To my Grandfather

By spending time at Soly, I could monopolize Grampie and Mizzy and pretend they were only mine. Grampie made things come alive for me. He talked to me about important things, like a grown-up. I loved to listen to him, to hear his words.

I just sat there letting his words seep into my body – through whichever opening they chose to enter, because most of the time my ears just couldn’t understand them. Printing his voice in my heart and locking it in my soul. I could feel his voice squeezing past the hairs on my arms, running up my nostrils, hurriedly making their way down into my thundering empty head. “Noony-head-in-air” Mizzy always used to call me. So I was sure that I had nothing much under my tangled, sun-bleached hair.

I desperately wanted to make contact with Grampie – I wanted to feel him, breathe him, touch him and make everything of his a part of me. I wanted a special place in his heart, because so much of my heart was filled with him.

Books were his passion and so they became mine as well. Old books, new books, musty ones with tattered yellow pages; it didn’t matter. But Grampie didn’t just sit there and read – he ate up the books, devoured them, poured over them, intently sucking every word and phrase out of them. He paid homage to his books and pushed others to do the same.

I’d sit on the floor playing solitaire and he’d be puffing on his pipe in his chair by the window. I wish he would tell me a story. The flickering flames from the kerosene lamps had a soothing effect and I’d inch my way closer and closer to the foot of his chair.

I leaned my head gently on the side of his leg and he ruffled my hair.

“Will you tell me a story, please?” and he sat back with his pipe and told one about me riding the bike. I loved it.

Gruff though he seemed, he was not. His stories were passionate, sometimes lilting into a gentle cadence, like waves softly lapping on the shore; then suddenly he would pounce with a yell and in all the same breath move back to the lullaby rhythm. I was enthralled; his melodious voice was exhilarating.

Suppers at Soly were always a simple affair of boiled eggs provided by Mizzy’s plump brown and black chickens or soup.

“Look! Look how yellow the yolks are!” She would pronounce every time. We would all “Ooh” and “Ahh” on cue.

Slices of toast oozing butter, raw carrots and cheese on the side and tall glasses of thick creamy milk, it never got boring or repetitious.

The little house purred on autumn evenings, the fire gently crackling in the corner scenting the air with eucalyptus and pine, then at one minute to ten the silence was broken by irreverent screeching from the Wireless.

The Wireless was their only point of contact with the outside world – an old Pye radio which ran on six AA batteries. As it warmed up, it shrieked and hissed until the great bells of Big Ben could be heard through the cacophony.

“There! There it is” I squealed.

“Shh. Quiet now.” Grampie shushed me, but with a little smile pricking the edge of his lips. I loved this part, I watched him intently as he turned the dials, enraptured.

“Good evening. This is the B.B.C. and the “Ten O’Clock News …” the announcer’s hot chocolate voice poured over me. I was my favorite part; perhaps because it was the only piece I ever understood from beginning to end.

Yet it didn’t matter a bit. I was them and I took my cues from Grampie: nodding, listening, cocking my head. For a while I was part of their grownup world and I loved it.

As with all holidays, it was over all too quickly and it was back to school with me.

It was just another cold, grey school morning when I came face-to-face with death for the first time. I was seven.

Mummy came in and told us that Grampie had died. Just like that.

My throat squeezed shut. What? It’s just not fair! My eyes squeezed shut. I could see angry white spots inside – but I couldn’t see Soly. I was sitting on the edge of my bed in my underwear, gooseflesh prickling my arms and legs – and it wasn’t only the cold. I want to see Soly! I want to see Grampie.

Grampie? Why did you die? You said you would stay with me…I didn’t know if I was allowed to cry, but my eyes were stinging more and more. I think I’m going to cry … don’t cry silly baby. The words had throttled my soul; my soul where I had woven Grampie into – I could feel bony cold fingers trying to pry out the warmth.

Forcing my eyes open, I looked at my mother and asked again,

“H-how did he die?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“His heart was tired. He was bringing in some logs for the fire and it just gave out. He fell right there. Right there in his living room next to his favorite chair.” She hunted in her sleeve for a handkerchief.

It’s just not fair! I want to scream and cry!

Daddy walked in and put his arm around Mummy,

“Come on, darling,” he said gently, “I think we’d better be getting along.”

Getting along? Where? What do they mean?

“Noony, you’ll be going to school – your sister will come with us.” What? Why?

“But Daddy, I want to come too, I want to come where you’re going…” I was confused. Don’t leave me out! Don’t leave me alone with this horrible pain!

“The bus is coming. Please just get dressed,” Daddy said.

“But, why can’t I come too…?” Please, please don’t leave me out.

“Because you’re too small and you’re going to school” he responded and I knew that was the end of that.

As my parents walked out of the room, my eyes began to cloud over with tears, tears which I angrily pushed away with the back of my hands.

I threw myself down on the bed and hugged my pillow. Grampie, Grampie, why did you leave me? Talk to me please … I could hear my heart pounding in my ears; pounding like great African drums. Loud angry African drums, beating, beating, beating.

A fuzzy image began to form behind my eyelids and a distant rumble was growing deep in my inner ear … so softly that I could barely hear it over my heartbeat. What’s that? I know you. What are you saying…?

I held my breath and struggled to listen. The picture started to come into focus …

It was an autumn evening a few days before and to the light of the kerosene lamp, Grampie was reading to me. It was “The Congo” by Vachel Lindsay – that poem I so loved which sounded like great African drums.

He pounded the table while he read alternately strumming his fingers like the patter of bare tribal feet:

….Beat an empty barrel

With the handle of a broom

Hard as they were able,

Boom, boom, boom!

I had been laughing with excitement when he banged on the table, his cheeks bright pink savoring every word and rolling them over his tongue. He was at once throwing up his arms and roaring like the apes of Africa, filled with passion, his bright blue eyes dancing and dancing behind his round glasses. Now softly like the waves again

…Then I had religion

Then I had a vision…

The image began to blur. No please! Don’t go! Don’t go! His great voice became a distant echo as I strained to hear him

…Mumbo-Jumo is dead in the jungle

Never again will he hoodoo you

Never again….

And in a puff, like the fireflies, he was gone. Please said the whisper in my ear, Please don’t leave me alone …

Please… And slowly from far away up the lawn behind my eyelids came a soft soothing voice,

“It’s OK, Noony. You can do it by yourself…” and just as gently it melted in a cloud of blue smoke taking with it my innocence.

Watching the drizzle of that grey chilly morning, I dragged on my grey school uniform, about as grey and as drab as I felt right then and began the first day of the rest of my life without Grampie

No U-turn

"We could have talked ..."

In the tumbling dawn, the words drifted, poignant, unfinished. A cold silence settled as the rising sun painted a wild picture across the cloud strewn sky. He held her. She gripped him, shaking. Each one lost in their own thoughts, puzzled, angry, fearful teenage thoughts about what had just happened.

With infinite patience and determination the ball of fire in the east pulled itself free of the grip of the horizon, to reclaim its throne in the heavens. The wild artist today, shards of red and orange splintered the night sky, with no apology for breaking into the stealth of a moon free dark night.

“We should have talked …”

“Yeah, maybe we should’ve …”

The first yellow beams shot across the vapid countryside, outlining the inert form on the grass at their feet with its blood-covered slit wrists.

“We should have talked …”

Indecision

(A conversation)

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah. Ya think?”

“Would you like some dinner?”

“Sure – good idea.”

“What would you like?”

“Um, I dunno. Anything.”

“OK. How about a hamburger?”

“Hamburger? Um, nah. Not a hamburger.”

“Not a hamburger?”

“Nah. Gives me gas.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“OK. What about liver and onions?”

“Gross! Are you nuts? That’s disgusting.”

“OK. Fine. Steak then?”

“Nah. I had steak fer lunch today.”

“OK. OK. You chose then.”

“I dunno. Anything, really.”

“Anything. So pick it.”

“I dunno. Gimme some ideas.”

“OK, let me see. Fish. What about fish?”

“Fish. Fish. What kinda fish?”

“How about salmon?”

“Nah, don’t like salmon.”

“Why?”

“Makes me think of salmonella.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sick.”

“Grouper then?”

“Nah. Makes me think of people.”

“People?”

“Yeah, groups of people, y’know?”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah that’s how it goes.”

“What kind of fish do you like then?”

“Oh, I dunno, any fish.”

“Any fish that’s not salmon or grouper?”

“Yeah. Or catfish.”

“Catfish. It figures.”

“Really. How’d you know?”

“Well I guess it makes you think of cats.”

“Nah. Now that’s stoopid.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I got bit by a catfish when I was small.”

“Oh, that’s funny.”

“What’s funny about being bit by a fish?”

“Um, nothing, really. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, tell me what’s funny about being bit by a catfish?”

“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone …”

“Being bit by a catfish?”

“Um, well no, I mean yes.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Um. Being bitten. But never mind.”

“But I mind. Look it took two fingers.”

“Oh, wow. They’re gone. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Fingers don’t grow back, y’know?”

“I know. I’m so sorry. I should never have brought it up.”

“Yer right ‘bout that.”

“So what can I get you to eat instead?”

“Instead of what?”

“Instead of fingers … er, I mean fish.”

“Are you messin’ with me?”

“No, no. It slipped, I’m sorry. Look, let me give you five dollars …”

“Five bucks? Whaddya think I can get fer five bucks?”

“Well, there’s lots of things.”

“D’ya think I could get a steak fer five bucks?”

“But you didn’t want a steak.”

“But what if I did?”

“Ok. Ok. I’m sorry, look here’s a twenty. Enjoy your dinner.”

I dropped a twenty dollar bill into the panhandler’s box and fled.

Goldman

He sits in the chair. For a moment I think he’s made of wax, but on closer inspection I realize he’s real. Wow. What an amazing thing to do. He’s not moving, not twitching, not blinking. How does he do that? I can’t even stay still for a couple of seconds, unless I’m asleep. But even then I don’t know what happens, I think I’m quite still but I’m sure something is moving.

He’s painted gold from head to toe, from his skin to his clothes and down to his shoes and laces. The chair is also gold. It’s almost as if King Midas had come along and touched his head at lunchtime and converted him into a perfect gold statue. Into gold in the middle of Lintot Square.

I wonder how long he’s been there? Does it hurt? What does he think about when he’s sitting there? Do people touch him? I guess not, but then you never know with people, right? What if he gets an itch or if something bites him? What about when he wants to go to the bathroom?

I stare at him and wait. He’s got to move sometime, I watch and watch but I honestly can’t see anything move. I’m beginning to think he’s fake, that I made a mistake and he’s really is just a gold statue. A very clever gold statue.

Until the little twins come along with their parents. They too are drawn to stare, just like me. Only the twins – aged about four – are far less cautious than I. They look American.

“Hey, don’t touch, guys,” says the father as the twins march up closer and closer. They are American.

By the foot of the chair is a gold bowl with money in it. Gold coins.

“Aw Dad, can we give him some money?” says the left twin.

“Yeah, we want to give him some coins, Dad, Mom?” says the right twin pulling on his mother’s skirt.

Dad looks at Mom who smiles and nods.

“Sure kids, here you are,” says Dad fishing out some loose change.

The twins inspect the coins, “No, Dad, it’s go to be gold coins … see?” the left twin points to the bowl, “they’re all gold, we’d spoil the picture.”

“Yeah,” says the right twin, “gold coins only, Dad. Look again.”

“Honey, I haven’t got any pound coins, do you?” Dad says emptying his pockets.

“Let me see,” says the mother. Oh my goodness, she’s got the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard, it’s like musical honey, like warm hands on my heart, I take a small step closer hoping she’ll speak again. “Ah ha! Look at what I have here,” she says with a smile. A smile to melt a thousand angry men, a smile to wake a city of sleeping soldiers.

She puts her hand out to the twins and in it is a little pile of one and two pounds gold coins, “how many would you like?”

“Honey, one each should be enough,” says Dad.

“Oh, but darling, I’d like them to decide. Maybe they have some wishes they want to make? Maybe there’s a magic number they like better than one. Eric? John?”

The twins look at their mother’s hand and then up at their father. They confer in silence, like only twins can, and then Eric steps up,

“I’d like to have two Mom, because I have two wishes to make.” He carefully picks out two chubby one pound coins.

John steps up, looks at the coins again and looks at his mother. He sighs the sigh of a very old man, “Mom, I have so many wishes, so many, many wishes, I think I need more than two.” Typical American, greedy, greedy.

“Oh no you don’t young man,” says Dad.

“Hush, Bill, let John make up his own mind,” says Mom in her nectar colored voice and fills his cheek with kisses. Bill flushes and shoves his hands in his pockets, entranced.

“Well, John darling, just how many wishes do you have?” she asks, now crouching to look at her son eye to eye.

John’s pupils dilate, as he looks into his mother’s, “a lots.”

“Very well then, take what you need.”

John plucks the coins from his mother’s hand one by one. His lips move every time he takes a coin as if murmuring what the next wish is. When there are only two coins left, he looks at his mother again,

“What about you and Dad? Do you have wishes?”

Mom thinks for a minute, shakes her head and then looks up at her husband, “Bill? Do you have a wish to make?”

“Um, no, I’m good.” He says staring at the man in the chair. Dad seems to be just a curious as me.

“Can I have them all then?” says John looking at his mother.

“Of course John darling, of course you can.”

John takes the last two coins in exactly the same way he took the others, only now his pudgy little hands can barely manage the load.

“C’mon J” says his twin getting impatient, “let’s make our wishes already.”

One step at a time, they creep up towards the gold man in the chair. The closer they get, the smaller their steps. The closer they get, the closer I watch. There! I see the eyes, with every little step the boys take, the eyes move. Just a tiny fraction, but they move, following the progress of these little boys. What’s he thinking now? Is he willing them to hurry up? Or is he enjoying the avid attention? There’s probably about twenty pounds coming his way.

“Eric,” whispers John. “You go first.”

“OK,” says Eric as John stops. Eric’s two paces away from the bowl. He looks back at his parents. Dad urges him on with a hand gesture, his mother, now arm in arm with Bill, just smiles. Her smile would encourage a man to step back from a ledge.

Emboldened, Eric takes the last step, stretches his hand out and drops the two coins in the bowl.

“I wish I get a new bike for Christmas!” he says in a loud voice.

It seemed like everything happened at once.

The coins clanged.

Eric yelped.

“Wheeeeeee!” screamed a strident whistle.

John dropped his coins.

The gold statue came to life in a sweeping bow.

“Wheeeeeee!” screamed the whistle again.

Then there was total silence.

Eric’s face was scarlet. John’s face puckered. My heart was in my mouth. Mom and Dad were gaping, Mom clutching Dad’s arm.

Other people were staring at the man in the chair. Eric was the first to do what I felt like doing, he rubbed his eyes with his fists and stared again at the gold man already back in the chair.

It was the soft little sob that broke the tension. John stood there empty handed, two fat tears running down his cheeks.

“I dropped all my coins …” he whispered. Mom ran up and hugged him.

“Wow,” said Eric, “That was cool. C’mon John, you do your coins. Here,” Eric started picking up his brother’s coins.

“It’s OK, son, I guess that’s his way of saying thank you,” said Bill putting the last coins into his son’s hands.

“Eric, you do it for me,” John said extending his trembling, coin-filled hands to his brother.

“No, you do it. It’s cool,” said Eric to his twin.

John looked back at his parents who both nodded. Mom smiled. Eric cheered. So John took a step towards the man in the chair.

“That’s good, John,” whispered Mom.

John took another step staring at the gold man.

The coins clinked. He stopped, cupping them with care.

“Go on!” hissed Eric.

Another step.

His eyes locked with Goldman’s.

We all held our breath.

Another step.

His little knees shivered.

The last step.

When he was level with the bowl, he crouched, inch by inch, never losing eye contact with Goldman as he placed the handful of coins into the bowl whispering:

“These coins are for my all wishes. All my wishes are that my Mom gets better from her Cancer.”

I hated myself instantly. Why was I so quick to judge?

Open and Closed.

Open and Closed. Open and Closed. The sign on the shop door flickered without pausing.

“What’s going on?” I asked Gerry.

“I have no idea,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt, ready to step out of the car.

“No! Don’t get out,” I said putting a hand on her arm.

“Why not?”

“Look,” I pointed, “they’re all doing it…”

Gerry, hand still on the door, paused and looked around. “You’re right. What the heck is going on?”

“And look,” I said sweeping my arm left and right, “all the shop doors are doing it too.”

All the shop doors were open onto the street, swinging on their hinges, open and closed, open and closed.

“What’s going on?” Gerry asked again, “I mean, seriously? There’s no wind, there’s no breeze, there’s no … hang on a minute … Daisy there’s no people!”

And sure enough there was no one to be seen left or right, in front or behind.

“That’s weird … at 12 o’clock on a Friday afternoon? You’d think there’d be someone, something …” my voice cracked.

Trying to make our way back to Heathrow Airport just outside London, we’d pulled off the A24 in search of a snack, fed up with the usual motorway services bumpf and were delighted to have found the little village of Tipply On The Pond only a few miles beyond.

“What’s that? Over there Gerry?”

“Looks like a child’s toy, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, one of those with lids and doors … but …”

Neither of us could bring ourselves to say it out loud: the lids and doors of the plastic toy were intermittently opening and closing, opening and closing.

“Shoot, I suppose my black-out idea has just gone up in smoke,” said Gerry without the slightest quiver in her voice.

“Yeah, mine too – I think we should get out of here.” My voice was definitely shaking along with my hands and my gut.

“No, no Daisy, we must find out what’s going on.”

“Stop it Gerry. You’re on holiday! This is no time for your journalistic foolishness.” I begged.

“Oh don’t be such a winge, Daisy, I’m getting out.”

But that’s as far as she got, for the moment she pulled the door handle, her door joined in the strange silent dance: open and closed, open and closed.

Terrified, I turned the key in the ignition.

Nothing happened.

c o l o r ... c o l o u r

Spilling from

Crystal, the wine

Seeps into clean sheets

Starting to stain,

Like blood bleeding

Through

Bandages

And splotches of

Crayon …

Crayons the color

Of trucks that

Fly through

Stop signs

Screaming and wailing

Racing for souls

Of unknowns

Oozing life

On a road …

A winding road

Like ribbon

Round a box of

Valentine chocolates

Strawberry filled

Tucked up in petals

Which fell

From 12 perfect

Roses delivered

At Noon …

At noon

Halfway before sunset

Half after dawn

Where the orb as

Pressed berries

Gone dry

Fizzes through

A water the color

Of fire …

Fireworks that

Splashing in a night sky

Make magical,

Whimsical flowers

Up high

Dribbling sparkles

Which glow

And explode into

Danger

Danger of angry bulls

Snorting and charging

At billowing capes

Like a bull’s-eye

As easily as

A Target store billboard

With spots on it

Spots that glow

On two florid

Cheeks

Cheeks that are

Flushed

As bright as

A hooker’s

Scarlet lipstick and long

Finger nails

Or spiky stilettos

Which all match the

Carpet

The Carpet of Oscar

The stars all swan down

There’s passion and

Anger,

And diamonds and lust

Rubies on fingers

So dripping from necks

Match cardinal glow

Of the robes

Robes of the priest

Hats of

The ladies club

Shoes that took Dorothy

Back home from Oz

It spells hope

Also communism

Yet sometimes

A district, a sports car

A flag

Flag football!

Wear it to win sports

Boston Sox do it

The Patriots, the Pistons,

And the USC Trojans

Most Ferraris are it

A herring, a dwarf,

Hot chili peppers

Heat then anger

Anger and lust

It’s pain and it’s love

It’s sanguine, vermillion

Bloodshot or blooming

It’s blush - it is garnet

Carmine or damask

Healthy

Inflamed

Ruby and ruddy

It’s so many things

Seen and unseen

But now

Just today

‘cause I saw

In my head

This complex

Variety

Is called simply

RED

Wide open

“Open up,” the dentist said, his steel blue eyes peering over the purple mask.

Why purple? Aren’t they usually light blue or white?

It set off his suntan and the whites of his eyes (and his teeth which I saw before he’d slipped it on). Too much, way too much.

“Miss Alabaster, open up please,” he repeated with a little sigh.

“Sorry, daydreaming.”

Without another word, he and his assistant fell onto and into my mouth.

I gripped the arms of the chair, sweaty-palmed. Eyes shut tight, mouth wide open.

A sucker, a mirror, a pick, a drill, and a hook to hold back my lip – surely it can't all fit in? I’m exhausted already.

“Open wider,” he said, his piercing eyes on mine for a split second.

More? I did. My lips hurt, my jawbone shrieked in my ear.

“Wider, please”

“Ah cahnk!” I said, shaking my head as I croaked from the back of my throat, which filled with water from the jet he was squirting and I gagged, coughed and suddenly vomited.

No warning I just spewed all over the drill, the pick, the mirror, the assistant’s hook and worst of all, onto the purple mask.

Terrified and embarrassed I couldn’t escape.

“I’m sorry – I’m so sorry,” I blurted, trying to mop it up with the bib around my neck. But it wouldn’t reach, because it was clipped on a very short chain.

That’s when he burst out laughing, the man who became my husband.