Friday, January 2
I only wish my life would flash before my eyes. All I can see is the end of it. Not the actual, absolute end, but a variety of options that audition for my attention the moment my head hits the pillow. Of course I have my preferences, but realize I have little or no say in the matter. I am, after all, a realist.
I just can’t get to sleep lately. I struggle to dumb-down, as I lie there, wide-eyed, entertaining countless scenarios of themes involving my eventual demise, my body too exhausted to move, my mind too active to embrace the inertia. If only I could focus on something else.
The only diversion at this point is the sound of the TV in the living room and I can well enough imagine that customary tableau; Uncle Gus sprawled across his easy chair, head back, mouth open, eyes back in his head, sometimes shut, oft times fluttering in a passionate REM inspired boogie. Gus is a great guy, generous, non-judgmental, witty. He took me in when I was ten and devastated, and never for a moment allowed me to believe I was in the way. Yeah, Uncle Gus is a prince of a man, just not one who would be mistaken for a seeker of wisdom or a soldier of fortune. The only adventure he knows is planted in his mind's eye by cop shows, reality TV, and inane situation comedies. I am sorely afraid that one morning I will find him propped up in front of the droning box, sprawled across his easy chair, head back, mouth open, eyes back in his head, and dead.
Saturday, January 3
Once the thought crept into my head I have been consumed by it. So I lie here another night, unable to find peace in the arms of Morpheus, imagining my very feasible discovery of Gus’s body. Someone has to find it at some point and the logical candidate is me. When you stop to think about it, which I am prone to do, everyone is found by someone. We are all discovered, mourned, and disposed of. Gus is just the morbid tip of the casualty iceberg. How many bodies will I discover before my number is up? It hasn’t happened so far. I did not find my parents. I was informed. How much tougher would it have been if I’d been with them? Probably not tough at all since I wouldn’t have survived the crash either. I should have been there though. I might have made a difference.
Wednesday, January 7
The landscape has changed drastically. Uncle Gus, that lovable slug who abhors all senseless activity that can’t be confined in his imagination, has found himself a woman. She is coming over tonight for a preliminary introduction and will probably stay for the customary seduction. There will be shaving and showering and dressing in ironed apparel this evening, a tradition long honored in the breach around here, if I may paraphrase the Bard. Instead of ignoring the muffled drone of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ tonight, I will be compelled to inure my ears to ‘Somebody Loves Gus’. I need to arrange for a sleepover, an action that would be much appreciated, I am sure, by the born-again swain Gus and company.
Sunday, January 12
Winnie is a peach. Her given name is Edwina; she is a feminist and an agnostic. She seems to fully appreciate Gus and she is casually inclusive regarding me. No pressure, no histrionics, no big show. Just a, “Hey, glad you’re around,” attitude. We both lucked out, Gus and I. I feel relieved that I am now not the only candidate on deathwatch.
Saturday, January 18
Now that the refreshing Winnie is sharing the burden of cadaver detection on the home front, I am no longer consumed by the prospect of finding Gus and his inert carcass. The focus has now turned on me and my own potential discoverer. It is amazing how that aspect never occurred to me before. I will be found by someone, unless I am lost and expire in the wilderness or buried under an avalanche of debris. So now I lie awake and conjecture on who will be handed the daunting task of detecting the dearth of vitality in my stiffening musculature. Who will stand before my corpse and declare to the world, “Here lies a Caesar, when comes there such another?”
Will it be someone I am now acquainted with, and if so the chances of an early demise are almost guaranteed, or some person I am not yet aware exists, in which case I have some miles to go before I sleep? Another possibility vying for consideration is the total stranger who comes across me and doesn’t have a clue who I am and has never heard the sound of my voice, except maybe for the last screams that might define my life if I have the ill fortune to end it in pain.
I am beginning to lose sleep again. After Winnie’s arrival on the scene, I began to fall out rather easily. Instead of keeping me up with distasteful images of their lovemaking, I felt rather comforted by her presence in the house and the noiseless way they went about everything they did. Instead of tossing to the sounds of Letterman and Leno, I was lulled off by the strains of Mozart and Beethoven. I was cradled snugly in a treetop and I was unafraid. Now I am back to square one and seem manically determined to discover the identity of my usher into the obituaries.
Sunday, January 20
I am not having children. My official reason for all who inquire about my motives is that the earth is overpopulated as it is. My personal take is fairly evident to all who are reading this; I will not saddle my potential offspring with the legacy of finding their father bereft of life. As far as their mother is concerned, the solution is simple and adds another facet to this decision. She does not exist.
Friday, February 20
I have been sleeping a lot better these days, not because I am any less obsessed. The solution is more due to exhaustion than anything substantive. I have been working the night shift at the toy fair on 23rd Street and 5th Avenue and have not had a day off in a month. Add to this ingenious tactic a willingness to absorb all the overtime required of me each and every night, and you have a man less manic in his sleeping habits, more robust in his outlook, and not at all likely to be entertaining any meditation beyond what the menu has in store.
Tuesday, March 2
“You think too much.” That was all he said. Someone found him, his wife I believe, this morning, stiff, cold, and purple on the toilet. It sends shivers up and down my spine. He was my foreman at the toy fair and he caught me taking one too many cigarette breaks just yesterday. He made his comment simply, without sarcasm or anger, and I responded dutifully. He then walked me back to the storage room, an arm draped paternally around my shoulder. Carl was not a petty man. He had a fairly stern work ethic, but an understanding nature. His attitude toward me seemed to be, “I know you’re young yet and you are working hard to earn as much as you can while the job lasts, but you knew what you were taking on and, after all, work is work, and you can’t take breaks whenever the spirit moves you.” Carl was from the old country, somewhere in Bavaria I think. He didn’t want to be a prick, but he had to be the foreman.
The job ends tomorrow. I can’t wait to get some time for myself, although this episode with Carl has me worried that my peaceful slumbers are a treasure once again lost in the turbulent tides of an uneasy awareness. What if he had suffered his stroke while in the line of duty, shoulder to shoulder with yours truly? I can imagine the devastation to my fragile psyche. On the other hand, I might have been able to deal with the prospect head on, once and for all, and cleared my fretful slate of mind. And how much will the anticipation of a setback affect the creation of the problem? Carl was right. I think too much.
Thursday, March 4
Today is the first day of my unemployed life. I woke up refreshed and ready. The refreshed part is appreciated. The ready portion is confusing. I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t have a resume. I have worked at odd jobs here and there, mostly in a maintenance capacity, and that is not a future I care to pursue. I have no prospects, no clear direction. I am in Limbo, but I feel rested. I need a mission, a project to complete. I don’t have the patience for long, lingering prose at this point. I need a good, clean, clear-cut path to follow, quick, staccato actions to apply myself to, and terse, sharp results to clarify in sober, uncompromising terms. I need to become less of an adjective and more of a verb.
Saturday, March 6
I dreamt of Carl last night, or was it this morning? I slept so fitfully, it is hard to tell. In my dream I am in the stairwell at the Toy Center, smoking, and Carl opens the hallway door. I begin to snuff the butt, but Carl stops me with, “Don’t bother. It’s okay. I just came to say goodbye. Tell my wife where the treasure is.” I bolt the stairwell and run after him down a long, winding corridor that is not the Toy Center. “Where?” I shout after him. “I don’t know where the treasure is.” I hear him laugh. “Of course you do!” is all he adds, but he does not turn around. I push open a double set of doors and find myself outside, in a cemetery, an endless display of gravestones surrounding me as far as I can see. The sun is shining brightly and despite the disquieting setting, I feel a strange exhilaration. I have a purpose, a mission. I know I have to check under every headstone to find the treasure and, as daunting a prospect as that is, it doesn’t dissuade me. I am on the very brink of discovery and I yearn to go forward and complete the task. I just don’t know where to begin.
I woke up feeling alive and oddly composed. I could feel the vitality of anticipation pumping through my veins. I felt alert and motivated, that maybe great things were ahead of me today. I showered and dressed, choosing carefully what I would wear for the occasion. I was going to Carl’s funeral.
* * *
Her name is Magda. She led the procession with a poise and dignity that is usually reserved for movie stars in red carpet mode. She seemed aware of, and attentive to, everyone attending the services and burial. She knew who I was and greeted me warmly, although we had never met. It seems Carl was a real talker once he got home and his daily accounts were deliberately related to her in detail. I was a particular favorite, it turns out, and she approached me as the others were leaving and asked me if I had a cigarette. We stood there, side by side, watching the procession diminish appreciably as car after car pulled away into the waning afternoon, a motorcade of mourners pensively returning to their individual breathing lives. She asked me to accompany her home and I obliged. We sat in her car enfolded by a curiously comfortable silence, and remained that way long after we had arrived at her house. She suddenly turned toward me, smiled, and, familiarly patting my hand, said “Come, I’ll make coffee”. Later, over coffee and too many cigarettes, she asked me to spend the night.
Monday, March 8
I woke up Sunday morning embraced by soft, yellow sunlight and the sounds and smells of coffee brewing and bacon sizzling. It took me a bit to figure out where I was. I had spent the night sleeping soundly in Carl and Magda’s spare room, a small but cheerful little den with cream colored drapes that insured a sense of privacy during the dark hours, then emitted all the buoyant gaiety of the sun in daylight without the harsh intensity of direct exposure. I felt as if I were floating on a sea of cotton, so light were my spirits and tranquil the setting. It bode an ideal and uncomplicated existence feasible in real terms and, accompanied by the lively sounds of preparation, the indication of a good breakfast to boot.
Magda had needed amenable camaraderie the previous night and I was delighted to comply. We talked like two old friends into the finality of night, then set our expectations to the birth of a new day around three AM. She appeared exhausted, but released of the burden of indulging her widowhood. My company had served her well. The morning would bring the first day of the rest of her life.
It was a first day for me too. I was greeted warmly as I approached the kitchen table and the genial promise it held for my eager appetite. We gleefully stuffed our bellies with Grade AAA eggs, our bladders with morning coffee, our arteries with bacon fat, and our lungs with cigarette smoke. We laughed at the little discrepancies in life that is our common legacy in a kind of gallows humor banquet and contented ourselves with an afternoon of doing absolutely nothing. I felt strangely at ease for the first time in weeks. It seemed as though I belonged here, in this place, at this time, with this alliance. Also I was fascinated with the fact that Magda had experienced something that had held only dread for me, the discovery of a lifeless carcass and the loss of a partner. I had been exposed to the loss of my parents early on, but that was more like yanking the nipple from a cub, the dependency all one-sided. I had yet to be denied the companionship of a true confidant and the prospect terrified me.
Monday, November 1
I’ve had a pretty eventful spring, summer, and fall, with no time for my journal or the self-examination that accompanies each entry. I have been engaged in activity again for the most part, completing a challenging stint as a counselor at a summer camp for the developmentally disabled in upstate Hunter, New York. It didn’t pay much, but it was a job; one that impacted directly on the well being of others in an exhausting and challenging arena. It didn’t leave me much time to muse, mope, or fantasize irrationally. This in itself was a blessing. I was occupied with the outflow of mental decision-making and the exertion of physical energy, while my incoming channel, which accommodates my propensity to ponder, was absorbed in the writings of Wolfe, Camus, and Garcia Marquez. I even perused the bible for inconsistencies.
I had decided to apply to the camp after my falling out with Magda. It was a difficult decision, but I knew I had to get away. I didn’t write to her or even inform her of my choice to devote my summer to a cause other than the wooing of her maternal sensuality. She was in denial, I could see that and even understand it. What caused my ardor to sour was her suggestion that I would make an ideal companion for her daughter when she arrived from Europe. She didn’t even have the courage to pursue me first hand. Until that moment I had been a weekend guest for two months running and could feel the bond between us increasing with each encounter. I was certain she would be responsive. I was patient because of the age difference, but I thought she possessed the courage to overcome it. Instead, she slid out a side door. So I made arrangements, left for camp, and never looked back.
Tuesday, November 3
Today I find myself looking back. I miss her … Magda. I adored her maturity, something that had eluded me with girls my own age. Her sense of humor was shrewd and apt, not frivolous like younger girls. Her sexuality was ripe and yielding and all I wanted was to immerse myself in her eternal assurance of being. I wanted to breathe in her, feel alive in her, and learn how to please her. Instead I was offered a surrogate in absentia, a reserve player that pronounced my proficiency as not in her league. I complied with her suggestion. I said, “Sure, I would like to meet her”, but I was despondent for days afterward.
Magda had even showed me a photograph. The girl was pretty, sure enough, but she looked like an incomplete version of her mother and the prospect held little appeal for me. Her name is Revina and she was born before Magda met Carl. She was away in school in London and would have been available this past summer while I was caring for those less fortunate than myself. I prided myself on my altruism, but I was mostly running away from the sting of a rejection that was forthcoming had I expressed my feelings for Magda.
Sunday, November 14
A new low. This morning, or afternoon possibly, I woke up naked on Tara Foley’s bathroom floor. Tara found me and was aghast, not at the prospect of discovering me there, but of finding me sprawled on the tile a second time. She had already walked me to the living room couch sometime after her other guests had left and gently deposited me there for, what she thought would be, the remainder of the early morning, respectfully cleaning the remains of stale vomit from my face and neck and stripping me of my soiled clothing. She had brought me a pillow and some blankets and had gone to bed herself. I must have felt the need to spew more bile sometime afterwards. I don’t remember getting up again. I do recall snatches of her tending to me earlier though, as my head was spinning away from my body in a marijuana and vodka induced state of torturous euphoria. Bad combination, pot and booze. I am touched by the concern and loyalty exhibited by my good friend Tara.
Wednesday, November 17
I have been searching the web for employment without much luck. I’m up most of the night doing this so the phone can be free for callbacks during business hours. I have become a vampire, all because I can’t afford anything more than dial-up. I haven’t heard from Tara, although I called her Monday to apologize and thank her for her thoughtfulness. I am becoming increasingly depressed. I don’t look forward to the weekends like when I was spending them with Magda. In fact they draw no further significance from any other point of the week. Without a structure my sense of time has lost all relevance.
Thursday, November 18
I rode the subway into the bowels of Brooklyn today to interview for a job as a hotel desk clerk, which doesn’t make sense because the hotel is located on the upper west side of Manhattan. I didn’t want to go at all, but feel as though I need to take a more pro-active approach in securing a position. Uncle Gus has noticed me moping around and sleeping until noon and Winnie has asked me if there is anything I want to talk about. I feel like I’m in the way here and that I need to give them more space. They include me in all their plans and I am grateful for their allegiance, but it is time for me to break from the womb and establish my own cadence, such as it is. A job is a good place to start.
On the train I had a vision. Magda is in her garden tending to some newly planted seeds. She finds a shoe beneath a row of hedges separating her perfectly manicured plot from the woods behind it. She looks beyond the hedges and spies the other shoe. After disappearing into the house she emerges again looking completely different. Whereas before she had on an old flannel shirt, probably one of Carl’s’, a pair of baggy shorts and flip-flops, she is now wearing a low-cut peasant blouse, tight jeans, and high heels. Her golden brown hair is swept up, her mouth is bright with red lipstick, and her earrings hang in large, gaudy hoops. I believe she is chewing gum. She pushes through a sparse section of the hedge and approaches the second shoe. She picks it up and holds it in her hand as she scans the woods for further clues.
I jumped up at Avenue X and just made it through the doors before they closed. I realized that I had fallen into a dream state and had almost missed my stop. I walked around the neighborhood a bit asking directions and finally found the address I was looking for. The man who interviewed me was somewhere in his sixties and seemed singularly unimpressed with me. He looked me up and down, checked out my resume, looked at me again, then asked, “So, what do you want with us?”
I knew that I would not be hired. I have always been a bit of an oddball among my peers. While they were reading Playboy, I was reading Dickens. When they went to see Vin Diesel or Eminem, I rented Fellini, Kurosawa, and Welles. Being verbally prolific was considered nerdy and unmanly, and I liked to be indisputably understood with a barrage of descriptive and precise discourse. My interviewer probably gleaned as much during our conversation, but I don’t think that was the killer. He kept glancing at my resume. I was overqualified and would leave in short order is what his expression said. “We’ll get in touch,” is what his mouth finally offered.
The F train back to Manhattan offered me a choice of seating and the opportunity to continue my semiconscious reverie. This time the scenario has me sitting behind a large desk in a modest hotel lobby. It is night, the lobby is empty, and I am writing something down in my journal. I look up as the outside door opens and in walks Magda, dressed exactly as she had been earlier, hoops, lipstick, blouse, jeans, and heels, only now a pair of sunglasses serves as an added accoutrement. She carries no luggage.
“Would you like a room?” I ask her as if she were a stranger to me. “I have a very comfortable accommodation with all due amenities provided.”
“And just who will do the providing?” she asks in a dismissive manner, never addressing me directly.
“My services will be available,” I answer evenly. I don’t seem to catch her contempt as the deskman.
“I won’t be needing them. I’m not staying.” She lowers her sunglasses a bit and turns my journal around so she can read it. “The Story of My Life” she howls in delight. “How very charming. I notice that the rest of the page is blank.”
“I am just beginning it,” I inform her.
“Not with me you’re not. No, I won’t require your services tonight, but I will let you in on a little secret. I’m here to hunt for the buried treasure. This is the Hotel Carl, is it not?”
I honestly do not know what to answer. I leap over the front desk and run through the front door to check the marquee. When I return Madame Magda has vanished from the lobby. I notice the cleaning lady, an old hag with a broom and an apron, crossing the floor.
“Where did she go?” I ask her. She looks at me as one would regard an innocent.
“In the garden, of course.” She shoots me a sly little wink. “She beat you to it, didn’t she?”
I run through the lobby to a side door and barge through it as though possessed by an energy that is beyond my comprehension. The deskman has lost his detachment and has fused with the observer and we are in a desperate mission to … I don’t know. I was in the dark when I quit the well-lit lobby and I am surrounded by dark in the garden where I had envisioned Magda earlier. I run directly to the spot in the hedge that Magda had crossed then. I make my way into the woods and frantically look for any sign of movement.
Now I hear her sobbing. I follow the sound of her grief until I can make out her silhouette in the night madness of fluttering branches and sinister clouds. She is on her knees and weaving to and fro in inconsolable grief. I hear the crackle of something beneath my foot and I know that it is her glasses. As I draw nearer to her I am seized with a terrifying dread and I begin to turn away, but she senses my presence and holds out her hand.
“No, you must see this. I can’t bear this alone. Not again”
She takes my hand and gently draws me to her. I can now see the form of a man lying prone on the ground before her and I begin to step back again. Her grip on my hand tightens.
“Now I can love you the way you want me to,” she weeps solemnly. “Do you understand? Only now.”
I am overcome with shame. How could I have been so self-absorbed and insensitive?
“ I do understand. I will keep his memory with you.”
I approach the body and turn it over, prepared to make my reparations and embrace a larger truth with all my powers of perception. The face of the dead man is not who I expect to see.
“Only now,” she adds in dirge-like manner. Magda had found my body.
I woke up on West 4th Street and had to double back to get home.
Friday, November 19
My dreams are becoming more vivid. Yesterday I had an encounter with Hank. I was returning home from the subway station on Houston Street when he emerged from a doorway on 2nd Avenue and asked me for money. Hank has been a neighborhood staple for some years, a homeless man surviving on the Bowery asking for nickels and dimes and whatnot for his daily sustenance. He always ignored me when I was a kid, but lately has become somewhat aggressive. He asked me for a dollar. When I told him I was broke, he called me a cheap little snot. I laughed it off and kept walking.
Last night I dreamt about him. He is staggering along an alleyway, looking for a place to flop for the night, when he trips over a leg extending from behind a garbage bin. He crawls behind the bin to discover a lifeless body wedged against a brick wall. He peers in at the face and utters, “Cheap little snot”. He then rifles through my pockets looking for a dollar.
Saturday, November 20
Another dream: I pass a schoolyard where children are playing soccer in their school uniforms. One of the boys chases the ball down a dark, basement stairwell. He lets out a horrific scream. Yep, it‘s me.
Friday, November 26
This has been an eventful week. Dream wise I have been found by Dom at the pizzeria (in the oven no less), by a group of strangers waiting for an elevator (the doors part and there I am), by the cleaning lady at the front desk of the Hotel Carl with my journal in hand (“The Story of My Death” in the heading).
Events fared better in the realm of reality. I found a job on Monday with a literary magazine (hello DSL), heard back from Tara, and received an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner from Magda. The invitation included Gus and Winnie and was accepted in the spirit of which it was offered, an effort at conciliation.
We were met at the train station by Revina, who was finished with school and back living with her mother. She proved to be extremely charming and poised and managed to put us completely at our ease. The same must be said for Magda, who embraced me unreservedly upon arrival. We all settled in for a carefree feast that began with a toast to the remembrance of Carl, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, cider, wine, and good spirit. It was reassuring to be in the presence of such loving people.
Revina and I went on about our confusing attempts to find our place in the world and eased into a relaxed, mutual rapport. I felt as if I’d broken out of a discouraging rhythm and could at last breathe freely. We all parted well with Revina promising to visit us in the city. The train ride back was relaxing and blissful. I was actually touched that Gus and Winnie held hands all through the trip.
As I closed my eyes in the rail induced tempo of the ride, I could see my father and mother, holding hands, standing over my tranquil body. My father calls my name and my eyes open.
“I’m still here?” I ask in disbelief. They both smile.
“Did I find the treasure?” I ask again, and then answer my own question.
“I have found another day.”
© 2004 by John Cannatella
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Evermore
Mac filled his lungs with the fresh, clean air of the countryside. He held his breath as he took in the panorama of snow-covered fields, trees, and hills before him and exhaled a steamy veneer of satisfaction at the wonder of it all. He inhaled deeply again and expelled the last of the city he had abandoned only this morning, now fervently hoping his would become an extended assignment here. Maybe he could talk his editor into a few extra days with the promise of a really lurid expose. Maybe this would be a legitimate story with all the stirring elements of a blockbuster. Maybe… maybe he would never have to return to the metropolis again.
The rustic, living portrait before him featured a winding footpath that emerged enticingly from the cover of a grove of trees and snaked across the landscape toward the young journalist, coming to a rest just before his feet. He took his cue and blissfully stepped into the scene, avidly anticipating the mysteries that lay beyond the bend in the path and the grove of trees that sheltered it. This was the delightful sense of adventure that only a city boy could experience when confronted with the bucolic splendor of the mother of us all, the earth, and all that it engenders. Mac wondered if one could ever become inured to the beauty, the exhilaration, the utter reverence that this spectacle inspired. He confidently strode to the grove and yielded himself completely to the marvels it promised to reveal.
Immortality. That was his theme. This was the setting. How perfectly it was all falling into place. He didn’t believe a bit of it, of course. No one was immortal. He was about to meet a man who claimed to be just that and his head was racing with angles and spins that would set this story apart and maybe raise it a level or two beyond the gaudy grasp of his editor’s imagination. Maybe. ‘The Scoop’ was not a tabloid that endured layered accounts of any substance. Make it loud, in bold print, and accompanied by photographs begging to be retouched with any number of aliens, two-headed babies and mini-clad seductresses. ‘The Scoop’ did not go in for hoary vistas.
Upon achieving the grove, the path continued through an arbor of trees with interweaving branches overhead that filtered the sunlight and reminded Mac of a warm, inviting tunnel; even though it was December and the snow flurries, gentle as they were, suggested otherwise. The Great Womb, thought Mac. It held all the elements of life and the cycle of birth and rebirth, with the promise of inevitability as its destination. I am walking into my destiny, reflected the insurgent author in rebellion of the hardcore journalist. I am going home.
The cottage appeared just after the first crook in the path, a sudden, delightful apparition that was at once startling and glazed with genial charm. In the doorway, standing casually erect and attired in a blue wool pullover was a tall, bearded man who looked to be in his early fifties. His posture, though informal, was not unconscious and his bearing was one of temperate authority. This must be Captain Porteous, thought Mac, the object of my visit and the subject of my commentary. His presence is undeniable; if I could just translate it to the written word and infect the readership with enough curiosity about his exploits and their incredible consequences upon our monotonous lives, I might just have the makings of a legend on my hands.
“Mr. Dewart, I presume,” he greeted gracefully as Mac maneuvered the gate open, shut it diligently, and approached the occupied portal of the cottage. “You’re just in time for a little supper.”
“Call me Mac and you’ve got a deal,” was all the scribe could come up with, but it seemed to please his host and Mac accepted a generous outstretched hand in welcome. “Sorry if I’m a bit late, but you’re pretty well out here and it took some time to find the place. Not that I’m complaining. This undertaking is a revelation for me. To see the country landscape in pictures is one thing, to feel it and breath it is quite another. Very stimulating. I’m assuming, of course, that you are Captain John Porteous and that you were expecting me.”
“I am indeed. And I am delighted that your excursion proved engaging. Come, I have a cozy fire going inside, just the thing to complete your first pastoral adventure.” The interior proved just as warm and inviting as the surrounding venue had promised and Mac was immediately met with the promised fire, a mug of hot coffee, and the aroma of the impending supper to anticipate. Idyllic.
Mac surveyed the simple, but essentially configured interior; a generous, functioning fireplace in the center, a mid-sized old sofa before it that beckoned enticingly, a small kitchenette where the captain was now occupied off to the right and separated from the living room proper by a wood block counter, and a large wooden door to the left that was probably a bedroom. The walls were rife with framed sketched and photographic portraits of assorted sizes and human images, all of adults and children dressed in a variety of costumes and period evocations. Mac dropped his shoulder bag and pouch, the former with a change of attire and some toiletries, the latter containing notebooks, pens, pencils, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a laptop computer. He sank onto and into the couch with a curious familiarity, the better to view the vast collage before him with an element of comfort, and didn’t record another conscious thought until Porteous gently advised him that dinner was ready.
The room was much darker than before, with several small lamps now lit to highlight certain areas in a subdued manner. Before him lay two plates of sautéed salmon and russet potatoes, a sliced loaf of French bread, two wine glasses and a bottle of soave. These on a long, low table bracketed by two lighted tapers. Porteus placed himself on the couch to Macs left and preceded to pour a sample of the vintage grape into his wineglass.
“Is that all I get?” he winked. He sniffed. He sipped. He swallowed the remains. “I could make a habit of this. Sensational.”
“I’m pleased it’s to your liking.” Porteus decanted for both of them while Mac refocused on the bountiful wall before them.
“This is some photo gallery. Who are all these people?”
“That is my family” Porteus replied, a slight gesture of salute preceding his maiden encounter with the contents of his glass.
“All of them?” Mac was stunned, his glass frozen in mid arc to his lips.
“No ... there’s more, too numerous to display at one time. Actually there are quite a few I haven’t been able to keep track of.”
Mac completed his action, savoring the taste of his wine as his incredulity alit on less rarified ground. “That must be disconcerting.”
“To put it mildly,” responded Porteus, anticipating this retreat into conventional cynicism and surprisingly at ease with it.
“You mean you have cousins running around that you don’t know about?”
“I have grandchildren I don’t know about.”
Mac turned his attention to the salmon and potatoes as the conversation became more casual. This tale was getting taller by the question and he was back in his element.
“So ... how big is your family?”
“Let’s see ... I’ve walked this earth for more than 300 years. You tell me.”
“No disrespect, but you’ve been doing more than walking, my friend.”
“Touché, Mr. Dewart. I have loved many times in my life.”
“Lucky man.”
“That is a judgment that depends on your point of view. As many times as I have loved, I have lost that love. My life is one of loss, Mr. Dewart. I suppose you thought immortality a romantic prospect, a fulfillment of every man and woman’s dream. The
ultimate goal of all the sciences we can apply and manipulate. The Holy Grail of human endeavor.”
“It beats the alternative.”
“I’m afraid it becomes more sophisticated than that when actually involved in the prospect. You see, I am alone. The more people I embrace in each succeeding generation, the more aware I am of my aloneness. You may say that I have outlived my time, several times over, and I have borne witness to the results, not only of my actions, but also of the totality of my influence over that span. I have seen my issue carry my legacy, both agreeable and offensive, at turns inspiring and infecting, unconsciously to every area of existence that one can experience, and … it weighs on me, Mr. Dewart. It is a constant reminder of my infinitely frivolous choices and their eternal consequences. Over the generations I can trace their effects like a virus. This perspective becomes more scientific over the decades, and the predominant emotional impression is one of futility and defeat. I am discovering that in defeating death, you must first defeat life.” He took a long swallow that drained his glass. “My heart is worn out, Mr. Dewart, and it will not die. ”
Mac took his cue and reached for the wine bottle to replenish for both. “How, then, do you deal with it?”
“Day by day, as with any crisis,” he answered while accepting the refill. “I deal with it because I have no choice.”
“Well,” Mac began carefully, “without waxing dramatic, I can think of one.”
Porteous smiled as he raised his glass to his lips and just before connecting murmured, “A rather morbid thought on your first day in Eden, I should think.”
Mac returned the smile. “I’m not the one complaining. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but all I’ve heard so far is some vague disenchantment with your aging process. We haven’t established a cause or dates or corroboration as yet. Maybe we should start at the beginning.”
Porteous leaned back against the arm of the couch and seemed to unravel into a tranquil state of being. “Ah, yes, Mr. Dewart. You supply the framework and apply the editing; I have only to relate my tale with fact and detail to ensure your consideration."
“It helps,” Mac grinned. “If you can see your way to calling me Mac, that would also help. Believe me, you’ll think of worse names to address me by before we’re finished.”
The captain finished his wine, laid the glass on a sideboard at the rear of the couch, and clasped his hands behind his head in a manner altogether disarming. “Alright Mac, and what do you suppose I’ll be calling you after the article is published?”
Mac also discharged his wineglass to the sideboard and reached for his pen and notebook. “At that point I don’t expect you’ll be speaking to me at all. Ready?”
“I am in your hands. Do not endeavor to spare me, I will have none of it.”
“Good.” Mac was poised to faithfully record. “When and where were you born? You were born in the traditional sense, I’m assuming.”
“Your assumption is correct. I was delivered in every manner a normal bairn in the parish of Lamington in Lanarkshire, South Scotland, in 1696. I took the liberty of printing up a family history for you, so I wouldn’t worry about the spelling. The parish records can confirm this information.”
“I’ll be checking,” Mac drawled perfunctorily as he scribbled his outline on the notebook. “Now, your parents. They were … butchers, bakers, seamen … what?”
“They were farmers.”
“No royal blood in the line, then”
“Not a Thane in the lot, I’m afraid. Does this make your story somewhat less compelling?”
“Its one approach,” Mac answered casually. “You know, the gloomy prince sort of aspect. Farmers aren’t usually the meat that romance feasts on … no offense. Hamlet wanders the castle corridors bemoaning his fate and somehow it’s sexy. Apply the same condition to a farm boy walking off the lower forty and he’s a drab dullard.”
“Ah,” Porteous affirmed, “we must give them a rousing yarn.”
“We will,” Mac winked. “Lets go in that direction. Where does the captain part come in?”
“I was, for a time,” the captain replied evenly, “the captain of a small, commercial sailing vessel. That was in … lets see …”
“We can hassle the details later,” Mac shot in. “During this time, did you encounter any pirates, undergo any mutinies … something in that area?”
“Nothing so dramatic, I’m afraid,” Porteous mused flippantly. “We transported food products, mostly fruit. Our most formidable foe was spoilage. Not a sexy scenario, I’m afraid.”
Mac grunted agreement. “Any rotters in the family? You know, horse thieves, insurrectionists … anybody hanged?”
“We had a country parson involved in a land dispute once. His wife was rumored to have run away, even though he claimed she had died and maintained a plot for her in the cemetery. Since no one could recall her death, my cousin, a few friends and I went out to the graveyard one night and dug it up. We were sure the coffin was empty.”
“Was it?”
“No, she was there. I didn’t sleep for weeks afterwards.”
Mac looked up, then down again to his notebook. He frowned. “That might cut it if we were turning out Huckleberry Finn or something, but I’m afraid our readers need it to be more …I don’t know.”
“Sensational? Are you after a cheap thrill, Mac?”
Mac looked up again. The captain wasn’t kidding. “Listen Captain, I just know my audience. Its part of my business. Its their story.”
“No, Mr. Dewart. Its my story.”
“Yes it is, Sir. Exclusively.” Mac placed the notebook on his lap as he adjusted his posture to a more agreeable alignment. “And it will remain exclusively yours unless we can convince someone to publish it. To do that, we have to make concessions. I am sure you understand.”
“I understand that you are a journalist,” Porteous replied politely. “Tell me Mac, where do you draw the line regarding these concessions?”
Mac smiled genially. “You are not a naïve man, Captain Porteous. I was under the impression you knew the conditions from the outset. I am not a representative of the New York Times, after all.”
“Understood.” Porteous gently placed his hand on Mac’s arm. “I was mislead by your innate sense of integrity, I would imagine. I confess to being an innocent in that regard. You have your professional responsibilities of course.”
Mac became aware of a bizarre sensation in his own reaction to this manner of approach, more acutely in the physical encounter than in the wry deference tendered. When Porteous removed his hand, abrupt relief was followed by an ancient longing that negated the former caution and brought back to him a faint perception of timeless desertion. Where did it come from? It was new to him, but he felt as if he had always known it was there.
“You look somewhat disconcerted,” Porteous observed after an awkward pause. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah … no, I was just thinking,” Mac answered uneasily. “I was just wondering why I was put on this story. I had been working on something else and they just pulled me. Its not like I was the only one available.”
“I requested your assignment expressly,” the captain offered evenly. “Does that surprise you?”
Mac responded as if emerging from a dream state. “Why? What do you know about me?”
Porteous smiled. “More than you know about me, it would seem.”
“I’m beginning to realize that. What … a common ancestry? A reporter with Scottish blood would be more conducive to the formation of a grand Scottish myth? Is that the deal?”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“I know nothing about it. I have no connection over there. My name, my father’s blood, that’s all I have.”
Porteous touched his arm again. “Don’t discount the blood. Blood has a language all its own and defies conversion to our culture of academic rationale. It speaks in ancient tongues.”
Mac pulled his arm away impulsively. “Not to me it doesn’t. Why did you request me?” He immediately regretted the impulse.
“Quite frankly,” Porteous began in a sober tone, “because you are an exquisite writer when you are in your element.”
This caught Mac cold. “How …how do you know my work? Other than the magazine, I mean?”
“I came across a small book of poetry in which your work occupied several pages and was quite impressed. I must add, although the wordplay was astonishing in its own right, what touched me deepest was that other language you claim to know nothing about. You speak it eloquently, if not consciously.”
Mac felt more perturbed than flattered and didn’t know why. “That’s an obscure book. I don’t remember a second printing,” he offered cautiously. “Where did you come across it?”
“In the local public library, Mac,” Porteous returned plausibly.
Mac was to the point focused now and his instinct bade pursuit. “And on the basis of this book you chose to sell your story to The Scoop and requested my participation?”
“Precisely.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t buy it.” Mac felt another element at work now and firmly held the line. “We go no further until I know exactly why I’m here.”
“You are a kinsman and you are gifted. I considered if anyone in the realm of tabloid journalism could do me justice, it would be you.”
“Okay, justice … I see. And to do you justice, and maintain my integrity as a gifted writer, I must believe your story entirely, is that the deal?” Mac was becoming intractable and he didn’t know why. It was this gut feeling growing inside him that he was somehow being ambushed.
“Mac,” Porteous began, choosing his words carefully, “I pose no threat to you. I am prepared to answer any question you put to me forthrightly. I do not intend to deceive or ensnare you. I would just rather you not treat my story with the derision reserved for vampire fables.”
No offense, Captain,” Mac returned candidly, “but that was the direction we were heading in. I’ve got to tell you, I’m getting a funny feeling.”
“I understand. I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, but I can answer your questions if you care to continue. Or would you care to rest now and we can take this up in the morning?”
Mac thought a moment. “Okay, before anything else, let’s get this out of the way. This condition … the immortality you are experiencing, how did it come about?”
Captain Porteous allowed his head to fall back against a rear cushion and closed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “I never aged past a certain point and I never expired. I just continued. People around me died, the world around me changed, and I continued. I have out-lived everyone that was ever dear to me.”
“Medical check-ups?
“Normal.”
“Illnesses?”
“Yes. Never anything life threatening. I seemed immune to diseases that killed my neighbors.”
Mac was picking up speed. “War. Did you ever fight a war?”
Porteous opened his eyes without moving his head. “Yes.”
“Ever wounded? Shot?”
His eyes now shifted to Mac’s steady gaze. “No. Never wounded, or shot. I fell out of a tree once when I was … well, I was young. My entire body hurt for two or three days. I never told anyone. I never suffered a consequence.”
“Okay,” supposed Mac, “lets try this. Do you think you are susceptible to life threatening injuries? Or have you just been lucky for three hundred years?”
“I can’t answer that.” Porteous sat up straight. “I’m sorry, Mac. This is a phenomenon that is happening to me. It doesn’t necessarily follow that I am an expert on the condition. I was fortunate enough to survive my youth, a not uncommon occurrence. My experience since has increased in wisdom to the degree where I can see misfortune coming and avoid the undue ramifications. As for disease, all I can tell you is I’ve never succumbed.”
“Okay!” Mac tossed his notebook on the sideboard. “The situation is this. You claim immortality. You have no proof to speak of. You’ve lived a fairly unexciting three hundred years. No battles. No scars. No miracle recoveries. No drama. What have you been doing for three centuries? Where are the significant contributions to society? What have I got to sell here, Captain?”
Porteous smiled. “You are right, of course. All I have is my story, a series of commonplace incidents over the course of several lifetimes, but really a quite ordinary assemblage of lives. The only remarkable thing about it is the length. I do not assert the ability to sell it. That is your department. I have had many occupations and am fairly accomplished in one or two of them, but I have never been an ad man. If there is drama in any of it, I have confidence in you to ferret it out. I can tell you of my families, my countries, my eras, my wives, my professions, but I am at a loss …”
Mac shot up. “Hold it, hold on … your wives. That’s it. Many loves, many lifetimes … the saga of an immortal Casanova. A kiss and tell through the centuries. Captain, it’s the only way to go.” He was revitalized.
“The memories are very dear to me. I will think it over, if you don’t mind.” The captain rose from the couch. “Make yourself completely at home, Mac. Through that door is a bedroom, all prepared for your stay.”
Mac was disturbed by this sudden turn. “We can work this out, make it tasteful. It’s an idea. Lets just play with it.”
“I will think about it. We can discuss it in the morning.”
Mac looked toward the bedroom door. “Where will you sleep tonight?”
Porteous displayed a patient smile. “I have a place to stay not far from here. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Mac.” They shook hands.
After Porteous had cleared the dinner plates and left, Mac had an opportunity to take in the events of the day and clear his mind somewhat. He sat for a long time digesting what had essentially taken place here, trying to assess what hard information he had actually acquired, and find a frame of reference for it all. He started from the beginning.
This morning he was a disenchanted poet who resented his job and his profession as a whole. He earned his money as a rag journalist set against the backdrop of a teeming city steeped in a coarse environment of noise and tough talk. He hurriedly boarded a train to Connecticut and discovered a world that spoke to his innermost voice and confirmed his passion for all things beautiful. And in this idyllic setting he heard, a few minutes ago, his own voice, his poets voice, advising deception and misrepresentation. He had become his enemy.
He was becoming restless. He had to move about and find something active to engage in. He wasn’t about to find an answer, to anything, foraging around for it in the elaborate straits of his mind. He looked about the room for inspiration. Maybe there was something here that would illuminate his search for meaning in this vacant enterprise, something that would explain why he was suddenly obsessed with significance, anything that might reveal the nature of this internal disquiet.
There it was, right in front of him. The wall. The gallery. The photographs. A visual alternative to his cerebral meanderings. He stood up from the coach, scanned the room for the overhead light switch, found it, flicked it and lit up the room. He moved closer to the wall and began taking in the lower photographs intently, one by one, along the length of it. They were family photos, all of them, some seeming to date back to the beginning of the century. They appeared to be real people, in different modes of dress per photograph, and different time periods represented. He began to pick out Porteous in several of them, fitting in seamlessly with his environment, his dress, and his assemblage. A colossal job of photo retouching, perfect in all aspects of dimension, alignment, and detail, would have been needed to reproduce these examples of familial imagery, far too ambitious for the meager fee offered by the magazine to justify its undertaking.
Unable to clearly distinguish the higher photographs, Mac began to search the room for a ladder, a stool; something he could stand on to take a closer look. Frustrated in this attempt, he remembered the bedroom; a closet with a stepladder would not be an unusual proposition. He walked to the door and opened into a cozy chamber lit by a kerosene lamp on the bed table. It was a rustic vision of a clean and pleasing character, if somewhat spare; table, lamp, quilt covered single bed, curtained window, chair, wood paneled walls. Across the room he spied the closet door. A search did not detect a ladder, stool, or adequate substitute. The plain wooden chair wasn’t high enough. His eyes were scanning the room once again when they noticed a framed picture on the night table, under the lamp. He stretched across the bed to inspect the contents of the gilt edged casing and discovered a simple photograph of the captain and another man who appeared to be holding an infant in his arms. The other man looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and had the radiant grin of a proud father spread across his robust features. The mode of dress was fairly modern and the setting was suggestive of a backyard location. Porteous had his left arm draped familiarly around the younger mans’ shoulder. The photograph was similar to the others on the living room wall except in one respect; the proud father was recognizable to Mac. He had pictures of the man in his own collection, which he rarely looked at these days. He removed the photograph from its frame and turned it over. There was an inscription: ‘The future looks hopeful and I am encouraged – Me, Thomas, and wee Mac – May, 1976’.
Copyright 2002 by John Cannatella
The rustic, living portrait before him featured a winding footpath that emerged enticingly from the cover of a grove of trees and snaked across the landscape toward the young journalist, coming to a rest just before his feet. He took his cue and blissfully stepped into the scene, avidly anticipating the mysteries that lay beyond the bend in the path and the grove of trees that sheltered it. This was the delightful sense of adventure that only a city boy could experience when confronted with the bucolic splendor of the mother of us all, the earth, and all that it engenders. Mac wondered if one could ever become inured to the beauty, the exhilaration, the utter reverence that this spectacle inspired. He confidently strode to the grove and yielded himself completely to the marvels it promised to reveal.
Immortality. That was his theme. This was the setting. How perfectly it was all falling into place. He didn’t believe a bit of it, of course. No one was immortal. He was about to meet a man who claimed to be just that and his head was racing with angles and spins that would set this story apart and maybe raise it a level or two beyond the gaudy grasp of his editor’s imagination. Maybe. ‘The Scoop’ was not a tabloid that endured layered accounts of any substance. Make it loud, in bold print, and accompanied by photographs begging to be retouched with any number of aliens, two-headed babies and mini-clad seductresses. ‘The Scoop’ did not go in for hoary vistas.
Upon achieving the grove, the path continued through an arbor of trees with interweaving branches overhead that filtered the sunlight and reminded Mac of a warm, inviting tunnel; even though it was December and the snow flurries, gentle as they were, suggested otherwise. The Great Womb, thought Mac. It held all the elements of life and the cycle of birth and rebirth, with the promise of inevitability as its destination. I am walking into my destiny, reflected the insurgent author in rebellion of the hardcore journalist. I am going home.
The cottage appeared just after the first crook in the path, a sudden, delightful apparition that was at once startling and glazed with genial charm. In the doorway, standing casually erect and attired in a blue wool pullover was a tall, bearded man who looked to be in his early fifties. His posture, though informal, was not unconscious and his bearing was one of temperate authority. This must be Captain Porteous, thought Mac, the object of my visit and the subject of my commentary. His presence is undeniable; if I could just translate it to the written word and infect the readership with enough curiosity about his exploits and their incredible consequences upon our monotonous lives, I might just have the makings of a legend on my hands.
“Mr. Dewart, I presume,” he greeted gracefully as Mac maneuvered the gate open, shut it diligently, and approached the occupied portal of the cottage. “You’re just in time for a little supper.”
“Call me Mac and you’ve got a deal,” was all the scribe could come up with, but it seemed to please his host and Mac accepted a generous outstretched hand in welcome. “Sorry if I’m a bit late, but you’re pretty well out here and it took some time to find the place. Not that I’m complaining. This undertaking is a revelation for me. To see the country landscape in pictures is one thing, to feel it and breath it is quite another. Very stimulating. I’m assuming, of course, that you are Captain John Porteous and that you were expecting me.”
“I am indeed. And I am delighted that your excursion proved engaging. Come, I have a cozy fire going inside, just the thing to complete your first pastoral adventure.” The interior proved just as warm and inviting as the surrounding venue had promised and Mac was immediately met with the promised fire, a mug of hot coffee, and the aroma of the impending supper to anticipate. Idyllic.
Mac surveyed the simple, but essentially configured interior; a generous, functioning fireplace in the center, a mid-sized old sofa before it that beckoned enticingly, a small kitchenette where the captain was now occupied off to the right and separated from the living room proper by a wood block counter, and a large wooden door to the left that was probably a bedroom. The walls were rife with framed sketched and photographic portraits of assorted sizes and human images, all of adults and children dressed in a variety of costumes and period evocations. Mac dropped his shoulder bag and pouch, the former with a change of attire and some toiletries, the latter containing notebooks, pens, pencils, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a laptop computer. He sank onto and into the couch with a curious familiarity, the better to view the vast collage before him with an element of comfort, and didn’t record another conscious thought until Porteous gently advised him that dinner was ready.
The room was much darker than before, with several small lamps now lit to highlight certain areas in a subdued manner. Before him lay two plates of sautéed salmon and russet potatoes, a sliced loaf of French bread, two wine glasses and a bottle of soave. These on a long, low table bracketed by two lighted tapers. Porteus placed himself on the couch to Macs left and preceded to pour a sample of the vintage grape into his wineglass.
“Is that all I get?” he winked. He sniffed. He sipped. He swallowed the remains. “I could make a habit of this. Sensational.”
“I’m pleased it’s to your liking.” Porteus decanted for both of them while Mac refocused on the bountiful wall before them.
“This is some photo gallery. Who are all these people?”
“That is my family” Porteus replied, a slight gesture of salute preceding his maiden encounter with the contents of his glass.
“All of them?” Mac was stunned, his glass frozen in mid arc to his lips.
“No ... there’s more, too numerous to display at one time. Actually there are quite a few I haven’t been able to keep track of.”
Mac completed his action, savoring the taste of his wine as his incredulity alit on less rarified ground. “That must be disconcerting.”
“To put it mildly,” responded Porteus, anticipating this retreat into conventional cynicism and surprisingly at ease with it.
“You mean you have cousins running around that you don’t know about?”
“I have grandchildren I don’t know about.”
Mac turned his attention to the salmon and potatoes as the conversation became more casual. This tale was getting taller by the question and he was back in his element.
“So ... how big is your family?”
“Let’s see ... I’ve walked this earth for more than 300 years. You tell me.”
“No disrespect, but you’ve been doing more than walking, my friend.”
“Touché, Mr. Dewart. I have loved many times in my life.”
“Lucky man.”
“That is a judgment that depends on your point of view. As many times as I have loved, I have lost that love. My life is one of loss, Mr. Dewart. I suppose you thought immortality a romantic prospect, a fulfillment of every man and woman’s dream. The
ultimate goal of all the sciences we can apply and manipulate. The Holy Grail of human endeavor.”
“It beats the alternative.”
“I’m afraid it becomes more sophisticated than that when actually involved in the prospect. You see, I am alone. The more people I embrace in each succeeding generation, the more aware I am of my aloneness. You may say that I have outlived my time, several times over, and I have borne witness to the results, not only of my actions, but also of the totality of my influence over that span. I have seen my issue carry my legacy, both agreeable and offensive, at turns inspiring and infecting, unconsciously to every area of existence that one can experience, and … it weighs on me, Mr. Dewart. It is a constant reminder of my infinitely frivolous choices and their eternal consequences. Over the generations I can trace their effects like a virus. This perspective becomes more scientific over the decades, and the predominant emotional impression is one of futility and defeat. I am discovering that in defeating death, you must first defeat life.” He took a long swallow that drained his glass. “My heart is worn out, Mr. Dewart, and it will not die. ”
Mac took his cue and reached for the wine bottle to replenish for both. “How, then, do you deal with it?”
“Day by day, as with any crisis,” he answered while accepting the refill. “I deal with it because I have no choice.”
“Well,” Mac began carefully, “without waxing dramatic, I can think of one.”
Porteous smiled as he raised his glass to his lips and just before connecting murmured, “A rather morbid thought on your first day in Eden, I should think.”
Mac returned the smile. “I’m not the one complaining. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but all I’ve heard so far is some vague disenchantment with your aging process. We haven’t established a cause or dates or corroboration as yet. Maybe we should start at the beginning.”
Porteous leaned back against the arm of the couch and seemed to unravel into a tranquil state of being. “Ah, yes, Mr. Dewart. You supply the framework and apply the editing; I have only to relate my tale with fact and detail to ensure your consideration."
“It helps,” Mac grinned. “If you can see your way to calling me Mac, that would also help. Believe me, you’ll think of worse names to address me by before we’re finished.”
The captain finished his wine, laid the glass on a sideboard at the rear of the couch, and clasped his hands behind his head in a manner altogether disarming. “Alright Mac, and what do you suppose I’ll be calling you after the article is published?”
Mac also discharged his wineglass to the sideboard and reached for his pen and notebook. “At that point I don’t expect you’ll be speaking to me at all. Ready?”
“I am in your hands. Do not endeavor to spare me, I will have none of it.”
“Good.” Mac was poised to faithfully record. “When and where were you born? You were born in the traditional sense, I’m assuming.”
“Your assumption is correct. I was delivered in every manner a normal bairn in the parish of Lamington in Lanarkshire, South Scotland, in 1696. I took the liberty of printing up a family history for you, so I wouldn’t worry about the spelling. The parish records can confirm this information.”
“I’ll be checking,” Mac drawled perfunctorily as he scribbled his outline on the notebook. “Now, your parents. They were … butchers, bakers, seamen … what?”
“They were farmers.”
“No royal blood in the line, then”
“Not a Thane in the lot, I’m afraid. Does this make your story somewhat less compelling?”
“Its one approach,” Mac answered casually. “You know, the gloomy prince sort of aspect. Farmers aren’t usually the meat that romance feasts on … no offense. Hamlet wanders the castle corridors bemoaning his fate and somehow it’s sexy. Apply the same condition to a farm boy walking off the lower forty and he’s a drab dullard.”
“Ah,” Porteous affirmed, “we must give them a rousing yarn.”
“We will,” Mac winked. “Lets go in that direction. Where does the captain part come in?”
“I was, for a time,” the captain replied evenly, “the captain of a small, commercial sailing vessel. That was in … lets see …”
“We can hassle the details later,” Mac shot in. “During this time, did you encounter any pirates, undergo any mutinies … something in that area?”
“Nothing so dramatic, I’m afraid,” Porteous mused flippantly. “We transported food products, mostly fruit. Our most formidable foe was spoilage. Not a sexy scenario, I’m afraid.”
Mac grunted agreement. “Any rotters in the family? You know, horse thieves, insurrectionists … anybody hanged?”
“We had a country parson involved in a land dispute once. His wife was rumored to have run away, even though he claimed she had died and maintained a plot for her in the cemetery. Since no one could recall her death, my cousin, a few friends and I went out to the graveyard one night and dug it up. We were sure the coffin was empty.”
“Was it?”
“No, she was there. I didn’t sleep for weeks afterwards.”
Mac looked up, then down again to his notebook. He frowned. “That might cut it if we were turning out Huckleberry Finn or something, but I’m afraid our readers need it to be more …I don’t know.”
“Sensational? Are you after a cheap thrill, Mac?”
Mac looked up again. The captain wasn’t kidding. “Listen Captain, I just know my audience. Its part of my business. Its their story.”
“No, Mr. Dewart. Its my story.”
“Yes it is, Sir. Exclusively.” Mac placed the notebook on his lap as he adjusted his posture to a more agreeable alignment. “And it will remain exclusively yours unless we can convince someone to publish it. To do that, we have to make concessions. I am sure you understand.”
“I understand that you are a journalist,” Porteous replied politely. “Tell me Mac, where do you draw the line regarding these concessions?”
Mac smiled genially. “You are not a naïve man, Captain Porteous. I was under the impression you knew the conditions from the outset. I am not a representative of the New York Times, after all.”
“Understood.” Porteous gently placed his hand on Mac’s arm. “I was mislead by your innate sense of integrity, I would imagine. I confess to being an innocent in that regard. You have your professional responsibilities of course.”
Mac became aware of a bizarre sensation in his own reaction to this manner of approach, more acutely in the physical encounter than in the wry deference tendered. When Porteous removed his hand, abrupt relief was followed by an ancient longing that negated the former caution and brought back to him a faint perception of timeless desertion. Where did it come from? It was new to him, but he felt as if he had always known it was there.
“You look somewhat disconcerted,” Porteous observed after an awkward pause. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah … no, I was just thinking,” Mac answered uneasily. “I was just wondering why I was put on this story. I had been working on something else and they just pulled me. Its not like I was the only one available.”
“I requested your assignment expressly,” the captain offered evenly. “Does that surprise you?”
Mac responded as if emerging from a dream state. “Why? What do you know about me?”
Porteous smiled. “More than you know about me, it would seem.”
“I’m beginning to realize that. What … a common ancestry? A reporter with Scottish blood would be more conducive to the formation of a grand Scottish myth? Is that the deal?”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“I know nothing about it. I have no connection over there. My name, my father’s blood, that’s all I have.”
Porteous touched his arm again. “Don’t discount the blood. Blood has a language all its own and defies conversion to our culture of academic rationale. It speaks in ancient tongues.”
Mac pulled his arm away impulsively. “Not to me it doesn’t. Why did you request me?” He immediately regretted the impulse.
“Quite frankly,” Porteous began in a sober tone, “because you are an exquisite writer when you are in your element.”
This caught Mac cold. “How …how do you know my work? Other than the magazine, I mean?”
“I came across a small book of poetry in which your work occupied several pages and was quite impressed. I must add, although the wordplay was astonishing in its own right, what touched me deepest was that other language you claim to know nothing about. You speak it eloquently, if not consciously.”
Mac felt more perturbed than flattered and didn’t know why. “That’s an obscure book. I don’t remember a second printing,” he offered cautiously. “Where did you come across it?”
“In the local public library, Mac,” Porteous returned plausibly.
Mac was to the point focused now and his instinct bade pursuit. “And on the basis of this book you chose to sell your story to The Scoop and requested my participation?”
“Precisely.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t buy it.” Mac felt another element at work now and firmly held the line. “We go no further until I know exactly why I’m here.”
“You are a kinsman and you are gifted. I considered if anyone in the realm of tabloid journalism could do me justice, it would be you.”
“Okay, justice … I see. And to do you justice, and maintain my integrity as a gifted writer, I must believe your story entirely, is that the deal?” Mac was becoming intractable and he didn’t know why. It was this gut feeling growing inside him that he was somehow being ambushed.
“Mac,” Porteous began, choosing his words carefully, “I pose no threat to you. I am prepared to answer any question you put to me forthrightly. I do not intend to deceive or ensnare you. I would just rather you not treat my story with the derision reserved for vampire fables.”
No offense, Captain,” Mac returned candidly, “but that was the direction we were heading in. I’ve got to tell you, I’m getting a funny feeling.”
“I understand. I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, but I can answer your questions if you care to continue. Or would you care to rest now and we can take this up in the morning?”
Mac thought a moment. “Okay, before anything else, let’s get this out of the way. This condition … the immortality you are experiencing, how did it come about?”
Captain Porteous allowed his head to fall back against a rear cushion and closed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “I never aged past a certain point and I never expired. I just continued. People around me died, the world around me changed, and I continued. I have out-lived everyone that was ever dear to me.”
“Medical check-ups?
“Normal.”
“Illnesses?”
“Yes. Never anything life threatening. I seemed immune to diseases that killed my neighbors.”
Mac was picking up speed. “War. Did you ever fight a war?”
Porteous opened his eyes without moving his head. “Yes.”
“Ever wounded? Shot?”
His eyes now shifted to Mac’s steady gaze. “No. Never wounded, or shot. I fell out of a tree once when I was … well, I was young. My entire body hurt for two or three days. I never told anyone. I never suffered a consequence.”
“Okay,” supposed Mac, “lets try this. Do you think you are susceptible to life threatening injuries? Or have you just been lucky for three hundred years?”
“I can’t answer that.” Porteous sat up straight. “I’m sorry, Mac. This is a phenomenon that is happening to me. It doesn’t necessarily follow that I am an expert on the condition. I was fortunate enough to survive my youth, a not uncommon occurrence. My experience since has increased in wisdom to the degree where I can see misfortune coming and avoid the undue ramifications. As for disease, all I can tell you is I’ve never succumbed.”
“Okay!” Mac tossed his notebook on the sideboard. “The situation is this. You claim immortality. You have no proof to speak of. You’ve lived a fairly unexciting three hundred years. No battles. No scars. No miracle recoveries. No drama. What have you been doing for three centuries? Where are the significant contributions to society? What have I got to sell here, Captain?”
Porteous smiled. “You are right, of course. All I have is my story, a series of commonplace incidents over the course of several lifetimes, but really a quite ordinary assemblage of lives. The only remarkable thing about it is the length. I do not assert the ability to sell it. That is your department. I have had many occupations and am fairly accomplished in one or two of them, but I have never been an ad man. If there is drama in any of it, I have confidence in you to ferret it out. I can tell you of my families, my countries, my eras, my wives, my professions, but I am at a loss …”
Mac shot up. “Hold it, hold on … your wives. That’s it. Many loves, many lifetimes … the saga of an immortal Casanova. A kiss and tell through the centuries. Captain, it’s the only way to go.” He was revitalized.
“The memories are very dear to me. I will think it over, if you don’t mind.” The captain rose from the couch. “Make yourself completely at home, Mac. Through that door is a bedroom, all prepared for your stay.”
Mac was disturbed by this sudden turn. “We can work this out, make it tasteful. It’s an idea. Lets just play with it.”
“I will think about it. We can discuss it in the morning.”
Mac looked toward the bedroom door. “Where will you sleep tonight?”
Porteous displayed a patient smile. “I have a place to stay not far from here. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Mac.” They shook hands.
After Porteous had cleared the dinner plates and left, Mac had an opportunity to take in the events of the day and clear his mind somewhat. He sat for a long time digesting what had essentially taken place here, trying to assess what hard information he had actually acquired, and find a frame of reference for it all. He started from the beginning.
This morning he was a disenchanted poet who resented his job and his profession as a whole. He earned his money as a rag journalist set against the backdrop of a teeming city steeped in a coarse environment of noise and tough talk. He hurriedly boarded a train to Connecticut and discovered a world that spoke to his innermost voice and confirmed his passion for all things beautiful. And in this idyllic setting he heard, a few minutes ago, his own voice, his poets voice, advising deception and misrepresentation. He had become his enemy.
He was becoming restless. He had to move about and find something active to engage in. He wasn’t about to find an answer, to anything, foraging around for it in the elaborate straits of his mind. He looked about the room for inspiration. Maybe there was something here that would illuminate his search for meaning in this vacant enterprise, something that would explain why he was suddenly obsessed with significance, anything that might reveal the nature of this internal disquiet.
There it was, right in front of him. The wall. The gallery. The photographs. A visual alternative to his cerebral meanderings. He stood up from the coach, scanned the room for the overhead light switch, found it, flicked it and lit up the room. He moved closer to the wall and began taking in the lower photographs intently, one by one, along the length of it. They were family photos, all of them, some seeming to date back to the beginning of the century. They appeared to be real people, in different modes of dress per photograph, and different time periods represented. He began to pick out Porteous in several of them, fitting in seamlessly with his environment, his dress, and his assemblage. A colossal job of photo retouching, perfect in all aspects of dimension, alignment, and detail, would have been needed to reproduce these examples of familial imagery, far too ambitious for the meager fee offered by the magazine to justify its undertaking.
Unable to clearly distinguish the higher photographs, Mac began to search the room for a ladder, a stool; something he could stand on to take a closer look. Frustrated in this attempt, he remembered the bedroom; a closet with a stepladder would not be an unusual proposition. He walked to the door and opened into a cozy chamber lit by a kerosene lamp on the bed table. It was a rustic vision of a clean and pleasing character, if somewhat spare; table, lamp, quilt covered single bed, curtained window, chair, wood paneled walls. Across the room he spied the closet door. A search did not detect a ladder, stool, or adequate substitute. The plain wooden chair wasn’t high enough. His eyes were scanning the room once again when they noticed a framed picture on the night table, under the lamp. He stretched across the bed to inspect the contents of the gilt edged casing and discovered a simple photograph of the captain and another man who appeared to be holding an infant in his arms. The other man looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and had the radiant grin of a proud father spread across his robust features. The mode of dress was fairly modern and the setting was suggestive of a backyard location. Porteous had his left arm draped familiarly around the younger mans’ shoulder. The photograph was similar to the others on the living room wall except in one respect; the proud father was recognizable to Mac. He had pictures of the man in his own collection, which he rarely looked at these days. He removed the photograph from its frame and turned it over. There was an inscription: ‘The future looks hopeful and I am encouraged – Me, Thomas, and wee Mac – May, 1976’.
Copyright 2002 by John Cannatella
Panorama
It made no sense. There I was … I’m walking down the street with a bag of groceries, trying to figure out how to come up with the rent, and I see her across the avenue. She sees me and waves. I was dumbfounded. I had run into her at least a half dozen times that week … in the supermarket, at the laundromat, on the street … and I always acknowledged her. A nod, a smile … we were neighbors, after all. Sometimes she would stare back, but with no comprehension, no recognition what so ever. Like I was invading her precious space or something. Other times she would nod, ever so slightly, but with no change in her facial expression. I had vowed more than once to dispense with the salutations, but it’s not in my nature. We would come upon each other so suddenly; I never could accord her the appropriate response. My face would light up, she’d look right through me, and I ‘d regret my reflex reaction. And that’s how it was between us for almost a year. Too bad … she made such an impression on me it was difficult to ignore her presence.
That’s why I couldn’t figure it out. I was looking across the avenue and she was smiling and waving enthusiastically. I almost dropped my groceries. I looked behind me to see if she was beckoning to someone else, a distinct possibility, but no, it was me.
I don’t remember making the decision to cross the avenue. All I recall is the truck bearing down on me and the strident horn blaring, serenading my transition to the afterlife. I didn’t feel any pain; on the contrary, I was filled with such an overwhelming exaltation that I was afraid my body couldn’t bear it. My fears were groundless because there was my body sprawled halfway beneath the truck, motionless; the groceries comprising the ingredients of that night’s dinner encircling my head like a halo. I knew immediately what had transpired.
My main concern was for the driver. I could feel his pain and disorientation so intensely that it became my own. I was hovering now and the scene below unfolded before me much like an overhead crane shot in the movies, complete with Surround Sound and Dolby Noise Reduction. I heard cries of “Oh, no” and “Oh, my God“ and “Call 911” as I watched the driver leap from the cab and inspect the grizzly tableau he had had such a sudden and reluctant hand in crafting. The truth be told, it wasn’t that grizzly. Not a lot of blood, surprisingly. The driver wasn’t so detached. When he realized I was a goner, he turned and collapsed his head in his arms across the hood of the cab and began sobbing. Like a remote controlled move camera, I zoomed down about his shoulders and tried my best to console him. It was futile.
Even though I felt more expressively tuned in than I ever remember, my ability to affect reality, as we know it, was gone. What a waste. When we are alive and possess the ability to have a direct impact on those around us, we avoid it. We shy away from their humanity and involve ourselves with goals and agendas to perpetuate our own grandeur. Here was this truck driver, a man I might never have had the opportunity to engage, except maybe to flip the bird to on a highway somewhere, and I no longer had use of the tools to communicate with him. Only now could I feel his humanity, having shed my own.
A slow dissolve back to the overhead crane … people are running toward the body. I recognize some of them … casual friends, neighbors, shopkeepers and … the Ice Princess. She pushes herself past the curious and the concerned, kneels over my carcass, and commences to wail … “Sid … Sid … Oh, no … Oh my God … Sid!” It was heart wrenching; and also a bit shocking because my name is Sal, as in Salvatore. But how did she know enough to come that close? I didn’t think she knew I existed. When the emergency personnel arrived she was at them constantly, “Please, please … isn’t there anything you can do?” “He’s gone, lady. What am I gonna do?” replied one medic who had exceeded his call quota that day. “Are you his wife?” Her eyes searched the heavens for guidance; then softly, “It was my dream.” The gall!
My funeral was a hoot. Mom was there, adding this latest burden to her resume for martyrdom. So were a couple of ex-girlfriends, Gail and Linda. Gail showed with her current beau, who fidgeted nervously while I was being eulogized ad nauseum by his ladylove. She went on about my character, my loyalty, my dedication, and my capacity for loving. If I had known any of this while I was breathing, she might not have been an ex. Linda had a curious take on reality. She offered a cherished memory in such a weepy, dulcet manner that it tore our hearts in twain. It seems she was happiest when we were lying in bed together, eating ice cream and singing show tunes and laughing and … her voice broke off and she sobbed sweetly and discretely. It was truly touching and genuine, no doubt, except for one detail. It never happened. I despise show tunes, have no tolerance for ice cream, and no memory of us even smiling in bed together. Where did they come up with this stuff?
Jack said I was a “good guy” and that I threw a mean curveball. He even went on to describe how it would break down just off the plate and away from right-handed batters. I was flattered, but I couldn’t throw a curve to save my life. I even tried shouting from the chapel rafters, “Fastball, Jack … I threw a fastball,” but the error stood and was entered into the record.
I wondered if my father felt just as disconcerted during his funeral, or if he even attended it. I was becoming increasingly frustrated by these erroneous accounts of my being, when Uncle Vito cut a fart on his way to the podium and eased the tension, for me at least. “Good kid … love him … miss him.” And out. Thank you, Uncle Vito.
Just when it seemed that all was said, and the coughing and shuffling augured a timely exit, a slender, shadowy figure in black emerged from the rear of the chapel and deliberately made her way to the podium. All fell silent, their curiosity piqued. It was HER! The girl I loved in solitude and lost in passing. She allowed the black scarf encircling her head to fall about her shoulders and reveal her glorious flaxen hair. She took a moment to scan their faces, one by one it seemed. She had the house and she knew it. The air was hushed with expectancy as she raised her head slightly, parted those lovely pouting lips, and delivered thusly. “My relationship with Sal was a very spiritual one.”
You could hear a pin drop. Oh, where was Uncle Vito now? “Sal …Sal … I know you can hear me.” At least she got the name right. “For so long we spoke with looks and gestures and with our hearts. Yes, always with our hearts. We were silent lovers in a cold, uncaring world, but we have survived that. You are as close to me now as ever.”
Whose funeral was this? I didn’t know this Sal; this loyal, loving, dedicated, ice cream slurping, show tune squealing, curveball slinging, soul mate of a man. Who were these people I spent my precious time on earth with, all striving to know me in retrospect? They were ridiculous. I looked down at them now, huddled together like scared, confused children, and I had to laugh. If they only knew how feeble they sounded in their futile efforts to sum me up; feeble and pathetic.
And then came the LIGHT! Like a gentle flash of lightening it filled me with awe and compassion. I could see it all and my heart was overflowing. Yes, I loved these people; these noble creatures that endeavored to make sense of their lives without a clear understanding of what it was all about. These wonderful beings who, though dealing with their own fears and uncertainties, tend to their fallen and honor their dead. These glorious children of grace. And I had been one of them. I loved us all with an indescribable joy.
It was then that the scene below me began to fade in the distance as I zoomed back to an eternity of warmth and light; the ultimate crane shot. I understood more than I ever knew possible … and I understood exactly where I was going. I had an appointment to keep. Seeing my father’s welcoming smile set off a wave of childlike enthusiasm and I blurted out, “Hey Dad, guess what? I made it!”
© 1996 by John Cannatella
That’s why I couldn’t figure it out. I was looking across the avenue and she was smiling and waving enthusiastically. I almost dropped my groceries. I looked behind me to see if she was beckoning to someone else, a distinct possibility, but no, it was me.
I don’t remember making the decision to cross the avenue. All I recall is the truck bearing down on me and the strident horn blaring, serenading my transition to the afterlife. I didn’t feel any pain; on the contrary, I was filled with such an overwhelming exaltation that I was afraid my body couldn’t bear it. My fears were groundless because there was my body sprawled halfway beneath the truck, motionless; the groceries comprising the ingredients of that night’s dinner encircling my head like a halo. I knew immediately what had transpired.
My main concern was for the driver. I could feel his pain and disorientation so intensely that it became my own. I was hovering now and the scene below unfolded before me much like an overhead crane shot in the movies, complete with Surround Sound and Dolby Noise Reduction. I heard cries of “Oh, no” and “Oh, my God“ and “Call 911” as I watched the driver leap from the cab and inspect the grizzly tableau he had had such a sudden and reluctant hand in crafting. The truth be told, it wasn’t that grizzly. Not a lot of blood, surprisingly. The driver wasn’t so detached. When he realized I was a goner, he turned and collapsed his head in his arms across the hood of the cab and began sobbing. Like a remote controlled move camera, I zoomed down about his shoulders and tried my best to console him. It was futile.
Even though I felt more expressively tuned in than I ever remember, my ability to affect reality, as we know it, was gone. What a waste. When we are alive and possess the ability to have a direct impact on those around us, we avoid it. We shy away from their humanity and involve ourselves with goals and agendas to perpetuate our own grandeur. Here was this truck driver, a man I might never have had the opportunity to engage, except maybe to flip the bird to on a highway somewhere, and I no longer had use of the tools to communicate with him. Only now could I feel his humanity, having shed my own.
A slow dissolve back to the overhead crane … people are running toward the body. I recognize some of them … casual friends, neighbors, shopkeepers and … the Ice Princess. She pushes herself past the curious and the concerned, kneels over my carcass, and commences to wail … “Sid … Sid … Oh, no … Oh my God … Sid!” It was heart wrenching; and also a bit shocking because my name is Sal, as in Salvatore. But how did she know enough to come that close? I didn’t think she knew I existed. When the emergency personnel arrived she was at them constantly, “Please, please … isn’t there anything you can do?” “He’s gone, lady. What am I gonna do?” replied one medic who had exceeded his call quota that day. “Are you his wife?” Her eyes searched the heavens for guidance; then softly, “It was my dream.” The gall!
My funeral was a hoot. Mom was there, adding this latest burden to her resume for martyrdom. So were a couple of ex-girlfriends, Gail and Linda. Gail showed with her current beau, who fidgeted nervously while I was being eulogized ad nauseum by his ladylove. She went on about my character, my loyalty, my dedication, and my capacity for loving. If I had known any of this while I was breathing, she might not have been an ex. Linda had a curious take on reality. She offered a cherished memory in such a weepy, dulcet manner that it tore our hearts in twain. It seems she was happiest when we were lying in bed together, eating ice cream and singing show tunes and laughing and … her voice broke off and she sobbed sweetly and discretely. It was truly touching and genuine, no doubt, except for one detail. It never happened. I despise show tunes, have no tolerance for ice cream, and no memory of us even smiling in bed together. Where did they come up with this stuff?
Jack said I was a “good guy” and that I threw a mean curveball. He even went on to describe how it would break down just off the plate and away from right-handed batters. I was flattered, but I couldn’t throw a curve to save my life. I even tried shouting from the chapel rafters, “Fastball, Jack … I threw a fastball,” but the error stood and was entered into the record.
I wondered if my father felt just as disconcerted during his funeral, or if he even attended it. I was becoming increasingly frustrated by these erroneous accounts of my being, when Uncle Vito cut a fart on his way to the podium and eased the tension, for me at least. “Good kid … love him … miss him.” And out. Thank you, Uncle Vito.
Just when it seemed that all was said, and the coughing and shuffling augured a timely exit, a slender, shadowy figure in black emerged from the rear of the chapel and deliberately made her way to the podium. All fell silent, their curiosity piqued. It was HER! The girl I loved in solitude and lost in passing. She allowed the black scarf encircling her head to fall about her shoulders and reveal her glorious flaxen hair. She took a moment to scan their faces, one by one it seemed. She had the house and she knew it. The air was hushed with expectancy as she raised her head slightly, parted those lovely pouting lips, and delivered thusly. “My relationship with Sal was a very spiritual one.”
You could hear a pin drop. Oh, where was Uncle Vito now? “Sal …Sal … I know you can hear me.” At least she got the name right. “For so long we spoke with looks and gestures and with our hearts. Yes, always with our hearts. We were silent lovers in a cold, uncaring world, but we have survived that. You are as close to me now as ever.”
Whose funeral was this? I didn’t know this Sal; this loyal, loving, dedicated, ice cream slurping, show tune squealing, curveball slinging, soul mate of a man. Who were these people I spent my precious time on earth with, all striving to know me in retrospect? They were ridiculous. I looked down at them now, huddled together like scared, confused children, and I had to laugh. If they only knew how feeble they sounded in their futile efforts to sum me up; feeble and pathetic.
And then came the LIGHT! Like a gentle flash of lightening it filled me with awe and compassion. I could see it all and my heart was overflowing. Yes, I loved these people; these noble creatures that endeavored to make sense of their lives without a clear understanding of what it was all about. These wonderful beings who, though dealing with their own fears and uncertainties, tend to their fallen and honor their dead. These glorious children of grace. And I had been one of them. I loved us all with an indescribable joy.
It was then that the scene below me began to fade in the distance as I zoomed back to an eternity of warmth and light; the ultimate crane shot. I understood more than I ever knew possible … and I understood exactly where I was going. I had an appointment to keep. Seeing my father’s welcoming smile set off a wave of childlike enthusiasm and I blurted out, “Hey Dad, guess what? I made it!”
© 1996 by John Cannatella
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Genius Interruptus
Tyrone was a great storyteller. There have been great storytellers throughout history, Greek, Irish, Native American, who have been lauded, published and even appreciated in their own lifetimes, but in his time, in his crowd, in his way, Tyrone was the best. His enthusiasm when warming to a subject was contagious, as it must be for any spinner of the yarn to be deserving of acclaim in their field, and his subjects and descriptions were as fresh and spontaneous in the latest retelling, which could conceivably run in the scores, as when first related. He could build to a climax, sense the temperament of the listener or listeners, and deliver just the right inflection, at just the right time, for optimum effect. His instincts were flawless, his performances legendary. And as with all great achievers caught in the frailty of their humanity, he had his ‘Achilles’ Heel’ and it defeated him at every turn.
The ‘Achilles’ concept, inspiration for Homer and his mythological brethren, more acutely manifest in the modern world as psychosis for Van Gogh, scandal for Wilde, and liquor for Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and Behan, was for Tyrone the sheer aggravation and frustration in the pursuit of bringing a finely modulated, intricately structured tale to its final conclusion. Not that any of this was of his own doing, or undoing to be precise. He neither courted nor encouraged the elements that strove to abort his stirring finales. He was victim, pure and simple, to an uncanny coincidence that disrupted his masterstroke at the point of climax every time, anyplace, and under all variety of circumstance. He was cursed.
If he were telling a joke to co-workers, he would be interrupted at the punch line by either manager or customer, every time. If he were relating an incident to an intimate, in his home, the telephone would ring at the pinnacle of profundity, every time. Anticipation didn’t help matters; phone off, doorbell rings, two, three, four o’clock in the morning. Every time.
Restaurants were particularly disturbing. “She looked him in the eye and said …” would inevitably end in “Would you like to hear tonight’s specials?” There were myriad variations on this theme of course, the dropped tray, the thunderstruck yelp in response to a proposal of marriage, separation, or an announcement of impending nativity, the always possible and ever annoying surprise birthday cake complete with candles, smiling servers, and a chorus of reluctant amateur choristers including himself. It seemed years since Tyrone had articulated a complete thought to an eager recipient and the stress was beginning to show. The amiable, social butterfly would snap and snarl at approaching potential interlopers. If you had lips, you were the enemy.
It would begin in the same fashion. Tyrone would scope out the area for likely candidates who might gatecrash his performance, cast an eye out for impending nuisances, begin his account in a self-conscious, measured manner to the point of no return, and then let fly with all intention and inflection intact, ardent in the pursuit of the perfect punch line. Imminent interruption would not rear its ugly presence until he was well on the way to conclusion. It was a maddening cycle of déjà vu that would haunt his every waking hour and discourage peaceful repose. The man was marked, pure and simple.
The day finally came when he was too deflated to offer up a rousing yarn, even when encouraged. Why contend with the elements when the deck is stacked and he obviously held no favor with the gods of chance? This was the day his philosophy was born. This was the crystal instant when Tyrone had a peek behind the curtain and he would never view his life the same again.
What Tyrone saw was astounding in its representation and simplicity? He was holding forth while behind the counter at his retail job on a slow, snowy night in December. The store was empty. The streets were empty. His two co-workers were attending him conscientiously and focused on his every word. He was a paragraph away from finishing his story when his eye caught a figure looking in at the window. His heart stood still while his lips kept the momentum going. As he was building toward his climax, he checked the office at the rear of the shop and he saw Tiffany, his manager, who was busy at her computer, stretch out her arm somewhat theatrically to clear the sleeve of her blouse, reach behind her head to adjust a barrette and glance into the hub of the shop. At that precise moment the window shopper opened the door and shouted across, “Are you still opened?” All eyes and ears turned toward the intruder. Tiffany leaped from her desk and began a cordial trek across the floor. “Yes we are, for another hour.” The inquiring, potential customer clad in Eskimo-like attire from hood to boots, than backed out of the door with, “Oh, that’s okay. I’m better off coming in tomorrow.” And out into the storm of the century without achieving a single objective other than to thwart the grand finale of a well-crafted tale.
The gambit had been exposed and all pretext revealed. This gatecrasher wasn’t coming back tomorrow, which indeed she did not. She had fulfilled her purpose in aborting the climax of his story and had been sent packing, back to central casting for another assignment. Tiffany’s cue had been obeyed and executed with adroit stagecraft and the mission had been completed according to plan. No satisfaction or praise would visit Tyrone tonight, or any other night. The conspiracy was laid bare once and for all. The manager’s strategy could not have been any clearer in its apparent purpose. This was no random ambush by the terrorist forces of chance. This was a carefully planned, orchestrated, and choreographed intrusion on the finely honed talents of a master of his trade (non-paying). This was, then, nothing less than the invasion by a covert super power that had singled him out as expendable and was determined to render him redundant in a timely fashion. With the gesture of a sweeping arm, his manager had furtively called “Action” and the plan rolled into effect without a hitch and never aroused the suspicions of his former captive audience. But now, at least and at last, he knew. Tiffany was more than a store manager. She was a stage manager. Tyrone quit the next day.
Once the grand scenario was revealed to him, Tyrone saw through it in every instance. He felt empowered by this exclusive knowledge of how our every action is anticipated and redirected by a clandestine preeminence until the impetus of one’s primary motive is dissipated and rendered useless. He also felt alone and inadequate to the task of alerting others to this implausible conspiracy. The light of revelation is only reserved for those who comprehend the whole in the shards and fragments of daily existence and, being thus exclusive, remains veiled from the perceptive scope of the innocent. He would be regarded as a lunatic and his voice would no longer command a rapt audience. Better to retire now with his reputation intact than to risk such a fall from grace. Better to restrict his talent voluntarily than be invited to subside.
Tyrone drifted for a while. He couldn’t hold down a job. He saw the machinations behind the scenes, especially in the realm of management, and knew he could no longer tolerate the deception. He no longer told stories for the eager consumption of his peers and was considered to be, for a while, a quiet, vigilant worker, but his ability to abide and conform to the tyranny was compromised entirely. He soon became a malcontent and unemployable.
After being delinquent in his rent for several months and no longer able to stave off the legal process, Tyrone took to the streets. The timing was perfect in that it was a June eviction and the alternatives weren’t all that bad. At first he crashed with a few friends, but after a couple of weeks he found himself sleeping on rooftops and in hallways until commanded to leave the premises. He spent his afternoons loitering around travel agencies in anticipation of an unguarded moment when he could lift a brochure or two endorsing a sunny locale foreign to the hardships of winter. He did this as much as he could, for his appearance was deteriorating by the day and his deceptions were becoming more obvious. He knew he needed to formulate a plan before the arctic air would begin to drift down from Canada and derail his current arrangement with the downward spiral of his life.
The days flew by and Tyrone adjusted to his new lifestyle without much trauma. It surprised him how little he needed to survive. The further withdrawn he became from the culture he once swore allegiance to, the more independent his nature grew, until he no longer recognized a need to recapture the trappings of his former life. He adapted quite well to the daily struggle for food and shelter that was the custom of his newly found brethren and relished the occasion to devise the creative resources that were requisite to achieve these ends.
At first he traveled alone, keeping to himself and eschewing all tendered kinship, while absorbing the fundamental lore of abandoned buildings, back alleys, and garbage cans. He would make mistakes and be ousted more than once from these locations, but the adventure of discovery kept him going so that each new day was a seminar in resilience. When he decided that he wasn’t learning fast enough to ensure his nocturnal security, or his safety in neighborhoods and establishments of questionable civility, he began to accept the counsel of his peers. After all, he reasoned, the wheel in this vocation had long since been invented and why not jump on board and catch up to speed before the frost set in? During this juncture in his life and in this humor, he welcomed the first friendly scrounger he encountered.
They called him Cicero. He was a veteran of the streets and seemed to know everyone; the dispossessed, the drunks, the druggies, the loonies, even the shopkeepers and janitors. He was a veritable encyclopedia of street life and he had come along at just the right moment in Tyrone’s odyssey.
They met at the rear entrance of the Romano Restaurant in Soho. Tyrone was sifting through a garbage can for discarded scraps of protein. A voice advised him to “Leave that shit for the rookies.” When Tyrone looked up to see where the recommendation had come from, he discovered an elfish, bearded man sitting on the metal steps leading up to the kitchen door. The speaker had raised his hand and was wiggling his fingers so Tyrone could locate him without a protracted scan of the darkened alleyway.
The man appeared somewhat disheveled, but his attire suggested a hint of elegance. He appeared to be in his fifties and he wore oval, wire-framed bifocals. He sported a dingy knit tie over a light pink shirt, or an old white shirt that had been mixed in with the colors once too often, although it seemed ages since it had seen a wash. These were complimented by a brown corduroy jacket that suggested the wearer spent many long hours pounding out dialogue, themes, and plot twists in the pursuit of literary excellence. His raven black hair was sparse, but none-the-less long and tousled. All of these conflicting elements suggested that he was rather fastidious in his negligence.
“If you can wait, there‘ll be fresh stuff coming out any minute.”
Tyrone approached the back steps cautiously, not from any sense of trepidation, but from an innate respect for the space occupied by another being. As he drew nearer, the bare, dim bulb above the kitchen door revealed more details of this strange little man and his curious motif, curious in view of his current standing in the social order. This new information proved to be even more perplexing. He wore denim trousers, frayed to a pleasing powder blue with fringes at the cuffs that were more telling than decorative. These strands of decaying thread aptly covered the northern frontiers of a pair of dark leather cowboy boots that appeared to be fresh off a Wells Fargo stagecoach.
“Nice boots.”
“They were my dads’. He loved them so much he couldn’t bear to expose them to the elements. I have honored that tradition until now. I don’t have a choice anymore. All I have is necessity, my one true companion these days. Not that I’m complaining. Necessity simplifies things, keeps them clear and uncluttered.”
Tyrone understood this invitation to engage and his approach became more assured. He placed an arm on the railing and leaned in with a wink.
“Speaking of necessity, what was that about ‘fresh stuff’?” This seemed to get a rise from his new comrade in penury.
“Ah, I like that,” the man coughed up after a short expression of glee. “A deft segue none-the-less direct in its archery. My name is Cicero, and this is where I usually feed two or three times a week. You are welcomed to graze with me.”
“I’m Tyrone and I believe I will accept your gracious invitation.” Tyrone fought off an unconscious impulse to bow.
“One of the chef’s helpers is an old friend,” Cicero explained. “He saves the overage for me before it can be trashed. There is more than enough for both of us.”
“And what may I bring to the banquet?” inquired Tyrone, offering his outstretched hand in unity.
“Oh, I do like the cut of your jib,” hooted Cicero as he enthusiastically clutched Tyrone’s hand in both of his. “Sir, you may bring your wit, your insight, and the fulfillment of what appears to be a very promising collaboration.” With that, the kitchen door flew open and a shaft of light flooded the newly acquainted men in a snapshot tableau of brotherhood. The silhouette of the kitchen helper, a bounty of fragrant cuisine in his arms, gave celebratory promise to the enduring image.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“The gods are messing with us, no doubt about it,” offered Cicero as he finished off the last of a paper plate of Linguini Marinara. “You have to figure out in just what way you have angered them and attempt reparations.”
Tyrone scooped up a mound of tomato sauce with a piece of Italian bread. “That sounds a little too much like Father Conlan to me. I left all that guff way back in “Once Upon a Time.”
“Well,” savored Cicero as he swallowed his mouthful after a toothless mash, “It’s more like Mother Nature you have to appease. She is very much upon our time. I know, I know … about now you‘re figuring that maybe this guy is a bit loony tunes.”
“If you’re going to invoke a hellfire and brimstone sermon, I just might entertain that thought,” Tyrone rejoined with a nervous grin. “I’ll just pass it off as playful repartee until confirmed.”
“You can pass it off as gas, for all I care. You don’t arrive at my august circumstance in life worrying about public opinion.”
Tyrone decided to allow the exchange to run its course. “Okay, so how have I offended Mother Nature?”
“Who knows? There are many ways to affront the elements that serve to sustain our lives on this planet, don’t you agree?”
Tyrone was once again intrigued by his companion. “I won’t argue that point.”
“Of course not. How could you? How could anyone? Yet, many disregard its significance in favor of convenience. After all, we are Man. We rule the earth and reshape it to our liking. We have achieved monumental advances beyond the capabilities of any other life form extant. Yet our legacy will be renowned for just one contribution above all others. We are the greatest purveyors of garbage the universe has ever endured. We pollute everything we touch … physically, mentally, and spiritually. Our greed and self-interest knows no bounds. And, unlike the creatures we share the soil with, our excrement cannot be absorbed, decayed, or destroyed. We, after all, invented plastic. These are sins, much more serious than lying, stealing, or coveting. These are sins committed against ourselves in a mad, mindless tango of self-loathing. Thus have we offended Mother Nature.”
“Amen,” was uttered with more substantive resolve than Tyrone had ever expressed in his youthful catechism.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Amazing. You have truly seen behind the curtain of our collective reality,” Cicero announced over his Linguini Alfredo, once again at the back of the Romano the next evening, after enduring another detailed recounting of the tribulations of the master storyteller. “I was aware there was a force, but the particulars escaped my notice. Maybe because I function in a more structured environment than you.”
“How’s that?” Tyrone replied, somewhat astonished by his friend’s blatant declaration.
“Well,” the purveyor of back alley wisdom continued, “ I would have to say that, although your ability to weave an intriguing yarn is first rate, your choice of venues has been somewhat amateurish. You have, heretofore, been content with captivating your audiences in shops, cafes, and parlors. You have limited control, if any at all, in such settings. You are just leaving yourself open for the amusement of the gods.”
Tyrone stared at his companion dubiously. “You really believe these so called gods have nothing better to do than mess with me?”
“Is that any more implausible than seeing the hand of some unwitting stagehand conducting an orchestration of frustration, all in your honor? It’s really the same thing, isn’t it? What for you is bible, for me is balderdash? Ah, you are straddling a double standard, my friend, and it is unbecoming.”
“Point well taken.” Tyrone regarded his eggplant for a moment. “So, what would a more professional venue be?”
“The stage, of course. The podium, rostrum, dais, platform, pulpit … these are like churches. The gods of mischief dare not enter. Disruption is not tolerated. Interruption is a sacrilege. The faithful in these venues are agreed on one point, the natural progression of a tale to its crafted conclusion. It is the sole reason they are there. The tickets have been sold, the register is closed, phones are rendered inoperable, there is nothing between you and climax. When you perform anywhere else, workplace, restaurant, street corner, you are selling yourself to the moneychangers and they will function whether you are on a roll or not. You are not the purpose. You are a sideshow.”
Tyrone grasped the light at once. “To be or not to be, eh?”
“Ah, that is the answer.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Later, in their search for evening quarters, they came upon an abandoned building in SoHo. Cicero led the way through a side entrance that he seemed quite familiar with.
“This is almost always accommodating for an undisturbed rest,” he muttered as they squeezed their way through a large, rusted, double metal door. “The lords of the land can’t quite figure out what to do with it, so we’ll provide it with a purpose for the night.”
Even in the darkened interior Tyrone could tell the structure was rather cavernous and he made his way around by feeling for the borders of its contour. Once at the opposite end he stopped and tried to quicken his eye adjustment for the purpose of satisfying an increasingly pressing need.
“Piss … piss … I gotta’ piss somewhere,” he whispered to himself and to whatever inner demons intent on tormenting his bladder.
“There’s a lobby just behind you and what’s left of a pair of toilets,” Cicero advised him in a low, casual voice.
“How the hell did you hear me?”
“You don’t have to shout. This was once a theatre and the acoustics were superior. Still are, obviously. I would appreciate it if you at least used the lobby section for your relief. If the sound can carry, can the odor be far behind?”
Tyrone was aware of a soft, self-satisfied, contained chuckle on the part of his cohort.
“You’re really pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Ah, so that information was conveyed quite accurately, was it? Imagine if there were lights, eh. The air itself would be teeming with vision and initiative. It would crackle with invention. Inspiration would fly from the footlights and alight on every head in the house like the Holy Spirit at table.”
A trickle of satisfaction was heard from the back of the house, accompanied by, “I hear every word you’re saying, I just can’t wait. Ah, sweet release, I sing thy praises in this moment of urinary rapture.”
“Ah, less of a poet and more of an actor, “ sighed Cicero as he explored the flooring at the base of the proscenium apron. “His citation is dramatic and his voice stentorian, but his sensibility remains decidedly base.”
“I heard that.” The voice was moving closer.
“You were meant to.”
“You think I’m an actor?”
“I think you exhibit a distinct potential for ham, yes. But you are still a piglet and have much to learn.”
“I like this quality. When my voice carries out, it returns to me and I can enjoy the effect as one of the audience.”
“I’ll cure you of that,” Cicero nonchalantly offered. “It’s bad form to indulge in one’s own sense of grandeur. It will be noticed and it will be resented.” He walked along the stage apron and came across a mass of material piled at the end that appeared to be the remnants of what was once a curtain. “Ah, here, take some of this for bedding. I will sleep here under the footlights. You shall take the stage and get comfortable with it. Your training has begun.”
Tyrone could not fall asleep immediately and was still awake some thirty minutes later. He turned on his side and peered through the darkness to see if Cicero had fallen out as yet.
“I’m still awake, if that’s what you want to know.”
“I can’t sleep either,” Tyrone confessed. “I’m thinking about this theatre thing. I never thought of myself as a performer really. I must admit, its kind of exciting to think about.”
“I know.” Cicero turned on his side facing Tyrone who was a few feet above him on stage level. “I could hear you thinking. Its been keeping me up.”
“I feel something … I don’t know what it is. I feel sort of alive again, like when I was a kid.”
“You are beginning to sense your way.”
“My way?”
“Your path … your Tao. You are being reborn, but first you had to go through the pains of being delivered.”
“Yeah, but delivered from what?”
“The world. Let us begin at the beginning. You were born, naked, alone … absolutely and completely unique. Then you found your mother and love was first defined for you. You were given a name so you would know what to call yourself, an identity in the family hierarchy, a nationality, a religion, a code of ethics. You were told who you were before you ever had a chance to find out for yourself. Your world was defined for you and all you had to do was live up to it. Then came your first brush with doubt and disappointment.”
Tyrone propped himself up on one elbow. “That there was no God?”
“No Santa Claus, but close enough. You get the idea. Same thing, really. Another myth passed along without much rhyme or reason except to keep you boxed in to your given identity”
“Okay, so then … when did this rebirthing begin?”
“When you saw behind the curtain. It doesn’t matter if your theory was right on the money or just an aspect of a passing paranoia. You just decided once and for all that nothing, really, was as valid as portrayed by your co-habitants on the planet. You realized you had to re-invent yourself or die clinging to the dogma of a desperate generation that is clinging to the desperate dogma of the last generation. You broke the circle. Doing that is painful. It involves doubting yourself because what reassured your father doesn’t reassure you any longer. To deny that element is to deny your father. Birth is always an agony of transition, but you must become the father of the child that is still asking the questions you ceased asking when you entered adulthood. The pat answers and slogans don’t work for you anymore.”
“So I do what, erase the past?”
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. Listen, you have a history, one that you know is real because you lived it. Good or bad, don’t let it go to waste. Use it. Keep it as a guide because, as you know, history has a history of repeating itself.”
“So, how did you break the mold?”
“Ah, I was most fortunate. I had a strange father who had no desire to make me into what he could never be. When I asked him, at a very early age, what was the meaning of it all and was there really a god, he told me that searching for answers was one of my job requirements in life and that he wasn’t about to do my job for me. He also told me that I might find a few answers along the way, but not necessarily to the questions I ask.”
“It sounds like he was a wise man.”
“He was. I honor him in my own way. He had his own ideas and he allowed me to have mine. I do wear his boots though.”
“What did he do for a living?
Cicero shifted position until he was on his back, his hands clasped behind his head, staring into the vastness of an invisible firmament.
“He buried people.”
Tyrone was intrigued.
“A hit man? No wait … an undertaker.
“Close. A gravedigger. A bit of a philosopher also, but the digging paid the bills.”
“And your mom?”
Cicero felt a crick in his neck and repositioned his arms across his chest.
“Never knew her. I vaguely remember a spectral, feminine presence when I was very young … more a sense of her than anything substantial.”
Tyrone sensed that he should tread these waters lightly.
“I’m sorry. How did she pass?”
“Pass?
“Pass away. You know, die. I’m striving for delicacy here.”
The interviewee let out a little chuckle.
“You certainly are. Well, she may have passed, but she didn’t die. She passed away from us to join the circus.”
“You’re joking. That’s ridiculous.”
“It certainly is. Actually, she ran away to devote her life to the theatre. We never heard from her again. To his enduring credit, my father refused to farm me out to relatives, even when things got rough. We soldiered on, the two of us, through all the vagaries and condiments of life’s grand feast. We survived the indigestible parts, shat it out, and came back for more.”
Tyrone was impressed with his companion’s ability to navigate the waters of disenchantment with such aplomb.
“I find it somewhat amazing that you have such a respect and passion for the theatre. I would think that jealousy or resentment would have drained you of that.”
Cicero cleared his throat with a swift and efficient expulsion of air.
“On the contrary. The theatre represents, for me, all the possibilities that might have been. If dear mum had stayed, the course of her life, and ours, would have been etched in stone, as concrete and absolute as typeface. In the world of theatre, it might have evolved into any number of promising scenarios, each holding a potential for the fantastical meanderings of a creative, rambunctious mind. The promise is what keeps our lives together for the long haul, the result is but a few moments of satisfaction, usually lost in the numbness of achievement.”
Tyrone remained rooted in the secular.
“You don’t hate her for what she did?”
“I am incapable of hating someone I don’t know. Her actions will be accounted for in her own reality, dependent on her own ethics. I’d be better served attending to my personal liabilities.”
Tyrone was not persuaded by this alleged profession of detachment.
“Yeah, but what she did was … reprehensible.”
Cicero tired of the inquiry and rolled on to his side, his back to Tyrone.
“I cannot answer for her.”
He was asleep before Tyrone offered a confession of his own.
“My mother was always telling me to sit down and shut up. She was afraid I might say something offensive and embarrass her. I wish she had run away and joined the circus.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Cicero had no idea how long he’d been asleep when he drowsily became aware of the footlights in operation. They weren’t turned up all the way, but he was amazed they worked at all.
He soon realized that Tyrone was no longer camped downstage center, but a muted spotlight revealed and illuminated a woman in Elizabethan finery posed royally on a decorative throne. She appeared to be enacting Queen Gertrude from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The scene unfolded thusly:
Gertrude
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Cicero
Now, mother, what's the matter?
Gertrude
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Cicero
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Gertrude
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Cicero
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Gertrude
Why, how now, Hamlet!
Cicero
What's the matter now?
Gertrude
Have you forgot me?
Cicero
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your theatre husband's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
Gertrude
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Cicero
Why did you abandon us?
Gertrude
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Cicero
Then I will leave you to your fate, as you did me.
Gertrude
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Enter Ghost (Tyrone, stumbling back from the lobby)
“Every time I get comfortable these days, I gotta take another leak. Who were you talking to? Cicero, come on, I heard you.”
Cicero never answered and Tyrone didn’t persist, not detecting his corpse until the next morning. Tyrone told his story that day at the precinct, with a pair of cowboy boots tucked under his arm, and sometime later he repeated it nightly during his one-man show addressing the complex nature of familial consequence at a theatrical venue in the city. All concerned listened intently and no one interrupted him.
© 2005 by John Cannatella
The ‘Achilles’ concept, inspiration for Homer and his mythological brethren, more acutely manifest in the modern world as psychosis for Van Gogh, scandal for Wilde, and liquor for Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and Behan, was for Tyrone the sheer aggravation and frustration in the pursuit of bringing a finely modulated, intricately structured tale to its final conclusion. Not that any of this was of his own doing, or undoing to be precise. He neither courted nor encouraged the elements that strove to abort his stirring finales. He was victim, pure and simple, to an uncanny coincidence that disrupted his masterstroke at the point of climax every time, anyplace, and under all variety of circumstance. He was cursed.
If he were telling a joke to co-workers, he would be interrupted at the punch line by either manager or customer, every time. If he were relating an incident to an intimate, in his home, the telephone would ring at the pinnacle of profundity, every time. Anticipation didn’t help matters; phone off, doorbell rings, two, three, four o’clock in the morning. Every time.
Restaurants were particularly disturbing. “She looked him in the eye and said …” would inevitably end in “Would you like to hear tonight’s specials?” There were myriad variations on this theme of course, the dropped tray, the thunderstruck yelp in response to a proposal of marriage, separation, or an announcement of impending nativity, the always possible and ever annoying surprise birthday cake complete with candles, smiling servers, and a chorus of reluctant amateur choristers including himself. It seemed years since Tyrone had articulated a complete thought to an eager recipient and the stress was beginning to show. The amiable, social butterfly would snap and snarl at approaching potential interlopers. If you had lips, you were the enemy.
It would begin in the same fashion. Tyrone would scope out the area for likely candidates who might gatecrash his performance, cast an eye out for impending nuisances, begin his account in a self-conscious, measured manner to the point of no return, and then let fly with all intention and inflection intact, ardent in the pursuit of the perfect punch line. Imminent interruption would not rear its ugly presence until he was well on the way to conclusion. It was a maddening cycle of déjà vu that would haunt his every waking hour and discourage peaceful repose. The man was marked, pure and simple.
The day finally came when he was too deflated to offer up a rousing yarn, even when encouraged. Why contend with the elements when the deck is stacked and he obviously held no favor with the gods of chance? This was the day his philosophy was born. This was the crystal instant when Tyrone had a peek behind the curtain and he would never view his life the same again.
What Tyrone saw was astounding in its representation and simplicity? He was holding forth while behind the counter at his retail job on a slow, snowy night in December. The store was empty. The streets were empty. His two co-workers were attending him conscientiously and focused on his every word. He was a paragraph away from finishing his story when his eye caught a figure looking in at the window. His heart stood still while his lips kept the momentum going. As he was building toward his climax, he checked the office at the rear of the shop and he saw Tiffany, his manager, who was busy at her computer, stretch out her arm somewhat theatrically to clear the sleeve of her blouse, reach behind her head to adjust a barrette and glance into the hub of the shop. At that precise moment the window shopper opened the door and shouted across, “Are you still opened?” All eyes and ears turned toward the intruder. Tiffany leaped from her desk and began a cordial trek across the floor. “Yes we are, for another hour.” The inquiring, potential customer clad in Eskimo-like attire from hood to boots, than backed out of the door with, “Oh, that’s okay. I’m better off coming in tomorrow.” And out into the storm of the century without achieving a single objective other than to thwart the grand finale of a well-crafted tale.
The gambit had been exposed and all pretext revealed. This gatecrasher wasn’t coming back tomorrow, which indeed she did not. She had fulfilled her purpose in aborting the climax of his story and had been sent packing, back to central casting for another assignment. Tiffany’s cue had been obeyed and executed with adroit stagecraft and the mission had been completed according to plan. No satisfaction or praise would visit Tyrone tonight, or any other night. The conspiracy was laid bare once and for all. The manager’s strategy could not have been any clearer in its apparent purpose. This was no random ambush by the terrorist forces of chance. This was a carefully planned, orchestrated, and choreographed intrusion on the finely honed talents of a master of his trade (non-paying). This was, then, nothing less than the invasion by a covert super power that had singled him out as expendable and was determined to render him redundant in a timely fashion. With the gesture of a sweeping arm, his manager had furtively called “Action” and the plan rolled into effect without a hitch and never aroused the suspicions of his former captive audience. But now, at least and at last, he knew. Tiffany was more than a store manager. She was a stage manager. Tyrone quit the next day.
Once the grand scenario was revealed to him, Tyrone saw through it in every instance. He felt empowered by this exclusive knowledge of how our every action is anticipated and redirected by a clandestine preeminence until the impetus of one’s primary motive is dissipated and rendered useless. He also felt alone and inadequate to the task of alerting others to this implausible conspiracy. The light of revelation is only reserved for those who comprehend the whole in the shards and fragments of daily existence and, being thus exclusive, remains veiled from the perceptive scope of the innocent. He would be regarded as a lunatic and his voice would no longer command a rapt audience. Better to retire now with his reputation intact than to risk such a fall from grace. Better to restrict his talent voluntarily than be invited to subside.
Tyrone drifted for a while. He couldn’t hold down a job. He saw the machinations behind the scenes, especially in the realm of management, and knew he could no longer tolerate the deception. He no longer told stories for the eager consumption of his peers and was considered to be, for a while, a quiet, vigilant worker, but his ability to abide and conform to the tyranny was compromised entirely. He soon became a malcontent and unemployable.
After being delinquent in his rent for several months and no longer able to stave off the legal process, Tyrone took to the streets. The timing was perfect in that it was a June eviction and the alternatives weren’t all that bad. At first he crashed with a few friends, but after a couple of weeks he found himself sleeping on rooftops and in hallways until commanded to leave the premises. He spent his afternoons loitering around travel agencies in anticipation of an unguarded moment when he could lift a brochure or two endorsing a sunny locale foreign to the hardships of winter. He did this as much as he could, for his appearance was deteriorating by the day and his deceptions were becoming more obvious. He knew he needed to formulate a plan before the arctic air would begin to drift down from Canada and derail his current arrangement with the downward spiral of his life.
The days flew by and Tyrone adjusted to his new lifestyle without much trauma. It surprised him how little he needed to survive. The further withdrawn he became from the culture he once swore allegiance to, the more independent his nature grew, until he no longer recognized a need to recapture the trappings of his former life. He adapted quite well to the daily struggle for food and shelter that was the custom of his newly found brethren and relished the occasion to devise the creative resources that were requisite to achieve these ends.
At first he traveled alone, keeping to himself and eschewing all tendered kinship, while absorbing the fundamental lore of abandoned buildings, back alleys, and garbage cans. He would make mistakes and be ousted more than once from these locations, but the adventure of discovery kept him going so that each new day was a seminar in resilience. When he decided that he wasn’t learning fast enough to ensure his nocturnal security, or his safety in neighborhoods and establishments of questionable civility, he began to accept the counsel of his peers. After all, he reasoned, the wheel in this vocation had long since been invented and why not jump on board and catch up to speed before the frost set in? During this juncture in his life and in this humor, he welcomed the first friendly scrounger he encountered.
They called him Cicero. He was a veteran of the streets and seemed to know everyone; the dispossessed, the drunks, the druggies, the loonies, even the shopkeepers and janitors. He was a veritable encyclopedia of street life and he had come along at just the right moment in Tyrone’s odyssey.
They met at the rear entrance of the Romano Restaurant in Soho. Tyrone was sifting through a garbage can for discarded scraps of protein. A voice advised him to “Leave that shit for the rookies.” When Tyrone looked up to see where the recommendation had come from, he discovered an elfish, bearded man sitting on the metal steps leading up to the kitchen door. The speaker had raised his hand and was wiggling his fingers so Tyrone could locate him without a protracted scan of the darkened alleyway.
The man appeared somewhat disheveled, but his attire suggested a hint of elegance. He appeared to be in his fifties and he wore oval, wire-framed bifocals. He sported a dingy knit tie over a light pink shirt, or an old white shirt that had been mixed in with the colors once too often, although it seemed ages since it had seen a wash. These were complimented by a brown corduroy jacket that suggested the wearer spent many long hours pounding out dialogue, themes, and plot twists in the pursuit of literary excellence. His raven black hair was sparse, but none-the-less long and tousled. All of these conflicting elements suggested that he was rather fastidious in his negligence.
“If you can wait, there‘ll be fresh stuff coming out any minute.”
Tyrone approached the back steps cautiously, not from any sense of trepidation, but from an innate respect for the space occupied by another being. As he drew nearer, the bare, dim bulb above the kitchen door revealed more details of this strange little man and his curious motif, curious in view of his current standing in the social order. This new information proved to be even more perplexing. He wore denim trousers, frayed to a pleasing powder blue with fringes at the cuffs that were more telling than decorative. These strands of decaying thread aptly covered the northern frontiers of a pair of dark leather cowboy boots that appeared to be fresh off a Wells Fargo stagecoach.
“Nice boots.”
“They were my dads’. He loved them so much he couldn’t bear to expose them to the elements. I have honored that tradition until now. I don’t have a choice anymore. All I have is necessity, my one true companion these days. Not that I’m complaining. Necessity simplifies things, keeps them clear and uncluttered.”
Tyrone understood this invitation to engage and his approach became more assured. He placed an arm on the railing and leaned in with a wink.
“Speaking of necessity, what was that about ‘fresh stuff’?” This seemed to get a rise from his new comrade in penury.
“Ah, I like that,” the man coughed up after a short expression of glee. “A deft segue none-the-less direct in its archery. My name is Cicero, and this is where I usually feed two or three times a week. You are welcomed to graze with me.”
“I’m Tyrone and I believe I will accept your gracious invitation.” Tyrone fought off an unconscious impulse to bow.
“One of the chef’s helpers is an old friend,” Cicero explained. “He saves the overage for me before it can be trashed. There is more than enough for both of us.”
“And what may I bring to the banquet?” inquired Tyrone, offering his outstretched hand in unity.
“Oh, I do like the cut of your jib,” hooted Cicero as he enthusiastically clutched Tyrone’s hand in both of his. “Sir, you may bring your wit, your insight, and the fulfillment of what appears to be a very promising collaboration.” With that, the kitchen door flew open and a shaft of light flooded the newly acquainted men in a snapshot tableau of brotherhood. The silhouette of the kitchen helper, a bounty of fragrant cuisine in his arms, gave celebratory promise to the enduring image.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“The gods are messing with us, no doubt about it,” offered Cicero as he finished off the last of a paper plate of Linguini Marinara. “You have to figure out in just what way you have angered them and attempt reparations.”
Tyrone scooped up a mound of tomato sauce with a piece of Italian bread. “That sounds a little too much like Father Conlan to me. I left all that guff way back in “Once Upon a Time.”
“Well,” savored Cicero as he swallowed his mouthful after a toothless mash, “It’s more like Mother Nature you have to appease. She is very much upon our time. I know, I know … about now you‘re figuring that maybe this guy is a bit loony tunes.”
“If you’re going to invoke a hellfire and brimstone sermon, I just might entertain that thought,” Tyrone rejoined with a nervous grin. “I’ll just pass it off as playful repartee until confirmed.”
“You can pass it off as gas, for all I care. You don’t arrive at my august circumstance in life worrying about public opinion.”
Tyrone decided to allow the exchange to run its course. “Okay, so how have I offended Mother Nature?”
“Who knows? There are many ways to affront the elements that serve to sustain our lives on this planet, don’t you agree?”
Tyrone was once again intrigued by his companion. “I won’t argue that point.”
“Of course not. How could you? How could anyone? Yet, many disregard its significance in favor of convenience. After all, we are Man. We rule the earth and reshape it to our liking. We have achieved monumental advances beyond the capabilities of any other life form extant. Yet our legacy will be renowned for just one contribution above all others. We are the greatest purveyors of garbage the universe has ever endured. We pollute everything we touch … physically, mentally, and spiritually. Our greed and self-interest knows no bounds. And, unlike the creatures we share the soil with, our excrement cannot be absorbed, decayed, or destroyed. We, after all, invented plastic. These are sins, much more serious than lying, stealing, or coveting. These are sins committed against ourselves in a mad, mindless tango of self-loathing. Thus have we offended Mother Nature.”
“Amen,” was uttered with more substantive resolve than Tyrone had ever expressed in his youthful catechism.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Amazing. You have truly seen behind the curtain of our collective reality,” Cicero announced over his Linguini Alfredo, once again at the back of the Romano the next evening, after enduring another detailed recounting of the tribulations of the master storyteller. “I was aware there was a force, but the particulars escaped my notice. Maybe because I function in a more structured environment than you.”
“How’s that?” Tyrone replied, somewhat astonished by his friend’s blatant declaration.
“Well,” the purveyor of back alley wisdom continued, “ I would have to say that, although your ability to weave an intriguing yarn is first rate, your choice of venues has been somewhat amateurish. You have, heretofore, been content with captivating your audiences in shops, cafes, and parlors. You have limited control, if any at all, in such settings. You are just leaving yourself open for the amusement of the gods.”
Tyrone stared at his companion dubiously. “You really believe these so called gods have nothing better to do than mess with me?”
“Is that any more implausible than seeing the hand of some unwitting stagehand conducting an orchestration of frustration, all in your honor? It’s really the same thing, isn’t it? What for you is bible, for me is balderdash? Ah, you are straddling a double standard, my friend, and it is unbecoming.”
“Point well taken.” Tyrone regarded his eggplant for a moment. “So, what would a more professional venue be?”
“The stage, of course. The podium, rostrum, dais, platform, pulpit … these are like churches. The gods of mischief dare not enter. Disruption is not tolerated. Interruption is a sacrilege. The faithful in these venues are agreed on one point, the natural progression of a tale to its crafted conclusion. It is the sole reason they are there. The tickets have been sold, the register is closed, phones are rendered inoperable, there is nothing between you and climax. When you perform anywhere else, workplace, restaurant, street corner, you are selling yourself to the moneychangers and they will function whether you are on a roll or not. You are not the purpose. You are a sideshow.”
Tyrone grasped the light at once. “To be or not to be, eh?”
“Ah, that is the answer.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Later, in their search for evening quarters, they came upon an abandoned building in SoHo. Cicero led the way through a side entrance that he seemed quite familiar with.
“This is almost always accommodating for an undisturbed rest,” he muttered as they squeezed their way through a large, rusted, double metal door. “The lords of the land can’t quite figure out what to do with it, so we’ll provide it with a purpose for the night.”
Even in the darkened interior Tyrone could tell the structure was rather cavernous and he made his way around by feeling for the borders of its contour. Once at the opposite end he stopped and tried to quicken his eye adjustment for the purpose of satisfying an increasingly pressing need.
“Piss … piss … I gotta’ piss somewhere,” he whispered to himself and to whatever inner demons intent on tormenting his bladder.
“There’s a lobby just behind you and what’s left of a pair of toilets,” Cicero advised him in a low, casual voice.
“How the hell did you hear me?”
“You don’t have to shout. This was once a theatre and the acoustics were superior. Still are, obviously. I would appreciate it if you at least used the lobby section for your relief. If the sound can carry, can the odor be far behind?”
Tyrone was aware of a soft, self-satisfied, contained chuckle on the part of his cohort.
“You’re really pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Ah, so that information was conveyed quite accurately, was it? Imagine if there were lights, eh. The air itself would be teeming with vision and initiative. It would crackle with invention. Inspiration would fly from the footlights and alight on every head in the house like the Holy Spirit at table.”
A trickle of satisfaction was heard from the back of the house, accompanied by, “I hear every word you’re saying, I just can’t wait. Ah, sweet release, I sing thy praises in this moment of urinary rapture.”
“Ah, less of a poet and more of an actor, “ sighed Cicero as he explored the flooring at the base of the proscenium apron. “His citation is dramatic and his voice stentorian, but his sensibility remains decidedly base.”
“I heard that.” The voice was moving closer.
“You were meant to.”
“You think I’m an actor?”
“I think you exhibit a distinct potential for ham, yes. But you are still a piglet and have much to learn.”
“I like this quality. When my voice carries out, it returns to me and I can enjoy the effect as one of the audience.”
“I’ll cure you of that,” Cicero nonchalantly offered. “It’s bad form to indulge in one’s own sense of grandeur. It will be noticed and it will be resented.” He walked along the stage apron and came across a mass of material piled at the end that appeared to be the remnants of what was once a curtain. “Ah, here, take some of this for bedding. I will sleep here under the footlights. You shall take the stage and get comfortable with it. Your training has begun.”
Tyrone could not fall asleep immediately and was still awake some thirty minutes later. He turned on his side and peered through the darkness to see if Cicero had fallen out as yet.
“I’m still awake, if that’s what you want to know.”
“I can’t sleep either,” Tyrone confessed. “I’m thinking about this theatre thing. I never thought of myself as a performer really. I must admit, its kind of exciting to think about.”
“I know.” Cicero turned on his side facing Tyrone who was a few feet above him on stage level. “I could hear you thinking. Its been keeping me up.”
“I feel something … I don’t know what it is. I feel sort of alive again, like when I was a kid.”
“You are beginning to sense your way.”
“My way?”
“Your path … your Tao. You are being reborn, but first you had to go through the pains of being delivered.”
“Yeah, but delivered from what?”
“The world. Let us begin at the beginning. You were born, naked, alone … absolutely and completely unique. Then you found your mother and love was first defined for you. You were given a name so you would know what to call yourself, an identity in the family hierarchy, a nationality, a religion, a code of ethics. You were told who you were before you ever had a chance to find out for yourself. Your world was defined for you and all you had to do was live up to it. Then came your first brush with doubt and disappointment.”
Tyrone propped himself up on one elbow. “That there was no God?”
“No Santa Claus, but close enough. You get the idea. Same thing, really. Another myth passed along without much rhyme or reason except to keep you boxed in to your given identity”
“Okay, so then … when did this rebirthing begin?”
“When you saw behind the curtain. It doesn’t matter if your theory was right on the money or just an aspect of a passing paranoia. You just decided once and for all that nothing, really, was as valid as portrayed by your co-habitants on the planet. You realized you had to re-invent yourself or die clinging to the dogma of a desperate generation that is clinging to the desperate dogma of the last generation. You broke the circle. Doing that is painful. It involves doubting yourself because what reassured your father doesn’t reassure you any longer. To deny that element is to deny your father. Birth is always an agony of transition, but you must become the father of the child that is still asking the questions you ceased asking when you entered adulthood. The pat answers and slogans don’t work for you anymore.”
“So I do what, erase the past?”
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. Listen, you have a history, one that you know is real because you lived it. Good or bad, don’t let it go to waste. Use it. Keep it as a guide because, as you know, history has a history of repeating itself.”
“So, how did you break the mold?”
“Ah, I was most fortunate. I had a strange father who had no desire to make me into what he could never be. When I asked him, at a very early age, what was the meaning of it all and was there really a god, he told me that searching for answers was one of my job requirements in life and that he wasn’t about to do my job for me. He also told me that I might find a few answers along the way, but not necessarily to the questions I ask.”
“It sounds like he was a wise man.”
“He was. I honor him in my own way. He had his own ideas and he allowed me to have mine. I do wear his boots though.”
“What did he do for a living?
Cicero shifted position until he was on his back, his hands clasped behind his head, staring into the vastness of an invisible firmament.
“He buried people.”
Tyrone was intrigued.
“A hit man? No wait … an undertaker.
“Close. A gravedigger. A bit of a philosopher also, but the digging paid the bills.”
“And your mom?”
Cicero felt a crick in his neck and repositioned his arms across his chest.
“Never knew her. I vaguely remember a spectral, feminine presence when I was very young … more a sense of her than anything substantial.”
Tyrone sensed that he should tread these waters lightly.
“I’m sorry. How did she pass?”
“Pass?
“Pass away. You know, die. I’m striving for delicacy here.”
The interviewee let out a little chuckle.
“You certainly are. Well, she may have passed, but she didn’t die. She passed away from us to join the circus.”
“You’re joking. That’s ridiculous.”
“It certainly is. Actually, she ran away to devote her life to the theatre. We never heard from her again. To his enduring credit, my father refused to farm me out to relatives, even when things got rough. We soldiered on, the two of us, through all the vagaries and condiments of life’s grand feast. We survived the indigestible parts, shat it out, and came back for more.”
Tyrone was impressed with his companion’s ability to navigate the waters of disenchantment with such aplomb.
“I find it somewhat amazing that you have such a respect and passion for the theatre. I would think that jealousy or resentment would have drained you of that.”
Cicero cleared his throat with a swift and efficient expulsion of air.
“On the contrary. The theatre represents, for me, all the possibilities that might have been. If dear mum had stayed, the course of her life, and ours, would have been etched in stone, as concrete and absolute as typeface. In the world of theatre, it might have evolved into any number of promising scenarios, each holding a potential for the fantastical meanderings of a creative, rambunctious mind. The promise is what keeps our lives together for the long haul, the result is but a few moments of satisfaction, usually lost in the numbness of achievement.”
Tyrone remained rooted in the secular.
“You don’t hate her for what she did?”
“I am incapable of hating someone I don’t know. Her actions will be accounted for in her own reality, dependent on her own ethics. I’d be better served attending to my personal liabilities.”
Tyrone was not persuaded by this alleged profession of detachment.
“Yeah, but what she did was … reprehensible.”
Cicero tired of the inquiry and rolled on to his side, his back to Tyrone.
“I cannot answer for her.”
He was asleep before Tyrone offered a confession of his own.
“My mother was always telling me to sit down and shut up. She was afraid I might say something offensive and embarrass her. I wish she had run away and joined the circus.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Cicero had no idea how long he’d been asleep when he drowsily became aware of the footlights in operation. They weren’t turned up all the way, but he was amazed they worked at all.
He soon realized that Tyrone was no longer camped downstage center, but a muted spotlight revealed and illuminated a woman in Elizabethan finery posed royally on a decorative throne. She appeared to be enacting Queen Gertrude from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The scene unfolded thusly:
Gertrude
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Cicero
Now, mother, what's the matter?
Gertrude
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Cicero
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Gertrude
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Cicero
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Gertrude
Why, how now, Hamlet!
Cicero
What's the matter now?
Gertrude
Have you forgot me?
Cicero
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your theatre husband's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
Gertrude
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Cicero
Why did you abandon us?
Gertrude
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Cicero
Then I will leave you to your fate, as you did me.
Gertrude
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Enter Ghost (Tyrone, stumbling back from the lobby)
“Every time I get comfortable these days, I gotta take another leak. Who were you talking to? Cicero, come on, I heard you.”
Cicero never answered and Tyrone didn’t persist, not detecting his corpse until the next morning. Tyrone told his story that day at the precinct, with a pair of cowboy boots tucked under his arm, and sometime later he repeated it nightly during his one-man show addressing the complex nature of familial consequence at a theatrical venue in the city. All concerned listened intently and no one interrupted him.
© 2005 by John Cannatella
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Validation - A memoir
The year was 1963, a time of change and a personal epiphany in my nineteen plus years on the planet. I was almost a man. In fact, I was living independently since my parents had made the move to California from the Bronx the year before to follow in the pioneer footsteps of my older brother and sister and their families. I was, of course, included in the transition, but my heart and ambitions were in New York, and I had returned to follow my fortunes after a short and futile adaptation phase on the West Coast. I felt ready to tackle life on my own terms and my mother conceded in permitting her headstrong youngest to depart the herd. Yeah, I pestered her to distraction.
My father, an accomplished carpenter, cabinetmaker, and independent contractor with a sterling reputation in the New York area, had returned to the Bronx to attend to unfinished business in the spring of that year. It was a rare occurrence when we had quality time together in my youth, so this opportunity was priceless for me. I decided it was time to assert my adult status and take him to a ballgame at Yankee Stadium. Although not a baseball enthusiast, he had taken me to ballgames when I was a kid and I wanted to return the favor. I purchased tickets for the Yankees versus the then Kansas City Athletics game on May 22nd.
We had seats in the grandstand along the third base line and I proceeded to pepper my father with every fact I knew about Mickey Mantle, whom I believed to be the greatest baseball player ever. Not only was he the most powerful hitter in the game, the first switch-hitter to be so I informed him, but he was also the fastest, another first.
Every time the Mick came to bat I went into spasms of ecstasy. “Watch him Dad, watch what he does,” I would alert, just in case he might miss some great, eminent feat. My father, a very patient, tolerant man, would try to assuage my exalted expectations.
“That’s alright, John. He doesn’t have to prove it every time. I believe you.” I knew that in his infinite wisdom he was trying to protect me from major disappointment. That wasn’t enough for me. I wanted him to see greatness with his own eyes. I wanted him to know I wasn’t just a frenzied fan, that all my hyperbole was truly warranted.
In his first at bat, the Mick hit a screaming line drive that handcuffed the rightfielder for a hit. He was intentionally walked twice in the course of the game and struck out once if memory serves, which threw me into fits of frustration, my father exerting his calming influence each time. When the Athletics tied the game at 7 all to send it into extra innings, I was delighted because that meant that Mickey might get another at bat. Witnessing this, my father questioned whether I was a Yankee fan or a Mantle crusader. I was embarrassed and dejected. I just wanted my dad to see that I was right about something and my passion not misplaced. I was the youngest, after all, and never taken seriously within my family circle. My best shot at validation was through my father, who was always loving and supportive. I wanted to reward him with proof of my facility to estimate excellence.
When I was younger and playing ball, my family never came to any of my games. My parents drove by while I was coming to bat once and, having hit a home run earlier, I was determined to impress them with a prodigious shot. I, of course, struck out. That was it, the only instance where I might have been lauded for my talents. I remained unappreciated and disregarded when it came to attempts at achievement, a strong inducement to leave the family bosom a couple of years later.
Now here I was, freshly liberated and treating my dad to a ballgame as a significant rite of passage, and I wanted the moment to shine. This was my last shot at being taken seriously and I dumped the responsibility of the moment on the muscular shoulders of a crippled and fading athlete who would only hit a total of 15 home runs that year and was clearly approaching his decline. I was thrilled to see the Mick draw near the plate to lead off the bottom of the 11th inning and I’m sure my father worried for my state of mind if a desired result wasn’t achieved. In an instant that stands in crystal relief in my minds eye, Bill Fischer threw a fastball that Mickey Mantle met with perfect precision and force and he drove the ball against the rightfield façade with a bang that echoed throughout the stadium and startled all in attendance. This was no ordinary game winning homerun. The façade at Yankee Stadium, an overhang at the very pinnacle of the third deck, was only hit once before. That was on May 30th, 1956 by none other than … Mickey Mantle! That shot was hit off Pedro Ramos of the Washington Senators and was a high Ruthian arc that hit the façade on the way down (620 feet) and made headlines. This time, with my father and I attending, the ball was a rising laser that hit the façade on the way up, almost leaving the stadium altogether, and is considered the longest homerun ever hit in the history of the game (An estimated 734 feet).
I watched as the Kansas City players strolled slowly off the field, looking up in amazement and pointing to where the ball hit. Instead of raucous cheers there was awed silence as the fans filed out of the stadium that night. There was a palpable sense of having witnessed something inhuman and quite impossible pervading the crowd and the only appropriate response was respectful stillness. My father didn’t speak until we were in the car and almost back at our rented room. Even I had the presence of mind to recognize the moment and keep my enthusiastic mouth shut. I was, in fact, quite awestruck and at a loss for words. The events of the evening had exceeded all expectations and needed no further accounting. It would be blasphemy.
I have since grown into the world and, while sustaining enthusiasm as a valued approach to living. I no longer wax manic at the achievements of others, or myself for that matter. It’s all good and substance can be found in humble surroundings. Still, the contribution that Mickey Mantle unconsciously made to the relationship of a loving father and his coming-of-age son will stay with me until my last day. At just the right moment, in the right place, Mickey Mantle did something uncommon to confirm my estimation of him, his abilities, and his hero status. He stood up for me, as I had for him, and accomplished something miraculous. With one swing of the bat he heralded my entrance into manhood and presented me with the gift of self-assurance that would endure and sustain me for the rest of my life.
© 2007 by John Cannatella
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