| Some Sort of Punctuation |
There is a cliff, firm beneath my feet.
Warmth departs gradually from the air, along with the sun which sets, I imagine, somewhere behind Ayers Rock. Not that I can see that puzzling upthrust of sandstone; I would have to soar much higher than I now stand to see the Rock, so far over the horizon. But I can still picture a scorching half-disk melting the air around Ayers, burning into my retina this would-be mountain, stretching skyward against a flattened continent.
The horizon I can see is occupied by city--Sydney: clam shell opera house, wasp’s wing suspension bridge.
Waters converge below; Sydney harbor meets Tasmanian Sea meets Atlantic Ocean. Political distinctions, but not unrecognized. The tide flows counter-current along a line joining the ends of this crescent harbor.
Wave crests approach and yet they recede, like the little beveled sections of the moving walkways in airports. Except no passengers here; rather than gates and attendants for destination: the broad arch of a setting sun. Incidence of light from the west suffuses the white caps, like superheated silver, liquid and flowing paths from the departing horizon to the base of this cliff and back. But I can’t walk those paths; I would sink.
I can’t swim; I would drown.
Nor can I fly; I lack the faith.
-----
So I left. What else was there to do? Jump? One reluctant minute stolen, while the tour guide beckoned with windmill gestures; remember this place, I thought.
Fifty-two, today; I am losing my hair. The white, cumulus wisps that remain are more abundant towards the left than the right; I sometimes wonder if this bias has anything to do with the way I think.
I found a dove’s egg on the beach, miraculously unbroken. Incubated by warm afternoon sand, it has a chance, if I can get it safely back to its nest.
-----
You lie beside me, facing me in the near darkness pierced once by a shaft from behind the window shade, twice by the sub-oceanic glow of my stereo’s digital display.
“Do I jump,” I ask, “knowing that I will fall?”
“Or,” you finish, “do you find someone to teach you to fly?”
“What if, when I find a teacher and return, this moment is gone?”
-----
Always we spoke in abstractions. That we could understand one another’s metaphorical expression--a sign, of sorts, I thought.
Back, now, at the base of that cliff, circumventing the contemplated jump by a long shortcut of thirty years. Many suns witnessed setting. Alone. And yes, the moment is gone.
But as I said, this dove’s egg has a chance. Some of the nests pockmarked into the rocky wall above are easy to get to, others less so. One in particular: a puckered mouth in the center of a nearly smooth bulge, like the navel of a Travelling Buddha. I don’t know why, but I’m sure that’s where this egg belongs.
-----
Your eyes are still closed when you begin to speak, “Jonathan. You musn’t think of what God can do for you. Live your life in Christ; make His purpose yours.” The lashes of your eyes, each so fragile and distinct, slowly rise.
I see your eyes now and always as I saw them once, revealed by the light of the lamp over my bed, layer upon layer of striation like the indeterminate depth of rosewood.
“Seek and ye shall find. That’s what He promises.”
-----
Saturated sand cushions the egg--surrounded by drinking water and protected by my Nalgene bottle, hooked to a caribiner attached to my climbing pack. The velcro straps of my Teva’s are criss-crossed through braided nylon accesory loops and around the bottle for support. I climb barefoot--always have.
Touch is the shrewdest of our five senses. The mountain is otherwise silent - unpalatable - atmospheric - rock. Experienced through palms, soles, it speaks and I have learned to listen: here I am firm...here eroded...trust here; this stone will hold you.
-----
You speak: “Do you realize what it means if I say ‘yes, I want to be with you’?” Your eyes that till now have wandered, settle and probe into my own. “It means I have to redraw all the lines that define my life.”
I hear agony in your voice; I can feel it in the trembling of your skin. You have something to lose either way. Can there be a balance between these eternal gladiators: heart and mind; love and the illogic of faith? Recyclable quotes intrude--Highlander: “There can be only one”; Kierkegaard: Either/Or.
The CD spins to an end and I go to change it.
My mother would play this piece—Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”--on her midnight-black grand piano at home. Swelling in aching minor ascensions, the music burst and flowed both ways down an echoing Spanish tile hallway: to the kitchen, where pancakes waited; to my room, where I lay waking. It emanates much humbler, yet still sweet, from the twin Dolby speakers against the far wall of this one-room apartment.
I turn the knob of the standing halogen counter-clockwise. “Can we do this by touch?” I ask.
-----
I’m shimmying onto Buddha’s smooth belly from above, clinging with toes wedged and body inverted. I can feel the added pressure in my skull--all of the unattached, soft tissues pulled against the back of my forehead. This is a ridiculously dangerous climb, but I figure I’m through with falling. Trust secures my feet, maintains thin grain resistance against splayed palms.
Taking a firm grip inside Buddha’s navel, I let go with my toes and slide, elongated flat, the hours of the clock from noon to dusk. It’s supposed to be good luck to rub the stomach of a Travelling Buddha; I left the bulging stone a little sticky with my sweat.
Now before me, a west-facing shrine: this vacant dove’s nest.
-----
The sunset rises within me as a surge of visceral sensation. Nerve endings needle the skin below my eyes but no tears emerge, and the day dies dry. Such excess of feeling cannot continue; it is not healthy. But where can it go, when I have no outlet? Into creation--vocal, written--but these are funnels overflowing. “Love, Ellen.” I need love. “This need is the part of our relationship that is me. But it is only half. Halves equal disappointment: now, down the line, inevitably. You must feel with me, must balance us.”
You start to reach for my hand, check yourself. “I drive myself in circles,” you whisper. I wait.
“Jonathan. How can I trust my feelings? There is God; there is you; where are the lines between?”
“There is a cliff, Ellen. Firm beneath my feet. And I don’t need to leave to find my teacher; she is here.” Yet--there has never been Christ before, not even a stirring. Can it be a matter of learning? of seeking?
-----
Unpeeling Velcro makes such a harsh sound--tough to associate with the shy resistance it provides, felt through the rubber finger grip at the end of my Teva’s ankle strap. With one hand anchored, one hand blindly unfastening, I carefully free the Nalgene bottle from my pack and set it next to the nest. I drain off the drinking water, fish out the egg, polish wet sand onto my T- shirt.
Thirty years gone by and I feel like I hold some sort of punctuation between my thumb and forefinger. Period or exclamation or question mark; which is it?
Just an egg; a proteic embryo; amassing the strength to break out, from within; helpless to the forces that would break in, from without, before its time. But there are forces that intervene. Fate--that I am here, that the sand was soft and warm. The feeble strength in my limbs.
-----
“Not discouraged; daunted,” you say, “though I feel your mind is open.” You reach for my hand and take it in yours, firmly.
Your skin feels so cold, like a nitrogen needle. Fresh blood pumps into oxygen- rich air, draining. Out on a cleansing river: cynicism--my infection; the numbness--like scar tissue.
Your kiss: straight in, soft and then increasing, pressure, your tongue, between your lips, between my lips...
-----
I kiss the dove’s egg briefly, then return it to the nest where it slides to rest in a well-fitted groove.
Rescrewing the lid, I drop the Nalgene bottle to the beach below. I slip one shoulder, then the other, out of my climbing pack; it leaves with a soft hiss and a release of weight.
Eyes closed, I reach within--gathering, I imagine, all my fibers in readiness. I launch myself backwards, out over the three waters and the silver waves. Arms and legs thrown wide, I take seaborn wind in through my mouth and expel, violently: “Breathe!”
Eyes opened, I reach without--absorbing, with all my senses, this moment. There before me is a would-be mountain, a dove, and the sun. In my ears there is a rushing river of sound: indistinct and comforting. In my nose and on my tongue is the taste of salt, brine, and rich, unrespired oxygen.
-----
There was a cliff, firm beneath my feet.
Now there is air, and I am flying.
--Patrick Lee
| Ife Head |
this sunlight
spilling over my shoulder
onto an ancient face
older than smiles it seems
old enough to echo stone as much as man
this bronze
now smooth now rough
beneath my fingers tracing lines
over stone eyes
lips like mine unparted
my face is soft
my eyes
peering out behind these glasses
are bright with life
the haughty rise
of your brows
the cruel tilt
of your nose
betray you my ancestor
my hands
now hesitant at your cheek
strong thumbs wide palms
like the hands that shaped your ears
first in clay
then in wax
curled your lip
opened your eyes
cool as glass
in clay
they concealed you again
melted free the wax
to make a mold soon filled with the molten metal
which cooled to ruddy bronze now green with age
they left you hollow as a mask
forefather
--Patricia Akhimie
| Battleground Country Club |
What the customers didn’t know was that there are two kinds of busboys. To them, the busboy in his black and white uniform was an oblique figure who faded into the background, blending with the dull glow of the dinner candles and the soft shadows on the crisp linen tablecloths. But beyond the delicate clink of glasses and the murmur of conversation, the world of the kitchen steamed and breathed. Beyond the swinging doors were shouts, barked orders, and a haze of other sounds which crashed and grated across each--the bristling sound of the faucet, the rattle of trays, and the sizzling of boiling sauces. The doors barred those sounds from the dining room. Out there, silk and satin whispered, jewelry jangled, and above the undulating rhythm of the jazz trio, above it all, the smooth whisk of bills and the clack of credit cards could always be heard.
I remember that some busboys are like Mike Ferrios, poured into black vest and cuffs, his tie dangling effortlessly at his tanned throat as he leans against the counter to wolf down a dinner roll. As four waitresses carrying trays hurry past him, Mike turns to watch them pause at the door to the dining room, smoothing their dresses with one hand down the hip. He grins, the last round end of crust poised before his parted lips.
Other busboys are like Frank, who slings trays and dishes with a sort of subdued fury, and hoists mountains of silverware, his shoulders rippling underneath the worn and greasy fabric of his black vest. I knew when he was behind me by his odor. He was a wrestler, and smelled of alcohol and smoke, of strength and death. Not long after I quit, I heard he’d gotten in a car accident, ran off the road driving drunk. I tried to imagine him struggling underneath twisted metal and broken glass, his legs mangled, his massive shoulders pinned by the steering column.
All the busboys got high on whippets during the lulls between courses. Most times I stayed at the dish stations, where the waitresses brought back buttery saucers and glasses smudged with lipstick, and then stood smoking and chatting in small groups, hands on hips. In the back by the dumpsters, Frank and Dan, and Neil, and even Mike would crouch around the carton of half empty whip cream cans. Pinching the nozzle at the top just enough released the compressed gas with only a few flecks of whip cream. White and black uniforms blended in the gray twilight as I squinted to watch them from the doorway. Their faces looked ashen in the glare of the fluorescent freezer lights. With the thump and whine of the party music behind me, I could only hear the hiss of the nozzles, coughing, and an occasional muffled word as they rubbed at their noses and passed on the can.
Only the waitresses could carry liquor to the customers, but they were too lazy to get it from the storage closets. Melinda, the blond bartender would saunter up to us, lean over, and bat her eyes, and we would carry cases of beer like packhorses out to the bar. In the closets, Frank ripped into a six-pack with zest, and after the third trip he sat down amidst the empty bottles and cardboard. If Mike wasn’t around Frank would talk expansively about Melinda’s ass, cupping the air and gesturing with his bottle. I thought of how powerful I felt when she looked at me, and how the men slouched and jostled around the bar, talking earnestly to her as their hands stole around her waist. I was jittery with soda and fatigue, and I paced the length of the closet, stepping over Frank’s legs at each pass.
I hated Mike for possessing Melinda, but loved him for it as well. Perhaps I was fascinated by his ability to make her love him without effort, and with obvious diffidence. When he leaned forward, dipping her smoothly in time to the winding rhythm of the jazz trio, I watched the flex of their bodies and the way she hung in his arms, trusting her body to him completely as they danced between the stoves in the kitchen. I shivered every time her blond hair swept through the air above the surface of grill.
Mike’s movements were fluid and savage reminding me of my first night working, when I looked up from the assembly line preparation of the meal to see him dash through the narrow passageway to the banquet hall, lofting a tray piled with dishes. Without checking momentum he dodged a knot of waitresses, who flicked at him with hand towels as he passed. The motion of his hips is frozen in my memory, as he sidesteps the towels like a matador, and dips momentarily, suggestively, sliding past the eyes of those women with brazen grace. I wondered later whether I would ever understand that movement, that familiarity with a woman, like the easy touch of a hand on a soft shoulder, drawing her in.
The jazz trio played in an alcove by the dining area, just outside the doors to the kitchen. Each night the lanky bassist with the somber expression and the graying hair toted his battered leather case through the room where I was setting the silverware. We nodded to each other. Once the low rumblings of his tuning began, the drummer would arrive, a wiry little guy, whose body seemed always to be caught in a cross-current of rhythms. Different pianists fronted the rhythm section every night; the waitresses called them “penises.” Wiping their hands on their white aprons, they would hover in a bleach-blond group by the swinging doors to the kitchen, watching. On my first night working, a man with shoulder length gray hair and a wrinkled tuxedo swayed over the piano with eyes closed. Look at him making love to the piano, the waitresses said, laughing. Look at the old penis, stroking the keys.
For the first hour on the next night they confined themselves to the kitchen, gasping and giggling over the chubby little man in the white suit who had stumped in and begun playing with energetic fury. Even Melinda came and leaned around the doors to laugh at “the angry little penis,” and the busboys had to bring out all the entrees. Frank complained loudly, but I didn’t mind. Notes danced and jangled underneath the stubby fingers of the little pianist, and the diners turned appreciatively, nodding their heads from time to time.
In the dishroom, I heard Frank discussing Melinda’s ass with the immigrant dishwashers who got paid two dollars an hour under the table. Muy bueno, right amigo? he would say, and he and all the amigos standing in the steam and suds would laugh, imitating the same gesture again and again. How much experience went into those motions I didn’t know, but when Mike caught them thrusting, and punching each other on the arm he went straight for Frank. Slamming him up against the shelves full of silverware, he shook Frank by his shirt collar, and the amigos retreated as knives and spoons clattered to the floor in a cascade of silver. Mike seized one of the big pie servers with the serrated edges and held it in the narrow space between his face and Frank’s, waving it slowly back and forth. Keep your mouth shut you drunken fuck, he said, quietly. But his eyes were hard, and he tightened his grip on Frank’s collar, forcing him back against the half empty shelf which tipped upward with his weight. Keep your mouth shut or you know what I’ll do. He slid the server down Frank’s torso towards his crotch, and the shelf collapsed as Frank strained backward. Dropping him onto the scattered silverware, Mike slung the pie server into one of the pitted and greasy metal washtubs, making us all flinch. Clean this shit up, he said as he walked past me towards the grills. I sank to the floor, scrabbling for a handful of spoons and replacing them in the blue wire baskets that rolled idly across the slick tile floor.
I avoided Mike for the rest of the night after the episode in the dishroom. But as the last group of customers drained their glasses and stumbled out to the parking lot, shrugging into their long coats, the two of us had to break down the dining room. The jazz trio had already left and we worked in silence broken only by the rattle of the silverware drawers and the muffled rustling of tablecloths. After we finished bringing in the last of the hot-plates and the sterno cans from the buffet dinner, Mike motioned to me, and I followed him hesitantly out into the bare dining room. In the empty alcove, we sat down at the piano. He fingered the keys, then picked out the melody of the slow number he and Melinda had danced to, leaning close over the keyboard. Mixalydian, he said, and began to play the song, awkwardly at first, then with more confidence. You just gotta find the right keys, he said, stopping abruptly and leaning back. Just run your fingers over them the right way and they come to you. He put his hand on my shoulder, and cocked his head to one side. You ever do that before? he asked. I shook my head.
As she came out of the kitchen, pausing in the doorway to punch her time-card, I saw that Melinda had changed out of her uniform into black jeans and a white blouse. Standing up from the piano, Mike sauntered over as she looked away from him down the hallway, and catching her quickly around the waist he swung her behind the door. I heard her shriek of laughter and then silence, then finally the sound of a time-card being punched. Mike had one hand around Melinda’s waist when they reappeared, and in his other he was holding his vest, its creases relaxed into crumpled blackness. As they headed for the door to the parking lot, he shot me a wink. When they were gone, I rested my fingers on the cool ivory of the piano keys, slid them across the expanse of the keyboard. After a few minutes, I got up, punched my time-card, and went to wash my hands.
--Michael Sherry