Santa Barbara, yeah. Incredible place.”

   “It is. But never planted. Anything. This is huge. For me Wolf.”

     “Well, we’ll start you small. Your first garden, right in this box. Now this is a window box, but given the weather we’re not going to put it in the window today. No problem. Keep it near, it’ll get enough light.”

“Great.”

“Now, let’s look at what we’re planting.” I held up the six-pack.

“The freckle plant.” He breathed like leaves rustling, and I realized it was what remained of his laugh. For a second his skull seemed young.

“The technical name is hypoestes phyllostachya. Don’t bother, it’s got a lot of names. It’s also called a Carmina.”

“Like that. Woman’s name.” He gazed at the greens and reds. “Beautiful.”

“Here, smell it.” I brought one of the bulbs up to his nose, which stirred. “And touch it, too.” I looked at Agnes. She lifted his hand, positioned it so that two of his bone-fingers could lightly trace the leaves, then the base vine. “Moist,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “That’s a key to this plant. Like you water your orchid once a week but keep water under it all the time? This is similar. You keep it moist. Which leads to the next thing I have for you.” I put the Carminas down and picked up the bag of potting mix. “What do you think this is?”

“Dirt?”

“Good guess. In an outdoor garden that’s what you’d use. But that’s not what this is. Any ideas? Agnes, what about you?”

“I don’t know. Fake dirt?”

  I gave a belly laugh, and Ethan laughed in his fashion. “That’s closer. This isn’t soil, but it’s not fake. It’s coconut.”

  “Coconut!”

  “Yup, ground up husk of the coconut shell. We can’t use dirt because, well, it’s dirty, has bacteria. We don’t want you getting an infection from your plant, right? But this works just as well as dirt—plants love it, grow like crazy in it.” I opened the bag. “Feel.”

  Agnes guided his hand into the potting mix. His fingers seemed to barely move but I heard his breathing again, not whispering, a higher sound. “Tingles.”

“Or tickles,” I said.

“No. Tingles. God’s in it. Feel him. Mom. Touch.”

  Agnes gently removed his hand, cleaned it with a sterile wipe, and placed the hand on his lap. He said: “Touch Mom.”

  Dutifully she put her own hand into the mix, kneaded it like dough. “It does kind of tingle,” she admitted.

  “But do you? Feel Him. Wolf knows. God lives. In everything. Feel him Mom?”

  “Yes, I said it tingled.”

  “No.” His eyes made his voice seem louder. “She doesn’t. Won’t. Let him in.”

  “I’m trying!” Agnes said. “I really am. Please believe me…”

  “Believe Him. I can’t rest. Until you.”

  “So God is a Him?” I asked.

  “God’s God. All is God. Seeing this is. Our salv. Salvation.”

  “When did you know? About God? About yourself? That you were…” I was genuinely curious, but Ethan’s stare silenced me. He had no interest in recounting his moment of revelation.

  “I know.” Now his eyes bore into his mother: “Mom needs to.”

  “Mom doesn’t know and never will. I’m not you. I can’t—” And then Agnes swung her head violently, as if trying to strike herself. “No! I’m sorry. I love you Angel. I’ve always tried for you, haven’t I? I’m trying now.”

  She dropped to her knees. “I’m praying, Angel. I’m trying to pray…” While the tips of her fingers were linked, the palms were not pressed together but curved to cradle her shuddering face. Her knees were far apart, the backs of her feet touching. I put my hand on her shoulder. Her effort was real. But I knew she wouldn’t hear or feel God if she knelt there for a million years.

  Ethan said: “Mom. Stand. Up.”

  Slowly, admitting her failure, she did. “I’m sorry, Angel.”

  “I am. For both. Us.” I’m guessing that’s what he said; I couldn’t really hear him.

  “Believe what you can,” I said.

  “Well, I can’t,” Agnes snapped, “can you? What do you believe?”

  “I believe...in horticulture.”

  “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “What does horticulture mean? Study of plants. Anything that grows and breathes and lives. That’s what I meant, downstairs. I came here, not to run away from it, but to get closer.”

  “And look what you found!” With a sweep of her arm she took in Ethan, herself, and the blinding opacity of snow. I knew it then: she’d never leave here with me. She was already gone. And I was as different from her as she was from him. I would stay.

  “Well, horticulture means death too. Lot of what grows, dies. Then the dead feed the living. Maybe that’s eternity?” This asked of Ethan. Did he hear me? His eyes never left his mother.

  “Wait.” I handed Agnes the bag of potting mix. “Pour it.” She poured, until it filled the window box. “Now take these,” and I uprooted two Carminas, put one of them in Agnes’s hand, and curled Ethan’s fingers around the other. “Plant them.” Agnes sighed, and did a good job of placing her Carmina into the mix, the roots below and the green stem above, and then pressing mix to either side of the stem until it stood upright on its own. I turned to help Ethan, but to my astonishment he had managed to raise the hand holding his Carmina and press it into the mix. I pushed supporting dirt around his stem, and gently removed his fingers from the plant.  

  “Good! Now look,” I said, to both of them. Both looked. I grasped the window box, and with one hand managed to raise it to the window, while the other sprayed water over the potting mix and the freckled leaves of the two Carminas. The greens and reds brightened. The leaves stirred faintly toward the snowy glare.  

 

 

Niles Reddick
The Great Pretender

When I arrived at the fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration for my old friend Ben and his wife, Glenda, the fellowship hall at the Episcopal church was full, and I sat at a round table in the back with a couple of teens. I shared I was an old friend of Ben's and learned Ben was their grandfather. "So y'all are related to Doc Holliday?"

"Who?"

"The famous gunman who was known for the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona."

They shrugged their shoulders and glanced at each other. I figured they thought I was some crazy old man. I told them that whenever someone riled Ben when he was young, we could see a twitch in one of Ben's eyelids and kept our distance because of his Doc Holliday connection.

They half-smiled.

"Did he ever tell you about the time he pretended to be shot?"

They shook their heads.

"One time your grandfather and another friend of ours named Frank pulled to the curb in my neighborhood in Frank's GTO. I was in the house watching an episode of Bewitched on the living room TV. It was the one where Samatha pulled a lid to check her chicken dinner to find Uncle Arthur's head laughing in place of the chicken. Did y'all ever see that?"

They shook their heads back and forth.

"The three of us ran up the stairs to my bedroom laughing, talking about school earlier that day and the old, stale, and stiff teachers who were more worried about us chewing gum than learning. We talked about girls in their miniskirts driving us wild."

The boys giggled.

"We were getting ready to graduate in May and had plans to leave Memphis for Ole Miss, UT Knoxville, and Auburn, for different majors, mostly fraternity life and beer like our fathers before us, except Ben who wanted to be a dentist like his Holliday ancestor. Ben had the idea we should pretend to be criminals and he'd play victim. We were going to shoot at each other with blanks in my dad's pistols to stir up the sleepy neighborhood, especially the spinster sisters who sat by their bay window waiting for something off kilter, so they could call the city, parents of one of the neighborhood kids, or the police. They were the neighborhood watch before neighborhoods had watches. We ran into the front yard shooting blanks with dad's pistols, and then, Ben pretended he'd been shot, falling into my Mama's daylilies, writhing back and forth, and clutching his gut. We scooped him up and plopped him in the trunk by the spare tire. I did a quick side look and saw the blue haired spinsters gawking out the window, one with her hand shielding the sun's glare, the other holding the rotary phone. Frank fired up the GTO, the V-8 gurgling to life and smoke blasting from the dual exhaust. He put the stick in first gear and tires screeched, racing through the neighborhood. The speedometer encased in the wooden dashboard registered fifty in a thirty mile per hour speed limit zone, and we drove west toward the Mississippi River, where the Memphis mafia were known to dump bodies. Sometimes, too, there were jumpers from the Arkansas bridge, and no amount of dredging would bring them to the surface. Occasionally, a body might wash up downstream on the Mississippi shore or get hooked on a line by a fisherman hoping for a catfish the size of a Volkswagen bug."

The teens stared at me, their mouths partially open, and one of them had his phone in his lap and kept checking for messages.

"We didn't throw your grandfather into the Mississippi but went over to his house and ate some hot peach cobbler with ice cream. Your great grandmother said it made her heart happy to see boys with such hardy appetites. Did you know your great grandmother?"

The teens shrugged their shoulders.

"That night on the news, a reporter told the story of a shoot-out, the search for a midnight blue GTO, with its twin stacked head lamps and a split grille with fog lamps, and a possible body dumped in the river. The spinsters told the reporter, "Don't know what this world is coming to."

While my parents questioned me, I shared I had been in my room studying for old Foghorn Leghorn's Algebra test and listening to The Platters. Never used Algebra after that class. Y'all ever listen to The Platters: "Twilight Time," "When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "The Great Pretender"?

"No sir."

"Man, Ben and I have gotten old. Frank's gone. Ben and your grandmother have been married fifty years. I remember being a best man at their July wedding. That's a long time now."

"Sure is," one said while the other one nodded, and I realized they probably didn't understand, or care, what I had just told them. I wasn't sure what the world was coming to, but I didn't feel like hobbling to the front of the room and standing in line for store-bought sheet cake.

 

 

Timothy Reilly
Heroic Deeds

For Jo-Anne

 

On most weekends the opening theme from Peter Gunn twanged ad nauseam off the low-E string of Kent Horton's Silvertone electric guitar. The Mancini motif was fortified by way of a Silvertone amplifier, and could be heard from half-a-block away. Kent would occasionally attempt to add Dick Dale's "Misirlou" to his limited repertoire, but he couldn't sustain a plectrum tremolo to save his life.

I didn't mind the "cool jazz" of Peter Gunn, but I couldn't stand surf music—regardless of performance skills. My musical pursuit was in the current folk music scene. For several months I'd been practicing chordal accompaniment on a cheap gut-string guitar, until my parents relented to my constant pleading for a long-neck five-string banjo: the instrument of choice for the Limelighters and the Kingston Trio. I was hoping for the coveted Vega Pete Seeger Model, but my parents instead bought me a Harmony long-neck from Sears and Roebuck. Included with the instrument was a soft shell case, a tuning pitchpipe, a capo, and a copy of Pete Seeger's How to Play the Five-string Banjo.

The Harmony turned out to be a pretty good banjo. After working just a few days with the Pete Seeger book, I learned to read tablature and execute a variety of strumming and picking techniques. I was soon able to strum and sing along with the Limelighter's recording of "There's a Meetin' Here Tonight."

 

*

 

Apart from my distain of Kent Horton's poor choice of music (and poor musicianship), I couldn't help noticing a darkness in his character. He was far bolder than I when it came to teenage mischief. I was at the benign level of participating with others in toilet-papering the homes of popular girls. Kent, on the other hand, preferred solo deviant acts: such as letting the air out of the car tires of strangers; shoplifting; and (reportedly) blowing up public restroom plumbing with cherry bombs.

As an only child, Kent often had the house to himself. One day he invited me and two other boys, Allen and Tony, for a game of Monopoly. But instead of a game board, he produced a pint of bourbon he'd shoplifted from a Thrifty Mart. Giving in to peer pressure, I downed a ceremonial shot with the rest of them. This act would later weigh on my conscience. For one thing, I willingly accepted "stolen goods." That's bad enough on its own. But additional weight came from an already broken Confirmation Pledge.

It had been a year since I was Confirmed at St. Anthony's Catholic Church. I chose Michael for my Confirmation name. My favorite stories had always been chivalric tales packed with swords and heroic deeds. A statue of the Archangel in our church courtyard prompted my decision. I had read about the War in Heaven, in which St. Michael defeats a dragon named Lucifer.

Having officially reached the "age of reason," I completed preparatory classes, and "freely chose" to receive the sacrament of initiation: professing "my faith in Jesus Christ, and accepting the practices of the Catholic Church." At the end of the Confirmation Rite, the initiates were told to stand and take a pledge to not drink alcoholic beverages before reaching the "legal" age of twenty-one. This pledge took me by surprise. At family gatherings my parents and grandparents would always allow me a sip or two from a Highball—or even a full glass of champagne. But at this sacramental juncture, my only choice was to either remain seated, and be denied Confirmation, or stand and take a pledge I knew I wouldn't keep.

I took the pledge. In the months following my Confirmation, I became less willing to accept all the "practices of the Catholic church"—beginning with Saturday Confessions. I was already struggling for a way to confess my sexual fantasies about girls. For that conundrum, I settled for the vague description of "impure thoughts." But it was the Act of Contrition that seemed to me to be impossible. Vowing to sin no more, and to avoid the nearest occasion of sin. How could anyone honestly fulfill such a vow? I asked my parents if I could occasionally skip Sunday Mass.

"It's your decision," my mother said. "We're not going to force you to go to church."

That evening I received a phone call from Father Murphy.

"What's all this about not attending Mass?" he said. It was the same disembodied voice of authority I'd heard in the confessional booth. I was rattled but I mustered the courage to tell him I was confused about a lot of things. I just needed time to think.

"I see," he said. "Call me if you need some help with your thinking."

Though I stopped attending Mass, I continued my morning ritual of praying before the church courtyard statue of St. Michael: asking God and His Archangel to cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who wander the world seeking the ruin of souls.

 

*

The second time Kent invited Tony, Allen and me to his house, he showed us his Silvertone guitar and amp. Tony asked Kent to play something on the guitar (I could have strangled him for that). Kent obliged with a couple of measures of Peter Gunn. Then, for some reason, he slammed an open G-major chord—which was horribly out of tune. Waiting for the "dis-chord" to decrescendo, he stood in a haughty pose: his right hand raised over his head, as if he'd just completed a virtuosic performance.

"You want me to tune that thing for you?" I offered.

"Touch my guitar, and I'll break your arm . . . Hootenanny Boy."

I called Kent a "hodad" (the supreme insult to a would-be surfer boy). I didn't stay for Bourbon Monopoly.

When I got home I unpacked and tuned my banjo. I played and sang a few songs, including "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore."

That night two unrelated waking-world activities combined forces in a single dream. The first activity had been a math exercise to measure our school desks with objects not intended for measuring—such as a book or yoyo string. The second activity was my downing shots of stolen bourbon. In my dream I was measuring my bed with a shot glass. (The dream made no sense to me at the time, but the metaphor returned—many years later—to strike a powerful chord.)

Walking to school that morning, I took my usual path to pray to my patron saint.

Standing in front of the statue, I noticed Michael's sword—and part of his right hand—weremissing. It was as if someone was trying to give the devil a fighting chance.

 

 

*

 

At school, between homeroom attendance and first period, my friend Allen told me that Kent Horton was bragging about having stolen a marble sword from some kind of statue, and that he'd stashed it in his gym locker—along with a pack of shoplifted cigarettes.

All day long I thought about how I'd confront Kent Horton about his vandalizing my statue. When I was in elementary school, the closest thing to a fist-fight had been shoving-matches—which would always end with peacemakers holding the combatants apart. The rules were different in junior high. I knew I had to stand up to this jerk. I also knew I was afraid of getting my block knocked off.

I postponed the showdown with the hodad as long as I could. Kent's locker was next to mine, and when school let out, I would have to gather my dirty gym cloths to take home for washing.

My heart was pounding as I dialed the combination on my padlock. But there was no sign of Kent. And his padlock was left unlatched. Taking this for a miracle, I opened his locker, removed the sword, and sheathed it with my gym bag. I felt like Robin Hood: my theft a heroic deed to right the wrong perpetrated by evil Prince Horton.

On my way home, I entered St. Anthony's Church. Walking solemnly between the empty pews, I opened the altar railing and placed the sword upright against the foot of the altar. I took a step backwards, genuflected, and left by a side door.

In the courtyard I heard from behind me the booming voice of Father Murphy.

"So it was you who stole the sword."

 

 

 

 

 

 

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