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Making It Out in Time

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by Mary Padilla

Really believing that you might be lost in the woods when the sun is going down is frightening. When you’re unsure of the trail as it becomes rapidly more difficult to discern the way, you realize that the chance of emerging before darkness is becoming exponentially less likely by the minute. Not only does it get much colder in the mountains after sundown, but that’s when the bears come out. And there’s no metal campground strongbox in the middle of the woods in which to stow your food overnight. It’s all in your backpack, and you’d better not discard it if you might be lost out there for a while. But those sealed packets won’t seriously stand in the way of detection by an animal whose sense of smell is as keen as its sight is poor. And bears are always hungry. Your rapidly increasing anxiety bodes no good. Whatever chance you have of getting out to safety soon depends on calmly attending to clues: Which way is the stream flowing so you can follow it out and down? Does the waning light making its way through the canopy line up with the moss on the trees as a compass? Can you spot any trail blazes on their trunks or the boulders? The birds are falling silent now as it darkens, so there could be a gradient of noises from civilization audible over the increasingly loud and rapid beating of your heart. Was that the sound of other hikers, or road noise…or something else? Can you recognize any landmarks you passed on the way in before it gets too dark to see any more? Is that the boulder that was next to the trailhead up ahead…or could it be the profile of an unmoving large animal?

Since joining the LP2 several years ago, Mary has been trying new things, like essay writing.

 

 

I Remember

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by Lale Odekon

I remember my four years old feet sinking into the warm, soft sand, my toes disappearing in it. I remember the cool waves and how they sent shivers up my spine as I ventured in over the pebbles and small fragments of sea- shells crunching under my feet…how the lapping waves caressed the moss-splotched rocks and left them glistening under the mid-summer sun. I remember running into the seaside hotel with bare feet over the carpets, leaving flecks of sand in my trail and how the tall spacious hallways felt so cool even in the  blistering heat outside….I remember the smell of toast wafting from the nearby kitchen on our way to breakfast on the terrace where tables were set up with white tablecloths and kind waiters would smear jam on tall narrow mouthed water bottles to attract the many bees so we would not get stung…I remember behind the hotel the cool reddish soiled patch surrounded by tall pine trees which was our playground where we the children played all sorts of pretend games and collected and exchanged pine cones and nuts…our fingers would  get all black and sticky.

The afternoons would be languid …. at the gate, on a large tray of block ice an old man would sell shelled almonds and fresh walnuts…. I remember one afternoon when my mother, as was her custom, dressed me in a nice white linen dress to welcome my father when he returned from work. I remember the older children deciding to go cherry picking on the grounds and asking me to come along. I felt so proud to be included as I hopped along among the purplish wisterias on my way to cherry picking…I helped them by holding my skirt up to catch the cherries they were throwing from above the trees. Then we shared them. I remember my mother’s fury when she laid eyes on me.

I remember the Maître D’, Anton, a roundish, jolly man who on most days would take the time to construct a stork for me out of metallic paper found in cigarette packs at the time…I loved them and collected all.

I remember the sadness when summer was over, and we returned to our apartment in the city. We always enjoyed the remaining sunny, and warm days by spending time in the balcony facing the back of the building overlooking the rose garden…I remember the roar I heard during lunch on the balcony on one such September day. A commotion followed with rowdy crowds looting stores and pots and pans and yards of jewel-colored fabrics being dragged through the streets and my friend Aline Melikian’s piano being thrown out from their third-floor apartment across the street…I remember the stillness and the sorrow that engulfed us afterwards.

I remember my first day of school…black pinafores…heavy school bags, a high-ceilinged old building with creaky floors, a stove in the center for heating…and an angry looking, old and not a very attractive teacher. In art class she had us color- a favorite activity of mine. A little while later I was bolted out of my pleasant immersion by an acute burning pain in my right ear…I look up and the teacher lets go of my burning ear…My crime? I was softly singing to myself as I colored…Then there was the time when at the end of the day we were all released into the courtyard running around and jostling…gradually the crowd thinned as each kid got picked up by an adult until I was the only one sitting on a bank, clutching my red bag…the air got chilly and the sky turned darker…and my mother finally showed up…no apology…just a misunderstanding between her and my grandfather as to who had to pick me up. 

The last day of the fifth grade we were to go to school wearing nice clothes. One was picked for me and was ready in my closet. I woke up early to a bright and sunny May day, happily anticipating putting on my new dress and having a good time with friends before we all dispersed for the summer and then later to different middle schools of our parents’ choice. I remember my father, still in his pajamas, dashing out of my parents’ room, the small red Grundig transistor radio attached to his ear and screaming, “coup, coup.” Then other radios were turned on, phone calls were made to friends and family…stealth look onto the avenue in front of our building…soldiers marching up and down…the radio blaring that there will be a curfew until otherwise announced.

In the all girls’ British middle school situated in an old dark building on a steep cobbled street in Beyoglu district of Istanbul, I remember the marble staircase and the creaking floors and the unhappy, stern British teachers all single and in their 30’s and 40’s…rules were plentiful…we wore  frumpy uniforms and a cap with a Latin inscription…we were the laughing stock of the boys and girls of the German High School a few blocks down the street who had no restrictions on their attire…we had to pray at lunch for ”what we had received,” which was nothing to speak of and on Monday morning assembly we had to cheer ”hip, hip hurray for the Queen!”  Worst of all we were forbidden to speak Turkish. If caught speaking in our native language we were given a key which we had to get rid of by spotting another twelve-year old classmate with the same infraction and pass the key. Whoever ended with the key at the end of the school day had to show up for Saturday detention and write pages of “I will speak only English” until their fingers cramped. I remember organizing a secret soccer game in the gallery of the assembly hall and getting caught when the ball hit a window.

I remember in the Spring of that year my father announced that we were going to a new restaurant on the Bosphorus. Its owner was Anton, the former Maître D’ of the now defunct summer resort of my early childhood. The resort’s former employees had all dispersed to other hotels in Istanbul and some had returned to their ancestral home, Greece. Which outfit to wear? How to style my hair? It was bad enough to be seen by anyone while out with parents but at least I could be absolutely cool if caught. Finally pleased with myself, I joined everyone in the car and we drove to Anton’s restaurant. After warm greeting and hugs all around we got settled and delicious dishes started arriving one after the other…at last Anton reappeared with a plate on which stood his signature stork made out of metallic paper…my cool and composure went out of the window…misty eyes and hugs…more hugs around the table…we mourned and rejoiced for the wonderful summers we all had shared.

I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. I trained and practiced as an anesthesiologist in the US. When I retired a few years ago I joined IRP/LP2 and have been having the time of my life since.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Headwrap

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by Judith Meyerowitz

As a very small child, Jasmine had watched her grandmother fold the piece of cloth into a rectilinear shape and knot it on top of her head. It looked like a crown. It was very old. She loved to hear the story again and again of how it had been passed down from generation to generation. However, she never saw her mother wear it. When she asked her why, she would firmly say, “We are in America. Not Africa! We are in the North. Not the South!”

As she entered her teenage years, Jasmine was increasingly drawn to the beauty of the headwrap and curious about how it was made. Threads of multiple colors intertwined to create the traditional design. Her eyes followed with wonder the thin black and green cone shapes which rose into the gold and red sky. She thought about the weaving process.

She had watched with fascination on YouTube, men working the loom. The threads of different colors wrapped around their toes, the red brown soil and sweat of Africa mixed in with the colors.

She couldn’t figure out the spacing of the design. It was as if the weavers’ bodies knew where to place the threads, as if their feet danced the rhythm of mathematics. It was a striking piece of Kente cloth from Ghana.

Jasmine’s family was part of the Great Migration. Her great-grandparents had journeyed from Mississippi to Chicago following WW1, while the headwrap had journeyed from Africa to the South with slavery. It had gone from expressing African identity to symbolizing white power and enslavement.

She had seen the headwrap taken over once again by white America in the form of “Black Mammy” in old pancake ads and on servants in old movies. She felt demeaned not only as an African American but as a young African American woman.

She struggled with her own thoughts while also trying to understand her mother’s discomfort. She was in America and the North but how she saw herself was bound to the history and diaspora of her people. She had recently seen an exhibition on representing the Black model at a local art gallery. The theme was portrayed over time and between continents- Europe and America. She read the introduction: the purpose was to “explore aesthetic, political, social, and racial issues”. Beautiful and strong women looked out at her from the walls in headwraps.

Jasmine had never worn the headwrap. She went to the mirror and as if part of her body memory, her grandmother’s movements came back to her. She completed the crowning knot and got on the “L” that would bring Jasmine to her first class at the University of Chicago.

Judith has taken several writing and poetry study groups since joining. She thanks Voices and particularly the members of the Flash Fiction writing workshop for which this piece was written.

Knight of the Homeless

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by Judith Meyerowitz

Four men ages forty-eight to eighty-three enter the night together. They are a band of brothers, related not by blood but by experience and homelessness. Banished from the kingdom, three huddle together while another lies down nearby. Having no home, they seek a safe dry place and sleep outside the city walls.

The four pass around a cheap flask and the moon reflects off the surface, a swig of whiskey their remaining comfort.

They recognize a young man from the streets, as much outcast as they from the towers of granite.

He is yelling crazily and brandishing a pipe:

“This is my land. Get out of my country. “

The metal object glistens in the moonlight. He raises it above and crashes it down on their heads.  

The four fall through the night.

Never to awaken

Suddenly out of the dark, an odd figure emerges cloaked in silver armor. All are blinded by the shimmering silverlight as if a mirage.  

He wears a chain mail necklace made from soda can tabs, tin plates show through beneath. He draws his sword— an umbrella with metallic spokes poking through. He wears his helmet— a shoebox adorned with foil and pieces of colored glass.

An urban knight on a quest for justice, his mission to avenge the deaths upon the Bowery. He rides through the streets of lower Manhattan on his bicycle, shielded by a garbage can lid, sweeping by the powerless who alone can visualize him.

They cheer as he chases the devil dressed in black, still holding the pipe with the blood of brothers and slays him under a full moon.

This work was developed for the Writing Workshop study group in the fall of 2019 and Judith thanks the coordinator and its members. The work is in memory of the four homeless men murdered as they slept on the Bowery in October of that year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Youth Dance

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by Carmen Mason

It was during those years when I’d look into the mirror as I now look into a suspicious salad when I think something small and dark is moving in it. I would spend hours examining my inherited bucked teeth and hazel eyes, thanking god for at least not giving me my mother’s sharp nose, too long and almost pointed. I would peruse each pimple and rosy smudge and purse my lips into a unilateral kiss, making a soft puffing smack I hoped one day would be reciprocated. Oh, to be kissed by a dream boy whom, I must admit, I had no set picture of. He must just be someone who would thrill me every time I thought of him.

So I was alone and deep into my face in the playground bathroom mirror during recess when a beautiful blond girl I’d seen in the classroom next to mine (which meant she was in the seventh grade too) came and stood next to me. She took out a golden tube of lipstick and said, “My mother’ll kill me if she ever finds out,” and putting her perfect featured face up to the mirror, smeared – back and forth, back and forth- two rose petal stripes on her pretty, slender mouth. I had moved over so we could share the mirror, but didn’t want to leave because I wanted her to stay. I could tell in that split second there was something different about her from the other girls, her voice, her enunciation (my mother’s favorite topic), her Scandinavian blondness. She was wearing a low yellow crisply ironed cotton blouse and she had real, full breasts. (Mine were just entering the world, so I wore a padded bra but I was confident they would be sufficient one day.) Anyway, she was breathtaking and when she turned and said the following to me, I knew we were going to be friends, best friends: “Aren’t you Carmen, the girl who goes to St. Peter’s Episcopal?” 

“Yes,” I said proudly. She knew exactly who I was.

“I’m Barbara Benson. I’m in the SP class next to yours. My boyfriend, Donnie Mason goes to your church. Do you know him?” I said no.

“Well, do you go to the Friday night youth dances?”

I was thrilled because I was going to my first one that very next Friday. My mother had not only agreed but was sewing me a nylon red polka dotted slightly off the shoulder dress just for that dance! I told her yes, absolutely.

“Well, if it’s not too much of an imposition -” I swear that’s just the way she talked – “could you tell me if he’s fooling around with a girl named Lynn Hinton? That’s what I’ve been told, and I just want to know if it’s true. I go to St. Paul’s Lutheran.”

I didn’t care that she wasn’t Episcopalian or was asking me to spy on her boyfriend, because I was hoping we would still be friends whether he was two-timing her or not. How could someone ask someone to spy on her boyfriend if she hadn’t already checked her out and felt she could trust her? I was more positive than ever that this girl and I would become close, despite her sophistication and my lack of it.

Anyway, I was sure Barbara knew what she was doing and could take care of herself. She appeared to me to be very sure of herself on the outside and whether she had any of those secret demons and trepidations (my mother’s word) I would find out after we had become friends. I was sure she was sensitive, could keep secrets and was ready for the loving friendship I was so prepared to give to someone.

Friday night came and I must say the dress fit perfectly. I had to walk about a mile to St. Peter’s, the oldest high Episcopal church in the Bronx that looked like a cathedral, had a bright red door and was surrounded by a big graveyard. Even though it was a warm September night and I’d be taking the bus back, my mother had given me her white woolen shawl if it got breezy. My mother and I parted friends (another good omen for the evening) and I walked with two other Episcopalians to my first youth dance. I’ll never forget how right I felt walking around the side of the church to the stone steps that led to the big rec room.

The moon was already out in the still light but a fading sky and the tombstones were softly silhouetted. I remember entering the crepe papered and ballooned room where some kids and two or three grown-ups stood against the far wall. Then some already dancing kids turned toward me and their easy smiles and a few shouts from here and there, “Hi!” and “Hello Carmen!” were all I needed to know it would all be okay. I put my shawl on a low table and joined some girls I knew from school. It took me about a minute not only to find out who Lynn Hinton was but to have her pointed out to me. She was across the room standing close to an auburn-haired boy in a gray suit. His back was to me, but she was in profile, and she was beautiful. She had shiny chestnut hair, was super-developed and flipped her hair like a slow-motion whip. Her mini skirt was brown and she had low-heeled tan shoes, the very ones I’d asked my mother to get me for Christmas. I didn’t like her one bit but the boy leaning into her magnetic field and making her laugh and giggle did. That must be him, I thought. Donnie Mason. I’ll have to tell Barbara the ugly truth and hope she doesn’t kill the messenger. (My sister taught me that expression because she was always delivering my mother’s dictums to me before my mother got to me.)

Well, the music was blasting and I was dancing mostly with other girls for the first forty-five minutes. I kept refilling my cup of Coke because my mother forbade me to drink it at home. She said that they’d put ‘coca’ from South America in it and that it was addictive. Anyway, I was full of Coke and brownies when “Rock Around the Clock” started up and I swear, like in the Bible movies with the famous Red Sea scene, the dancing kids seemed to part evenly and from across the room I saw the auburn-haired boy who’d probably just come back from necking in the graveyard with Lynn Hinton coming toward me and there, right up close to me, he said, “Hi, would you like to dance?” and I said yes and we danced first the lindy and then he pulled me into a conga line – “Kitty, kitty conga, you can do the conga…” and then, yes, I admit it, we did the “Fish” which was a slow hip-lifting kind of dance I swore I’d never be caught dead doing with anyone my whole entire life and my heart was pounding and I was sure the “coca” had taken effect and I was drugged, but I could not stop looking at his dark thick-lashed eyes (thicker than any girl’s, I swear)  and his perfect-toothed smile and listening to his conversation and I knew that I would be different than all the girls he had known before, even, yes, even Barbara with her beautiful hair and figure and speaking voice and definitely the voluptuous Lynn Hinton and her mini skirt. I knew that I had met someone I was never going to be without and when Lynn Hinton grabbed her girlfriend by the arm and said overloud, “Let’s get outta here. Now!” I kept dancing and I knew that Donnie Mason would walk me home so I didn’t have to take the bus and that I would see him, as I’ve already told you, again and again forever.

That Monday I went with shame and trepidation into the playground bathroom. I was early so I practiced some remorseful, sorrowful expressions in the mirror. I noticed that my mousy brown hair had a luster I’d never seen before, and my eyes looked big and had gold and green flecks of shining light. I closed my mouth over my buckies (someone once having buck teeth was better than having buck eyes) and waited for Barbara Benson to arrive.

“Well,” she asked softly, “did you find out anything?”

We were both as we had been when we first met, staring and talking to each other into the mirror. I looked at her hopeful reflection and said, with all my heart and soul in my words, “Barbara, I’ve got to tell you, yes, I went there and yes, he was with that girl Lynn and he was all joking and smoochy with her but then…”

“I knew it,” she squealed. “Everyone was telling me, but I wouldn’t believe them but now I know it’s all true…”

“Yes, but you have to wait because something happened. I didn’t mean for it to but it did and he walked over to me and it was like – crack – lightning in the sky, I swear, it was like we were drawn to each other like a magnet to a nail and he couldn’t stop talking and dancing with me and me too and honestly, Barbara, I didn’t mean for anything, I didn’t do a single thing but just stand there and there he was and then…”

She backed away from the mirror and turned to the real me as I did instantly to her. We faced each other and I swear she could see me trembling, but she didn’t say or do anything but look into my eyes, and then with her perfect face looking into my repentant one, she smiled and grabbed my shoulders, pushing me softly back and forth and laughing, “Oh, I don’t mind one iota, it’s fine, and I hope you can come home with me this afternoon if you’re free ‘cause we live in connected buildings , did you know that?” (I was thrilled – she’d researched me!)

“I swear Carmen, I don’t care about you two, it’s only I didn’t want that rotten girl to have him. I knew it was all over for us. Look, can you come over today? I swear I forgive you so please- just send me a note to my class,” and she hugged me and sped back to school. I breathed heavily for a while, then followed after her but had to get a late pass and I didn’t care ‘cause I knew that next to the most handsome boy in the world, I was about to get the best and most lasting friendship I’d ever desire.

Now, I know you’re thinking sure, sure, childhood fantasy made up of glory and romance.Well, six years after all this, I married Donnie Mason and we had one beautiful thick lashed, auburn-haired girl, Danielle, who we nick-named Curly Moe. Four years after another of life’s inveterate infatuations we parted, but Barbara? She’s been my true friend forever and we’re both in our seventies so that’s really saying something, isn’t it?

Carmen Mason has been writing poems and prose since she was five. She has won several short story and poetry prizes throughout the years, been published in magazines and online and is completing a book of her poems. She enjoys sharing her writings with anyone who’s interested.

 

 

 

Bobbie Conklin

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by Carmen Mason

When I met Bobbie Conklin she was a petite make-up free austere suit-wearing remarkably plain-looking sixty-year-old from New England. She’d moved with her lifelong partner, Margot Hartnett, from her provincial New England hometown to a rambling apartment on Riverside Drive, joined the NYC Board of Education and become a librarian at Evander Childs High School on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx.

Bobbie sought me out because I was the literary/art editor of Evander’s The Bridge. She ran The Book Explorers’ Club and wanted me to be its president. I was thrilled because my best friend Barbara and I religiously attended Bobbie’s Friday afternoons in the cramped back room of the immense library, its walls wrapped round with J.M. Newell murals inspired by Diego Rivera. There she’d stage scenes or readings from great or little-known literary works for a packed audience not just comprised of nerds. Students of all grades and levels, jocks and social rejects, Arista members, shy freshmen, big shots and hangers-on entered that room, initially to devour her homemade brownies, Ritz crackers thick with peanut butter, both piled high on china plates, and cups of Coca Cola. Yes, dozens of foragers and faithful entered Fridays at three-sharp for the goodies, but none left until dark as Bobbie would quietly and quickly shut the only door right next to her make-shift stage where everyone would see you if you bolted.

She’d invite all to sit and give out the scripts she’d typed up each weekend to the club members – perhaps a group reading of Benet’s John Brown’s Body, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s love and political sonnets, fiery scenes from The Raisin in the Sun, hilarious ones from You Can’t Take It with You, Japanese tankas and haikus. (I will never forget Basho’s haiku: For a lovely bowl/let us arrange these flowers/ since there is no rice.)

Bobbie always gave a short, impassioned introduction to the programs and invited all there to be part of future Friday presentations if they wanted to be. Sooner or later the listeners became hooked by the poetry and prose of great masters presented by kids they’d sat with in class or passed by in the halls, often without recognition or hellos until after that magic Friday afternoon.

For years afterwards Bobbie invited all the past officers and most still local members of the club to a December dinner at her apartment. There, at a twenty-foot-long dining table, she served a scrumptious four course dinner of roast turkey with the unique and finest trimmings one might find at a Julia Child or Martha Stewart repast. But first, as we all settled down in their antique, art and book-filled living room to talk about our high school and college memories, our varied professions, the thrilling theatre and films we’d seen, the countries we’d travelled to, exploits we’d dared, loves and losses. And there, before dinner was announced, Bobbie and Margot served us all two or three icy orange-hued Side Cars in the finest crystal rimmed with granulated sugar. And I’m willing to bet not one of us ever claimed to have had that drink – invented by an American in Paris during WWI – anywhere before or since unless it was in that magical apartment on those transportive wintry afternoons.

Carmen Mason has been writing poems and prose since she was five. She has won several short story and poetry prizes throughout the years, been published in magazines and online and is completing a book of her poems. She enjoys sharing her writings with anyone who’s interested.

 

 

 

 

The Perfect Horse Costume

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by Marshall Marcovitz

There are some people who remember everything about the past.  I’m not one of them. But, in my mind’s eye, I can still see the horse costume my mother made for me when I was eight years old. Roy Rogers had Trigger, a palomino. Gene Autry had Champion, with a banner that said, “The World’s Greatest Horse.” Not as great, as the one my mother made for me, silver with four coal black hoofs. She made it on her Singer sewing machine. It seemed like every night, I could hear that clickety-clack of her making the costume, stitching it together: four leg sections, body, and horse’s head with a shimmering mane. She had me try on the head again and again to make that sure that the eyeholes were lined up with my eyes so I could see. She always wanted what she did for me to be perfect.

When my father got home late, he’d ask, “You still at it? You’re not finished yet?” The impatience in his voice made it clear to me that he thought she was wasting her time, trying to make it ‘just right.’ He wasn’t home much, but when he was, he was always angry about something.

Finally, it was the day of the Halloween Costume Party scheduled for the gym at 2:00 p.m. After a morning at school, I walked home for lunch and ate my usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread with a glass of milk. Then my mother helped me into my costume. It had a zipper in the back. I put on the head. It fit perfectly. The eyeholes fell exactly where I could see in front of me.

I went into the apartment as a boy. I came out a horse—a really fast horse.  I galloped down the street to get to school on time. I gave a few Whinnies…. Even now I smile when I think of the sound coming out of me. WHEEEEOOOOOO!

Just before I got to school, I had a terrific urge to pee. I had forgotten to go at home and now I strained to keep it in.

When I reached school, I ran to the boys’ bathroom. I wanted to be careful not to ruin the best, almost perfect, horse costume.

As I recall, I went to unzip my pants, but I couldn’t find the fly. I was standing over the boy’s white porcelain urinal ready to go – desperate to go, but I couldn’t find the opening. Where was the pee-hole? I felt all over – inside my left leg, inside my right leg…as high as my bellybutton.

I couldn’t believe it wasn’t there. I had to go – I kept holding it in harder, and harder. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking someone was going to come in, seeing a horse standing over a urinal. I was embarrassed that someone would think I was playing with myself, which my mother told me never to do.

I finally worked up enough courage to go to the nurse’s office, thinking she would help me.

The door was locked. Maybe the nurse was at the Halloween party. I went to the gymnasium where everyone had gathered in their costumes. Mine was probably the best, but I couldn’t stay at the party because I had to pee so badly.

So, I dashed out of school—really galloping, galloping down the busy streets of Chicago.

I looked down and saw this yellow stain, spreading, and spreading down my leg. I was so embarrassed. I can see it today. The yellow stain getting wider and wider. Physically I felt relieved, but emotionally I felt terrible. How could this happen? Why did this happen?

Now I felt I had ruined my mother’s horse costume.

When I got home, my mother was there. I could see by the look on her face that she could see the yellow.

“What happened?” she asked.

Angrily, I said, “Mother, there was no pee hole. I couldn’t get it out because there was no opening.”

My memory of what she said is foggy … but the memory of the look on her face is sharp and clear. She looked horrified and devastated that the costume she had made out of love and had made me so happy had caused me such pain.

She was stunned. I don’t think she had ever seen me this angry. And I don’t remember ever feeling so angry, loving and sad all at the same time. I loved that horse costume, and I had loved talking to her, standing next to the sewing machine, while she was working on making the costume, and it was just the two of us.

Some memories are foggy, just out of focus snapshots. This one is sharp and clear.

I always loved her, but I felt she had let me down. She had made this beautiful costume that I couldn’t get out of.

I felt trapped, by my mother’s creation. By the very thing that I thought was world’s most perfect horse costume.

Marshall Marcovitz, who died in 2020, was a much loved member of the IRP community. For Voices, he was the first photo editor and a frequent contributor of prose. 

 

 

The Night I Raced Michael Jordan

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by Marshall Marcovitz

“Grandpa, did you really race Michael Jordan?”

Yes, I did.

“Who won?”

Who do you think?

I don’t trust my memory as much anymore. Searching my past for memorable feelings is highly unreliable when you’re in your eighties. I forget lots of words and names now, and I used to be a spelling bee champion. But I’ll never forget the night I raced Michael Jordan. Yes, that Michael Jordan, the best basketball player in the world—EVER! All six feet six of him stood “this” close to me and flashed his famous “MJ” smile. We were waiting for a nasty Chicago rainstorm to let up. Rain was coming down in sheets, blown sideways by thirty mile per hour winds off always-breezy Lake Michigan. We were leaving the Northbrook Racquet Club. The Chicago Bulls basketball team had their practice facilities there and I played tennis there too. My grandchildren love this part of the story. Michael and I carried our own gym bags. He lugged a budging duffel bag stuffed with all his basketball practice equipment and CHICAGO BULLS stenciled on the top. It looked like it weighted a ton. Mine? It looked more like a small backpack. I had tossed my sweaty tennis clothes, Stan Smith white tennis shoes, my Jimmy Connors signature metal tennis racquet, and my shaving kit into the bag.

We waited. The rain wouldn’t let up. He suddenly looked at me. I looked back at him. He had that grin on his face. Everybody knows that  “23 grin.” I smiled back. I spoke first.

“Let’s go for it.” I said. I still can’t believe I actually spoke first.

He went “Humph. “

We continued to wait. It rained harder.

Finally, I said to him, “I’m going for it. I’ve got to get home for dinner. How about you?”

He looked at me. Again, he had that sly Jordan smile. “In this weather?”

“Come on, I’ll race you.” I really can’t believe I said that. This is where my grandkids crack up.

“You challenged Michael Jordan to a race!” They fell on the floor laughing their heads off. I’ve never said anything funnier, or more ridiculous in their opinion. I had just dared the greatest basketball player in the world to race me. Michael looked at me with an even bigger smile. He scratched his head as if he were mulling over the odds on a million-dollar bet.

“Where’s your car?” I asked.

He said, “See that Red Corvette, that’s me.”

I said, “See that green Volvo station wagon. That’s me.”

Then he said, “You’re on. One two-three—we’ll take off on three.”

I’m ready,” I said.

I looked at him. He looked at me. We gave each other a little salute.

“One, two, three!”

I heard “three”, glanced over my shoulder where he had been. The rain was  still pouring down, the light was dim. He was gone. Before I even got started – he was ten, twenty feet in front of me. I looked around. I swear I only saw a dim blur leaping into the Corvette, two red taillights glowing, an engines roar. He was gone.

The incident means much more to me now than when it happened. I have five grandchildren: Spencer, Houldin, Olivia, Jonas and Hunter. I love them all very much. I’m eager to show them the world, but I don’t get around much anymore, as the song goes. I want them to think of me as a pal, a youthful grandpa who can do everything they can do, even though I know it’s not possible, probably not even advisable. It’s not my job anymore, to be their pal. It probably never was. The grandpa they have is eighty-three and needs a walker to get around. I’ve been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I feel like a car that’s gone from having an automatic transmission to a nineteen-fifties stick shift model.

My grandson Jonas wants to “be like Mike.” He’s got that intense competition gene, just like Mike. I bought him a vintage Bulls jersey, 23 with “Jordon “on the back. I told him that Michael is a hero to me. He could score fifty points a game, make the winning basket, but win it taking and making the last shot of the game. He was a real “clutch’ player. He always preached the value of hard work. “No matter how gifted you are, you need to put in the work, or you’ll never achieve your goals.”

“Michael never stopped believing in himself,” I tell Jonas.  “When he was retired he said, “One day, you might look up and see me playing the game at fifty. Don’t laugh. Never say never, because limits like fears, are often just illusions.”

I hope my grandkids will always remember that their grandfather raced Michael Jordan and I like to think that they will tell their kids the story. Now I think where did I get the chutzpah to talk to him? What would I give to be able to lose a race to Michael Jordan again?

Marshall Marcovitz, who died in 2020, was a much loved member of the IRP community. For Voices, he was the first photo editor and a frequent contributor of prose. 

 

Marriage on Skis

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by Sonya Friedman

Cross-country skiing became a central part of my winters and of my life. I even married my husband on cross-country skis.

I’d been trying to get Herman Engel to marry me for several years. We were living together; I was very close to his three children – his teenage daughter, Kathy, was living with us. But Herman – influenced by his former, painful, failed marriage – worried that matrimony meant the end of trying, the end of giving one’s all. He was happy in our present life. But, finally realizing how important marriage was to me, he thought: Why give her grief? We’d been together 5+ years.

Herman had a humorous way of wiggling his eyebrows when he was for something. Finally, assenting to our marriage, he wiggled them.

Living in NYC, we couldn’t always ski out of our Vermont cabin. So we often went to Pound Ridge, N.Y. There, in February of 1971, Herman arranged for us to visit a Justice of the Peace with two witnesses, none of whom we’d ever seen before. We arrived in our ski knickers, high socks, boots, and with skis and poles. The Justice held out a Bible for us to swear upon; we spurned it. Then he murmured – almost indistinguishably – a string of words ending with: “with this ring I do thee wed.” We didn’t have a ring. One of the witnesses – a huge man –  handed me his ring, which was so big it could have been my bracelet. I returned it to him, nodding thanks. I said, I do; Herman said, I do.  The Justice pronounced us man and wife and told Herman he could kiss the bride. Instead, Herman – now the wise guy –  solemnly shook my hand.  The Justice gave us a marriage certificate, and a brochure with a poem – “Hiawatha.”

In the car, on the way to the ski trails, I examined the poem. It said that as unto the bow the cord is, so unto man is woman. Though she bends him, she obeys him. Though she draws him, yet she follows. I yelled, “What is this crap?” Herman was laughing, hard. “Well,”  he said, “YOU were the one who wanted to get married.”

We then had a big fight about which skiing trail to take.

When we got back to our Greenwich Village apartment, we started preparing dinner for our son Tim and his girlfriend, and for Grace Paley – we’d invited them to dinner before we knew we were getting married that day. We alerted Tim and he brought over a Stevie Wonder record, “Drink, drink that toast – drink that wedding toast.” Delightful. Grace arrived and, upon receiving the news, phoned her partner Bob Nichols who was rather a recluse. “Bob,” she said, “they just got married!” “I’ll be right over,” he said.

They lived a block from us.

Within minutes, the doorbell rang, and Bob started literally running up the 82 stairs to our 5thfloor walk-up, shouting, “We’re next! We’re next!” It was HE who wanted to get married, and Grace who had demurred. They were married a few months later.

Later on my wedding evening, my mother phoned from Florida. “Where were you all day?” she asked. “I’ve been calling you.” “I was out getting married,” I answered. “Thank God, Mrs. Engel!” she said. (I was 39 years old, and she had become desperate.) “No,” I said, “I’m not Engel, I’m keeping Friedman.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she said. “Friedman is now only your TRADE NAME.”

Then Kathy returned after a weekend with her mother and confronted us.  Scowling, she said, “I hear you got married. Why wasn’t I a bridesmaid?” She looked around at our comfortable apartment and her cozy room. “Well, it’s alright with me, as long as nothing changes around here!”

Herman and I continued our happy life together. After a year, I asked him, “Well, are you glad you married me?” He wiggled his eyebrows vigorously.

As a writer/translator, for decades I wrote subtitles for foreign films (by Fellini, De Sica, Godard, others).  Then, I introduced “supertitles” to the world of opera, and worked for the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera and many other companies.  For the past 50+ years, I have vacationed in Vermont, summer and winter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dan & Whit’s

by

by Sonya Friedman

Country stores are a cherished tradition in New England and in Norwich, Vermont, this is no exception. Except that this store, Dan & Whit’s, is exceptional. Famous throughout the region, even rating as a tourist attraction, the store sits on Main Street, housed in a non-descript building, fronted by a parking lot on cracked asphalt and two gas pumps. A sprawling outdoor message board displays personal notices and news of events in nearby Vermont and New Hampshire towns. There’s a battered upright piano (anyone’s free to play it) and buckets of flowers for sale. On Thursdays, a knife-sharpener sets up outside. And often, fiddlers show up for free concerts, or to support some benefit.

The large window is plastered with ads and advice:

Fresh Vermont milk, Propane Tanks – No roller blading or skateboarding – Night Crawlers and Worms – Trout Flies – Shotgun Shells (no guns sold since 1972) – Hate does not grow in the rocky soil of Norwich, Vermont – Black Lives Matter.

But the proudest sign of all proclaims Dan & Whit’s motto:

IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT!

Inside it looks, at first, like any country grocery store: worn wooden floors, narrow stacked aisles. But upon inspection, you’ll find all manner of fresh, local produce – fruit, vegetables, dairies, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream of course. There are also dental, skincare, and basic health products, vintage cheeses, and a large selection of wines. And wine-tasting events. (Dan & Whit’s even has its own label at $6 to $10 a bottle.) At the back, there’s a deli fully stacked with meats and, if you like, cooked on a sizzling grill. Other side aisles offer a large selection of additional necessities – sponges, measuring cups, candles, and back scratchers.

Many unfamiliar with the store will not notice a small passageway beside the cooking operation. But follow it and you find yourself inside a huge barn-like structure, a vast warehouse. Someone nicknamed it “West Norwich” referring to its immensity. Here, you discover all manner of garden, plumbing, and home construction supplies: toilet seats and martini glasses, horse and sheep feed, lobster pots, post-hole diggers, espresso machines, ammunition (locked up), and firewood. There are also services for glass-cutting, key-making, and film-developing.

Prices for the same item may vary, since they keep the sale price the same as when they bought the item. Stuff they purchased in April may have a cheaper sale price than the same item they bought in September. You have to look.

Another hidden store treasure can be found by cautiously climbing up the very rickety stairs to the second floor – to a trove of clothing. Barn jackets, boots, bathing suits, replacement boot liners, wool pants, snowshoes, fishing waders, flannel wear, and pet supplies. If they don’t know you, you’ll have to be accompanied. Because a while ago, when you opened a box of boots, there might have been an old pair in there. People had put on the new boots and left their old boots in the box.

Wire was put up on the outside of the upstairs window after an employee downstairs saw a pair of boots flying out. Apparently, the hurler counted on picking them up on his way through the parking lot: he never did, the sheriff was waiting for him.

Many children in the area get their first summer, or after-school jobs at Dan & Whit’s. All employees are well paid.

This amazing store was started in the 1800’s.  In 1955, two men who’d worked in the store for years bought it:  Dan and Whit.  (The current owner is a young man named Dan – grandson of the original Dan Fraser.)  The store has long been a community center where locals socialize and gather to discuss important issues.  Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Senators, always make it a campaign stop.  Even the price of local real estate is determined, in part, by proximity to the store.

One June day during the Covid-19 summer, barber chairs miraculously appeared, wheeled out onto the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. The townies, all wearing masks, treated each other to free haircuts (many, sorely needed). And phone orders to the store result in home deliveries for the sick and the elderly.

Customers can bring in a broken lawn-sprinkler or wrench or whatever and get free advice on how to fix it, rather than a sales pitch on buying a new one.  Casual drop-ins may ask directions to the Interstate and leave with a home-made apple pie.

The great tradition of the great Dan & Whit’s goes on:

“IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT!” Hip, hip!

As a writer/translator, for decades I wrote subtitles for foreign films (by Fellini, De Sica, Godard, others). Then, I introduced “supertitles” to the world of opera, and worked for the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera and many other companies. For the past 50+ years, I have vacationed in Vermont, summer and winter.