Walking around on Resurrection ground
February 19, 2011 Leave a comment
“Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has demanded that state workers contribute roughly 5.8 percent of their wages toward their retirement. He wants them to pay for 12 percent of their health-care premiums. Those modest employee contributions would be the envy of many workers in the private sector. “
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-union-20110217,0,2260656,print.story
February 6, 2011 Leave a comment
Myrna waited for the commuter at her usual spot. This morning, icy winter wind coursed down the tracks slamming up against her. Trying to stay warm she shifted her weight back and forth. Every so often she would turn her face into the wind in hopes of seeing the train’s headlight coming down the tracks. At 5:39 the train arrived. No one else had been waiting for the train. This fact seemed odd to her but the day, being the Monday after Christmas, she thought it was possible.
She found her usual seat, a single on the upper deck, and settled in. As she did, the train lurched forward, leaving the station. She hadn’t noticed a conductor when she boarded and from the empty seats it appeared that none of the regular passengers were on board. Looking down from her seat she did see a man with tattered dirty clothes. He was bent over in his seat and rocking back and forth.
The train ride to the city usually took an hour and ten minutes. Myrna pulled Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories from her tote, found her place in the book and began reading. She had promised her son that she would read this book.
The compilation of stories had been given to her on Christmas day. Her son Ethan handed it to her just as he was telling her that he had become a Christian. Myrna had been quite taken back by this news. She had thought that Ethan was an intellectual atheist just like herself. She had raised him to be a well-adjusted man of the world. She shuddered to think about gooeyness of religion smothering her son.
Though she had been raised a Lutheran, Myrna, later decided that Christianity had its place for the weak and dull of mind, for those not willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. She believed that learning was the key to life. She went to night school. She applied herself. Life was what you made it, she told herself. And, she didn’t need a savior. Saviors were for those who needed saving from themselves. The savior myth of a dying god was just another story like Homer’s Iliad. Her Literature teacher had told her so.
And, Myrna certainly wasn’t going to waste time bending the knee and genuflecting before someone she couldn’t see and relate to. Besides, there were children in this world who are hurting. Why would a god who is supposed to be love let such things happen to children? She wouldn’t let bad things happen to her baby. In fact, she felt she was god enough for Elliot and for herself. Ethan was raised to respect knowledge. Myrna had steeled him with a good college education. He was well-adjusted and not like his father.
When the train arrived at the next stop Myrna looked out into the morning darkness and saw only blowing snow under street lights. She didn’t see any other movement. No cars. No people. After a minute, the train started up again. She heard no one get on the train.
Looking down from her seat, Myrna was able to see an old woman sitting behind the homeless man. From the look of her clothes, the woman must have been destitute. She thought how strange to hear no one board the train and yet another passenger was sitting below. She brushed this off as not paying attention to what was happening and returned to my book.
As the train headed east to the next stop she sat thinking about Ethan’s father. Ten years ago she divorced her son’s father. She had had enough of the man. Her son’s father thought himself a woman. He wanted to live as a woman. How absurd. Any fool, she thought, knows that DNA has the final word. Why mess with a genetic constant. Does he think he’s god?
At the beginning of their marriage she did tell Ethan’s father that she had a friend who was transgendered but, she had no idea at that time that the children’s father was in the same mold. As time went on she learned about him and decided that this relationship was not what she wanted. He wasn’t of any use to her. She would have no part in him. She didn’t want him. She decided that he was only good for the money he could provide. She told him, “I don’t want you. I want your money.” She took him to court, divorced him and made him pay for what had become in her eyes a relationship with a freak of nature, a perverted third kind of person. She felt the divorce was the right thing to do: “bar this miscreant from Myrna and the kids” is what her attorney told the judge.
The matter was settled as far as Myrna was concerned. She was not going to embrace “That THING!” Just thinking about these things again filled her with more icy resolve. She pulled her coat around her shoulders and returned to the book.
Thumpety-thump. Thumpety-thump. Thumpety-thump.
After fifteen minutes, the train slowed down, pulling up to the next stop. As before, there was no movement, no sound. And, again, she looked around and saw another person now seated on the train. This time it was a boy of about ten years of age. He sat down with the old woman. In front of them the homeless man sat rocking back and forth. Myrna’s curiosity was awakened. Do they let homeless people ride the train on cold winter days? She questioned to herself the sense of letting people ride a train who didn’t appear to have any money to pay for the ride. She thought, “I am paying for my ride and their rides. Why isn’t the government paying for all of this? With only a part time job and the monthly child support over, there is barely enough for me to get by. Why doesn’t somebody make this right? “
Except for the rocking tramp, the old woman and the youth the train was empty. Again Myrna wondered: “Is this a government holiday? Am I the only one going to work today?” She quickly brushed this thought from her mind when she noticed across from her a young man seated, reading a newspaper. “Where the hell did he come from?” There hadn’t been any sound except for the train bell clanging and the constant thumpety-thump of the train running down the tracks. The man appeared normal so Myrna felt better. She now wished she had some coffee. She wished her mind was stirred enough to discharge the other passenger phantasms.
Another stop brought her closer to the city. As the train came to a complete stop she turned her eyes from her book. She peered down to the lower level, hoping to see if anyone came on board. Yet, as before, there was no movement, no new passengers. She put the book down on her lap. There, right in front of her, sat a grey-haired woman. Myrna gasped. The woman sat still, looking forward. Myrna reached up and touched her shoulder, but there was no response.
“Excuse me. Is today a government holiday?” Myrna asked.
No response. Myrna then heard a whimper coming from down below. The waif was now rocking back and forth, crying softly. With a shudder, Myrna sarcastically wondered “How strange. Is this the train from hell?” She couldn’t wait to get off the train and get to work. She needed facts and figures, calculations and foundation plans to straighten her mind. She looked down at her watch. The time was 5:40 am! The battery must have died, she thought.
Holding her cell phone close to the window for a signal, Myrna called her boss. His answering machine came on. The deep voice reassured her. He was a reasonable man her boss. He was smart and strong. Well-adjusted. She left him a voice message saying that she would be a little late. She hung up and put the cell phone away. Looking up from her purse, she now saw a dozen people on the train’s upper deck: six people were sitting in a row directly in front of her and the frozen older woman. Six other people sat across the aisle sat facing them. No one was talking. Their faces were dull, eyes barely open.
Myrna’s heart began pounding. Fear and anger flushed her face. She liked to be in control of things. It was time for her to be at the station. She wanted to get off the train, stretch her legs and get moving. She needed circulation. She needed some fresh air. She needed to be at her desk with all her things around her just like before.
The train lurched and then picked up speed. Myrna leaned back into her seat no longer able to read. Looking around she saw that every seat was now filled. People were all around her but no one was talking. It was deadly silent in the car.
Thumpety-thump. Thmpety-thump.
After a minute, the train braked and came to a sudden stop. Myrna turned her head to listen. She hoped the engineer would tell the passengers why the train had stopped. She was anxious to leave this theatre of the absurd.
Looking through the window she saw a moonless black morning. Out of habit she looked again at her watch. 5:40 am. She knew that the train had been running for at least an hour, making the usual stops, and yet the train seemed to be no where near the downtown station. She wondered what the hold up was. She got up and walked down the tightly wound staircase to the first level of the train to see what was going on.
Inside the coach vestibule, there was no one. No one could be seen in the other half of the coach. No conductor asked for her ticket. Myrna looked back into her car and saw the same lifeless people. Nothing had changed. It was good to be standing here, she thought, though not really sure that anywhere on this train was good. At that moment the north doors pulled opened and a gush of artic wind swept in. In came a woman, a tall woman, who looked uncannily familiar. Myrna thought she had seen those blue eyes and that pensive look somewhere before. Something clicked in Myrna but the thought soon vanished as the woman walked past her into the car where the others sat.
“Caution! The Doors Are About To Close.” The booming voice on speakers warned.
The tall woman sat down next to the homeless man. He stopped rocking and sat up.
Myrna, feeling peeved and not making sense of it all, decided to stay in the vestibule until the train reached the station. No more foolishness for her, she reasoned, she must stay focused.
With a loud clanging bell the train pulled into the station. Myrna stood alone in the vestibule waiting for the doors to pull back. When they did, she stepped down and with a loud bothered sigh of relief said, “Thank God!”
The station was empty. The hallways and vendor shops were deserted. Myrna, instead of being concerned, decided that she was beginning to like the peace and quiet. She had become adjusted to the situation. Her two feet felt strong under her. It felt good and liberating to be walking to work.
As she walked though the main lobby she felt as if she had left something behind. An unnerving thought suddenly crossed her mind: “Those eyes. That look. Ethan? No, I am losing it. Elliot lives in New York, she reminded herself. Ethan is well-adjusted. No. No. Absolutely Not. And those people. Did I know them? Haven’t I seen them before? No. No way.” Without a further thought Myrna headed for the street door.
Outside, wind-whipped snow lashed down empty streets and alleys, the air’s turbulence unleashing howling wraith-like gusts. The normally sun gilt buildings now stood before Myrna as dark and monstrous cyclopean structures. With head down and jaw set Myrna pushed steadily onward towards work, disregarding the enduring chill she carried with her.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
February 10, 2010
Mary wrapped her blue cotton shawl over her shoulders. She knew the night air would later become chilly. She called to her son hammering on something in the workshop and set out for the synagogue, nestled down at the end of the ox cart-burrowed street. Jesus, hearing the invitation from his mother, quickly brushed off the sawdust from his tunic, grabbed his mantle and threw it over his head. He cinched a leather belt in place, quickly washed his face and hands and ran off to catch up to his mother who was halfway to the synagogue and the wedding celebration.
“Jesus, would you bring the fish that I bought from Peter?”
“Yes mother. Is there anything else?
“No, son.”
“I will return to the house and bring the fish. Go ahead with out me.”
“I’ll wait. With such a son, I will walk with you to greet our neighbors on this festive day.”
“Yes, mother, I’ll hurry.”
Jesus returned minutes later, running down the slope with three fish in his hand, the translucent fish tails flapping.
When he had caught up to Mary he said, “Father loved to go to weddings and to listen to the music. He loved to be with his friends. Father was a quiet man until he came to a wedding. Then he would smile from ear to ear and sing all of the wedding songs. I remember his unstoppable smile. I could see that weddings had a special place in his heart.”
“Yes, I wish he were here.” Mary answered. “At the weddings he would look into my eyes and tell me that the twinkle in my eyes had reminded him of the stars on the night when you were born. Come let’s go in before I start crying and the stars begin flowing.”
Jesus and his mother entered the large thatched-roofed synagogue after removing their shoes. Inside they greeted their neighbors. Dusty feet were washed and dried by the bride’s father, the host. Blessings were bestowed on the household and then Mary asked to see the newly weds.
The bride and groom sat outside in the middle of an expansive garden. They were seated at the center of a low cypress wood table near a Sycamore fig tree. A large canopy shielded them from the hot afternoon sun. Jesus recognized the table as one of his workshop creations. Many of the guests had seated themselves around the table for the start of the wedding feast. Children scurried around the tables, giggling their pleasure at finding so many of their friends. The whole town had come to celebrate.
Their town, Khirbet Kana, was located nine miles northeast of Nazareth and about nine miles east of the Sea of Galilee. It was nestled against the southern hills of Upper Galilee. The Bet Netofa Valley, which lay between Cana and Nazareth, was situated about half way between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
As Mary began talking with the exuberant couple, Jesus walked over and sat down with the men discussing Cana’s political landscape within the Roman Empire. From their heated discussion he could hear that they were unwilling subjects of Rome. The local authority was King Herod and King Herod reported to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. They decried the fact that Roman rule limited the power of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court with its own legislative and judicial authority. They earnestly looked for the deliverer of their own people. Jesus listened while stoking the fire with a branch.
The men sat around the glowing coals of a fire pit used for cooking. The three fish that Jesus had brought were placed on the fire pit’s heated stones. In the middle of the pit, a large pot held boiling lamb stew seasoned with salt, onions, garlic, cumin coriander, mint, dill and mustard. Dates and grapes, cheese, wine, vegetables, fruit and eggs were in plentiful supply. Common serving bowls were set on the feast table along with wild honey to sweeten the meal.
A little boy came over and stood next to Jesus. He watched his father talking from across from the fire pit. His father, face snarled and shoulders slumped, talked angrily about the Roman taxes being placed on their town. The boy knew that his father became especially enraged when talking about King Herod. It was Herod who had placed Roman idols in the Holy Temple of Jehovah. Today his father spoke in a hushed voice to those seated around the fire. He did not want to spoil the celebration.
Off to the side, several little girls, unaware of such important discussions whirled in their tunics to the rhythm of a tambourine, pretending that they, too, had just been married. The sound of lyres, lutes, castanets, and cymbals permeated the multitude of voices. The garden was lush with a wonderful sense of joy.
Wine poured freely. The bride’s mother made sure of it. But it wasn’t long before Mary noticed a worried look on Anna’s face. Mary pulled Anna into corner of the garden. She quietly spoke with Anna.
“Anna, my friend, what’s the matter?”
“Oh Mary, the wine is gone! I didn’t think that this would happen. Unexpected guests have come from nearby towns. Your son’s followers have come too. What shall I do? We haven’t even toasted my daughter and her husband!”
Mary turned and looked for Jesus. Her eyes found his. He was seated among the men where her husband Joseph usually sat when he was alive. She quickly came over to him and quietly put her hand on his shoulder. Jesus got up and followed her to the front of the synagogue.
“Son, there is no more wine. What is left is old and almost undrinkable.”
“Good woman, what does that have to do with me? My time hasn’t come yet.”
Now, Mary knew in her heart that Jesus was sent from God. She felt that He had to do something in this family crisis. Mary invoked her pregnant hope. She looked over at the servants and said, “Do whatever he tells you.”
The servants gathered up six large clay jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, and took them to the cistern in the town’s courtyard. They filled the jars, each holding 30 gallons, with cistern water and then carted them back to the party. Jesus had ordered the servants to fill the empty clay jars with water. When they had done so, Jesus told them to draw out some of it and take it to the head waiter. After tasting the wine from the jar, not knowing what Jesus had done (though the servants who drew the water knew), the head waiter took the bridegroom aside and told the bridegroom that he had departed from the usual custom of serving the best wine first by serving it last. The bridegroom responded with open-mouthed amazement. He then proclaimed loudly, “Thanks be to Jehovah for this wonderful gift.”
When everyone had a cup of new wine before them, Jesus raised his cup in the direction of the bride and groom. Everyone quickly raised their cups as well. Seven blessings were recited before the bride and groom. The final blessing: Blessed art Thou LORD our God, king of the universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine. The joyful couple was toasted. New wine again filled the cups and music returned to the garden.
As the evening wore on Mary got up from her place at the table. With the fire dying away the cool night air now chilled her. She pulled the cotton shawl snug over her shoulders and went to look for Jesus. She found him at the edge of the garden looking towards the night sky. The scene reminded her of God’s vision given to Abram: “Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” Without saying a word, Mary stood looking at Jesus from across the garden. In the expanse of the indigo-black night infinite points of starlight blazed creating a sparkling diadem for her son.
(And so it was that Jesus’ first sign, recorded by me, was the changing of water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. I was with his mother and several of his disciples who saw this miracle. We began, that day, to believe in a Deliverer.)
-John, the beloved disciple of Jesus
***
© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved
September 7, 2009 Leave a comment
Father Henry and his wife Margaret were already seated in the restaurant when Daniel arrived. Daniel had been futzing about at home looking for his reading glasses. He had wanted to read a newspaper article about claustrophobia when he realized that he was late for his weekly lunch with the rector and his wife.
As Daniel came in the restaurant door, Father Henry looked up at him from the table and caught Daniel glancing at the newspaper. Father Henry was reading the same article that he was trying to read at home: Claustrophobia, Uncovering Your Fears. The title of the article had caught Daniel’s eye and apparently Father Henry’s. Margaret moved across the table to sit with her husband and Daniel sat across facing them both.
“Hi, how are you Father Henry and Margaret?”
“We’re fine Daniel. How are things?” Father Henry spoke, looking at his wife Margaret.
“Except for some claustrophobia, I guess I am doing alright.” Daniel smiled with a nod to the newspaper lying open on the table.
“Hah, I see. Well, good. How about some coffee? Here comes the waitress.”
Daniel ordered some eggs over easy and some coffee. Father Henry ordered some French toast, two plates and two orange juices.
“The last time we had gotten together, Daniel, you had mentioned that you had a close friend at your previous church.” Father Henry spoke from behind a raised coffee cup.
“Yeah, Allan and I were close friends. I spent time with him and two other guys in a prayer cell group. This was before the divorce. We met at least once a month to talk and pray. Later, after the divorce, I would also bring my two kids over to his house and spend time with him and his wife. I often ate dinner with them. We both had kids the same age. The kids got along really well.”
“What was the prayer cell group like? Did you enjoy that?”
“It was alright, I guess. The prayer cells groups were started in order to bring together the people who ministered in the church. The cell group was to be a place of accountability and fellowship. Before that group ever met, I often met with Allan for breakfast to talk about work and to pray before going to work.
“Were you ministering in that church then?”
“Yes, I was a Sunday School teacher for grade school kids and I played in the worship band. I play the trumpet.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Music and my trumpet have been in life since I was a kid. Music has often helped me cope with a lot of life’s madness. I enjoy playing the horn in the worship service. It’s very Biblical you know?” Daniel smiled.
“Were the other guys in the ministry at that church?”
“Ah, yeah, two of them were in the music ministry, as well. My close friend, Allan, was a working priest. He wasn’t a full time priest at the church. He had a full time job.
“How did it go with those guys?”
“I met with them as often as I could for the prayer cell meetings. I had a full time job. I was a partner in a company which I helped to start. I was the VP of Engineering. This meant that any equipment issues – we were a manufacturing company – this meant that if a customer called up with a problem the call was always forwarded to me. I worked a ton of hours and was out of town a lot. When I was at home I wanted to stay at home. The job took a lot out of me.”
“Yeah, something like that would. I am called on at all hours of the night in my position.” Father Henry looked at Margaret.
“I would go to church on Sunday and then I would want to come home and stay at home for the balance of the day. My ex, who was at home all week, wanted to go out and be with our church friends all day Sunday. I would tell her that I was exhausted and that I just needed some rest. I often worked 60-70 hours a week besides taking care of the house, the kids and the rest. When she heard me say that I wanted to be at home on Sunday afternoon she would tell our friends that I wasn’t coming. She told our children, I later found out, that I was being unsociable. My own kids would later say this back to me. I was upset by such a characterization by my wife.”
Did the guys in your cell group talk about their jobs and their marriages?”
“Yeah, my friend Allan and I usually talked the most intimately about our lives and marriages. The other two guys would talk about somebody being sick at their office. That’s what they would pray about, too.”
The waitress brought the meals and poured some coffee in Daniel’s cup. Father Henry gave thanks for the meal.
“So you shared your life with these guys?” Margaret asked.
“I shared with them about my job and about my two business partners. I talked about the work I did and the frustrations of my job. I also talked about my marriage and about how my wife always wanted me to go to counseling. She constantly pushed for a separation. She would say that I was the cause of our marriage’s problems. She, in turn, wouldn’t accept responsibility for her part in the marriage’s problems. I would go to counseling by myself and nothing would change because the issues she had with me were inside of her and she wasn’t willing to go there. Her past was present in our marriage but she couldn’t see it. My issues were being talked about constantly. I talked about my own unresolved anger and my projection onto her. I learned to stop doing this and to look at the source of my own anger, which usually came from out of my past. I learned that I must face my own anger and my past and to speak out about my real needs. I felt that I couldn’t share with her my needs or who I was and this made me angry. I often felt alone in the marriage, too. I did learn that I should know who I am, that I should know why I am angry, that I should speak about my needs to my spouse and then don’t expect her to meet those needs. If my needs were met by her then, of course, that would be great but I couldn’t demand such a thing from her. I learned to live in the tension of not having my needs met and of not becoming angry and not being escapist with pornography. I put that out of my life. I wanted to be real and be in a real relationship with someone for the first time in my life. But, it was actually at this point when I started to become ‘real’ and honest within that I started to say “No, its not true.” to her angry projections put onto me. It was then that she became more determined to divorce. We were in two different places and she wouldn’t let me get near her, even though I had tried many times. I understood it later that her perfectionism, born out of her troubled past, kept her from responding to me. She wanted things to be perfect, for our marriage to lived out perfectly with no remembrance of her past troubles. She denied having any issues at all. And, she wanted something that even she could not put her finger on and of course I couldn’t meet that undetermined need. This was an impossible situation, so things remained unresolved.”
“That must have been frustrating.” Father Henry spoke looking into his coffee.
“It was extremely frustrating. And, I found out via the guys in the prayer group that my wife was saying negative things to their wives about me. They wanted me to share my “stuff” with them in our get-togethers. I felt betrayed by everyone involved. I later decided to stop going to the prayer cell group. I wasn’t going to become the focus of the prayer cell because of my wife’s projection onto me and because two of the guys in the group didn’t share anything of substance at all. I was also working so much that I needed as many breaks as I could get.”
“What happened then, with your wife?” Margaret asked.
“We separated and eventually divorced. We had gone to marriage counseling for a while but never once were her “issues” with me ever discussed, examined or understood. Never. The counselor and I, neither of us, knew what issue she had with me other than her saying, “I don’t think he loves me.” We did know that she wanted to end the marriage and it appeared that I was going to be the scapegoat for her decision. Again, as I found out later, she had talked to our close friends at the church, the rector and her family and she had made me look bad before them. I was being set up for the divorce.”
“What about your close friend, Allan? Did he see what was going on?” Father Henry queried.
“Yeah, I think so. He said he wouldn’t take sides. I was the one in the group who talked openly about things in my marriage so it would seem to the guys in the group, I think, that I was the one who was the problem in the marriage. I did not want the marriage to end and I had made that clear. I wanted to reconcile with her and she couldn’t bring herself to that place. Her own troubled past was too much in the present and I became the object of her unresolved anger. She couldn’t see that this was happening.”
“Did you and Allan get together after you and your wife were separated?”
“Yeah, we still hung out but it was more awkward because I was now single. I brought my kids over to his house, as I mentioned earlier. He and his wife, Joan, had seven kids. Two of their kids were my kid’s age, so they got along great. I enjoyed that friendship but I was hurting a lot from the destruction of our marriage. I didn’t know how I could even share it with anyone. Allan would talk even handedly like all the other counselors and say both people are to responsible in a marriage breakup and I knew this not to be true. I knew these words were just a gobbledygook response of impartiality on the part of the people saying this. If one person in a marriage wants a divorce than what can you do? Vows no longer matter to people like that. They are going to divorce and then relive their unresolved anger out with someone new.”
“I would agree with you, on this.” Father Henry again looked at Margaret.
Margaret asked, “Did Allan’s wife say anything to you about your marriage situation?”
“I felt a cold shoulder from her, like I was the problem in the marriage, like I was too stupid to know better or to change. This may not be true and it may only be my projection onto her but that is how I felt around her.”
Margaret spoke, “Maybe she felt in an odd place and she wasn’t sure of the whole truth.”
“I think you are right.” Daniel responded. “I was very sensitive at this time to any criticism. I knew that I was talking honestly to several people about myself and about my marriage during this time and I felt very vulnerable in doing so. I felt completely alone and isolated. My ex was making me out to be a pariah to my kids and to my friends at church and everyone, it seemed, was going along for the ride. Elise seemed so honest and sincere – this sweet girl from Iowa. I knew her differently, though, but I didn’t talk about her to my friends or to my kids. I just said that we were having problems at home and we were trying to find answers.”
“What happened with the kids? Who got custody?” Margaret asked.
“My ex finally got custody of our two children. I, of course, had to hire an attorney for the divorce and pay thousands of dollars defending myself. Elise knew that I had paid 28% of my income to a previous wife for my two older children for sixteen years. Elise hated the fact that I gave money to another woman for my two older sons. She wanted the money for her own purposes. She gave me grief over it every day. In fact, it became her new battle cry during the last two years of our marriage: “I can take your kids, I can take 28% of your income and I can make you pay!” “I wasn’t sure what I was going to pay for but she made it clear with her threats that I should toe her line. This situation was untenable for any marriage.”
“Wow, that became an impossible situation for you.”
“Imagine trying to run a business as a VP of Engineering and having to go out of town to represent your company. Imagine the weight placed on me trying to hold everything to together at work and at home and then being blamed for not doing enough by my wife to make her happy. Imagine.” Daniel looked down. “The real hard thing is that now I only see my own kids every other weekend. They are no longer the same happy kids. They are decidedly different. They are easily angered. They are no longer respectful to me or to each other or of anyone, for that matter. They have learned from their mother that they can choose who they want to obey. They no longer follow the Lord because Elise no longer follows the Lord. She abandoned her church and her church friends and they abandoned her. Elise tells the kids what to think about me. I get their attitude all the time when I see them. This is sad for me. Elise now lives with some guy she met at a bar. I love my kids and they have been hurt tremendously by Elise and the divorce industry. I have been almost destroyed by all of this, as well. My parents tell me that some day my kids will know better about all of this. I don’t know. I think they will be forever scarred. God help them.”
“Daniel, we will keep you in our prayers. The Lord knows your heart for your kids and towards Elise. He will make all things right for them and for you.” Father Henry ended our meal with a prayer:
“Father, let Your love surround these children, Elise and Daniel. Restore to them the joy of their salvation. Protect these children from the Evil One who desires to use this situation for His own purposes. Keep them in Your love. Give Daniel what he needs right now. We thank you for the courage he has shown in facing these issues. Grant him Your peace. I ask these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.”
© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved
July 7, 2009 Leave a comment
“I can take your kids, I can twenty-eight percent of your income and I can make you pay.” With these words, Evelyn unloaded her pistol of anger and resentment into her husband as often as she could. These projections of malice and bitterness were focused on Daniel for most of their fourteen year marriage. The marriage ended with the death of their marriage. Daniel narrowly escaped the death of despair brought on by caring.
It was three years into the marriage when Daniel found out about Evelyn’s past. Before the marriage he didn’t think there was anything else to know. He found out that things were not as they presented themselves. First of all, Evelyn did not come across as angry. She appeared happy and confident. She was outgoing and friendly to a degree. She felt inadequate around others she deemed smarter than herself and she would often say so. She talked about growing up in a small town, but she didn’t fill in the details until three years later. The wounds of the past were under the surface of a simple veneer of introversion. She liked to be taken care of and Daniel obliged her willingly.
In the third year, Evelyn told Daniel about her small town life during high school: Evelyn’s mother had committed adultery right before her sixteen year old eyes. Her mother was making out with her lover right in their small town family kitchen. Her mother subsequently denied any involvement with the man and then went on to divorce Evelyn’s father and to marry her lover.
During those same years, Evelyn became involved with a seminary student. She went to his room and closed the door behind her. She lay on his bed and then she told Daniel that she was raped by the student. Before she knew it she was pregnant. A male high school friend helped pay for an abortion. Evelyn told Daniel that her parents never knew found out what had happened. She wanted it that way.
Evelyn went on to tell Daniel about her life after leaving high school. Evelyn moved to college and then left college after a year. She moved out west and lived with someone for a time. She had another abortion. She moved to the south and lived with someone for time. They had a child together. She and her boyfriend sold drugs from their house. They took drugs together. Evelyn told Daniel that she worked as a call girl for a time with her friend Rosa. Rosa was a madam. When her boyfriend had overdosed once too many times Evelyn left him and moved to Chicago. She moved to the Lincoln Park area and cut her hair short. A year later she met Daniel. This is what Evelyn told Daniel that third year: “Those things are behind me.”, but Daniel wondered how far behind they were. He wondered about biting dogs at his heels.
Now, Evelyn loved wine and margaritas. She drank wine at home and then she would drink Margaritas at the Mexican restaurant. She wanted to go there often. On more than one occasion, after she drank three gold Margaritas, she would become mouthy, belligerent and verbally abusive to Daniel. Daniel decided that he was not going out to eat anymore. He began to bring food home.
Evelyn took often the kids to her mother’s house after several of these drinking bouts. Evelyn was angry with Daniel about some unknown fault or quirk or some vast deficiency: “You don’t love me.”; “I don’t feel loved.”; the kids weren’t “handled”; the dishes weren’t done or Daniel spent too much time in the kitchen; Daniel didn’t think ahead that Evelyn would be needing a bottle of wine, a “good” movie and the kids put to bed, again. It didn’t matter. Her marriage and her husband were not the perfection and panacea she demanded. Daniel was told by Evelyn that he was supposed to know what she needed before she said anything. “This is what a man does, Daniel. You’re not a man.” Her husband was not taking her pain away. She thought that alcohol and being with her mother would. So she would take the kids to her mother’s house after these evening drinking sessions and stay overnight.
Daniel felt that he was held hostage in his own marriage. Evelyn would threaten to take the children to her mother’s house if something wasn’t done to appease her before she even had an issue too complain about. The situation was unlivable for Daniel but he didn’t want to break his marriage vows and wander off to seek peace. He was committed to the marriage but he felt his hands were tied by the invisible bonds of her past.
After much marriage counseling and endless self reflection Daniel realized that he did everything he possibly could in seeking to remedy the marriage and to pacify the rage which quelled in Evelyn’s heart. There was nothing more that he could do. He wanted the painful spasms of fighting to end. He didn’t want to fight with her. At every turn, though, she found something wrong with him. Her perfectionism had become an obsession of finding the missing ingredient. She wanted a perfect man to fix her imperfect world. The children, and Evelyn‘s mother, would learn how imperfect Daniel was from Evelyn.
Daniel wished that he could surgically remove the growing cancer of hatred and disdain that Evelyn had retained in heart over the years. He understood then that a woman could hold a grudge forever if she wanted to. She could not forgive, she would not forget. Evelyn would not let go of her anger because it became too familiar to her. It became a cherished locket of fury hanging from her neck, always with her, but hidden beneath the surface. It was the locket of fury that replaced the wedding ring on her hand. Five months after demanding a second separation she took off her wedding ring and began to date other men.
Daniel, during the two years of separation leading up to a divorce, found one day that depression had cornered him in his small one bedroom apartment. He had been taking an antidepressant prescribed by the marriage clinic. After a year of taking the pills, Daniel found that the pills made him feel complacent. He felt that things were slipping away from him. He didn’t care about work and he soon didn’t care about the marriage falling apart. He decided to stop taking the pills. Within a matter of three weeks a deep depression encircled him. Daniel sat crying at his desk at work. He felt the jagged edge of every painful chasm in his soul. He didn’t know what to do but he knew that he wanted to get far away from everything and find a place of healing. He called his doctor.
The psychiatrist at the marriage clinic asked Daniel what he wanted and Daniel said, “I want to get away from everything right now.”
“Do you want to sign yourself in to the hospital?”
“Yes”, Daniel answered, thinking of an enormous Garden of Eden which would usurp the enormous load of grief in his heart with its heavenly serenity.
That night Daniel signed himself into the Hospital. After filling out the pile of papers required by the hospital Daniel was given a different antidepressant and a sleeping pill and then sent to bed. His room was shared with someone already asleep, snoring in his bed. Daniel went over to the window bed and lay down on the slab covered with blankets. No sleep came until the early morning.
That was Friday night. On Saturday, Daniel was given a cold hospital breakfast and a little cup with pills. There was no change of clothes only open hospital gowns and elastic slippers. The other patients sat around a little table eating some parts of their breakfast. Each of them was nervous to make eye contact with anyone else. There were some patients who were definitely around the bend. Conversation with them didn’t matter. Daniel sat down that first morning and ate silently. He just stared at the TV hung from the ceiling. A game show was on. Daniel knew that his expectations were not in line with the reality he was seeing. He wanted to leave immediately. It would take a week before he could go home to his one bedroom apartment.
During the morning smoke break that first hospital morning, outside in the cordoned garden area, it was whispered that someone had hung themselves in their room the week before. Mostly, though, the patients shared cigarettes and talked about what they would do when they got out. Some said they would quit smoking. A small cantankerous Chinese woman told Daniel that she didn’t know when she could get out but when she did she would open her own business in her house after she kicked out her boyfriend. He had called the police on her and they put her in the hospital. She was a manic-depressive, she told Daniel, and she hadn’t taken her pills for a week.
Phone calls from the hospital were limited to one phone in the hallway. It could only be used from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm till 8:00pm. Daniel called his office during the day and told them that he was in need of a short vacation and it had something to do with his marriage breaking up. He wanted to keep his job. The cost of the separation, the cost of two separate homes; the cost of his imperfection was becoming monstrous before his eyes. This financial situation didn’t seem to bother Evelyn, who was waiting for the free ride the court would later give her, except for the fact of her unpaid cell phone bill:
“Hello.”
“Hello, where are you?”
“I am in the hospital for some rest. I’ve been having a hard time with things lately. I stopped taking the medication I told you about. I’ll be here until the end of the week. The doctor wants to see if a new medication works before I leave. I want to talk to kids before I get off the phone. I don’t want them to worry about me.”
“Daniel, you need to take the kids this coming weekend. I’m gonna be gone. And, how is my cell phone bill gonna get paid if your in there?”
“I’ll be here until the end of the week. I’ll pick up the kids. I’ll pay it then.”
“No, no, no. I don’t want it to be late. They will charge late fees.”
“Write them a check.”
“I don’t want to write a check. I have enough going on here. You’re in charge of the finances.”
“I’ll be here until the end of the week. I’ll pay it then.”
“You better. Here’s the kids. You have to pick them up. I’m going to Las Vegas this next weekend.”
Daniel spent the week, until that next Friday which was Good Friday, in the hospital and then he was released. He drove to his apartment, changed his clothes and picked up his kids at the house and took them out for pizza that night. He didn’t forget to pay the phone bill. He paid it late and felt a relief, a withdrawal. His life had been returned to him in the few days he spent in the boxy little room along the boxy corridor of the unyielding hospital floor plan. He would never again let someone break him down as he had let Evelyn. He knew that he loved her. He knew that he wanted the marriage to work and to become more than the sum of its factors. But, he also knew now that he had to chart his own life apart from the unyielding demand for perfection coming from someone’s ruthless past.
In the end, Evelyn won the kids over with her begrudging ways. She had sufficiently belittled their father in their eyes. She told an unwary family law court, her family and her friends that the children’s father was not mentally stable. She gained sole custody. She then received twenty-eight percent of Daniel’s income. With the arrogant flippancy and unbridled urgency of a newborn teenager she took the children and they moved in with a single man who will never hear the portentous ‘third-year’ story retold. In these ways and with a thousand well-aimed shots of disapproval into her husband’s heart she made sure that Daniel paid for the infinite losses of her past. Someone had to pay for this she reckoned. It wasn’t going to be Evelyn. She now believes that she has settled her past accounts.
© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved
July 7, 2009 Leave a comment
The clinic’s lobby ebbed and flowed of people. A mother and her son came in one door. A teenage girl came out another door and left through the door the mother and son came through. A therapist stuck his head out of another door and looked around the room. He saw his next client and said “Hi, come on in.” A man, his wife and their son followed the therapist through the door. A woman came in the front door and proceeded over to the glass window to check in with the half-door receptionist. This flow of traffic continued for thirty five minutes while I read a year-old garden magazine. I was waiting for my therapist to stick her head out of a door and say “Hi, come on in.” I was paying her to open the door, stick her head out and say “Hi, come on in.” She would listen to me. I paid her good money. Everyone else I talked to, those I didn’t pay, would just shrug their shoulders and go about their business. My life had come to this: paying someone to listen to me. I, of course, didn’t know for sure if they were listening, but at least the door was closed and they faced me while I talked. They sometimes nodded, too. They looked like they were listening, anyway. “You get out of it what you put in it.” is what they told me when I began counseling at Hope Well Clinic.
The door opened and Melody stuck her blond head out the door. She saw me, smiled and said, “Hi, Denny, come on in.” I replaced the garden magazine back on the small table between two doors. I followed Melody and went through the door that separated the outside world from the ’inside’ world. On the other side of the door was a long hallway with many closed doors. I knew what was going on behind those doors: The mysteries of life being sorted into sanity, into something someone could use, something for people to get handle on. I followed her down the hallway past the closed door sanctuaries and entered her small corner office. Melody was new to the clinic so she didn’t have a window, just a reproduction of a Kandinsky, Composition X, I believe, hanging on a four foot wide egg shell painted wall. A floor lamp hung its one light over a love seat. A lava lamp on a small table in front of the Kandinsky provided a pink glow to Melody’s right cheek. I sat down on the left side of the love seat and nestled a burgundy pillow behind the small of my back. I leaned back into the shadow cast by the lamp and rested my head on my hand.
Melody is a five-foot-two gorgeous blond with a petite figure that appeared to bubble out from her effervescence. Her clothes were fashionable, maybe from Saks or Von Maur or Nordstroms. Her look spoke volumes. I appreciated the care she took in her appearance. She didn’t look clinically challenged at all, just “peachy keen”. A bevy of natural blond hair framed her oval cherubic face. She appeared so angelic that it was easy for me to ‘see’ her every two weeks. The visit with her provided for my own emotional ‘face lift’.
Melody and I had developed some positive transference during our bi-monthly visits over six months I was able to talk to her openly about most things and yet at the same time I held back on the one piece of the puzzle that confronted my daily life. The reason for this resistance was the fact that a previous counselor, Jim, at the same clinic had told me that if I wanted to live as a woman and follow through with the surgery the Clinic, the Christian Clinic, couldn’t help me. They couldn’t say why they wouldn’t help me only that they wouldn’t. I was left to assume that they weren’t sure what do with the issue or that they just thought it was sinful or destructive. They couldn’t say why. I later learned that Jim died from lung cancer. I found this out when they cancelled my sixteenth session with him. That’s when they turned my case over to Melody, a licensed clinical counselor who had just joined Hope Well Clinic. During my time at the clinic I saw a psychiatrist, too. His method of dealing with me was to medicate me and then to take five minutes during the next appointment to ask how I was doing and then charge another $250.00 for another script. I later decided not to medicate the pain. I decided that the financial pain was worse than the emotional pain of not being able to live as a woman. My impending personal financial recession brought about by his incessant billing was causing me severe emotional depression. I quickly put a lid on the meds.
There were reasons to talk to someone: a 14 year long divorce that started as a marriage to Marybeth; my leaving a successful business partnership in hopes of saving the dissolving marriage; the accidental death of our eighteen year old son during the marriage, the everyday loss of my two children to an angry alcoholic woman because of the divorce; the loss of two significant jobs, long term joblessness and the financial collapse of my life. A page of scripture verses or a bottle of anti-depressants was not what the doctor should have ordered. Instead, someone just needed to listen to the pain being cast out of me like a demon from the recipient of the personal holocaust.
“How are you doing this week, Denny?” Our dialog began with Melody’s opening line.
“Alright, I guess. No major tragedies the past two weeks.”
“Good.”
“Marybeth is being a jerk again.
“How so?”
“You remember how I told you that always threatened me that she would take my kids, take 28% of my income and make me pay?
“Yes.”
“That is what she is trying to do right now in the divorce agreement. She wants me to agree to this arrangement and I am saying no. It is costing me a small fortune to pay a lawyer to fight this. My own lawyer keeps telling me that I can’t do this and that I can’t do that.” My own lawyer is pretty useless if you ask me. My lawyer expects me to just lay down and give Marybeth sole custody and I refuse to do this. These are my children, as well. I lived full time with my kids until this… this…this person decided to break up our marriage and our home with her perfectionism and her alcoholic rage.”
“I thought last time that we agreed that we weren’t going to keep talking about Marybeth.”
“I have to. I am so angry at what she has done to our family, to the kids and to me. Now she is living with some guy who looks like her father. All of this in front of my two kids.”
Melody lets me talk about the Marybeth situation but I realize that she has an agenda and is waiting to move on. She just nods and looks dolefully at me while placing both feet on the floor in front of her rocking chair. Her feet didn’t touch the floor unless she rocked forward to make a point.
“I would like to get a different lawyer but I can’t get the retainer money together again. I am deep in debt because of this whole divorce business.”
Melody leaned forward. “Yeah, that is hard.” “Well, we have to get you through this, past Marybeth.”
I leaned toward Melody and spoke directly to her large green eyes: “I don’t understand it when people make vows and then they don’t fulfill them and just walk away from them. How can you just walk away from a vow?”
“”It happens every day.”
“Then it isn’t a vow, is it?” Denny crossed his arms against his chest.
“It is at the time.”
“What?!” His threw his arms open into a wide questioning flare.
“People say things and things change.”
“What?! “For better or for worse” are the words we said to each other. “To death do us part.”
“Things change, people change.” Melody uncrossed her legs and then crossed them the other way.
“Vows don’t change.”
“Let’s move on and get past Marybeth. You have to go on with your life.”
“My vow to her was my life!”
“That has changed.”
What?!” Denny was incredulous.
“The divorce is going forward and you must get past this and move on with your life.”
“I can’t get past this. Vows are serious things.”
“She is with someone else. You can’t make her love you. You have to let go.”
“I didn’t want the divorce. I wanted reconciliation. I wanted to work through these things. She was always pointing her finger at me and she never once took responsibility for our marriage. That’s why I went to counseling in the first place. She said that I was the problem. I was supposed to please her and if I didn’t then she said I was the problem – because she wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy but I thought I had a vow to fulfill and that I must keep working at it. Happiness would just have to wait.”
“People sometimes need to go away to realize what they left behind.”
“What?!” Denny’s face was bright red, flushed with anger. “Once she sleeps with this other guy, her father, it is over for us. I don’t want that to happen. We had children together; we have fourteen years of trying. We made vows.”
“She changed her mind. I don’t know why. Let’s move on to talk about you.”
“This is me!” Denny returned.
“OK, but she is not going to change. Let’s talk about what you can change instead.”
“She and I were one. How can you change that except by splitting one into two? Don’t you understand? We are getting a divorce because she is not happy! That’s the reason!”
“I understand. She has changed for whatever reason.”
Denny fell back into the glow of the pink lava lamp, his cheeks flushed red against the soft rose light. He knew that Melody’s ‘agenda’ took precedence over anything that he had wanted to say regarding Marybeth. He had come through the labyrinth of doors, rooms and hallways into her office so that he could talk to her about these things and she had already moved next door.
“Denny, remember when we first talked and I asked you about the Healing of Memories Prayer? We talked about what it was and about bringing up the past. You said that you were open to praying with me this prayer. Is that still the case?”
Denny shifted his legs and then leaned forward putting his hands on his knees. “Yeah, I’m open to that. I don’t see why not.”
“Good, well if you are in a good place then we can try it today. I wanted to make sure there is enough time to pray and to work through whatever comes up.”
“Alright.”
… My previous therapist, Susan, was a psychologist. Her office was in her home in a northwestern suburb of Chicago. Susan was very friendly and approachable. So much so, in fact, that she saw me once a week, charged me only $30.00/hour and we talked for two to three hours at a time – costing me only $30.00. I would not call her a typical therapist but we did enjoy talking with each other. We talked about everything: her dog, her son, her friends, her life, church, spirituality, movies and so on. I didn’t know who was more pixilated: me or Susan. After a year or so of sessions with Susan I traveled closer to home, to Hope Well Clinic in Wheaton. I did that for post-marriage counseling and because I was giving Susan more counseling then she gave me in return. I later found out that Susan had some serious health issue that resulted from her breast implants leaking silicone. The silicone had affected her brain. She became mentally handicapped as time went on. During one session with Susan the year before I learned that she had dated a plastic surgeon and that he had done her breast implant surgery. That relationship apparently had deteriorated over time…
“Why don’t we pray and see what the Lord brings up from the past. Are you ready to have these things come up?” “Do you feel OK about this?” Melody leaned toward me and folded her hands.
“I’m not worried about the past. I’ve been there before. It’s right now that has me bothered.”
“OK, let’s get started. Father, we pray for Denny. We ask that You would bring Denny to a place in the past, a place that You want to heal.”
We waited in silence. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the lava lamp. The hallway was quiet except for the closure of a door somewhere. I didn’t know what was going on in the lobby. I was deep in thought and the prayer was reaching even deeper into my soul. After ten minutes of silence I began to see an image in my mind: I was standing in the doorway of my bedroom. The bedroom was in the house I had lived in since I was eight years old. I understood that the house was empty, no furniture and no people. I was alone.
I began to cry softly. The aching pain of being alone had followed me throughout my life. A rush of sadness came to my head and poured out into tears which fell from my bowed face. In my vision I stood in the doorway looking into the bedroom. It had now become pitch black. I was enveloped in darkness within an empty house looking into an empty room. It was then that I heard a voice say to me, “Run free.” I instantly saw a little Indian boy running around without a shirt. He was happy and utterly free. He didn’t have a care in the world. I knew then that the Lord had given me this understanding because this vision was so intimate to my understanding. This image of this shirtless Indian boy was something I had immediately recognized in my spirit. I realized that God had set me free from my past and had given me freedom to go forward with my heart’s desires. Only the Lord knew exactly what was in my heart – the desire I had not mentioned to Melody or to anyone since I told Jim. The spirit of the little boy now lived in me – the spirit of freedom. The past no longer pinned me down. People would no longer be able pin me down with their prejudice and fear. I was free to go forward with my life.
Melody asked what I had seen and I told her about the empty and dark bedroom in my childhood home. She asked me if I had heard anything and I told her, “The Lord said, run free!” She looked at me quizzically and I kept my thoughts to myself. She asked if I was OK and all I could say was, “Yeah.” I knew that if I had told her my understanding of the vision that she would seek to negate my vision and suppress my perception of it because of a Hope Well Clinic policy based on ignorance and bias and, perhaps, fear. My heart was dancing but my eyes didn’t move from staring at the floor.
I wiped my face and fell back into the loveseat with a sigh. I sat in her office with a red face and a growing smile. I knew that I was loved by the Lord and that I was heard by Him. I was not alone anymore in my very personal struggle. The session ended with Melody saying, “Well it’s time. Let’s get together in two weeks and see how you are doing.” I went through her door again, down the hallway of doors and into the lobby of many doors where I paid my bill. I left the clinic and found my car in the parking lot. I would return just two more times to see Melody. Everything had a different perspective now. The Lord had heard me and He had answered my prayers. I had gotten out of it what I had put in it. And, more.
© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved
July 7, 2009 Leave a comment
The summer of 1967 was my summer. It was a time of unbounded restlessness for me and the turbulent world around me. This summer contained all of the raw ingredients and organic circumstances to make an incoming high school freshman into a seasoned, four star adult. I would never be the same after this summer. What I didn’t know was that this summer would become the context for my childish naiveté to be cornered and raped.
From my vantage point of a take-on-the-world teenager, the current events of 1967 became larger than life: The Outer Space Treaty with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the US had been signed earlier in the year. On June 1st the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely hearts Club Band, “The Soundtrack for the Summer of Love.” Only a month before, on May 1st, Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu were married in Las Vegas. On June 25th, the Beatles debuted “All You Need is Love,” as 400 million viewers watched the first live, international, satellite production. The Doors self-titled album had already been released in January. I was collecting 45s and LPs as fast as my paychecks were handed to me. On June 23rd, President Johnson would meet with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin in New Jersey to determine the temperature of the Cold War. The Vietnam Conflict was on everyone’s mind, except mine. I wasn’t seventeen, yet. For me, “The Beat” went on.
Simmering social unrest and heated war protests boiled over each evening into our living room though our boxy tube TV set. Angry protests became a nightly news feature. The 1967 summer broadcasts contained the Vietnam Conflict, the Cold war and the first Sudanese Civil war. I can still see my father watching the fatherly Walter Cronkite announcing his impassioned but formal newscasts. My dad, laid back, unsettled in a stiff sofa, would shake his cantilevered knee wildly up and down as if sowing the nightly news together word-for-word with a Singer sewing machine.
This was the summer before I entered High School. I had already started the summer band program and was waiting for the fall cross country program to begin. I also worked during that summer at Skrudland’s Photo Center, selling photofinishing and canisters of Tri-X 125 speed film. Though working full time, I made sure to take some time off of work to hang out with other teens from our church. My social clock had already begun ticking. And, with a few hard-earned dollars stuffed in my pocket I was ready to be wild and precocious on a tattered jean budget.
It was June, 1967 when I first met Ken. He pulled into the parking lot of the Auburn Bible Church driving his 1963 sky blue convertible T-bird, the voice of Dean Martin singing “Amore” on the AM/FM radio. Ken‘s small head and face, a vignette of James Dean without the looks and hair, stuck out of the driver’s seat like a bobble head toy. Getting out of his car, his lanky body navigated over toward us guys and right in front of me.
“Hi, I’m Ken.”
“Hi.” I responded looking at my neighbor friend Bill. “I’m Denny.”
“Do you think that we’ll get everyone together and get over to the park? He asked.
“I think the girls are figuring out who they are going to ride with.” I responded looking at the ground.
‘Yeah, I think your right.’ “Are you just starting high school?
“Yeah, I’m a freshman.” I started kicking loose gravel.
“I’m a senior this year. I transferred from York High School because they finished building the high school here in town.”
“I’m in summer band and I’m on the cross country team,” I answered, trying to sound more senior-like.
“You can ride with me to the park.”
“OK.” was my answer, with an air of instant pride at being selected by a senior to ride in a rag-top. I asked my best friend Bill to ride with us. With the T-Bird filled with just the guys and with me in blue jeans and a white tee shirt, I was on top of the world. Once the girls had decided on their carefully selected seating arrangement, we all boarded the few cars available and headed out to Churchill Park.
That summer there were many such teen outings and I joined them all in hopes of making new friends before entering high school. My best friend Bill, who lived across the street from my family went along on these outings. Early on, I had invited Bill to come to our church. We were both eight years old when this happened. He tagged along and soon became a regular with our family. To our families, Bill and I were the left and right pockets on the same pair of jeans – we could always found together.
After the social initiation of the group outings, Ken started calling me and asking me to come over to his house. He said that he had a Triumph TR3 that he was rebuilding and that he needed some help. I told him I didn’t know anything about cars except something about oil changes but he begged me to come over. I finally accepted his invitation on one hot, boring summer day. I was eager to be friends and to learn about cars. I figured that I would be driving soon enough.
That day I rode my bike across town to Ken‘s house. I pulled up to his parent’s house and found the garage door open with Ken standing inside. His hands were black, holding an oily car piece in his hand. The TR3 was parked in the garage with the hood up. I said “Hi” and then asked about his parents. He explained that his mother worked in a clothing store and his father worked at a country club in the men’s locker room. He told me, “They were never home during the day”. I felt a little unsettled not knowing the neighborhood or Ken that well. It must have showed. Ken immediately began talking about the TR3 and what he was trying to do.
Looking at the Triumph, Ken explained: “The Triumph has a positive earth electrical system and I’m trying to connect a radio. There are only three items on a stock positive earth TR3 electrical system that care what the polarity of the system is, the ammeter, the coil and the generator.” I jut nodded my head and looked informed. The most I knew about what he was saying was that there were positive and negative forces in the world. Opposites attract and like polarities repel.
I went on to handle a few car parts trying to look into the whole matter. My hands soon became like his, greasy, with fingernails full of the black muck of spent oil. I was extremely interested in seeing the sporty little car repaired, especially if Ken would let me drive the car. At fourteen, I sensed the spirit of fast sporty cars was racing through me. And, I also became keenly aware that a new friendship was forming in the pit stop.
As Ken spoke about the car, I quickly scribbled the steps to make a polarity conversion, just in the chance that I should ever come to own a TR3 and an AM/FM radio:
1. Disconnect and remove battery.
2. Switch the leads on the ammeter. Move the wires from one connecting clip to the other.
3. Switch the low voltage leads on the coil. Disconnect the leads, loosen the clamp on the coil holder, rotate the coil 180 degrees and reconnect the wires. Keep the same lead routing.
4. Disconnect the small wire on the generator. Note: The connection post is labeled F (for field).
5. Place the battery back into the battery tray in the opposite direction as it was sitting. Re-attach the hold down bracket.
6. Connect the clean ground connector to the negative terminal of the battery. Note: The terminals are different sizes. Make them fit.
7. Disconnect the wire at terminal “F”. Take a length of insulated wire and connect one end to the battery’s positive terminal. Touch the other end of the wire to the field (F) terminal of the generator a couple of times. This generally produces a spark. Remove the wire from the battery. This re-polarizes the generator. Note: The “F” may be hard to see on the generator. You can also do these steps on the wire at the voltage regulator “F” terminal.
8. Reconnect the wire disconnected from the field (F) of the generator.
9. Attach the battery cable leading to the starter solenoid to the positive terminal of the battery.
After we completed the polarity conversion Ken invited me inside the house. There, we washed up. Ken then offered me something to drink. He handed me a glass of lemonade and we sat down in his kitchen, talking for a while. After about half-an-hour, Ken asked me if I wanted to play cards. I told him I didn’t know how to play cards. He said “I can show you.” I thought that here was something else that I could learn from another guy so I agreed.
Ken left the room and came back shortly with a deck of cards. He began to shuffle the deck in ways I had never seen shuffled before except perhaps on the TV show Gunsmoke. He began to tell me the different hands and their value and the rules of the five card stud, his favorite game. He dealt the cards and I gathered them up, holding them, fanned out in my hand, just like Maverick would hold them in the TV western.
I quickly lost every hand I played but Ken he convinced me to keep trying. After seven games and only one win, Ken asked me if I wanted to bet on the next hand. I said “I don’t bet.” He came back, “It will only be for candy.” He threw a handful of M&Ms on the table. I hesitated and then said, “Why not.” I continued to lose the rounds and my pile of M&Ms disappeared. I said I had to get home for dinner. I grabbed my bike and headed back across town toward home. It felt good knowing that I had a new friend and that I had learned ‘guy’ stuff in the process.
In June of that summer I hung out with the teens from our church seeking ways to be with the girls as much as possible. In July, Ken began calling our house often He was inviting me to come over to his house. I finally went over to see him.
We again worked on his TR3, this time cleaning the carburetor. He asked about my family. While cleaning out the butterfly valve with some solvent, I told him that, “My dad works in town, my mom is at home and I have two brothers and a sister. We moved here in 1960.”
Ken and I finished the carburetor repair. We cleaned our hands and then grabbed a couple of Cokes from his parent’s icebox. I soon noticed a deck of cards on the kitchen table. With our cold drinks we sat down and played several hands. After winning a few rounds, Ken wanted to know if I “wanted to play for stakes?” “I don’t know. I just like playing,” I responded.
Ken then pestered me to “up the ante” and I kept saying “No”. After several more hands he asked me again and I said “what are you talking about.” He said that if I were to lose the next hand that I would have to do what ever he wanted and that if he was to lose that he would do whatever I wanted. It felt weird to me but at the same time I knew that I always had the power of “No”, so I said “OK”. I desired his friendship and socially, it would help having a senior as a friend in high school. Would he ask me to fix a tire?
I lost the next hand. He told me what he wanted me to do: “I want you to clean the house. Sweep, vacuum, everything.”
I looked at him incredulously. “What?’
“You lost, you said you would play and now you lost. You must do what I want.”
I resisted, looking everywhere for a way out of the bet. “I’m not going to clean your house.”
“You have to,” he insisted. “You gave your word. You’re a Christian aren’t you?” He left the room and came back to the kitchen with a small men’s Speedo swimsuit. “I want you to wear this while you’re cleaning.”
My face flushed lobster red. I said, “No way!” I immediately began trying to lower the debt to just cleaning the house. I felt like running. I also felt that I needed to somehow save face, to be a Christian and honor my word. I had no idea of the consequences this bet imposed on me. Rattled, I got up from the kitchen chair I promised to come back another day and help him with the TR3 and maybe even play cards again, “Without betting,” I added while heading for the garage. I got on my bike and sped off, relieved to be pumping the pedals in the direction of home.
In August I started cross country training. I ran ten miles every day, five days a week. I soon realized that I was more of a sprinter but I didn’t want to quit what I had started. I just kept running the long distances even though it meant coming in last most of the time.
I loved to run and so I was very happy to be doing it while wearing the school’s jersey. I enjoyed meeting up with my team friends on Saturdays for a “fun run” through the town. We ran wherever we wanted to go and I would perpetually come in last. My teammates would always be waiting for me at the end our run, where I would run up to group panting like I would die on the spot. They would heartily laugh, having already recovered early on from the run.
Summer band was now in full swing, literally. I had auditioned for the first trumpet section and I won the seat. I sat behind a sophomore who was the solo trumpet. He often played fourth trumpet in the Civic Orchestra in Chicago. Our concert band was top notch. We played classical music transcripts written for concert band instruments. I was overjoyed. As a youngster, I listened to classical music at home every night. I especially enjoyed the brassy pieces of music: Mussorgsky’s, Pictures at an Exhibition; Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and Sousa marches.
That summer I was invited to play in the concert orchestra and the swing band. I had many close friends in each of these groups. The increasing number of friendships with kids in the band, the orchestra, the swing band, the classrooms, the cross-country team and the church were all the positive charges that I needed to keep things running smoothly.
At the start of August, twenty days before school started, I got a phone call from Ken. He wanted me to “come over”. “The Triumph is ready to roll. I’ll take you for a ride.”
Thinking that this would be a harmless way to honor my bet I said,” OK”. I headed over to his house and found the Triumph parked on the street. Ken walked out of the garage and asked me if I was ready and I nodded “yes”.
We got in the sports car and Ken started the engine. He shifted into first and then turned on the newly installed radio. “Superjock” Larry Lujack, a regular the WLS AM station, came on the radio, sarcastically talking about the ”klunk letter of the day”. As we listened, Ken drove the TR3 out of the neighbor hood and headed for the nearby highway. The convertible sports car responded quickly, moving effortlessly through five gears. The wind whipped through my hair. Radar love.
We returned to his house an hour later. Ken parked the car in the garage and we went in for a Coke. I knew at this point that I would not play cards so when he asked I said, “No.” He persisted in asking and I persisted in resisting. Finally, he said that he had a roulette game in his bedroom. I had heard about roulette from a TV show but I reallyknew nothing about the game. Ken persisted in his desire to show me. I went with him to his bedroom thinking that I would see this thing and then head home.
When we got to his bedroom, Ken uncovered the roulette game from a box that was stored under a bunk bed. He spun its center wheel, showing me how it worked. He handed it to me and I sat down on his bed to hold the wheel on my lap. I spun the wheel to see where the red, black and white balls would land. As I did, Ken sat down next to me. I quickly moved over to make room for him. Ken then moved closer. He then put his arms around me and started wrestling me down to the bed. I was in complete shock.
Taller than me, Ken leveraged himself on top of me, grappling every which way to confine me. I squirmed under him, thrashing my arms every which way, trying to push myself out. I was yelling “Stop it!” over and over.
Ken began to use his feet against the footboard of the bed and his tall frame as a lever to hold me down against the bed. He then grabbed one of my legs and pulled it up onto the bed. As I lay face down across the bed, I struggled in vain to get out from under him. I had wrestled many kids when I was younger so I reacted to his “take over” by trying to roll out sideways from his body. When I started to do this Ken grabbed a rope from the wall side of his bed. He must have hidden the rope for a time like this.
While on top of me, Ken tried to loop my neck and hands to the headboard. I continued to struggle, turning sideways, but with no luck. Then, I felt his pelvis thrusting into my backside. I immediately pushed myself up from the bed with all of my strength and put a shaky leg on the floor and then quickly another. I had to forcefully wrench my head out the headlock he put on me. When I finally pulled myself free I ran out of his room, headed straight for my bike and took off for home. The adrenaline racing through me caused me to pump the pedals even faster.
That night, I ate dinner silently. I never mentioned what had happened to my parents or to anyone until now. I felt shamed and wounded. I felt dirty, dirtier than when I worked on the car. I had once read the word “rape” in an Old Testament story. I only understood it to mean something that only happened to women. I didn’t understand a lot of what I felt about that day until forty years later. I then came to realize that I felt shame, disgust. At fourteen, in 1967, I had never heard the words “homosexuality” or “being gay”. And, I didn’t have any understanding that someone would take advantage of me and my desire for friendship. I was deeply saddened by the broken trust. I have always wanted to be good friends with anyone I had met. But, to Ken, our natural friendship meant forced and unnatural sex to him.
From that point on, throughout high school and afterward, I always made a point of never being alone with Ken. Whenever Ken was around my best friend Bill, my right jean pocket, would always be with me. I wanted my friendship with Ken to continue but it would be at a distance.
My 1967 ‘TR3’ summer had become forever flawed and so would I. That school year I would go on to act as nothing had happened. It was a time and place that I didn’t want to remember and yet the memory of it would occur every time I sought a close friendship with anyone: Would this new friendship become a vehicle for violating me? Thankfully, there have been trustworthy friends in my life. Friends like Bill.
Much later, I would find out that Ken would go on to become a mayor of a small village outside of Chicago. Ken had always boasted to me of his being a lifelong Democrat. He knew that I was a Republican. In the end, he would never get my vote.
© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved
July 7, 2009 Leave a comment
Patina
It was a dream that possessed him until he flashed his eyes open at 5:58 am. Will lay in bed recalling the improbable nightmarish image: a smoldering giant throwing a commuter train onto a tree, a limb breaking off, people were falling out of the train, there was the sound of a buzz saw somewhere, then an endless open road lay before him, a magnet pulling him down into the . . . the startling beeps of the alarm clock ended his surrealistic sleep. It was 6:00 am on Sunday morning. Will jumped up and quickly shut off the clock so as to not wake up his wife Jenny. He ran downstairs. He made some coffee, he let the dog out and then he came back upstairs to wake his kids and then his wife. They were leaving town for a few days of fun and rest.
The spontaneous family get away had come up the night before. Without a word to the contrary, Will consented and loaded the Suburban that night. At 6:30 the next morning they were on the road. Grade school had already started at the end of August; Labor Day had just past. Will and Jenny wanted to stretch out the vanishing summer days within their familiar stomping ground of Monroe County Wisconsin. It was the start of the second week in September and in Spring Green, Wisconsin fall had already made inroads into the forested landscape, withholding the chlorophyll from the veins of the idle leaves. The trees would soon stipple themselves with their own red, purple, orange-red and saffron yellow
Will’s thoughts converged onto Wisconsin Highway 151 and the never gathering horizon. He was anxious to get to Dodgeville. The kids were anxious, too. Food and bathrooms were required after the 3 hour drive from their home in Illinois. Highway 151 and blue sky lay open before them as they headed west toward the Mississippi river valley. On each side of the road, the land began to unfurl as a lumpy black and green carpet speckled by miniature fawn and white Guernsey cows. The field air held a pungent mixture of ammonia and loam. Intervallic road signs gauged their highway passage: DODGEVILLE 60 MILES. DODGEVILLE 46 MILES; DODGEVILLE 20 MILES; DODGEVILLE NEXT RIGHT; COURTHOUSE INN TURN LEFT ON 23 THEN TWO MILES; COURTHOUSE INN SUNDAY ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BUFFET 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
The Courthouse Inn had their usual Sunday fixings. Will loved their fried chicken, the cornbread, the collard greens and the sweet tea. The kids picked from the salad bar and more so from the dessert bar. Jenny, his wife, ate two big bowls of chicken tortilla soup. The restaurant stop filled some things and emptied others. The net effect, Will hoped, would keep everyone quiet in the car until they reached Spring Green. After lunch, Will turned the car north on Wisconsin State Road 23 passing the brick store fronts lining the streets of Dodgeville. They all settled in for the ride to Spring Valley Inn, their final destination.
Will turned the radio on and set the tuner to a local weather forecast: “Par clou and war…” He kept adjusting the tuner buttons trying to hone in on the station. As he did he drove past a caravan of homemade signs parked along Wisconsin 23: Taxidermy, Fire wood, Ice, Live bait, Worms, Fireworks, Horse Rides, Mini Golf, Cold beer, Cheese, Wisconsin Cheese, Craft Shop, Antiques, Butter Burgers, Rafting, Canoeing, Camping, Tomatoes, Farmer’s Market, Sweet Corn. The AM radio never settled in on a clear signal. It continued to speak in raspy unintelligible tongues. The kids were getting fidgety in the back seat. Jenny reached over and shut off the garbled noise with an “Ah.”
Will turned to Jenny and queried “Do they have food at Spring Valley?” Jenny reached through her bag to find the internet page she had printed for the trip. “It says that they have some kind of restaurant, some Italian food and some fine wine.” Jenny told him. “That’ll be good for dinner. Italian food is comfort food to me. And, some red wine doesn’t hurt either.” Will responded. “Yeah, let’s get there. I’m ready to relax.” Jenny said as she laid her head back on the headrest.
Will leaned forward letting his forearms rest on the steering wheel as he pushed his foot forward on the accelerator. He listened to the kids reciting the road signs: “SPRING GREEN 60 MILES”; “How much more, dad?”; “GOVENOR DODGE STATE PARK NEXT RIGHT”, “Can we go camping there again dad? I want to go swimming in the lake.” “SPRING VALLEY INN THIS WAY”; “Are we almost there dad?” “FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S TAL..I.E.SIN, INTERSECTION OF HWY 23 AND COUNTY C”; “What’s that dad? Dad? Dad? Dad!!”; HOUSE ON THE ROCK RESORT, 20 MILES; “Is there a pool at the motel, dad?”, “Dad, I’m thirsty again.”; “Gotta go dad!” Will pushed down on the accelerator.
There were more signs: SPRING GREEN’S FARMERS MARKET AND CRAFT SHOW along State road 60 and HILLSIDE HOME SCHOOL BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AT TALIESIN INTERSECTION OF HIGHWAY 23 AND COUNTY C. Will decided that Taliesin was in the wrong direction and he pointed the Suburban north and east onto County Road C. He drove past the House on the Rock Resort entrance. He drove along the southern edge of Tower Hill State Park. He followed the signs (“If you like Frank Lloyd Wright you’ll love Spring Valley Inn.”) towards Highway 14 and found Spring Valley Inn. It was 5:30 in the afternoon.
From the back seat Rachel and Ryan tumbled out and hit the parking lot running. Will headed for the check-in counter while Jenny surveyed the small lobby and the restaurant named Pat’s Place. Off in the hallway the kids found the vending machines. They came to Will at the check-in counter and tugged on his shirt, asking for some change. Found changed some money with the owner of the inn and then gave the kids a handful of nickels, dimes and quarters.
“They are not gonna eat dinner if you do that.” Jenny scolded Will. “Ah, it’s a vacation trip. They can have some fun. I’ll make sure they eat something good tonight.” Will assured Jenny as he grabbed the room pass keys from the counter. Jenny rolled her eyes in disapproval. On the way to the room they found the kids in the hallway, their mouths full of something chewy and purple. They were all happy to be out of the car walking around and the kids were especially happy to be in the proximity of some candy. “Before we go to the room let’s go look at the pool.” With dad’s invitation the kids twirled around and ran down the hall to the pool area.
The pool, located at the end of a long hallway in a spacious room, had large picture windows on three sides. The windows afforded a view of a dense 100 year old towering pine forest. Inside the pool area was a hot tub, a sauna, a steam room and plenty of lounge chairs. Will liked what he saw. The kids were ecstatic and Jenny was pleased with the chairs. There was no one in the pool or in the hallway. It looked like they had the place to themselves. “Let’s go back to our room and get ready to go swimming.” Will proposed. “We’ll eat supper later.” They found their room, unpacked their swimming trunks and headed back to the pool. After an hour and a half of swimming and the hot tub they went back to their room and dressed for supper. It was now 8:00 and they would have to hurry. The restaurant closed at 9:00.
Through a screened window near their seats in the small restaurant, the family could hear the lisping call of Cicada. They ordered Italian food. Will and Jenny drank some Italian Chianti. The meal did its magic and it settled their day into quiet reflections, some smiles and a lot of yawning. They went to their room and put the kids into their shared bed. Will and Jenny watched a movie, Die Hard With a Vengeance. Will fell asleep before Bruce Willis’s McClane could save anything.
Monday was spent swimming, eating and touring the surrounding area. They drove to the state park where there was sign posted: Canoeing, Tubing, Kayaking or Camping – Tower Hill State Park along the Wisconsin River area was MADE FOR YOU. They spent the afternoon at the Spring Green Craft Show and Farmer’s Market. They ate more Italian food before bed and settled in for a second night. The movie that night was a recent release of Pearl Harbor.
In the morning, Will pulled the drapes open. Tuesday morning looked wet and dismal. The kids slowly got out of bed and began eating from their little boxes of cereal. Will went down the hall to Pat’s Place and bought some blueberry muffins and some coffee. He brought them back to their room. After breakfast they all decided to head down to the pool. They would swim until the sun came out later in the day, as forecast.
Will played with Rachel and Ryan, chasing them through the pool and making them squeal. After some time, Will told Jenny that he would check out the steam room. They had the pool area to themselves that Tuesday morning. Will went to the steam room and started the steamer. He waited in the hot tub until he could see the steam completely fogging the window of the little glass room. He got out of the hot tub and went through the tiled room entrance to the steam room. As he did, he stepped on a slippery spot near the floor drain. His right leg went straight sideways to the right and his left leg went the other direction. He landed on the floor, wrenching in pain. He had pulled a groin muscle down his right leg. The pain was tremendous. He gathered himself up by holding to a railing nearby. He could barely walk. He rubbed his leg and hobbled over to the door. He called to Jenny. “I just slipped on this floor and really pulled my leg muscle. It really, really hurts.” “Ouch. Are you gonna be OK? Jenny yelled. “I think I need to wait and see. It hurts like crazy. I’m gonna sit in the steam room and rub the muscle and see if that helps.” He turned as he was speaking and, holding the hand rail slowly, walked to the steam room and went in. The intense steam made the air sweltering hot. Sweat dripped down from Will’s head; rivulets of moisture moved down his frame toward the floor. After fifteen minutes he left the room carefully, limping as he went. He made his way over to the pool, sat down and slowly eased into the cool water. His right leg hurt more than wanted to admit. They were there to have fun and he didn’t want to spoil that time for his family.
After an hour, Will and Jenny and the kids returned to their room. Will switched on the TV set while he helped the kids with their wet swimsuits. Onto the screen in the dark room came a stark outline of New York City: the Statue of Liberty holding its torch above two smoking towers. A tremulous voice, full of shock, spoke uneasy words. The reporter scrambled for phrases to describe the horrors he did not understand. With the announcement of the deaths of hundreds of people, the word terrorist had become alive.
Will kept watching the TV in shock. President Bush was about to speak to an elementary school in Florida – someone’s whispering to the President. Unflagging, the president now heard what no American had ever wanted to hear. Will looked for a tell-tale sign of terror in the etched lines of the President’s subdued and controlled face. He saw the piercing of the American armor – her good nature. The disposition of America changed from confident and trusting to one of grief and fear and of a newly found anger.
Terrorism. A word that seemed so foreign to Will’s midwestern mindset was now close to home. Why here in the U.S.? He wondered why anyone would hate so much so as to kill innocent people. What were they thinking? What can you gain by shedding innocent blood? Did the terrorists really think that they could frighten us with their acts of mindless valor? Box cutters? Innocent people: Twin towers of innocent people; four airplanes of innocent people. Two-thousand nine hundred seventy-four innocent people. It was a mass murder Crusade, a death wish without liberty and justice for all who were murdered. Did they think that we, the American people, could be brought to our knees with their cowardly acts of terror in our own homeland?
“Dad, what’s happening?” “Why, dad?” Will didn’t answer. His blank stare revealed his unspeakable response:
America does not beget terrorists. America begets free people, people who freely give to other nations of their money, their time, their trade and their friendship. America is not a perfect nation with perfect people. It is a nation of free will, free choice, free speech and, at one time, of personal responsibility. A nation where people like American film director Robert Altman can say without fear of reprisals “When I see an American flag flying, it’s a joke.” It is also a nation of patriots that says, “Give me liberty or give me death.” To which these terrorists respond “we give them death”. By any measure, America did not deserve this Kamikaze death wish by ‘wannabe’ martyrs who knew nothing of the lives of the blameless people they would destroy. What kind of mad-hoc country or religion is it that begets citizens and then hijacks their souls causing them to eagerly say, “I wish to die and embrace martyrdom”? Then, they kill themselves along with hundreds of innocent people: “Don’t you know, you citizens of America that we terrorists kill only infidels and not infants, freedoms and not families, persons and not people? Thank Allah for being so kind-hearted.” Did Allah bring these terrorists to their knees for this? Maybe Allah knows that the dead no longer have a free will. The dead no longer struggle in the ways of God.
The television reports continued. Will listened clenching his right leg which was throbbing with pain. He couldn’t believe the devastation to the World Trade Twin Towers. He couldn’t understand our own country’s exposure to these terrorists. He had no words other than, “My God.” After getting dressed and packing up their stuff, Will went to the front desk to check out while his family loaded the Suburban. The sky had cleared but Will was downcast and driven. He had never imagined anything, anything like this. He just wanted to get his family safely home before something else happened.
Will drove them home. He drove past Taliesin. He drove past the House On the Rock. He drove past Governor Dodge State Park, past Dodgeville, past the Hill of the Mounds, past Madison, past Janesville. He drove through the fertile dairy lands of Wisconsin into the astringent, business-like land of Lincoln, through the bunched car reservoirs of toll gates and onto Route 59 straight south and home. He drove on, his pained right leg pressing his right foot which was pressing the accelerator, not saying a word until he reached their street: “We’re home.”
He pulled into the driveway and stopped short at the edge of the sidewalk. Before him lay a wind snapped maple tree. It was wedged across the driveway, its top branches having struck a shard path into the house through the dining room window. Jenny said, “Oh, my god!” She jumped out of the car, grabbed the mail and the plastic bog of newspapers and headed inside to call her family. Rachel and Ryan scooted out the car’s back door and went down the street looking for their friends. Will, now alone, looked out the windshield at the fallen tree and then looked into the rear view mirror at the car load of clothes, toys, books and stuff. He got out of the driver’s side and looked at the sun descending behind the garage. It would be dark soon.
That night Will finished clearing the tree and the car after midnight. Jenny and the kids were already tucked in and sleeping soundly. He stood on the back porch, looking out through the black screen. He listened to the sound of night in his neighborhood: the distant come-and-go commuter; the dog, Oliver, being let out next door; the cricket’s see-saw chirps; the garish sound of a carnival somewhere in town and the gush of a prayer he heard himself mutter. He was exhausted. He locked the doors, shut off the lights and headed upstairs. He lay down on his familiar bed and turned his head into the pillow. His mind accelerated through the rolling pastureland and up to the tree-blocked driveway, he saw again the smoking towers and the black and blue swath left on his leg by the pulled groin muscle. He heard again the unsure voices of stunned reporters describing the “Attack” and the “terrorists” and the simple voices of his children still asking “How much longer, daddy?” He fell into a fitful sleep, into a deciduous dream: he saw the east coast and the Statue of Liberty; he saw the west coast and a house built on a cliff. The house fell onto the sand and was swept into the ocean; he knew the name of the house: “Responsibility”; a verdigris arm holding a torch above two smoking steel matches, a shiny nickel rolling out from between two narrow buildings; words, “In God We Trust” embossing a black and blue sky, a news reporter announcing that cows have died on hills, the land under them ebbing from spilled acid, an edge of a puzzle missing; a die cut shape. A great vacuous silence awoke him at 5:01. He opened his eyes. The dream vanished in a second. He slowly pulled himself out of bed, carefully moving his right leg out of the bed covers. He gradually stood up. He went to the kitchen and made some coffee. He took a shower, got dressed and then left for work. He didn’t know what the day had in store for him. He only knew that in the land of the free and the home of the brave he would raise his two children to love what is good and to stand firm against the crushing blows of evil.
© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved
June 26, 2009 Leave a comment
It was 4:25 on a Friday afternoon. I left my desk, grabbed my coat and headed for the elevator. I said “have a good weekend” to Marilyn the receptionist and then went down 24 floors to street level. I left the building, walked over to the corner of Wabash and Adams and waited for the light to change. An EL train overhead thundered down the tracks as I crossed Wabash. After the EL had past I could hear a street musician playing Careless Whisper plaintively on a tenor sax. Down at the next corner a homeless man was selling his art work of color pencil drawn superheroes. Somewhere along the way I noticed a lone chopstick lying on the sidewalk. I was anxious to get home, eat supper and curl up next to my husband on the couch with my book. I had it all planned. I could see the red wine swirling in my glass and taste the ricotta in my homemade dish of lasagna. I could feel Russ as he snuggled next to me. Home was over an hour away by train. I ran half of the way to make the train on time.
I thought about Russ as I passed a men’s store. Fine suits and shirts were dressed on the manikins in the display window. None of the smooth lifeless models had the rugged hewn frame or the silky blue eyes that Russ had or the swagger smile which he kept in the corner of his mouth. He had you guessing about what he was up to. I liked his surprises, the good kind, and Russ was full of them. He made me laugh and he made me think. I was thinking of him when I approached a corner and stepped out to cross the street as the light had changed to green. A taxi driver in a hurry to beat the light change didn’t see me or thought he could speed past me and go on his way careened right in front of me. I fell backwards out of his way losing my balance, my heel caught on a sewer grate. I whirled and hit my head on a nearby car bumper, whirled again and fell face down onto the curb. I don’t remember…there was blood by my nose…there was a muffled sound of voices…I saw feet…and then sleep…
Several days later at the hospital…
“Jill, honey, Jill, honey, Can you hear me?” Russ touched Jill’s arm twice.
I could see Russ. He was there shaking me but I didn’t feel him. I wasn’t beneath him but somewhere above looking at him through a window. I felt as if time was passing around me and through me. I saw his beard grow out; his hair thin. He became bent over. He still shook me and said “Jill, honey.” Then he was gone.
“Jill, honey, Jill, honey, Can you hear me?”
“Russ, ah ou, I don’t feel so good. I …
“Lay still, Jill, the nurse is getting something for your head. I’m here. The doctor says that you have a concussion. You blacked out. I’m so glad you are awake.”
“What?…oh my head hurts so much.” Jill tried to sit up but stopped. “I am going to throw up.”
“Don’t move, Jill. Concussions make people sick to their stomach when they move. Don’t move. I’m here.”
The nurse brought in a little plastic cup with two pills inside and a small glass of water. The nurse helped move Jill’s head slowly upright so that she could swallow the pills. “The doctor wants you to stay still and not move. We did a CT scan of your head but these scans do not give the best picture of a concussion. We are going to do other tests. We just want to make sure that there is no swelling in your brain. So, please don’t move.” The nurse then let Jill‘s head carefully rest on the pillow.
“I feel like my head was hit with a hammer.” Jill felt some dried blood in her hair. The IVs in her arm itched.
“Yeah, this was a traumatic concussion, you lost consciousness.”
“I had the weirdest dream, Russ. I saw you touching me but I was somewhere else. I…I don’t feel so good.”
“Just rest, Jill, I’ll be here the whole night. I won’t leave you.”
Jill closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Around 1:00 in the morning Russ awoke and heard Jill talking in her sleep.
“Dancing shoes?” The garbled words came out from under the top of her bed covers.
Russ sat up and looked at Jill. Her face was troubled and questioning. Then she seemed to fall into a deeper sleep. Her face melted into a serene soft mask. Russ decided he would try to sleep again. The nurses had been coming in every hour of the night. He awoke upon every occasion. He would try to sleep again. At least he knew that Jill was talking even if it was only in her sleep.
It was the morning shift nurse at 5:30 am that woke Russ for the rest of the day. The nurse, a robust black woman who looked like she just met Jesus, came bounding into the room and checked the IVs. She moved some bed covers, bunched the pillows around Jill’s head and looked over at Russ who was now sprouting a beard and baggy eyes.
“How’d you sleep?”
“I get more sleep on Sunday morning during the sermon.”
“The woman laughed and said, “The Lord knows what you need before you axe Him.”
Russ let out a short laugh and said, “Yeah, I guess He does.”
The nurse left and Jill began to stir her feet beneath the covers.
“How are you doin’ Jill?”
“I think I slept through the whole night. I never slept so much. I guess I am feeling a little better. Can I have some water?
Russ went across the room and got the water pitcher and poured her a cup of water and handed it to her. “Do you want the straw?
“Yes, please.”
Russ handed her the straw and sat down on the side of the bed.
“You were talking in your sleep last night, something about dancing shoes, I think.”
“Huh.”
“You must have been dreaming.”
“Yeah, I remember some of it. I had died and gone to heaven. I was standing before God but I was looking at my feet the whole time. I didn’t have any shoes on my feet. God says to me, “You must return, suicide is not your skin. Find your shoes.”
“Wow, that’s quite a dream. What were you thinking before you fell asleep?”
“I guess I was thinking that I could possibly die just laying here in the hospital with these things in my arms and my head hurting and all.”
“I could see that you are doing better. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I feel a little stronger today.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, I feel better, anyway.”
“When you are all better, Jill, we can start the ballroom dancing lessons. I was excited last Friday about going with you.”
“I can’t wait but right now the room is moving and I feel like sleeping again. Jill dozed off holding Russ’s hand.
Biting his lower lip, Russ held back his concern and his tears.
************
It was almost two years later that Jill and Russ decided to take the Ballroom dancing classes that they had intended to take before her accident. Jill now felt able to move freely without feeling nauseous. In fact, she felt a new impulse to live and do the things that she had wanted to do but had kept them putting off because of the business of life. Russ registered them for the Tuesday evening class. All that was needed were dancing shoes – leather soled street shoes – with a small heel for Jill and a regular heel for Russ.
“Russ, I need to find these shoes before Tuesday evening. I’m not sure where to start looking.”
“I’ll go online and take a look.” Russ replied.
Jill set about cleaning the house as she usually did on Saturday afternoon. She carried a bag of old toys out to the garage. Goodwill would take them, she thought. And, then she had an idea,” I’ll go to St. Vincent de Paul Resale shop and see if there are some shoes there.” Jill told Russ her idea and then she headed off with the bag of toys to look for the shoes at St. Vincent de Paul.
The resale shop on Saturdays was always filled with people looking for bargains. Today was no different. Jill pushed her way past the cash registers and the lines of mothers with tugging kids and walked over to the shoe room on the side. The air was stagnant with an overwhelming smell of stale old shoes. Jill found the women’s shoes on two tall racks in the corner of the tiny room. She found the seven-and-a half sizes and there were three pair of shoes her size. One pair stood out from the orange Keds and the emerald green open-toed 4” heels: a pair of black Cuban 1-1/2” heels with leather soles. Jill gasped when she looked at the price of only $2.00. These shoes looked and smelled like new. There were no marks on any part of either shoe. The soles were not dirty with street use. Jill tried them on immediately and then walked and then sashayed around in front of a tall mirror leaning against one of the shoe racks. Her feet felt the tempo of her heart and her heart was beating fast. She said to herself, “If I’m going to cha-cha-cha these are the shoes to cha-cha-cha in.” So she paid the two dollars and tax and left the store forgetting to look for her husbands shoes. She caught herself and turned around and there he was, looking at her. She gasped and then smiled up at him.
“Look at these. Aren’t they grand?”
“Wow they sure are kiddo. Did you try them on?
“Yeah and they fit perfectly.”
“Then they are heaven sent, my tiny dancer.”
“Oh yes, they are. We need to find you some shoes, too, Russ.”
“I was hoping to meet you and tell you that I found some on a web site and ordered them. I will get them on Monday.”
“I hope they fit.”
“Me, too.” Russ replied. “I’d hate to have blisters after one dance class.”
“I’ll care for your feet, m’ love.” Jill purred, “Let’s get some lunch while we’re in town.
“Yeah, let’s. Let’s” walk over to Andy’s Diner while I can still walk.”
*********
Jill and Russ went to the Tuesday evening Ballroom dancing classes. Russ’ shoes finally fit properly during the fifth lesson. Jill had to massage Russ’ feet before and after he put the shoes on each Tuesday night. The shoes broke in during a lesson of the foxtrot. Jill was relieved to find out.
It was on this fifth night of dance lessons that Jill and Russ met a couple, Todd and Angela. According to their dance instructor, this couple had been dancing for many years. They looked smooth and flowing whenever they danced. They came this night to help the instructor teach the students the tango. It was at the end of that evening as Todd and Angela watched the students mimic their movements that the Angela made an observation to Todd:
“Todd, those shoes Jill are wearing look exactly like the ones Amy bought before the accident.
“Yeah, they do?” Todd replied, not really sure about the shoes.
“They look exactly like Amy’s dancing shoes. I saw them in her closet after her funeral. I gave them to St. Vincent de Paul’s resale shop.”
“Really?” Todd questioned, looking at Angela. He remembered his daughter in her eyes.
The music stopped and the dance instructor said that the class had done nice work. She said that next week the class who also to be about the tango and she dismissed the class for the evening. As they were all getting their coats on, Jill and Russ were approached by Todd and Angela.
“You dance pretty well for beginners.” Todd greeted them.
“Thank you. And, Jill’s feet thank me.” Russ replied with a smile.
Angela leaned over toward Jill and looked down at her shoes as they came off Jill’s feet.
“I’m Angela and this is my husband Todd.”
“Hi, I’m Russ and this is Jill. Nice to meet you both.” Russ put one hand on Jill’s shoulder and stuck his other hand out to Todd.
“Same here.” replied Todd, shaking Russ’ hand.
“I noticed those shoes, Jill. They are just my like my daughter’s dancing shoes.” Angela said.
Jill looked up at Angela and said, “Oh, does your daughter dance, too? She must be as talented as both of you are.”
“Our daughter, Amy, died in an accident before she could ever use them. She loved to watch Todd and I dance together and she wanted to do the same thing with her husband so she bought the shoes. She was going to start the lessons but then she had a terrible accident.”
Jill looked over at Russ with a stunned amazement and said to Angela, “I am so sorry to hear about your daughter. That must have been unbelievably hard on you.”
“Yes, it is,” Angela whispered straining to hold back a sob. A tear formed in the corner of her eye and then it hugged her cheek before it left her face.
Jill stood up and gently put her arms around Angela. Todd and Russ looked over at them mournfully.
“Angela, when did this happen to your daughter?”
“It was two years ago.”
Jill looked over at Russ while embracing Angela, her eyes searching his face for the dream she had while she was in the hospital.
“What happened to your daughter, Angela? What was the accident” Jill asked loosing her embrace to look at Angela’s face.
“Well, it wasn’t an accident. The witnesses said that she committed suicide.” Angela started sobbing. The rest of the students who hadn’t left for the evening saw Angela weeping and came over to her. The women began to comfort her, gently stroking her back and giving her Kleenex.
“It is so sad. Amy took her own life. I know she had been depressed. She had lost her new job. She had lost a child. She had gone through a divorce. It was too much for her.” Tears flowed from between the fingers Angela held up to cover her eyes. “She was trying to get her life back, to get her step back by going to dancing classes. She was trying…”
“What happened to change things? To make her depressed enough to…” Jill asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” Angela replied, staring blankly. “She just snapped, I guess. Everyone there said she must have seen the taxi coming and she went ahead anyway. They said that the taxi pushed her back and she fell and hit her head on a car bumper and then she fell onto the curb. They couldn’t bring her around.” Angela sat down and put her head into her hands and sobbed. Todd came over and put his arm around her. Tears were in his eyes as he buried his face in her hair.
Jill stood there wide-eyed looking down at the shoes she had placed on the bench. They fit her perfectly and so did the dream…the taxi…the ballroom dancing lessons. Russ put his arm around Jill’s waist. He caught her when her legs gave out and she fainted. When Jill came to she looked up and saw faces staring down at her. She was laying on a street curb.
2010 Copyright Sally Paradise
Cindy Wity 