Somewhere West of Here

The man and woman who came together to

give me life are dying somewhere west of here.

Maybe not today or tomorrow, but sooner 

than I can even imagine, living as I am so far 

away from them. Gone are the days of village 

life with multigenerational families living

in the same small hamlet, maybe on the 

same street or even in the same house.

We have reached even further back in

time to a nomadic existence, a pitching

of our metaphorical tents on the sandy

wastes of a barren and lifeless culture.

I wouldn’t even know who to blame for 

such a thing but somewhere west of here

my parents are living out their last days 

and I am just waiting for the awful news.

***

An American in Paris

I saw An American in Paris this weekend and was wowed by the music, the dancing, and the incredible stage effects, but the story itself clanged in a way that might not have been the case even a year or two ago, prior to the current social upheaval surrounding how women have been  treated in our culture.  In the story an American GI named Jerry falls for a local French girl who is already engaged.  He is head over heals “in love” with her.  He has two friends, Adam and Henry, one of whom is also smitten with the girl and the other who is French and happens to be the girl’s fiancé unbeknownst to the other two.

So, the “American in Paris” (Jerry) starts trying to woo her away from this unknown fiancé by pressuring her to secretly meet him every day near the Seine River just as “friends.”  But instead, he uses the time to try and hound her into becoming involved with him romantically.  He shows little regard for her feelings, obligations, or cultural context even insisting that he be able to call her by the name he finds most comfortable.  “Your name is Lise?  I’ll call you Eliza.  No, Liza!”  She firmly rejects this attempt to americanize her name though he obnoxiously persists.  He doesn’t care.  He’s in love!  

At some point when Jerry learns that Henry is Lise’s fiancé he secretly arranges a scenario that is guaranteed to humiliate his friend and put a barrier between Henry, his parents, and Lise.  That is to say he continues to show how shallow, self-centered, and insensitive he is and how incapable he is of a love that is true as opposed to “true love” as he imagines it to be in his fevered romantic imagination and spiritual myopia.  As Adam astutely points out, “You don’t even really know anything about her.”  

But then (inexplicably) Lise finds some cathartic release in dancing a ballet performance created for her with the help of these three men and afterwards she excitedly tells Jerry she danced so well because she imagined him as the lead male dancer (the scene is one of poetic license where Jerry is actually dancing with her but dressed in black to signify it is her imagining him, but not really him).  They embrace and when he calls her “Lise” she exuberantly exclaims, “Call me Liza!”  

What?!  Are you kidding me?  I think this musical would be more accurately entitled “The Ugly American,” but did I mention how much I enjoyed the music, dancing, and amazing stage designs?

***

One Punch Kid

I was four years old and trapped in a land of giants.  They lumbered about jostling my small frame while speaking to each other at an elevation that made their words distant and mostly indecipherable.  I did my best to stay out of their way, but confrontation was inevitable.  All the more so because they constantly felt the need to impose their will on us smaller creatures.

Being small had its advantages in regards to staying off their radar.  I could insert myself into places that they could not access or would not think to check if they were looking for me.  It was a matter of size, but also of imagination.  I had hidey-holes and escape routes to protect both my physical and mental integrity from these sometimes unscrupulous beings.  Some of these places were only in my mind, created of a necessity when the giants raged and forgot themselves.

But the day came when there was nowhere to hide.  It was during Sunday School at the church where my father was the pastor.  My teacher was a pillar of the community and a regular leader of the congregational singing.  Her name was Opal and she was not someone to be trifled with.  She asked me to say a prayer to start the class.  I ignored her and tried to disappear into the corner of the pew where I sat but the wood was too hard and repelled my efforts, leaving me vulnerable and exposed.  

I did not want to pray in front of everyone.  I’d never done it before and had no idea what even to say, Lord have mercy.  I believe the correct word for what I was feeling would be “mortified” which is derived from the Latin word for death.  Opal did not pick up on my distress, or if she did, pressed on anyway.  Her large frame stood towering over me and her request (demand) was repeated.  When compliance was not forthcoming she crouched down on her haunches with a hand on either side of me grasping the pew so there was no chance of escape.

I was a cornered animal (literally) and instinct took over as my little fist found her nose and she rocked back on her heels and then onto her rump.  I remember her grabbing her nose and exiting the room as quickly as she could get to her feet to find my mother.

Was I a juvenile delinquent?  No, I was a four year old boy.  In retrospect it seems that it was a time when kids were expected to be unwaveringly compliant, like diminutive automatons, with no consideration for their thoughts or feelings.  There would have been no asking of the teacher what had led up to her being punched in the nose or why, only that it had happened.  There would have been no thought to try and understand the situation or its context.  The giant was the giant and the little person was the little person, and that was all there was to it.

***

The Bitter Arrow

He’s nine, maybe ten.  I can see him below in the yard.  I am standing on the second story back deck of my childhood home, like God looking down.  I am forty nine now.  I am losing my hair and my beard is graying by the day.  The forty year span between us obscures the scene a bit, but the feelings are still sharp.  

***

That Christmas Aaron had asked for a bow and arrow.  In his immature way of thinking he imagined he needed a weapon to embolden himself.  He longed to have the power of death at his fingertips with a pull and a twang, like in his books and on TV.  The wrapped box was long and narrow and as he ripped it open he felt the excitement ballooning in his chest to see the top of a bow!  But as he unwrapped it further, what should have been the feathered end of an arrow became visible as thin plastic strips in the shape of feathers.  His eyes moved down the shaft as he continued to tear the paper until he discovered the tips to be topped not by a metal point, but by rubber suction cups.  It was a kid’s toy.  His chest dropped, deflated, as the last piece of wrapping paper fell from his fingers and the realization hit that his parents did not trust him to have a real bow and arrow.  They still considered him a child.

***

Summer came and he learned his friend down the street not only had a real fiberglass bow, but two!  He was somehow able to buy or barter for the smaller of the two and he found himself in the possession of a real honest-to-goodness bow.  His parents had been bypassed but, alas, he had no arrows.  

In a serendipitous series of events his mother took him and his younger sister to a hardware store across town to have professional pictures taken.  The photographer had set up a makeshift studio by laying down a carpet on the worn wooden floorboards and hung a backdrop.  Aaron was suffocating in a plaid wool suit and turtle neck while sitting on a box with his sister in his lap.  His little sister was painfully cute and all smiles, but he had to be coaxed by the photographer to squeeze out even a pained grin.  And just when all hope seemed lost for the perfect shot, he spied a box of arrows for sale in the store behind the photographer.  His freckled face morphed into a magnificent smile and the camera clicked.

A few days later he had some money in his pocket and made his way back to that hardware store.  The arrows were sitting loose in a cardboard box with the price written in marker on the side.  Of all the colors he chose blue to match the color of his bow.  The weapon was now complete and he was eager to use it.

***

What is a weapon for?  To kill, plain and simple.  To bleed the lifeblood out of a creature.  Aaron thinks he understands this and I can see him foraging in the cornfield behind our house from my perch on the deck.  He has found a corncob with only a few hard kernels left on it that he quickly removes.  He has surmised that if he wants to kill a bird he will need a larger end to his arrow.  The metal point is too small and he is not Robin Hood after all.  He breaks the corncob so that it is only a few inches long and pierces its core.  It reminds him of those movies where the archers dip a similar looking arrow in oil and set it aflame to send over the castle walls.  He could do the same, but it would be a bit overkill, even for him.

This modified arrow is now a blunt instrument for stunning a bird if he is lucky.  He is creeping around the side of the barn with his bow and arrow at the ready.  I watch him intently as he peeks around the corner.  A robin is looking for worms about ten feet from him and has its back to the little assassin.  Aaron swings the bow around the corner ever so slowly so as to not startle the bird into flight.  There is a pause as he lines up his shot and then a sudden release of the string.

The corncob-ended arrow finds its target and crashes into the robin.  Aaron cannot believe his luck!  He is immediately upon the vulnerable bird who is now unable to fly.  I watch him pull the corncob from his arrow and re-nock it as he stands over the wounded bird.  The bow is drawn again and the arrow pierces the bird pinning it to the ground.  He expects an instant death as he picks up the arrow with the bird impaled on it, but the creature continues to struggle to escape.  The sparkle in his eye disappears and I can see his exhilaration extinguished like a snuffed candle.  The bird is not dead.  It is dying and it is this reality that he did not anticipate.

***

From my elevated vantage point I see him come back around the side of the barn with tears welling up in his eyes.  The bird continues to struggle at the end of the arrow in his hand.  I feel his fear, a panicky feeling that he has made a big mistake that cannot be unmade.  He disappears into the barn and when he comes back out he has a ball peen hammer in his hand.  He awkwardly wipes some tears with his t-shirt sleeve as he lays the bird on the concrete pad outside the barn.  He is almost directly below me now and I feel myself falling, merging with my younger self.  There is a feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach.  There is the feeling in my arm of the hammerhead bouncing off the soft body of the bird, then the crunching sound of its head collapsing.  And it is finally still.

***