Don't Tell Don't Tell

Tonight, I'll be going to the Motel Motel show at The Market Hotel (1142 Myrtle Ave. @ Broadway - Myrtle Willoughby JMZ stop). What a fitting venue for these two fine bed fellows: Motel and Hotel. I think personally I like a motel better. Sure hotels are great with their indoor pools and room service, mints on pillows, fine china, orangutangs running up and down air shafts a la Dunston Checks In (#9 on my top 1 million movies) and their Sealy's Certa Posturpedic Mattresses. However, no one can deny the ragged glory of a motel sign flapping in the breeze on the side of a highway next to The Best Dinosaur Exhibit in the Midwest. Heart shaped jacuzzis, vibrating beds, continental breakfasts with bad coffee, cheap room rates for two hour affairs and rattling chain linked fences around half filled swimming pools are what this country is made of.

Of course my roommate, Erik Gundel (see sideways smiling in the center), is in the band so I am biased in my lodging decision. However, these guys put out a great first record - soon to be re-released. I think I relate more to the dense rock that shows off a bit of Walkmen influence than the alt-country aspect, although I could see them sneaking in a few Little Feat swamp jams in the future. In any case, for their current sound, check out some of the videos on YouTube from SUNY Purchase, courtesy of hot shot beat reporter, sometime gum shoe, and public dick - Erik Lilleby.

Last one in the pool is a pool.

See below for the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt"

Coming soon: AN EPIC POEM

James

I’m lying in my old bed. Eve lies next to me. The walls are bare and blue. All of my trophies are gone. They’ve been gone for quite some time. Ever since I graduated from college and started at the firm. Who would’ve thought that I’d be an accountant when I was running on grass past the white lines on the lacrosse field? But I suppose I was always good at numbers I was never that great at lacrosse. I could run, somewhat, so they made me a midfielder. But all that is past now. All those faces are off somewhere. Maybe still around here. Cicero and Gertz. I know they’re still living close – Huntington I heard. I didn’t even invite them to my wedding. I knew what would happen if I did. I knew how they would act. I’m better off for it.

But Eve is still curled on the tan sheets, dreaming whatever dreams she’s dreaming. Can she feel the baby in her stomach? How long is that supposed to take before they know? I always thought it was instantaneous. A mother would know immediately when that little ball of life and electricity forms inside her. She didn’t, though. At least she hasn’t said anything to me. What if she does know? What if she has been waiting for me to tell her I lied, that I hid the positive test? Those things aren’t accurate anyway. She knows that too. Who was she telling me about? It was an actress I remember that. It was Halle Berry! Halle Berry took the test almost thirty times before they realized she was pregnant. She told the story on Oprah. If it could happen to Halle Berry, it could happen to anyone and so that means I can delay too.

I don’t know why I did it or why I’m continuing. There she is, her chest rising and falling underneath my white comforter. The white makes the tan of her skin and the black of her hair stand out even more. It compliments them so well – it makes them realer than real to me and I’ve known her for so many years now.

I can still see the image of the first time I saw her. There must be millions of husbands that can say that to their wives? She was wearing a blue t-shirt and the sleeves were short. I remember because I thought there was something strange about the way the color looked with her skin and her hair, and because the sleeves were short, I could make out the slight definition of her shoulder muscle. I’ve never been one to notice a detail like that either but I did, and that’s what meant everything. She talked to me first. The image of her head and neck leaning back to look up at me. But that was the first image, not the lasting one. The lasting one was from our first date. After we finished dinner – it was sushi, yes it was – we walked up the street together in the streetlight. She had a thin white scarf on. In the orange light, her coat looked maroon because I wasn’t paying attention and it was actually navy corduroy. Her hair was longer then and pulled up, the little strands stuck out around her neck. I was so nervous I’d barely eaten anything. I awkwardly put my arm around her and I realized I was in love. Who could make a movie about a moment like that or try to explain the feeling? For me it happened with a movement of my arm and nausea in my stomach. That’s what true love felt like then and now. That same woman is lying next to me. My wife is carrying my child in her stomach. What is it I am afraid of? Is it the baby itself or Eve with the baby inside her and what this will all mean for us? I’m not afraid. I shouldn’t be scared. Not me, not the one who holds the family together. But Eve is pregnant and something inside of me is screaming in fear.

Hiatus Over...Reign of Terror to Begin?

It's been a long month. Christmas, New Year's, watching puppet shows, Barack Obama, NFL Playoffs, the sun. One of the coldest Januaries I can remember in years. I am back to one hundred percent healthy. I can do this for all of you, whoever you are. I'm gonna get ripe like these tomatos and swiss chards upstairs there.

I'll be good I promise and make sure to give ye plenty t' read. Starting with another section of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt."


Ben

I’m alone now. I’m outside by the pool. The world is dark and the moon is waxing. I’m cradling the bottle in my right arm as I lay on the lounge. Nearly waxed this bottle off over the whole day. A bottle a day keeps the doctor in me at bay.

But there is so much to heal. Both of my daughters and both of my sons. I can see myself in James so much. The way he tries to heal people, to mend wounds. The difference is, is that he’s more like his mother. He’s noble, he looks noble; he sounds noble, and is noble to the point that it can be irritating. Except to the person who loves you. Me for Rose. Eve for him. I’ve healed. I can heal. I do it and did it in my own way. Quietly because it was a duty and duties are done in silence.

There is a coolness touching everything. I can feel it caressing my skin and my hair. If I walked on the perimeter I would feel it hovering over the leaves. It’s the autumn. What was that one good thing Kerouac said? Everyone goes home in October. Well it’s not October and everyone is home.

But no one cleans the pool anymore. I did it twice this summer, but we always leave it up to that robot now. It’s not the same, though. When we first got the pool James and I would both clean it. He’d listen to his music and do it during the day and on the weekends. I’d come home from work and clean it at night during the week. Look at it, glowing greenish and dark denim. It’s always looked this way in the dark. Those deep blue stones. Santos charged a high price but the work was worth it and who am I counting pennies? I was never a penny counter. This bottle feels good on my gut. It’s not quite a gut, but when I slouch like this, it’s unavoidable.

Yes, it’s definitely a cool night. When I was growing up, every year I looked forward to nights like this in September. During the day, the sun will beat down on the flowers and the trees, but at night, the wind picks up a little. The way I thought of it was that the cold hid in the ground until winter and that in the fall it made its first reemergence only at night. It made logical sense to me then. But tonight everything is touched by dampness and coolness. On all the leaves and petals there will be little marks of moisture.

I’m an old man now. My wife is dead. The songs of my youth don’t ring in my ears like they used to. I never thought I’d be old. Look at Cutty Sark. The bottle never ages, it keeps being produced looking the same and never changing. Orange label and orange liquid. If only humans could be as simple and adaptable as that. The model of my body has been outlived. I have four children that prove that. I have four children. Each one probably detests seeing me like this. I’m sure they all know about my past, the mistakes and jokes I made. I don’t regret it and I never did. Rose may have saved me. I’m sure she did because I couldn’t have helped the kids the way I did if I was getting like this all the time. I could’ve loved them. I always would’ve. But I couldn’t have helped them. I couldn’tve been a father. Although I never quite figured out what that meant. I heard the phrase “be a father” at soccer games, dance recitals, music concerts, and lacrosse camps, but I never really understood it. I had a part in creating them and I was always there to help. But I never knew when I crossed in the holy territory of being a father.

I suppose it all means as much as you want it to or as little. There are plenty of fathers out there who simply planted the seed for their children and didn’t do a thing after. Yet, other fathers destroyed their children’s lives by taking their title of “Dad” as a license to kill their child’s independence. Being a parent is terrible, but it’s a business I’m glad I got into.

I’m getting more sentimental. It’s not just because my wife – my guide – is gone, because it was happening before that. I’m seventy in January. That’s not so old, but old enough that the memories and sentiments pile up enough so that you can be sentimental. I don’t cry about things. I’ve heard about men near death who were easily brought to tears. They cried over Christ, talk of sex, love, American presidents, war and music. It’s funny, the only thing that seems to be missing from that list is death itself, but no one really talks about that as one of the elements of life. Because it’s always seen as the opposite. I don’t think it is. It’s as much a part in life as love or anything else. I’m going to die soon. Rose already did. The clouds are moving in over the stars. I need to finish this bottle and start the next one. Each day has its own agenda. What is tomorrow anyway?

Maggie

Still hurting from the staples and surgery, which makes sitting at a desk and writing at my amazing and perfect iMac very difficult - especially after sitting at a desk at work, hunched over, staples pinching into my lower intestine, spilling coffee all over my self, brushing my teeth with fresh spinach dip, trying not to look like a rabid dog, crowing like a rooster, running with the devil, trying to help little kids win law suits against candy distributors; I mean it gets a little tough after a certain amount of time. This makes me sigh in awe and wonder how such amazing humanitarians like Donald Trump, Michael Jordan, Cher, the Headless Horseman and Ghandi could do it every day and teach the world a little lesson about the world and the burning compassion of the soul.

Just kidding, only two of those people had souls.


(One one was Indian and the other was black.)

See the next excerpt of From Here to the Next Mound of Dirt and forget what you've read above.


Maggie

“Hey, Dad,” I say as I walk into the study. This was my favorite room of the house. It has the nice big skylight above the desk and I love the slanted wood walls, which are the color of caramel. I love it so much because it will always remind me more than anything else of being a kid. The mystery of the room, with bookshelves on three of the walls and Dad would come in here for privacy and you always wanted to know what he was doing in there.

“Daddy’s working,” Mom would say. But of course I didn’t believe her. Dad is sitting on his favorite chair with his feet kicked up on the ottoman and of course there is the bottle sitting on his lap, tilting forward onto his chest.

“Hello, Margaret,” Dad says.

“Oh, we’re being formal tonight,” I quip back and I’m very pleased by it. Dad is too because he gives one of his high-pitched laughs that he gives when he is caught off guard.

“You’ve gotten funny in your young age.”

“I’ve been trying to, Dad.”

We’re both quiet and looking around the room. Dad’s breathing is steady and as his chest rises and falls, I can hear the sloshing of his scotch in the bottle.

“How’re you doing?” I ask.

“I’m almost drunk,” he says and smiles. “Thirty years on and it’s the same as it was.”

“Except mom’s…”

“I’m talking liquor, Mags.”

I nod at him. I feel a little embarrassed about trying to point that out to him. I get up and walk over to the parchment colored globe that stands right in front of one of the bookshelves. I begin spinning the Earth on a completely impossible axis at an impossibly slow rate. But it’s my axis and it’s my rate.

“I bet you’ve been to almost half of the places on that globe.” Dad winks. “Imagine where you’ll be when you’re my age.”

“Hopefully at a little over fifty percent and living in a suburb.”

“Are you that smart?”

“I always thought I was.”

Dad laughs. “Well, then you’re not my daughter.”

I stop the globe with my hand. The tips of my fingers are touching China and Korea. I begin to cry. I don’t know why I’m crying and I can’t remember the last time I did. My face feels too hot. I didn’t even cry when Jake left the note for me in our apartment and then I noticed how big it was and that it really was meant for two and not as small as I thought.

Dad takes a drink. “I was only joking. You are my daughter.”

His arms are spread out. I walk over and he props himself up. I sit on his knee and he hugs me. I didn’t notice his stubble before, but now I can feel it. His hands stroke my hair.

“I haven’t seen hair this beautiful since your mother was twenty-two years old.”

“You like it?”

“How can I not? There’s so much to.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You’re right.” And now I’m speaking to so many things in the world that I’ve seen that I can’t even concentrate on crying. So I realize I’ve stopped and that I’m on my father’s knee. And for the first time in what seems like forever, I feel like a girl and not like a woman.

BE HERNIA NOW

Sorry for the delay in between posts. What with the Thanksgiving holiday and my urgent hernia surgery (see above) I couldn't get a lot of posts in. But wow what a lot of things happened in between that time. I ate turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, watched Dwayne Wade continue his one man domination of the stat sheets, watched as the collision course for the Lakers v. Celtics NBA Finals rematch this June became even more obvious, Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg, Pushing Daisies may get cancelled(?), and "My Girls" from the upcoming Merriweather Post Pavilion just leaked. You want action, you got action.

I've got tons to say. I want to write my Red Rose Speedwagon review, I want to write a review of the Beach House show I will be going to tomorrow night, I want to talk some more NBA shop and post some more of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt. But I also need to take my pain medicine and rest up so the staples in my stomach don't rip apart. I'll get all the posts up believe me - I'm getting better at this blog stuff.

Also, to the side, you will find a link where you can buy a hard copy of The Journey Forward my first novel. This is the first edition and there will be revisions as well as alternate cover versions so buy now or buy later if you feel the desire.

Below is a poem I wrote while I was knocked up...er...laid up...it wasn't male maternity leave.


Off Your Feet


The hill rises with the church,
There is the pass of haystacks
And the sound of Diana Ross –
The persistent twinkle of the piano
Is the background of my faith.

Who will stop the post office brick?
The rattle of child-like market carts,
Which carry bags of green apples
And roll into the bumpers of big cars,
Hitting them as the radio hisses.

But you can’t tell me about letters,
Packages marked with black sharpies.
They’ll fall on your doorsteps by the wreath
Or next to your checkered apartment floors
By the door buzzers and white names.

I’ll make sharp turns by the lake
With the Vandellas in my ear
Thinking about rain in the lime groves
Where the clouds pass now black now white
And the Milky Way signals out God.

You’ll tell me with your bass,
That there is no God or Time –
You may be right, I’ll agree,
The unmistakable throb I feel at a stoplight
And the sound of Motown are not tied to heaven.

She’d be afraid to hear heaven too,
Instead of understanding her, I’d get mad.
What is heaven but a word? God too?
Something no different than the bread we ate,
The wine and my beef ragout at the table.

Not every word means blood and disaster,
Faith comes with a green apple,
The old pictures of pot-bellied little boys,
Grandmothers and mothers holding golf clubs,
Talking about how thin their husbands were.

When I talk to you of my grandfather,
He is dead and I never knew him,
But I speak his words and feel his heartbreak,
The constant addiction to love and desire,
The perspiration of the soul and its depravity for good.

You who are far away from me
Don’t put out that light for meaning
Because haystacks are objects made of air
And they can never be created or destroyed
Just like my mailbox, they just are.

So let Motown mean America
Just like Oprah and the doctor’s office do too,
And I’ll drive my car off a cliff for love,
I’ll let it soar by the farms and the limes
That I want to show my friends
So we can lean on the bark and know,
That there is no word or knowing,
There are just the things we see,
The things we try to know and put color to –
The colors we want to show the one we love.

There have been some great writers who have had the spirit, passion and patience to concentrate a portion of their work on sports. This is not to say that they are actually "sports writers." I am not a fan of Norman Mailer's work nor David Foster Wallace's. However, I will concede that both were talented writers who offered their own unique stance on literature and, perhaps on a certain day -but never one of mine - the world. In any case, both knew how to write about sports; Mailer about boxing, Foster Wallace about tennis. My game is basketball and I always thought it would be an interesting addition onto any literary career that I may attain to also have side work that followed the most entertaining basketball player alive and perhaps one of the ten best of all time: Dwayne Wade.

This 2008-2009 season will stand out not simply because of the overall greatness we will see in the league, or because of the interesting storylines, the heightened level of competitiveness in each game, or because of the incredible repeat Finals we will see between the Lakers and Celtics, which will go 7 games this year and feature at least one punch and perhaps Kevin Garnett's head exploding after he blocks an Andrew Bynum hook shot - the 2008-2009 will stand out ultimately as Dwayne Wade's first MVP season and the first "redemption" season from one player since M.J. destroyed every player and team in the league in the '95-'96 season when the Bulls went 72-10 and Jordan had to make even the lowest bench player - and the fan sitting in the worst seats in the stadium - know who was the best player in the NBA and of all time after he let Nick Anderson steal the ball from him in crunch time in the '95 playoffs against the Orlando Magic.

I am writing this listening to "Get on the Right Thing" by Paul McCartney and after I woke up to read that Dwayne Wade posted a line of 38, 4 and 8 - with the flu - against the Pacers. This is simply the latest in a string of impressive games that have seen him trail Lebron James as the scoring leader by only a sliver as well as show-off an impressive passing ability and an improved three point shot. After two years interrupted by injuries and comparisons of a career dampened by injuries too early a la Penny Hardaway, Dwayne Wade is back and he is serving notice to the entire league that he is serious and better than Lebron James. Whereas James can be painfully lazy with his passing in stretches and can rely too much on the three - later day Kobe - Wade never bores, he always attacks and, with the addition of his new shooting range - has become an even greater threat on the offensive end. For some reason, there has been a hesitation - perhaps because of injury, although Jordan was injured almost the entire 1986 season - to place Dwayne Wade at the top of the NBA ranks. He has a greater variety and hunger for success than Carmelo Anthony, his game is much more polished than Lebron's, and he will always salivate in the crunch time, where Kobe - and the cynicism of his competitiveness and desire to BE Michael Jordan - shies away when he sees the game cannot be won (Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals, Game 7 of the first round of the playoffs agains the Suns in 2006).

The 2008-2009 version of Dwyane Wade reminds a fan of the NBA from the 80's and 90's. That was an era where the greatest players would disappear over the summer and come back the next season with a new weapon - Jordan and the '96-'98 fadeaway, Bird and the '86 left hand, Olajuwon and the polish of the mid-90's Dream Shake (See 1995). This season obviously has a lot to play out, however we are seeing the Dwayne Wade Three-Pointer as a new weapon to add to the list. The addition does not seem as drastic as the three mentioned above, but for a player who relied so much on penetration and contact, the honing of a three point shot to open up the rest of his game is extremely significant.

Wade's defense has improved also. In Beijing this summer, Wade was content to play a role on the gold medal team. Kobe's reinvention had taken prominence since Wade's injuries and the whole world was ready to make Lebron the basketball Obama (especially if he comes to New York - you want basketball hype, you'll get it). So, Wade dug in and played clinical defense, setting the pace for the entire team and helping him to easy transition points which allowed him to average the most points per minute of any player on the team. Now that the season has begun, Wade has been just as imposing on the defensive end.

There will be more written about Dwayne Wade's "comeback" by sports writers this year. However, Wade never went anywhere. He has remained the best basketball player alive and one of the most entertaining players of all-time, despite injuries and lack of media attention. When one watches Wade fly through the lane, there is no imposing physical strangeness that comes with a Lebron dunk, there is only grace, hang and then simple execution at the rim over whoever has tried to stop the inevitable - it is the closest we have come to the Michael Jordan we have been looking for for years and I for one was never looking for another saviour - I was just looking for another player to enjoy watching wholeheartedly.

Just watch for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_6eecmZTZA



On the literary side of things, have a look at this poem from a few years ago:


Creaking Door

A creaking wooden door,
To an ancient backyard,
The sweltering birds chirp
Into the dizzying heat
While the chill of a pool
Buzzes as the oasis of my youth.

Red bricks meet green grass,
The thickets block off brown
Wood that covers the neighbors’
Home and their mail retrieval.
Meanwhile I stretch to the edge
And dip my fingers in to test.

Artificial water falls off each tip,
Dropping slowly onto the scorched brick.
My feet are calloused from concrete,
So I dip them in too,
But as I do the redness cracks
And splashes, and sinks, and drowns.

So I back away and run,
Slamming the door behind me,
Allowing it to creak and
Watch the forgotten swim in
The azure water reflecting the sky,
As I disappear down the road.

Black pavement is hot, same as
The sand that I arrive at past
Noon on the outskirts of town.
My callouses fail, as feet do,
And I seek refuge in the
Repeating waves of the bay.

I stand in the water with children
And acquaintances, and see their
Umbrellas dug into the shore.
Bikinis and sunglasses and coolers
All come into sight and bring
The butterflies in my stomach.

A deep perspiration drips on my forehead,
And I run along the sandbar
To test its durability and length,
But ultimately with ulterior motives;
To escape the cries and smiles
And embraces that appear onshore.

Standing on the far reaches of
The gift from low-tide, gentle waves
Rock against my ankles and remind
Me of all that I love
And have loved, even those things
Served with a grain of salt.

Boats appear out beneath the sun,
While rocking on the passive waves,
And there I am on board,
Close to the bow of one vessel,
Moving outward into the open arms
Of the Atlantic Ocean which carries
With it all I need,
Until that too becomes a creaking door.

New Poem

Below is a poem I wrote this evening. It's easy to write with the piece of mind knowing that on the NBA on TNT there is a double header of the Celtics vs. the Pistons and the Lakers vs. the Suns. I'm telling you, every night in the NBA this season there will be incredible games. No game lacks a story or a player. You want an eighties revival with tight jeans and slick tennis shoes, well get those short shorts out and slap them on Kurt Rambis. You can get them in '82 Lakers short too. Maybe you like yours in an '86 Walton style?

Enjoy.

I LIE AROUND

He breathes smoke while he walks the steps,
Names stiched on the the pocket lining
Of the coat he covers his shirts with,
Names he sees out his front window at night
Wearing scarves and moving unmarked.

Loneliness never answers by name alone
When its head turns with uneven strands
Or the curls that frame it like a little girl,
It is never the face you expect it to be,
It often looks like pork with a pepper sauce.

The metal awnings make strange bedfellows
And the plastic bags I carry in my hand are
A far cry from the way children speak and gasp.
Who knows what snow will fall past my brown drapes?
Not the girl who drew the drift out his back window.

That prince among men doesn’t wear headphones
He let the robbers rip his wires to shreds
And they ran down the street with J.S Bach
Holding hands with Mick Fleetwood in their pockets –
The strange romances we put together.

While he walks the steps the winter waters his lips,
And the wood panelled walls of his youth rise up,
The crooked tables and carpets of home
Where the gaslight shown bright in the afternoon
When potatoes roasted golden with his longing.

He tries to cook tubers now in oil pans
But in the November rain they change meanings
The longing is not gold and filled with tears
It now wears white winter hats he imagines
On the heads of the women he loves.

When love is parked and metered by time,
Can you or I gain anything from his longing?
We’d all like to listen to vinyl in wool socks
And pull the red afghan over two heads on the couch
While we wait for the secret to reveal its shape.

She calls him in his brown leather shoes
With her canvas bags fresh off of work,
And she has to see the young man tonight,
To show him the new pictures she took –
With the sunlight, stones and red jacket.

To be alone is to be with another person,
When you and I go out with the popcorn
We don’t ever need to talk to each other
We can just look at the floor and pretend,
And so can they with their glasses of beer.

He doesn’t remember it that way on the farm.
When he felt a burn in his chest it wasn’t indigestion,
It was the longing of his soul to run free
To follow the storm bulk by the grove,
To kiss the girl where the rain hit the roof.

The world won’t heal itself at 4 in the morning
With our pillow talk and duvet covers
But we can wear headlines over our groins
And laugh about them and our steak dinner,
So when we drink coffee tomorrow we can smile.

Keep your ambition for the record books
And let the passion burn through your eyes
And dredge your hungry youthful lips
Those things have nothing to do with love,
African safaris and ten volume novels
Don’t change one piece of your heart.
LLC’s and pimps grow and fall like apples
You can pick them off any orchard
But you can never pull on the burning in your chest
That strange appetite where you hunger
For a country and farm that never existed –
But you want the thunder and lightning
You want to see it over the tree tops
In the grove he imagined by the barn
And maybe then he’ll kiss you too.

Section 7 & 8 - Liza and Tom

It's been a hectic week. I have been trying to get a lot more work done on "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt," as well as work on putting "The Journey Forward" on CreateSpace. I'm having trouble formatting my cover design for the CreateSpace templates. It's not really as easy as they make it out to seem when you read about it in praising articles and the visions of self-publishing grandeur you have in your head. I am going to work at it. In the meantime, to tide anyone who reads this over, I will post the next two sections of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt." I have some good rambling ideas for posts to come in the next few days or next week. This weekend, one of my oldest friends will be visiting from out of town so I have to pay attention to that. I want to write big posts about 1. Dwayne Wade - his never-ending greatness and his resurgence, 2. Role Models and the ascension of The State alumni to pop culture, 3. Red Rose Speedway (see above) and solo Paul McCartney for any doubters of the Pop Jesus. I will get these up as soon as I have the neccessary time to ramble them as well as any readers of my words that I type deserve.

Below find Tom and Liza's sections. You will have to scroll further down for Section 7 which is Liza and the Tom's section follows that. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me your complaints. Any mail is appreciated over here at Fuck City.

Enjoy.


Tom

I forgot how much I liked spareribs. I chomp into the grey-colored meat with its reddish brown crust or marinade on the outside. I’m ripping flesh and meat off the bone. Tissue too. Leaving it bare and grey with a few white marks that may or may not be from my teeth. The bone rattles on the old light-grey ceramic plates we’ve always used. There is a pile of four bones. Two are licked clean and two have pieces of chewed pale meat sticking to them. I’m a pale piece of meat.

James is talking.

“I think what we first should do is box up all of our old bedrooms. We can start that tomorrow. Then we work our way around the house. The moving truck gets here on Wednesday and they’re going to pack it that day and the next.”

“The funeral is on Monday?” Maggie asks.

James is eating his food and he nods.

“We’ll pack up the kitchen last right?” Liza asks.

“Absolutely. That way we can cook if we need to and have an area that’s not a complete disaster. Can you hand me the rice, honey?”

Eve passes the rice. But with her, there is something more. I want to say that she is swanlike in the way her arm raises, falls, rises again and slides the box of steaming rice. I think I’m in love with her and always have been since James first brought her home for Christmas. There was nothing like the way she looked on the wedding, though. She wore a white dress of course, but it was everything. The way her skin looked even more glowing in that way it has. Like honey in the sun or a bright penny but, no, lighter than that. And her hair was done in a certain way with strands threaded in a design I don’t even know the first thing about. I hate that he gets to live with her down in D.C. I still haven’t been to their house yet. I ride the train every Saturday and hope that a girl like her will come and sit down next to me and if she did, I know I’d have the courage to make her fall in love with me.

James again:

“Dad, did you really have to buy a new place so quickly? I hate to think that you just wasted some money by being brash.”

Dad is licking a sparerib bone. He turns to the Cutty Sark, which has about a third or so of its orangey liquid left. I look around the table. Eve looks concerned and so does James. Maggie tosses back her hair; she still has so much of it. Liza is quiet sitting next to Dad; she’s looking at her food.

“Jimmy,” Dad says. He rarely ever called him Jimmy. None of us did. “That’s the way I’ve always been. But didn’t you know?”

“Know what?” James says.

“Know that he was brash,” Maggie adds.

“No,” Dad is shaking his head. He lazily pokes his fork at a dark dripping piece of beef. “Didn’t you know that your mother was a magician?”

James looks at Eve.

“A magician, Ben?”

Dad nods and chews. Nods and chews.

“How do you mean, Dad?” Liza has piped up at the mention of Mom.

Dad looks over at her and smiles. He grabs the top of the Cutty Sark and begins to rotate the bottle. It makes that hollow sliding sound that glass makes on wood.

“She played a trick on you all, on anyone that has known us, and even on me.”

I’m confused. It seems like he’s going to drop a bombshell. But what kind of bombshell? What kind of secret is he toying around with? Or is he just playing, patting some dead rat around like a tomcat. That’s what his legend was. The big joker, the wit, the famous drunk. He has to be playing. My stomach feels bloated and it flips for a moment. Maybe Mom tricked him? An affair?

James is talking.

“What are you talking about, Dad?”

“The greatest trick of all that only your mother could pull off.” Dad is looking at Eve as he talks. “Making me seem like a respectable and successful man.”

I feel relieved. Everyone is rolling their eyes.

“C’mon, Dad,” Maggie says.

“No, Mags, it’s true. Now that she’s gone I can feel my old ways coming back to me. I’m becoming undone. All the stitching she did to fix me up over the years is loosening. She turned me into a doctor, but not a surgeon. That was her job.” Dad is standing with his plate in his right hand and the bottle tucked into his armpit. “I hope you will all come visit me at my new home. Feel free to bring any grandkids. You know how I always loved children. That’s what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

“Oh, come on, Dad,” Maggie says. “Don’t be like that.”

The faucet comes on and then there is thud of the dishwasher door opening. After that, it’s the clank of the dish and then the muffled close of the dishwasher. I hear Dad unscrew the bottle.

“I’ll be in the study,” he says.

We’re all quiet at the table. The Chinese food has consolidated into a lump in my stomach. I feel my skin bulge out and I’m tired.

Maggie is looking at James.

“What?” James says.

“Let him go through this.”

James plays with the food on his plate. He sighs. “I can’t just let him act like a fool. He’s got to take care of his money and himself now that Mom is dead.”

“This is how he’s grieving.”

“By reliving some sort of fantasy of himself from thirty years ago?”

“She’s gone.”

“I know.”

Maggie wants to speak but she remains quiet. James is home now and all of the feelings are starting to come back to me. The way he was always in control, trying to help everyone, taking responsibility. I’m looking at the grey bones on my plate. I love him and I’m glad he’s back. But I hate him for leaving and I hate that he’s going to go away again with his wife who I’m in love with. And I’ll still be here, riding the train, taking walks, stuck on this jut of land, which I’m tied to for some reason that I don’t understand.

I’m standing with my plate.

“I’m going to go for another walk.”

Section 7 - Liza

Liza

“Should we get Chinese food?”

I’m sitting with Dad at the kitchen table now. I see James, Eve, and Maggie outside. I’m not sure where Tom is. He was down here before but he must have gone out for a walk or something. Dad smiles at me.

“Never heard of it.”

He plays up his New York accent so that heard sounds more like hoid. I take this answer to mean yes so I walk over to Mom’s old desk, which looks out onto the backyard. There are still cluttered papers on the desk, notes of things to do. She had the date of Parents’ Weekend at my school written down on a blue post-it. The note is in my hand and I make a fist crumpling it. I feel the adhesive in my palm and I drop the ball of paper. It hits the light colored wood of the desk and bounces once. I see her old address book, beaten and colored by time and dust. The cloth flower print binding is frayed in so many places and there are all kinds of odd pieces of paper sticking out of it in different colors. I open it up and begin leafing through.

Anderson, Joan 101 Shaker Drive 631-689-4277

Christian, Terri 43 Colonial Way 751-0123

Hulse, Lindsay 2 Bay Street 689-8819
corner near Main

O’Donnell, Connor 22 Old Grey Road 631-941-9491

I’m past the S section when I see a small scrap of white paper pressed down in the nook where the pages meet the binding. The writing is in red ink and it looks like the writing of a child. “Mom- went to Shore Deli with James and Paul. Love, James” I put the paper back down in its nook and press the book with its worn out binding closed. Then I reach underneath the desk lamp to the ceramic envelope where Mom kept all of our takeout menus. I pull out the Eastern Pavilion one and begin to cry. I’m crying and crying and I can’t stop. I turn around back to the table and I slide the menu along the surface. Dad is looking at me. I feel the heat of my tears and the blood rising and filling my cheeks and the snot that is filling my nose, running a little bit down towards my lips. I pull a napkin out of the holder, which is a wooden house painted blue with a red roof and even one little puff of grey smoke coming out of a black chimney. Dad is looking at me.

“I don’t remember the food being that bad.”

I laugh and the laughter rises through my tears and I’m shrugging and holding the napkin upwards in my right hand. Dad is drinking. I don’t know what to do. But I hate this house with its brick chimney and because it’s so big and not small and wooden and sitting on a table. It sits on a small hill and is full to the brim of objects and memories.

I’m crying. Dad is drinking. And I killed mom because I went to college.