They were the children of children he had taught, and they were playing a game he had not noticed before. Using only their legs and feet, they exchanged a hackysack ball between them. He saw hook shots off insteps, slap shots off ankles. Saves by working knees and thighs. Evidently no hands were permitted. Exchanges continued until the ball hit the ground. A winner was declared amid gales of laughter. Forthwith a new game began. The ball seemed to be made of compressed rags. It had no bounce. Nobody had to chase it far.
A boy of about fifteen, wearing a floppy Rastafarian tam, scooted up on an X-treme Skateboard and joined the game.
After years of witnessing playground evil, Artie Hoffman found himself astounded and amazed by this display of good sportsmanship and love of the game. Humble as it was. Indeed, these lads were the children of children he had taught. Loudly playing in the parking lot of the Mutual Aid co-operative food store not far from Victoria, British Columbia.
*
One of the children he had taught was a woman of forty-two.
Kelly Alabama.
No one seemed to know her real name or care to know. She stood four feet ten inches. She violated his notion of symmetry. Suspended like gourds from her birdlike frame, her breasts were too large. Enormous pendulous things that sagged in defeat against her concave belly.
When she first darkened his office doorway he saw only fleeting wrinkles in time. Like cloud shadows scudding over a meadow. She was the wraith fortold in a dream.
"Mister Hoffman?"
"Call me Artie. Come in."
She wore an oversized Lynyrd Skynyrd tee-shirt. Black with Dixie Stars and Bars emblazoned across the back. A checkered flannel shirt was tied by the sleeves around her waist. Her bluejean shorts had been bleached threadbare across the buttocks. As she approached his desk her sandals clap-clapped like chalk erasers in the amber late afternoon.
Up close he saw the first stages of crow's feet, etchings upon a pinched waxen face. And either she was balding or someone had cut her Kickapoo hair with a weed-whacker.
"What's your name, young lady?"
"Kelly. I was born in Alabama."
"How did you come all this way?"
"I would really love to tell you, Mister Artie. But right now I need your permission to join your third-grade class."
The school was one for applied individual learning and was organized like a commune.
She pushed an official document across his blotter.
"I'd be honored to be your teacher, Miss Kelly from Alabama.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
salome unveiled 3
Salome's strip scene axed Tom between his blue peepers. He ogled the woman, eyes drawn to the pubic delta. His pituitary gland fired electric sparks. Everything around him began to pulse. Inflating, deflating. Colors deepened and grew warm. He was sweating through a panic attack.
Damn that faggot Kit Pico. I never should have listened to him and taken that crazy herb!
Then his glans betrayed him with a small seepage of semen. Not since he was sixteen, slouching like Holden Caufield, low in that tubercular Times Square den of iniquity, watching a Johnny Wad flick, had he experienced such an Oops! Moment.
"Are you all right, Mon Cher?"
"I'm fine."
The playwright had handed him a hefty bag of raw damiana. A massive dose, Tom was told, would activate a part of the brain never before experienced. And he could then control anyone for whom he felt lust.
"Dude, you will be hearing the person's thoughts! While seducing that person you will have total mind control! You won't be creating a love zombie. You will be creating a warm, vibrant lover. Dig it!"
*
It was clear to Tom that she was no svelte ingenue. He marveled at her unabashed revelations. Her body was a garden of earthly delights. She gyrated with feral abandon. A doomed seductress, writhing in mental torment. Opera! Bravo! The full-throated voice mesmerized him with an opiate tongue.
Solange sat enthralled.
She moved with Salome. They together were two mermaids in synchronized swim. Her soul ascended with each swell of music. Bodily she rose up, arching her spine. Then a subtle force propelled her toward Tom, and she collided with his roiling aura. Two quanta of energy melded, golden and sublime.
*
In the hall of her hotel Tom stood brain-bashed while Solange rummaged through her purse for the room key. Freud be damned! he was thinking. He lusted for this woman, ancient enough to be his dear old grandmother. He could almost feel his tongue removing surgical pins from her brittle bones. His cock stiffened like a phallic effigy at the Tiberian bath on the Isle of Capri. He would fuck the crone within an inch of her life!
Solange retrieved the key. "Voilla!"
Hoarsely he echoed: "Vwallah, eh."
He closed in, nose to ear. Beneath the Chanel #5 lurked something acrid, like stale caviar.
He touched her tiny elbow with the force of eider down dusting a snowdrift.
Summoning all he was good for, he searched her eyes for guidance.
Nothing. Nada.
Demurely she hugged him and kissed his earlobe. "I have had a wonderful time, Squire Tom. Bon soir."
Her door closed quietly and he stood alone in the hall.
*
Solange peeled off her clothes. She inspected her gams and thought they were still quite nice. Cyd Charisse in "Silk Stockings"!
Then in a blush of elation she performed for the closet mirror.
Truly this had been an evening of enchantment. The glorious music had given her that extended orgasm. At her age! Even that craven young man had been stimulating!
Standing naked she scrunched her toes, making divots in the shag carpet.
She donned a blue chemise and opened a cold Perrier. She sat crosslegged upon the wide bed.
A magazine lay open and there was an article on Susan Sontag. A ghastly photograph showed Sontag lying in state, no longer the quick-faced luminary with a white streak through the black bouffant. Solange found this too depressing. She clicked the TV and found Yo Yo Ma in concert.
Damn that faggot Kit Pico. I never should have listened to him and taken that crazy herb!
Then his glans betrayed him with a small seepage of semen. Not since he was sixteen, slouching like Holden Caufield, low in that tubercular Times Square den of iniquity, watching a Johnny Wad flick, had he experienced such an Oops! Moment.
"Are you all right, Mon Cher?"
"I'm fine."
The playwright had handed him a hefty bag of raw damiana. A massive dose, Tom was told, would activate a part of the brain never before experienced. And he could then control anyone for whom he felt lust.
"Dude, you will be hearing the person's thoughts! While seducing that person you will have total mind control! You won't be creating a love zombie. You will be creating a warm, vibrant lover. Dig it!"
*
It was clear to Tom that she was no svelte ingenue. He marveled at her unabashed revelations. Her body was a garden of earthly delights. She gyrated with feral abandon. A doomed seductress, writhing in mental torment. Opera! Bravo! The full-throated voice mesmerized him with an opiate tongue.
Solange sat enthralled.
She moved with Salome. They together were two mermaids in synchronized swim. Her soul ascended with each swell of music. Bodily she rose up, arching her spine. Then a subtle force propelled her toward Tom, and she collided with his roiling aura. Two quanta of energy melded, golden and sublime.
*
In the hall of her hotel Tom stood brain-bashed while Solange rummaged through her purse for the room key. Freud be damned! he was thinking. He lusted for this woman, ancient enough to be his dear old grandmother. He could almost feel his tongue removing surgical pins from her brittle bones. His cock stiffened like a phallic effigy at the Tiberian bath on the Isle of Capri. He would fuck the crone within an inch of her life!
Solange retrieved the key. "Voilla!"
Hoarsely he echoed: "Vwallah, eh."
He closed in, nose to ear. Beneath the Chanel #5 lurked something acrid, like stale caviar.
He touched her tiny elbow with the force of eider down dusting a snowdrift.
Summoning all he was good for, he searched her eyes for guidance.
Nothing. Nada.
Demurely she hugged him and kissed his earlobe. "I have had a wonderful time, Squire Tom. Bon soir."
Her door closed quietly and he stood alone in the hall.
*
Solange peeled off her clothes. She inspected her gams and thought they were still quite nice. Cyd Charisse in "Silk Stockings"!
Then in a blush of elation she performed for the closet mirror.
Truly this had been an evening of enchantment. The glorious music had given her that extended orgasm. At her age! Even that craven young man had been stimulating!
Standing naked she scrunched her toes, making divots in the shag carpet.
She donned a blue chemise and opened a cold Perrier. She sat crosslegged upon the wide bed.
A magazine lay open and there was an article on Susan Sontag. A ghastly photograph showed Sontag lying in state, no longer the quick-faced luminary with a white streak through the black bouffant. Solange found this too depressing. She clicked the TV and found Yo Yo Ma in concert.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
salome unveiled 2
Tom dawdled at the elevator, uncertain of himself. On the surface this Benoit dame was arid as the Mojave. It was her scent that hinted her secret moisture. He met her on the way out and they rode down together. The confines of the steel cube increased her attraction.
Immediately he engaged her with small talk. His tongue acting as flipper, the bon mots rolled like pinballs inside his brain. He found himself talking more than listening, and she was telling him something.
It will have to be today, Squire Tom.
"Why?"
"Because I am leaving New York tomorrow. Where should we meet?"
He told her Washington Square, a place any cabby could find.
*
There was a tony sidewalk cafe with a view of the Arch. A raggedy-andy vagabond dressed in army surplus olive and khaki played a banjo, actually riffing the melody made popular by the Village Stompers. He was no Bela Fleck, but folks tossed coins into his open banjo case.
Tom arrived early and took a ringside seat.
Meanwhile, Solange was sitting in a Starbucks, peering over rimless reading glasses at the postmodern self-absorbed ambulatory denizens of Greenwich Village. Her Tazo tea tasted of pomegranite and made her think of her young squire. Why she did not know. He actually smelled of the gymnasium and manly deodorant.
This place reminded her of her of another java hut. It too had been jammed with New Yorkers obsessed with their elusive goals. Instead of Starbucks lincoln green that one sported linoleum, chrome and Formica. Its brew was rich and smooth and proletarian, costing less than a buck.
Chock-Full-Of-Nuts.
She was in New York to visit her old lover Kit Pico, whose play "Zafra" was to be staged inside a rat cellar vamping as a theatre. A gift would be appropriate. Kit loved Lyonel Feininger. She had been told of an art shop owned by an orgre who delighted in haggling. She would see who could strike the best deal! It was there she met that achingly intense mystical Jew, Artie Hoffman. Amateur art historian and part-time guide at the Whitney.
Moody brown-eyed Artie Hoffman. Siddartha wearing an NYU sweatshirt.
*
The first time Artie Hoffman showed her around, he took her to the miniature Arch of Triumph and she thought it was cute. At a bookshop he bought her a copy of the love letters between Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir. Such a quaint and sentimental lover, her Artie.
She was late for her date with Squire Tom!
Climbing breathlessly into the cab, she gasped, "Washington Square!"
They crossed the Avenue of Americas, and she recalled the Bristol Hotel and her room there, with a window she could open to the snappy fall breeze. Looking out, she inhaled a scent like no other. Manhattan. Below she saw a crowded street unrolling into the distance like a slick black carpet. Her block retained a 1950s neon glow. Brownstone niches and oblong glass facades. Jackson Pollack had flung his paint upon sidewalk and curb.
On that first night in New York she took a solitary stroll and found a jazz club with an open door. She glimpsed a black man gleaming in purple light. Like Shiva with multiple arms flailing the air, he beat drums with the rhythms of a thousand hearts.
Retracing her way home she lost her bearings. Finally she saw a man loafing in a doorway. She asked him, "Do you know where the Bristol Hotel might be, Monsieur?"
He cocked his head and laughed, and thumbed upward to the overhead sign.
Bristol Hotel.
They laughed together.
By the next night she knew her turf well enough to lead Artie Hoffman up to the room. Later, but not too much later, the snappy fall breeze lifted the bedside curtains.
*
Tom had never known a woman to be early. Some had been on time, but never early. That was how his mind worked.
Slats of his chair pressed into warm flesh, and he asked himself: what the hell was he doing? what was it about this older-than-the-hills Benoit woman?
A few yards away three college girls sat at a similar table, sharing a carafe of white wine. Each had a copy of the same textbook. Open to the same page. To the same illustration of a set of healthy breasts. One girl fingered her breasts just forward of her armpits. Tracing over the cotton wale of her Abercrombie & Fitch tee-top. The other girls spoke in low conspiratoral voices. Tom sought for a metaphor.
"Cherchez la femme, Squire Tom?"
"Madam Benoit!"
"C'est moi."
To hide her crow's feet she wore aviator shades from Michael Kors. That anti-aging glycolic peel kit had not done the job. It had been a long time since she was forty, adorning herself with kohl, in the manner of Nazimova in "Salome" to lure young men. Tom noticed everything. Her firm ivory calves when she crossed her legs. The flatness of her tummy and the wonder of her Wonder Bra.
She handed Tom an envelope. "Would you care to escort me to the opera tonight?"
Tom looked at the tickets. "Sure--"
He hated opera. And his knowlege of Richard Strauss was limited to the music in "2001: A Space Odyssey." However, he had seen a review of this one. And the prospect of seeing Karita Mattila naked at the conclusion of Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils was most alluring.
"This ought to be great," Tom said. "I love Strauss."
Tom's idea of a blue ribbon date was taking a babe to Radio City for a show and a movie, then to a smart bistro for a light bite and a micro-brew. From that point, who knew? Once he had landed a babe in the sack by chancing upon a tattoo parlor and talking her into being inked below the bikini line.
"I study the Kabbala," she had said. So she chose a miniscule Chesed. For Tom, viewing that shiny shaved pussy was the perfect aperitif to mad monkey love.
Immediately he engaged her with small talk. His tongue acting as flipper, the bon mots rolled like pinballs inside his brain. He found himself talking more than listening, and she was telling him something.
It will have to be today, Squire Tom.
"Why?"
"Because I am leaving New York tomorrow. Where should we meet?"
He told her Washington Square, a place any cabby could find.
*
There was a tony sidewalk cafe with a view of the Arch. A raggedy-andy vagabond dressed in army surplus olive and khaki played a banjo, actually riffing the melody made popular by the Village Stompers. He was no Bela Fleck, but folks tossed coins into his open banjo case.
Tom arrived early and took a ringside seat.
Meanwhile, Solange was sitting in a Starbucks, peering over rimless reading glasses at the postmodern self-absorbed ambulatory denizens of Greenwich Village. Her Tazo tea tasted of pomegranite and made her think of her young squire. Why she did not know. He actually smelled of the gymnasium and manly deodorant.
This place reminded her of her of another java hut. It too had been jammed with New Yorkers obsessed with their elusive goals. Instead of Starbucks lincoln green that one sported linoleum, chrome and Formica. Its brew was rich and smooth and proletarian, costing less than a buck.
Chock-Full-Of-Nuts.
She was in New York to visit her old lover Kit Pico, whose play "Zafra" was to be staged inside a rat cellar vamping as a theatre. A gift would be appropriate. Kit loved Lyonel Feininger. She had been told of an art shop owned by an orgre who delighted in haggling. She would see who could strike the best deal! It was there she met that achingly intense mystical Jew, Artie Hoffman. Amateur art historian and part-time guide at the Whitney.
Moody brown-eyed Artie Hoffman. Siddartha wearing an NYU sweatshirt.
*
The first time Artie Hoffman showed her around, he took her to the miniature Arch of Triumph and she thought it was cute. At a bookshop he bought her a copy of the love letters between Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir. Such a quaint and sentimental lover, her Artie.
She was late for her date with Squire Tom!
Climbing breathlessly into the cab, she gasped, "Washington Square!"
They crossed the Avenue of Americas, and she recalled the Bristol Hotel and her room there, with a window she could open to the snappy fall breeze. Looking out, she inhaled a scent like no other. Manhattan. Below she saw a crowded street unrolling into the distance like a slick black carpet. Her block retained a 1950s neon glow. Brownstone niches and oblong glass facades. Jackson Pollack had flung his paint upon sidewalk and curb.
On that first night in New York she took a solitary stroll and found a jazz club with an open door. She glimpsed a black man gleaming in purple light. Like Shiva with multiple arms flailing the air, he beat drums with the rhythms of a thousand hearts.
Retracing her way home she lost her bearings. Finally she saw a man loafing in a doorway. She asked him, "Do you know where the Bristol Hotel might be, Monsieur?"
He cocked his head and laughed, and thumbed upward to the overhead sign.
Bristol Hotel.
They laughed together.
By the next night she knew her turf well enough to lead Artie Hoffman up to the room. Later, but not too much later, the snappy fall breeze lifted the bedside curtains.
*
Tom had never known a woman to be early. Some had been on time, but never early. That was how his mind worked.
Slats of his chair pressed into warm flesh, and he asked himself: what the hell was he doing? what was it about this older-than-the-hills Benoit woman?
A few yards away three college girls sat at a similar table, sharing a carafe of white wine. Each had a copy of the same textbook. Open to the same page. To the same illustration of a set of healthy breasts. One girl fingered her breasts just forward of her armpits. Tracing over the cotton wale of her Abercrombie & Fitch tee-top. The other girls spoke in low conspiratoral voices. Tom sought for a metaphor.
"Cherchez la femme, Squire Tom?"
"Madam Benoit!"
"C'est moi."
To hide her crow's feet she wore aviator shades from Michael Kors. That anti-aging glycolic peel kit had not done the job. It had been a long time since she was forty, adorning herself with kohl, in the manner of Nazimova in "Salome" to lure young men. Tom noticed everything. Her firm ivory calves when she crossed her legs. The flatness of her tummy and the wonder of her Wonder Bra.
She handed Tom an envelope. "Would you care to escort me to the opera tonight?"
Tom looked at the tickets. "Sure--"
He hated opera. And his knowlege of Richard Strauss was limited to the music in "2001: A Space Odyssey." However, he had seen a review of this one. And the prospect of seeing Karita Mattila naked at the conclusion of Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils was most alluring.
"This ought to be great," Tom said. "I love Strauss."
Tom's idea of a blue ribbon date was taking a babe to Radio City for a show and a movie, then to a smart bistro for a light bite and a micro-brew. From that point, who knew? Once he had landed a babe in the sack by chancing upon a tattoo parlor and talking her into being inked below the bikini line.
"I study the Kabbala," she had said. So she chose a miniscule Chesed. For Tom, viewing that shiny shaved pussy was the perfect aperitif to mad monkey love.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
salome revealed 1
"Knock knock?"
Cassandra Cruz looked up and saw that her top staff writer was back from his lunch hour at Gold's Gym. Tom had been a pudgy nebbish. He lost forty pounds and hardened his abs into a meaty washboard. How did she know this? The same way everyone else did. He was a show-off. He ate salads at his desk and on dress-down-Fridays he wore half-shirts baring his midriff. Nobody complained. It was that kind of environment. Today he looked chipper in a brown Norfolk jacket and blue jeans.
"Hey, Baby Boy. What's up?"
"Dropping off my proposed expenses. You know. For that symposium on Anti-Language in British Columbia."
"It's absolutely essesntial that you cover it. Correct?"
"I thought we'd agreed."
"We did. And we also agreed that I want more than the Five Ws. I want you to corner somebody with a soul to sell. Dig up a corpse or two."
"Got it, Chief."
She watched him go, noticing, as he went, the beginning of a bald spot. She wondered how long it would be before he took to wearing hats.
*
On his way to the elevator Tom met a woman in sleek attire. Her voice was soft as marshmallow in hot cocoa. "Pardon me, kind man. Are these the offices of the magazine Semio-Stage?"
"Yes. How may I help you?"
She offered a black suede hand. "I am Solange Benoit. I am here to find the editor. A Cassandra Cruz."
"Her office is the one with the big open door."
"Merci." A pert smile erased fifty years from her parchment face.
Ever the fox after MILF, Tom began his assessment. Pearl choker upon a wizened throat. Black short-waisted flannel suit, complimented by a silk silver blouse. He fancied her ensconced in a Tudor brasserie in Hell's Kitchen, Clinton, whatever, sipping dry Plymouth martinis. She would be chit-chatting about those French dames his boss often quoted.
What could HE offer on Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray?
Maybe he could slide into homebase talking about French cinema. Agnes Varda maybe.
He had actually liked "Le Bonneur" and "Cleo From 5 to 7."
*
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Incessant rapping. Like a demented woodpecker.
Cassandra looked up, annoyed. "May I help you with something?"
The elegant woman stood with brittle formality. "Perhaps you could give me a few minutes of your time?"
"I suppose. Shoot."
The visitor took a seat with the slow grace of an aged housecat. "My name is Solange Benoit. And I saw the article on Kit Pico."
"Yes?"
"Could you tell me how to contact him?"
Cassandra paused for thought.
She set her eyes upon the lithograph of Romaine Brook's portrait of Lady Trowbridge. Unconsciously she raised an eyebrow in the manner of Lady Trowbridge. "The article clearly stated that Kit had retreated to the Island of Saint James."
"I was hoping for a mailing address." Her voice began to fail. Strangely intimidated by the magazine editor. The gray butch haircut. The flat moonface.
Suddenly it flashed to Cassandra Cruz: Somehow I know this woman.
She said to Solange Benoit, "It sounds like you've been out of touch."
Ancient eyes welled with sadness. "For many years."
The same could be said for me, the magazine editor rued.
Cassandra Cruz looked up and saw that her top staff writer was back from his lunch hour at Gold's Gym. Tom had been a pudgy nebbish. He lost forty pounds and hardened his abs into a meaty washboard. How did she know this? The same way everyone else did. He was a show-off. He ate salads at his desk and on dress-down-Fridays he wore half-shirts baring his midriff. Nobody complained. It was that kind of environment. Today he looked chipper in a brown Norfolk jacket and blue jeans.
"Hey, Baby Boy. What's up?"
"Dropping off my proposed expenses. You know. For that symposium on Anti-Language in British Columbia."
"It's absolutely essesntial that you cover it. Correct?"
"I thought we'd agreed."
"We did. And we also agreed that I want more than the Five Ws. I want you to corner somebody with a soul to sell. Dig up a corpse or two."
"Got it, Chief."
She watched him go, noticing, as he went, the beginning of a bald spot. She wondered how long it would be before he took to wearing hats.
*
On his way to the elevator Tom met a woman in sleek attire. Her voice was soft as marshmallow in hot cocoa. "Pardon me, kind man. Are these the offices of the magazine Semio-Stage?"
"Yes. How may I help you?"
She offered a black suede hand. "I am Solange Benoit. I am here to find the editor. A Cassandra Cruz."
"Her office is the one with the big open door."
"Merci." A pert smile erased fifty years from her parchment face.
Ever the fox after MILF, Tom began his assessment. Pearl choker upon a wizened throat. Black short-waisted flannel suit, complimented by a silk silver blouse. He fancied her ensconced in a Tudor brasserie in Hell's Kitchen, Clinton, whatever, sipping dry Plymouth martinis. She would be chit-chatting about those French dames his boss often quoted.
What could HE offer on Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray?
Maybe he could slide into homebase talking about French cinema. Agnes Varda maybe.
He had actually liked "Le Bonneur" and "Cleo From 5 to 7."
*
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Incessant rapping. Like a demented woodpecker.
Cassandra looked up, annoyed. "May I help you with something?"
The elegant woman stood with brittle formality. "Perhaps you could give me a few minutes of your time?"
"I suppose. Shoot."
The visitor took a seat with the slow grace of an aged housecat. "My name is Solange Benoit. And I saw the article on Kit Pico."
"Yes?"
"Could you tell me how to contact him?"
Cassandra paused for thought.
She set her eyes upon the lithograph of Romaine Brook's portrait of Lady Trowbridge. Unconsciously she raised an eyebrow in the manner of Lady Trowbridge. "The article clearly stated that Kit had retreated to the Island of Saint James."
"I was hoping for a mailing address." Her voice began to fail. Strangely intimidated by the magazine editor. The gray butch haircut. The flat moonface.
Suddenly it flashed to Cassandra Cruz: Somehow I know this woman.
She said to Solange Benoit, "It sounds like you've been out of touch."
Ancient eyes welled with sadness. "For many years."
The same could be said for me, the magazine editor rued.
Monday, April 11, 2011
may this land remain uncorrupted
Mango idled for hours sitting in the sand and scrunching his toes. Listening to the warm wind hoot in his ears. No contemplation. Grief had stolen everything.
Yesterday his father had come down to the shore and invited him to the Dutchman for lunch. He could see that Henri Bertrand was lonely.
"I hate that big house, Father."
"Yes. I know your mind."
"But you do nothing."
"What do you mean? What is it you wish me to do. Rewrite the past?"
Mango fell silent, wishing the scoundrel would go away.
"All right. I'll go."
*
The tide had risen and waves were drenching the seat of his pants. Swirling around his ankles.
His notebook was completely ruined. No loss, he thought. The one poem in it had been embossed within him before he jotted it down.
Someone was approaching him. Walking through wavering bands of heat. Hannah Ramirez.
Sight of her was like rain upon a desert flower.
"Hello, Mango."
"Sit with me."
"Let's move to dry land, darling."
They sat side-by-side holding hands.
"I really miss him, Hannah."
"Of course you do. I miss him too."
"I have no new poetry in me."
"Give it time."
Mango fell silent. Then, feeling her warmth, he asked, "How did he make love to you?"
"With his whole being."
"With me he held back. Keeping something. What was it?"
"Joy."
*
Holding her sandclogs in one hand and her straw bonnet in the other, Hannah balanced her way along the Stinger Tail like a high-wire artist.
Mango called from behind: "Cover your feet!"
"I have tough feet. It's easier barefoot. Ouch!"
On Spanish Mound amid slanted coconut palms there was a fenced grave site. Inscribed on the memorial stone: LOVED BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM. "May this land remain uncorrupted." Robert Sinclair Radcliff/1944-1999.
*
Today they would celebrate his birthday with a summer sausage and a bottle of summer wine. Bringing up the rear with the picnic basket, Mango's head brimmed with poetry.
"Hannah! Hannah!"
Yesterday his father had come down to the shore and invited him to the Dutchman for lunch. He could see that Henri Bertrand was lonely.
"I hate that big house, Father."
"Yes. I know your mind."
"But you do nothing."
"What do you mean? What is it you wish me to do. Rewrite the past?"
Mango fell silent, wishing the scoundrel would go away.
"All right. I'll go."
*
The tide had risen and waves were drenching the seat of his pants. Swirling around his ankles.
His notebook was completely ruined. No loss, he thought. The one poem in it had been embossed within him before he jotted it down.
Someone was approaching him. Walking through wavering bands of heat. Hannah Ramirez.
Sight of her was like rain upon a desert flower.
"Hello, Mango."
"Sit with me."
"Let's move to dry land, darling."
They sat side-by-side holding hands.
"I really miss him, Hannah."
"Of course you do. I miss him too."
"I have no new poetry in me."
"Give it time."
Mango fell silent. Then, feeling her warmth, he asked, "How did he make love to you?"
"With his whole being."
"With me he held back. Keeping something. What was it?"
"Joy."
*
Holding her sandclogs in one hand and her straw bonnet in the other, Hannah balanced her way along the Stinger Tail like a high-wire artist.
Mango called from behind: "Cover your feet!"
"I have tough feet. It's easier barefoot. Ouch!"
On Spanish Mound amid slanted coconut palms there was a fenced grave site. Inscribed on the memorial stone: LOVED BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM. "May this land remain uncorrupted." Robert Sinclair Radcliff/1944-1999.
*
Today they would celebrate his birthday with a summer sausage and a bottle of summer wine. Bringing up the rear with the picnic basket, Mango's head brimmed with poetry.
"Hannah! Hannah!"
happy hour
Mango and Jimmy-Scamp were sipping Whitbread Ale in the pantry.
"You know, Cap counts his Whitbread like Mister Scrooge."
"Not when he's up in his room all the time," Mango snickered. "Mooning over Hannah and Mister Radcliff. The old fart is beside himself. Calling upon his Orishas. I can't stand it."
"Don't listen then."
Bang! The side screen door of the pub.
Jimmy-Scamp chugged the last of his ale, burped, and declared, "It's happy hour!"
"Happy happy happy."
Mango hid a Red Stripe inside his tropical shirt, ice cold against his tummy.
"Hold the fort, Jaime."
*
Mango passed by people entering the pub. Fat white people. He went outside where he found Mister Radcliff and Hannah were seated at the Cinzano table.
"Sit down, lad," Mister Radcliff beamed. "I was just telling Hannah about Horseshoe Crab Key."
"OK."
"What's that under your shirt?" Hannah asked, one eyebrow arched.
Sheepishly he withdrew the stolen bottle of beer.
"Very disrespectful, Mango," she clucked.
"Well, let me reiterate about Horseshoe Crab Key," Mister Radcliff interjected, letting Mango off the hook for the moment. "The lad here was very upset with me a few months ago."
"Upset? That's not the half of it, sir."
"I know."
"You were going to sell it to some Dubai corporation. And they were going to develope the key. Tear it all up to make room for condominiums."
"Not quite. I was seeking a developer. My plan was to create another Fire Island. A hedonist's paradise where anything goes. I was prepared to spend like there is no tomorrow, which there isn't."
Hannah scolded: "There is that fatalism again."
"As I was saying. The Dubai people fled the moment Saint James Academy filed an injunction. Moral
grounds, and all that."
"What happens now?" Mango asked.
"Nothing. I own the property. Upon my passing you and Hannah will inherit lock, stock and barrel."
"Oh my god," Hannah gasped. "Mango, did you hear that?"
Mango misted over. Tearfully, he hugged Mister Radcliff and kissed the gentleman's cheek.
*
A sunburned man with wide-set pig-eyes lunged into the pub. He walked five paces and jammed on his brakes. His wife skidded into his rump. "Holy shit!" He proclaimed in a baritone Alabama drawl, "There's more jungle bunnies in here than a Tarzan movie!"
Silence dropped like an opera curtain. Jimmy-Scamp turned to see who could be stupid enough to make such a remark. He saw a middle-aged man with a flat-top haircut and dressed in a Parrot Head tropical shirt.
Pig Eyes singled out Jimmy-Scamp: "Hey boy! Look here. Me and the wife want a booth. You hear?"
For an instant Jimmy-Scamp felt like punching the bastard. Then he broke into his best Steppin Fetchit. "Yassah boss, eyes heah yuh."
"Make it snappy."
"George," whined George's wife. "Don't make a scene."
"I ain't making no goddamned scene."
There was one vacant booth in the Jolly Roger. And it was reserved for Cap.
Jimmy Scamp said, "Ain no booths, boss. Hafta fine yo place outside."
"How about that one?"
"Nawsuh."
"Look here, you black--"
"Cool it, mate." The voice slammed shut like an iron maiden. No options offered.
In Cap's hand was an antique belaying spike.
He added, "Let's all go out to Hannah's patio. You'll like it a lot better."
Pig Eyes heard the menace in Cap's voice.
"Sounds reasonable."
*
At the bar a woman wearing a crimson turban sat with a man covered in a Panama Hat. Mango went to her and said hello while ignoring the man of mystery. "May I help you?"
Her alabaster face reminded him of a theatre mask.
"Yes," she answered. "I would like a Tom Collins."
"Coming right up." He was almost gone when the man snagged Mango's arm.
"Make that two."
"Yes, sir. Two Tom Collins."
The woman smiled and said to Mango, "I have a distinct notion you don't work here."
"Correct you are." At her implied behest, he decided to linger. She was a shapely forty-something in a revealing crimson halter-top. Her culottes were tan and snug in the crotch.
"We're on holiday," she began. "A kind young colored boy told us not to miss having a drink at the Jolly Roger while in port."
"He was ribbing you, madam."
*
Not too far from them at the bar sat a statuesque young black man. He radiated joy and good will. His smile was a message from heaven. He was drinking ginger beer with a blond nordic-looking woman with an eye patch. She was telling Jimmy-Scamp to light some citronella flambeaux on the patio if the mosquitoes became a problem.
"I'm sure I can find some. Thank you, Miss Jenny."
"Do me a favor. Play this CD when you can."
He looked at the plastic case and grinned.
The woman in crimson noted the clothes worn by Eye Patch. Blue denim cut-offs and a khaki army shirt. Sun and seawind had streaked her hair without mercy. French braid.
Suddenly the sound system captured everyone's attention. Marianne Faithfull sang in a sandpaper cigarette-corrupted voice. "And the ship. The black frieghter--"
*
Seated alone on the patio, Mister Radcliff gazed serenely at the sea. Beyond the seawall breakers crunched in moonlit majesty. Cap was out of Pinch, so he donated a bottle of his best Ron Metusalem. Smokey, golden, and smooth. Cap called it Burnt Rum.
Filled with blissful serenity, Mister Radcliff thought: I have nothing more to ask. Thinking thus, he
decided to smoke his last Virginia Number 3. A nearby frangipani clattered in the breeze.
*
George's wife looked across the patio at the man in a rumpled seasucker blazer and khaki Bermuda shorts. His frayed planter's hat completed the slob Tory ensemble. Somehow she was reminded of a character in a Graham Greene novel. A burnt out case. Such was the aura of doom.
She called to him. "Good evening!"
"T'is pleasant."
His accent thrilled her. A trace of a smile trembled upon his lips. He saluted her by tipping his hat.
"Who the hell is that you're talking to, Wife?"
"A gentleman."
"Looks like a queer to me."
Suddenly she screamed, "George! Look!"
Furtively something moved in the shadows beyond the croton hedge. A man, creeping like a prowler. He sniffed the air like a hyena. A scent of carrion in his nostrils.
George's wife was beside herself in terror. "George! Everybody!"
Smelling of the sheep manure he had delivered to the groundskeeper at the academy, Raggedy Man leaped the hedge. Well practiced at his game. He strode quickly up to George.
"Gimmee money, Mon!"
"I will NOT!"
"Yes yes. Gimmee now!"
"Scram, you fucking nigger!"
"Jah-hoo-vah!" The Rastafari's expression was crazed, fierce, and merely a fright-mask.
George's wife thought of that painting of John Brown of Kansas.
At that moment, George pulled a blued snub .38 from his pants and shot twice. One bullet burned through Raggedy Man's right armpit. The other socked Mister Radcliff in the head.
"You know, Cap counts his Whitbread like Mister Scrooge."
"Not when he's up in his room all the time," Mango snickered. "Mooning over Hannah and Mister Radcliff. The old fart is beside himself. Calling upon his Orishas. I can't stand it."
"Don't listen then."
Bang! The side screen door of the pub.
Jimmy-Scamp chugged the last of his ale, burped, and declared, "It's happy hour!"
"Happy happy happy."
Mango hid a Red Stripe inside his tropical shirt, ice cold against his tummy.
"Hold the fort, Jaime."
*
Mango passed by people entering the pub. Fat white people. He went outside where he found Mister Radcliff and Hannah were seated at the Cinzano table.
"Sit down, lad," Mister Radcliff beamed. "I was just telling Hannah about Horseshoe Crab Key."
"OK."
"What's that under your shirt?" Hannah asked, one eyebrow arched.
Sheepishly he withdrew the stolen bottle of beer.
"Very disrespectful, Mango," she clucked.
"Well, let me reiterate about Horseshoe Crab Key," Mister Radcliff interjected, letting Mango off the hook for the moment. "The lad here was very upset with me a few months ago."
"Upset? That's not the half of it, sir."
"I know."
"You were going to sell it to some Dubai corporation. And they were going to develope the key. Tear it all up to make room for condominiums."
"Not quite. I was seeking a developer. My plan was to create another Fire Island. A hedonist's paradise where anything goes. I was prepared to spend like there is no tomorrow, which there isn't."
Hannah scolded: "There is that fatalism again."
"As I was saying. The Dubai people fled the moment Saint James Academy filed an injunction. Moral
grounds, and all that."
"What happens now?" Mango asked.
"Nothing. I own the property. Upon my passing you and Hannah will inherit lock, stock and barrel."
"Oh my god," Hannah gasped. "Mango, did you hear that?"
Mango misted over. Tearfully, he hugged Mister Radcliff and kissed the gentleman's cheek.
*
A sunburned man with wide-set pig-eyes lunged into the pub. He walked five paces and jammed on his brakes. His wife skidded into his rump. "Holy shit!" He proclaimed in a baritone Alabama drawl, "There's more jungle bunnies in here than a Tarzan movie!"
Silence dropped like an opera curtain. Jimmy-Scamp turned to see who could be stupid enough to make such a remark. He saw a middle-aged man with a flat-top haircut and dressed in a Parrot Head tropical shirt.
Pig Eyes singled out Jimmy-Scamp: "Hey boy! Look here. Me and the wife want a booth. You hear?"
For an instant Jimmy-Scamp felt like punching the bastard. Then he broke into his best Steppin Fetchit. "Yassah boss, eyes heah yuh."
"Make it snappy."
"George," whined George's wife. "Don't make a scene."
"I ain't making no goddamned scene."
There was one vacant booth in the Jolly Roger. And it was reserved for Cap.
Jimmy Scamp said, "Ain no booths, boss. Hafta fine yo place outside."
"How about that one?"
"Nawsuh."
"Look here, you black--"
"Cool it, mate." The voice slammed shut like an iron maiden. No options offered.
In Cap's hand was an antique belaying spike.
He added, "Let's all go out to Hannah's patio. You'll like it a lot better."
Pig Eyes heard the menace in Cap's voice.
"Sounds reasonable."
*
At the bar a woman wearing a crimson turban sat with a man covered in a Panama Hat. Mango went to her and said hello while ignoring the man of mystery. "May I help you?"
Her alabaster face reminded him of a theatre mask.
"Yes," she answered. "I would like a Tom Collins."
"Coming right up." He was almost gone when the man snagged Mango's arm.
"Make that two."
"Yes, sir. Two Tom Collins."
The woman smiled and said to Mango, "I have a distinct notion you don't work here."
"Correct you are." At her implied behest, he decided to linger. She was a shapely forty-something in a revealing crimson halter-top. Her culottes were tan and snug in the crotch.
"We're on holiday," she began. "A kind young colored boy told us not to miss having a drink at the Jolly Roger while in port."
"He was ribbing you, madam."
*
Not too far from them at the bar sat a statuesque young black man. He radiated joy and good will. His smile was a message from heaven. He was drinking ginger beer with a blond nordic-looking woman with an eye patch. She was telling Jimmy-Scamp to light some citronella flambeaux on the patio if the mosquitoes became a problem.
"I'm sure I can find some. Thank you, Miss Jenny."
"Do me a favor. Play this CD when you can."
He looked at the plastic case and grinned.
The woman in crimson noted the clothes worn by Eye Patch. Blue denim cut-offs and a khaki army shirt. Sun and seawind had streaked her hair without mercy. French braid.
Suddenly the sound system captured everyone's attention. Marianne Faithfull sang in a sandpaper cigarette-corrupted voice. "And the ship. The black frieghter--"
*
Seated alone on the patio, Mister Radcliff gazed serenely at the sea. Beyond the seawall breakers crunched in moonlit majesty. Cap was out of Pinch, so he donated a bottle of his best Ron Metusalem. Smokey, golden, and smooth. Cap called it Burnt Rum.
Filled with blissful serenity, Mister Radcliff thought: I have nothing more to ask. Thinking thus, he
decided to smoke his last Virginia Number 3. A nearby frangipani clattered in the breeze.
*
George's wife looked across the patio at the man in a rumpled seasucker blazer and khaki Bermuda shorts. His frayed planter's hat completed the slob Tory ensemble. Somehow she was reminded of a character in a Graham Greene novel. A burnt out case. Such was the aura of doom.
She called to him. "Good evening!"
"T'is pleasant."
His accent thrilled her. A trace of a smile trembled upon his lips. He saluted her by tipping his hat.
"Who the hell is that you're talking to, Wife?"
"A gentleman."
"Looks like a queer to me."
Suddenly she screamed, "George! Look!"
Furtively something moved in the shadows beyond the croton hedge. A man, creeping like a prowler. He sniffed the air like a hyena. A scent of carrion in his nostrils.
George's wife was beside herself in terror. "George! Everybody!"
Smelling of the sheep manure he had delivered to the groundskeeper at the academy, Raggedy Man leaped the hedge. Well practiced at his game. He strode quickly up to George.
"Gimmee money, Mon!"
"I will NOT!"
"Yes yes. Gimmee now!"
"Scram, you fucking nigger!"
"Jah-hoo-vah!" The Rastafari's expression was crazed, fierce, and merely a fright-mask.
George's wife thought of that painting of John Brown of Kansas.
At that moment, George pulled a blued snub .38 from his pants and shot twice. One bullet burned through Raggedy Man's right armpit. The other socked Mister Radcliff in the head.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
easy money 2
They were speeding along in the Sunbeam when Mister Radcliff decided to pass the time by telling a story.
"I knew a man who was a fool. A greedy fool who thought he could come into some easy money. I knew him at Oxford, a Nigerian fellow. His family had sent him up for a liberal arts degree. He studied European history and philosophy, with a smattering of physics. Became enamoured of the Medici and the Borgia and led himself to believe he understood Guth, Gell-Man and Weinberg. The plan was that he would return to Nigeria a gentleman. Stupid plan. Nigeria didn't need any more gentlemen."
"I have a feeling that he called you at some point."
"Quite right. He offered me a plum deal."
Mister Radcliff chuckled sardonically.
"Oil was a booming business down there. My chum had no business skills, but he did posess a silver tongue and he could glad-hand his way into anyone's country club. Black or white. When he called me he represented a consortium of petty bureaucrats and civil servants looking to make a fortune. They were part of a multinational.Their scheme went this way. When a series of contracts were executed, pricing things like crude oil distribution, turn-around maintenance of refineries, or building new storage facilities, these paper-pushing bastards played hanky-panky with the invoices."
"Imbezzling."
"Most of the companies were headquartered in the States. Most likely, their bean-counters were on the take for kickbacks. It was all doomed to fail."
"The multinational must have caught on."
"Everything was hunky-dory. Project officials were commissioned and construction began. Nobody in the States was squawking about being bilked. No ripples in the pond. The silence was ominous, I would think. But my chum was oozing confidence. After all, he was a con-man."
"You trusted him?"
"He wanted me for my discretion. I could set up the perfect Cayman account. Have to admit, I was feeling greedy too. We got along swimmingly. While at Oxford he became embroiled with a white tart in SoHo. I handled the necessary financial affairs to get him out of trouble. I risked my good name because I could afford embarrassment more than he could. Lucky for us, the tart disappeared without a trace."
Hannah blazed. "You were the fool, darling."
"Excuse me?"
"He played you. God knows what he did to her."
"Stop the car."
She pulled over just beyond some barens. Mister Radcliff lurched into the field, fell to his knees and puked his picnic into the dirt. She petted his head and said, "I hope he hasn't snookered you again."
Bleary eyed, Mister Radcliff replied, "No. He was butchered on a roadside. His family too. Machine-gunned his Rolls. Then they made it look like a tribal thing. Chopped his babies to bloody hash."
"I knew a man who was a fool. A greedy fool who thought he could come into some easy money. I knew him at Oxford, a Nigerian fellow. His family had sent him up for a liberal arts degree. He studied European history and philosophy, with a smattering of physics. Became enamoured of the Medici and the Borgia and led himself to believe he understood Guth, Gell-Man and Weinberg. The plan was that he would return to Nigeria a gentleman. Stupid plan. Nigeria didn't need any more gentlemen."
"I have a feeling that he called you at some point."
"Quite right. He offered me a plum deal."
Mister Radcliff chuckled sardonically.
"Oil was a booming business down there. My chum had no business skills, but he did posess a silver tongue and he could glad-hand his way into anyone's country club. Black or white. When he called me he represented a consortium of petty bureaucrats and civil servants looking to make a fortune. They were part of a multinational.Their scheme went this way. When a series of contracts were executed, pricing things like crude oil distribution, turn-around maintenance of refineries, or building new storage facilities, these paper-pushing bastards played hanky-panky with the invoices."
"Imbezzling."
"Most of the companies were headquartered in the States. Most likely, their bean-counters were on the take for kickbacks. It was all doomed to fail."
"The multinational must have caught on."
"Everything was hunky-dory. Project officials were commissioned and construction began. Nobody in the States was squawking about being bilked. No ripples in the pond. The silence was ominous, I would think. But my chum was oozing confidence. After all, he was a con-man."
"You trusted him?"
"He wanted me for my discretion. I could set up the perfect Cayman account. Have to admit, I was feeling greedy too. We got along swimmingly. While at Oxford he became embroiled with a white tart in SoHo. I handled the necessary financial affairs to get him out of trouble. I risked my good name because I could afford embarrassment more than he could. Lucky for us, the tart disappeared without a trace."
Hannah blazed. "You were the fool, darling."
"Excuse me?"
"He played you. God knows what he did to her."
"Stop the car."
She pulled over just beyond some barens. Mister Radcliff lurched into the field, fell to his knees and puked his picnic into the dirt. She petted his head and said, "I hope he hasn't snookered you again."
Bleary eyed, Mister Radcliff replied, "No. He was butchered on a roadside. His family too. Machine-gunned his Rolls. Then they made it look like a tribal thing. Chopped his babies to bloody hash."
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