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The Female Gaze

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by Susie Herman

I am seated in 19C on the flight from Seattle to JFK when 19B, and his wife, 19A, approach. She is stunning and blond, her hair in a ponytail. She immediately places earbuds in her ears and enters the world of whatever for the duration of the flight. He, between us, pulls out his laptop, and is immediately immersed in his investments or someone else’s. Sometimes he switches over to his cellphone for texts, and sometimes for a game of solitaire. For the duration of the flight, five hours, he is always connected, doing something with one gadget or another. He never speaks a word to his wife. And yet, between them, there is no apparent tension. I notice a screenshot of her on his phone. Her hair is not in a ponytail. She is smiling and elegant. 19AB both wear wedding bands- his simple gold; hers simple but with a few diamonds. Midway through the flight he puts a sweater over his summer polo. He is eye candy for sure, right beside me. The fact that he barely registers my presence makes it even more possible to invent him.

He isn’t young; greying at the temples, tanned. His black eyeglasses give him an Alec Baldwin look. His features are absolutely perfect. Maybe more George Clooney. He sits there in 19B, never reacting to the toddler steadily crying behind us in row 20; impervious to distraction; hardly ever looking any further than his devices. What is his life like? Does he live in Seattle or NYC or somewhere else? Are there children, by now grown? A mistress? He focuses only on his cyberspace, alert, not daydreaming. But surprisingly, in the last 20 minutes of flight, he pulls out a book– the unlikely title: The Years by Annie Ernaux. What a choice for handsome laptop man! Did his wife recommend it? Men who live in their heads rarely read fiction or memoir, but I could be wrong. He isn’t very far along – will he finish it somewhere, on another flight, in another life?

 

Susie Herman: I often write about or photograph the ordinary moments in life. I think of those moments as unexpected theater. I thought this piece would bring some lightness in these dark days.

My Life at the Movies

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by Carmen Mason

When I was nine or ten my mother wrote me a letter to the manager of the Loews American movie house in Parkchester in the Bronx.

She asked that I be permitted to attend the second showing of the two movies, News report and the short cartoons as the children who came at noon were loud and obnoxious and I was seriously in love with every movie I would see there. Thankfully he agreed once she told him my father was dying from Multiple Sclerosis so he was totally behind my mother’s request.

I would arrive every Saturday at twenty minutes to three, pay quickly for my popcorn and my Good and Plentys and as the lights were just about to turn low and the thick velvet curtains were about to open and the music begin to play, I would slowly walk down to the very center of the first row.

Carefully resting my jacket (or coat) and my popcorn and Good and Plentys on the empty chair next to me I would slowly sit down, arrange myself comfortably in the middle of my seat (I was very skinny) and place my goodies in my lap. I was filled with euphoria. My joyful (although sometimes scary) world was about to encase me and I would forget for those hours anything else in the world.

I saw many wonderful movies and cartoons and news reports through those early years but for me The Red Shoes, Samson and Delilah and Lili became some of my all time favorites!

Now there was a particular moment before rising to leave and to gather myself up and depart that I carefully, deeply, seriously and softly whispered to myself and this is what I would quietly say:

Carmen, one day you will never ever return here or any place else anywhere you have ever treasured throughout your life. You will be gone forever. All your loved ones will have said goodbye and you will become the earth and the grass and the flowers that will flourish and nourish the earth. 

There was never a day I would forget to do this.

 

Carmen Mason has been writing poetry and prose throughout her life and has won a few prizes (including Seventeen Magazine’s International first prize short story contest when she was seventeen) and a few other poetry prizes in her senior years.  She is, therefore she writes.

One Year Later

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by B. Robert Meyer

(All names have been changed to protect confidentiality.)

I am doing paper work in my office when I get a phone call from a nurse on one of our medical floors.  She sounds frightened.  “Doctor, we think you need to know about this.  Do you remember Mrs. Morales who was on our floor a year ago? She died in the hospital”

I do recall her.

“Well, this afternoon her son was on the floor and walking around asking to see the people who took care of her. He was walking back and forth and seemed very upset. He said she died here one year ago today.

“We didn’t know what to do and so we called security to come up.  But before they got here he became upset and left the floor.  He said he would be back tomorrow and wanted to talk with someone about her care.  He seemed angry. We asked him if we could help him but he did not want to talk with us.  He wanted the doctors.  Why did he come back here?  We are afraid he is stalking the doctors.  We spoke with patient services and with security and they said to let you know.”

I did remember her.  It was early January when she was admitted from the emergency room with an abdomen that was massively enlarged.  Her belly was tense as a drum and the veins on her abdominal wall were easily seen.  She lay in bed with her head up at 45 degrees.  If we lowered the head of the bed, she would complain she could not breath.  She had trouble moving at all, and if her abdomen was disproportionately large, her arms, legs, and neck were contrastingly thin and wasted.  Her chest allowed you to see and count her ribs one by one.  She was eating very little if anything, and complaining of nausea and on occasion some vomiting.  Her abdomen was constantly painful. If you had to guess her age you would have over-estimated by decades. She was 54 years old.

The story she told was that she had been at another hospital where they told her that she had cervical cancer and that there was nothing to be done.   She was quite angry at the care she had received there.  She told us that she had been going to their clinic regularly for more than two years, getting all the testing that could be done and telling them about her discomfort “down there.”  But, she maintained that they did nothing and ignored her complaints. Eventually, she had been admitted to that hospital, only to be told she had extensive cervical cancer and that there was nothing to be done.   She had then come to our ED for another opinion.

Sadly, we were able only to confirm the grim outlook.   She had a partial obstruction of her intestinal tract by tumor, as well as large amounts of tumor throughout her abdomen.   We asked our gynecologic oncologists for input.  They had nothing to suggest except to keep her comfortable.  She would not be a candidate for surgery.  We spoke to our medical oncologists who suggested that a trial of chemotherapy “might” provide very transient relief. They also thought it might make her sicker.

I sat and talked with the patient about what she wanted to do.  She was a deeply religious mother of two sons, an immigrant from Mexico, with a devoted husband.  I initially assumed she was Catholic, but when the priest stopped by to see her, he discovered she was a member of a Pentecostal group.  She had no worries about her oldest son, she told me.   Her husband would also be ok.  However, she worried desperately about her younger son.  He was her favorite, a senior in high school, and her illness over the last few months had hit him particularly hard.  He was sleeping more, getting up late and missing school.  He had always been the one she worried about, and she now worried he was losing focus and brooding.  He was quiet when visiting her in the hospital room, wore a leather jacket, considerable jewelry, and heavy boots. He seemed a sullen and angry young man.

When we sat down and talked about her goals, the patient was clear.  She wanted to live until June when she would see him graduate from high school.  She was willing to do anything it took to make that a reality.  That meant she would try radiation therapy to the abdomen and chemotherapy as well if that might help.  “I need to live until June to get him through school.”

We tried.  We spent the next several weeks trying to get her “well enough” to be given those toxic drugs we call chemotherapy.  She never got that healthy.  She had intermittent episodes of complete blockage of her intestines that would require a tube into the stomach to relieve her symptoms. She also had severe pain.  Her belly never really got smaller. Some days it looked a bit better. Some days she would even have a bowel movement.  We tried to give her some nutrition.  But a day of success was usually followed by two or three days of failure and another episode of obstruction.  While her belly got larger, her arms, legs, and chest became even thinner.  She looked more and more like a wraith.  We made it to mid-February.  Her family, her church and her caregivers  all prayed for her and for her recovery.  But that did not happen.  On her last day on this earth her family and church members gathered round, and the room was filled with sorrow.

Her younger son stood apart in the corner.

So what to do about the young man who had now suddenly appeared one year later on the hospital floor, pacing and upset?  I asked the nurses to call me if and when he arrived the following day and to ask him to wait in the large family room on the floor.  They did so, and I went up to the floor to speak with him.  He was dressed as I had seen him last, with a leather jacket, jewelry, boots and tattoos.  What was this rebellious and angry appearing young latino male suddenly doing on their floor one year after his mother died demanding to speak to the doctors?  The nurses and unit manager were nervous.  When I arrived on the floor they let me know of their concerns.  They had already called security and had asked them to be on the floor in case of trouble.

I am also nervous, but ask to speak to him individually.  As I enter the room, he is sitting in a chair staring straight ahead at a spot on the floor a few feet ahead of him.  There is a grim look on his face.

“Hello Roberto, I am the doctor who took care of your mom when she was sick.  How can I help you?”

He looks straight ahead and does not immediately answer me.

I ask again … another pause.

And then he begins to cry….

No, that does not do it justice.

He sobs and sobs and sobs.

I pull up a chair next to him and sit down.

I put my hand on his shoulder.

He slowly returns from his tearful place and turns to face me.

“I am afraid that I killed my mom.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The day she died I tried to get her to drink some water.  She was thirsty.  I helped her to try to drink … but … (more tears … she coughed a lot of it up.  I think I killed her.  I can’t sleep at night.  I have been having nightmares about this.  I feel so guilty.  She might have lived.  I am so sorry … I killed her.”

He is now in a paroxysm of tears.  I have come without tissues and he is having to use the sleeves on his winter coat.

But I do not want to leave the room.

The sleeves are fine and will have to do.

Time passes as we sit together.

Nurses poke their heads in the door.

I wave them off.

“Roberto, you did not kill her.  Your mom was sick.  She was going to die.  You did not kill her.  You did what any loving son would do.  You tried to help her. I guarantee that you did not do anything wrong when you gave her the water. “

He continues to sob.

Gradually it begins to slow….

He again returns from his pain and looks at me.

“Did I ever tell you how she told me over and over again how much she loved you?”

The sobbing seems to abate a bit.  He looks up and straight at me really for the first time since I entered.

 “Really?”

“Yes”

“I loved her back….”  More tears follow.  A bit gentler it seems.

I had to ask him:

“Did you graduate from high school?”

The answer: “Yes”

“She is proud of you in heaven.”

 

Bob Meyer is a retired general internist and medical educator who practiced medicine at several teaching hospitals in  NYC over a 45 year career, including 28 years at Weill Cornell.

Autumn

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by Mary Padilla

 Everything appears under a canopy of leaves again, just as it did during the first four years of my life, when I lived at my grandmother’s house.  It was a Victorian gingerbread affair on a wooded plot, which was more of an overgrown planting than a forest.  I seldom left it in that early period, and now that I live in a geodesic dome, which we built in the middle of the woods, I seldom leave this place either.

This time of the year I spend most days outdoors in an Adirondack chair built by my grandfather, which now stands on a cliff in the backyard overlooking a pond.  This is where I do most of my work, and all I see around me is trees, though there is an adjacent meadow filled with ferns that I can glimpse through breaks in the foliage on my way to and from the house.  The setting resembles The Green Tube through which the Appalachian Trail passes in the mountains of Vermont without ever going above the tree line, in contrast to what happens in New Hampshire, where the trail winds on from one mountain top to the next.

So my perception of the world is literally colored by the leaves.  This time of year the light that filters through them is still a brilliant green—actually many different greens responding to the play of light and shadow—set against the greys of the trunks and branches below, with their contrastingly textured bark.  At this point there is just the occasional vibrant highlight, where the leaves on a particular branch have been the first to turn yellow or orange.  But in general, I am still embedded in green, as if a cosmic gel filter had been inserted over the ambient lighting to impart a verdant quality to the scene.

Six weeks from now there will be a rapid change to a golden sheen overlaying the woods.  Last summer, when we were visited by Canadian wildfire particulate, its refraction altered the light to yellow-orange, but this sudden harsh shift in the spectrum resulted in an ominously inappropriate hue.  In what now passes for ordinary circumstances, we can anticipate a honeyed quality overtaking the darker greens, which had arisen in their turn from a deepening of the rapid light green burst of spring.

The cover from the tiny early leaves that were just unfurling then had been sparse enough to allow the ephemerals to cover the ground.  These were evanescent wildflowers, a new species of which seemed to appear every day.  They flourished only until the canopy overhead became dense enough to usurp their sunlight.

But now we’re about to lose all the green as it changes to yellows and browns, with some interspersed orange bits.  The brilliant reds of the swamp maples and sumacs are largely a thing of the past around here, as we no longer experience nightly cold snaps sufficiently low to trigger that transformation.  For a week or two I will live in this changed world, enveloped in that dramatically altered golden glow.  Then, just as the intensity of sunlight is waning with the approach of the solistice, there will be a compensatory increase in its penetration.  I will see—and hear—the leaves fall, as the trees strip down to their skeletons.

They will stand then revealed as individuals, without the cloaking of interlocking greenery linking one to the next.  Their latticed structure will be more evident, as will the boulders and the fallen trunks that litter the forest floor like scattered pickup sticks.  And when the winter comes, I will be able to see between the denuded branches to glimpse the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the surface of the pond in the parts where it is free of ice.

There will be less cover for wildlife then, and the animals will be more visible even before there is any snow cover to enhance the contrast.  I will have a better chance of seeing deer stealthily approaching the pond to drink and to locate the owl I can hear hooting.  Of course, there are already those who are less circumspect about making their presence known, the raccoons and possums that come trick-or-treating to the front door at night and the squirrels that openly clamber over the trees like jungle gyms and rustle the dried leaves on the ground as they run through them.  The local song birds regularly approach the bird feeder without apparent caution.

And now so does this summer’s latest addition, a black bear that also makes periodic visits to their feeder in broad daylight, too brazen, at 250-300 pounds, to worry about being seen.  I wonder, given global warming, if he will be taking the winter off to hibernate or if he will just keep going.  It is up to us to look out for running into him, and the prospect does put a fine point on one’s general alertness.  But in the end, paying attention is what it is all about, and he merely serves as a reminder that we need to fit into the world around us, because it is not just a backdrop to our existence.  We need to step back, be still, and just experience the cyclical changes in the midst of which we live.

 

Mary Padilla:  I write to see what I think.

Sounds of the Wood

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by Mary Padilla

 Dawn is accompanied year round by the twitter of song birds awakened by the sun as it rises over the pond.  But beyond that constant, every season has a characteristic soundscape.  Starting in late afternoon in early spring, what sounds through the woods is the strum of the peepers, the tiny frogs that make their appearance as the first of the wildflowers are popping up.  You never see them, but you do hear them, in an intense and high-pitched cacophony that lasts through the night.

In late spring they’re succeeded by the bullfrogs.  They become active as the sun begins to fall behind the tops of the trees.  Not only can you hear their hoarse croaks as they call back and forth to each other, but there are also frequent audible splashes as they jump off the rocks and partially submerged fallen trees near the shore.  There are bigger splatters too, when the turtles rise up from the mud in the bottom of the pond, where they’ve been spending the winter hibernating with the fish and the frogs, in order to thaw out on those logs, only to plop back into the water when their logs get too crowded, and they need to relocate.

The Canada geese return at this time to reclaim sectors of the pond as their territory and to find mates.  A lot of honking accompanies these rituals, together with some rather noisy takeoffs and landings.  At sunset they all splash down in the open water in the center where they will be safe for the night from their mammalian predators along the shore.  The quacking of mallards often comes from the far end of the pond, announcing their presence aurally, before they swim into view.  Fish can be heard jumping out of the water throughout the day, but the egrets and ospreys that hunt them from the shallows are silent and still—until they strike. When they lift off into flight, their deep raspy calls belie their lithe appearance.

Many of the animals are out and about most of the year except in the winter, when they estivate, or semi-hibernate.  Squirrels skitter noisily through the dried leaves and chitter as they run up and down the tree trunks and branches.  Chipmunks dash about the forest floor making their high-pitched calls, too small to rustle the leaf litter.  Snakes glide through the fallen leaves as well, but you have to listen very carefully to pick up the slithery sound they make as they pass.  Raccoons lumber about, unable to go by without having the sound of their rolling gait attract notice.  Rabbits and mice make little sound, but you can hear the calls of their predators the raptors, the screeches of the hawks by day and the hooting of the owls by night, as they hunt them.

Some of the animals show little fear and make their presence loudly known everywhere they go.  Notable among these are the snapping turtles, with their armored shells often the size of dinner plates. Their beaks are strong enough to break off the legs of waterfowl swimming in the pond as they drag their squawking prey below the surface to the tumultuous roiling of the encircling water.  They leave the pond to lay their eggs on land in the spring and make quite a racket tromping through the woods en route to finding an appropriate spot.

In autumn, if you are quite still, you can actually hear the leaves fall as they land lightly on top of each other when they hit the ground.  And in masting years, like the present one, when they are produced in abundance, there is a constant staccato of dropping acorns, like tympani in the background.  (Alternating years of feast and famine keep down the populations of chipmunks, squirrels, and deer that consume them.)  Even when you are indoors, their impact is inescapable, as it resonates when they hit the wooden roof, which acts as a sounding board.  But when you are outside, a sharp retort accompanies their collisions with objects below, one of which was forceful enough to crack the screen of my cell phone in a direct hit.

By late autumn, things quiet down in the forest as the auditory offerings of the animals thin out, and it is then that you notice the din of the insects, resonant waves of surprisingly powerful sound from invisible sources surrounding you on all sides.  Resulting from a multitude of differing fixed pitches and synchronized, repetitive rhythms, the acoustic outcome is so intense as to be nearly palpable.  Has it been there all summer but drowned out by the competition, or has it ramped up in a last-ditch effort to find a mate and do what needs to be done before the onset of the killing frost?

It seems odd that this extreme reverberation should seem so much louder to you in what would otherwise be silence than the sound of your own breath or heartbeat, but perhaps you just filter those out of your attention.  There must be a great many of these tiny creatures out there, or else they must be capable of generating incredible resonance for their size.  However they manage it, the soundscape in the woods at the close of the day at the close of fall clearly belongs to the bugs.

In winter, when the snow comes it muffles the sound, though if it has an icy crust, you can sometimes hear the crunch of a hoof breaking though.  Occasionally there will be the sharp retort of a branch overladen with ice and snow crashing to the ground.  The streams flow silently below the ice.  For the most part the signs of life are at their most subtle then, and, aside from the occasional huffing cough of a deer, you can only see, rather than hear, the animals by the tracks they leave behind them in the snow.

 

Mary Padilla:  I write to see what I think.

“Tendrá Sus Razones”

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by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

It did exist because that’s what I heard the most from Mami. She never cut anyone with her words. She’d quietly say “Tendrá sus razones!” It was like a note floating in the air, belonging there, not calling attention to itself. So it sounded normal to me. It’s only now that I understand it.

Papi in his Type A way would slam his fist on the table and let forth a stream of choice expletives regarding so and so and what they had done and what an outrage it was. Mami would listen patiently and say quietly “Tendrá sus razones!” It filtered in like a ray of light swallowing the darkness.

Where did it come from? Not from flightiness. It had such weight that I never heard anyone criticize it. There was a strength in this that elevated the perspective.

Now, I realize it was wisdom. She saw beyond and would make us feel it too!

It is deep in me now when the ugliness emerges from someone and I am called beyond that perspective thinking “Tendrá sus razones!”

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

Call Waiting

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by Jennifer Roberts

Mark: Acquisitions, Mark Howard speaking.

Sarah: Hey, baby.

Mark: Hey yourself.

Sarah: Guess who?

Mark: I don’t need to guess. The minute your number popped up on the phone my anatomy began undergoing its customary transformation.

Sarah: Tell me more. On a scale of one to 10, just how transformed are we?

Mark: Wouldn’t you just like to know?

Sarah: I would. I’m going to press the FaceTime button so–

Mark: No, no, no. Not yet. Are you wearing the garment?

Sarah: Would you be referring to the forest green panties with the black lace?

Mark: I would.

Sarah: Not any more.

Mark: Wait, what? Did you lose them? You know they’re my favorite.

Sarah: No, I didn’t lose them. I was wearing them before, under my skirt, at the shareholders’ meeting, but right now they’re lying on the floor under my desk.

Mark: Ooh, how I do like the sound of that. Now I want you to put your—

Sarah: Oh shit. It’s Harry. I’m gonna have to take it.

Mark: I’ll wait.

Sarah: Harry, wassup?

Harry: What’s up is that the figures you sent me are from 2023. We have to go with the 2024 figures.

Sarah: Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I’ll get those right – well, let’s say in an hour. I’m kind of busy right now.

Harry: You do that.

Sarah: Okay, baby, I’m back. Where were we?

Mark: I was instructing you to kindly take your–

Sarah: Hold that thought. It’s Juno. Hey, Lollipop, how’s my girl?

Mark: It’s still Mark, and frankly MY lollipop is getting a little impatient.

Sarah: Sorry babe. Be right back. Juno!

Juno: Hi, Aunt Sarah! I got the princess costume. I love it! It’s the best present in the whole biggest world!

Sarah: I’m so glad it got there in time for your birthday, sweetie. Listen, right now Auntie Sarah is in a very important meeting at her office. I’m gonna call you back tonight, okay, pussycat?

Juno: OK, I love you!

Sarah: I love you too. Mark? Mark? Mark?

 

Jennifer Roberts is a native New Yorker who returned here in 1992 after stints teaching in Massachusetts and Texas.  She now teaches Greek, Latin, and ancient history in the City University of New York.

Rain

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by Jennifer Roberts

It will come. Of course it will come.

But oh God what if it doesn’t?

There’s no earthly way I will get a yellow cab at rush hour in a downpour like this. Well, I don’t know. It could happen.

A lot of things happen that we don’t expect.

Like standing in the rain on 32nd Street wearing a hospital gown the neurologist gave me because my clothes got soaked coming here, since I was so rattled that I forgot my umbrella.

“Where are we going?” He looks frightened.

“We’re going home, love. Soon we’ll be home, and we’ll get into some dry clothes and have a nice warm dinner.”

Oh yes yes yes it’s here thank God.

“ Okay, sweetheart, you’re going to back into the car. No, no, no. No! Do you see that big sign over there? No, I know you can’t read it. That’s fine. You don’t have to. But can you turn your feet so that they’re facing the sign? Can you do that, love? Can you turn them just a little more? That’s great. That’s wonderful. Okay, so I’m going to hold you and you’re going sit down very slowly in the back seat. Great! Just a little more. You’re almost there, love. Just a little more.”

Another six inches and he will be seated. Only six more inches and then we can get moving.

Slowly, his body begins to straighten out, and I watch in horror as he moves back into a standing position in the rain. He seems quite pleased with himself that he has succeeded in standing up.

Swimming in the swift torrent that is moving from west to east in the gutter beneath our soaking feet are torn pieces of coffee cups, an empty bag of Doritos, a cigarette. I wonder who the people are who dropped them. And I wonder if they too will get Alzheimer’s someday.

 

Jennifer Roberts is a native New Yorker who returned here in 1992 after stints teaching in Massachusetts and Texas.  She now teaches Greek, Latin, and ancient history in the City University of New York.

Heading Home

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by Joan Rosenbaum

After a long subway ride, I find a seat on the cross-town bus, and settle into my book. Seated near the front, it’s hard to avoid the drama of transit. At 4:30 pm, leaving Lexington Avenue, the bus is already crowded. There’s a just-out-of-school cheerfulness with boisterous high school boys in back and chatty younger kids with a parent or caregiver in the middle. At Madison Avenue the ramp is let down and two seniors, one with a shopping cart and another with a walker create a barely passable obstacle course for people boarding behind who maneuver toward a seat, pole or strap, while murmuring about the need to fold up carriages and walkers and the misery of the MTA.

Lumbering toward Fifth Avenue, the bus is now uncomfortably stuffed, and the mood has declined.  Close to 5:00 pm, the door opens for a dozen or so waiting passengers who squeeze their way through the crush of human and material impediments. The door finally closes but a few seconds before the light turns green, opens again to take on a young woman who roughly yanks on board a young boy by his arm.  She wedges a space close to my seat where I observe the two—the dark long-lashed eyes of the beautiful, tired looking boy and the stressed look of the disheveled woman who is no more than a teenager—a girl. I contemplate her stretched leggings and tattered jacket and imagine her difficult life.   Is she the boy’s sister? A mother with a son too much to handle for her young life—unable to see this adorable child as anything but a burden?

The bus lurches while inching toward the transverse portal, and everyone is jostled against each other. Groans from the standees and whoops from the boys in the back break the quiet. The girl, barely balancing a backpack, purse and phone, is no longer holding on to the boy, who loses his footing, grabs for the woman’s thighs and, buries his head in her stomach.  Infuriated, she pushes him away and shouts. “Stand up! What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to embarrass me?”  He starts to cry.  I want to reach out and embrace the dark-eyed boy, help him balance, protect him from his unhappy, exhausted caretaker. The surrounding passengers are impassive, with a bare shred of tolerance for the crush of bodies, yet the drama is unavoidable.  An elderly man gives his seat to the boy, but he’s now bawling. The girl slaps the boy’s shoulder and explodes, “What the fuck? Stop! “ Dead silence among the passengers some of whom eye each other with raised eyebrows and shaking heads.  The girl gives the boy her cell phone, and the crying turns to whimpers.

There’s relief at Central Park West as the bus disgorges about a third of the passengers.  We’ve arrived at what feels like the promised land of the West Side with the sun now setting ahead of us. With fewer standees, there’s a loosening of limbs and tension, and the boy has quieted down.  By Amsterdam Avenue, the bus is now nearly empty. The girl and boy get out. I’m behind them and watch as she holds his hand as they silently walk up the avenue.

 

Joan Rosenbaum:  Worked in and with museums whole professional life. Retired for the last six years.  I’ve been a long-time member of LP2, previous known as IRP.  Taking Charles Troob’s writing class for the two semesters over the last year has gotten me engaged in writing for the first time.

 

 

God Bless America

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by Jennifer Ross

Ana first gave me a manicure the day before our daughter’s wedding, and over the years I have learned much about her. She is from Guatemala, has five children and three grandchildren, lives in Brooklyn, loves dancing, and is a devout Catholic. She always tells me she will pray for me and my family. We chitchat about the stores in the neighborhood and the ever-changing restaurants, and we are both happy when a Housing Works opens nearby, as we share a passion for used clothing and goods.

In 2019, on the day before Thanksgiving, I am her last client, and she asks me what I am cooking for the feast. I tell her we are flying to my husband’s family in Chicago, so all I have to do is buy some gifts. “Yes, it’s good to spend the holiday with family.” I ask her what she is making and her face grows solemn. “I am going to visit my son who is in prison in upstate New York. We leave in the van at midnight and get there at 8:00 a.m. We visit, then it’s a long ride back.”

I am at a loss for words.

“He was accused of murder and got 25 years to life. We are lucky. New York does not have the death penalty. We have a lawyer who will appeal”. I have no words. “Safe travels and god bless.” I thank her and leave.

I see her before Christmas that year.

“Everyone good in the family?” she asks.

“Yes, but our daughter is pregnant with twins and it is a very high-risk pregnancy. I am really worried.”

“I will say extra prayers for her and the babies.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it”.

Covid hits, and the salon closes. When it reopens, she asks about the twins, and I show her the pictures, telling her that though they were born eight weeks prematurely they are doing well. “Let’s thank God for that,” she says. “I have a new baby granddaughter in Kentucky.” Then her phone rings, and she has to excuse herself. “It is my son in prison,” she says, “and he is only allowed one call a week. He is depressed. They no give him no work, and don’t let him study.”

I tell her I’m sorry to hear it.

“Our appeal failed, we paid the lawyer a lot of money and he don’t do nothing.” I ask whether she can get another lawyer. “Yes, but too much money. A lawyer who got parole for a prisoner wants $100,000. What people have money like that?”

Again, I have no words.

In September 2023, Ana is very excited because her son in Kentucky has offered her a trip anywhere, and she has chosen to go with her church to Israel, the following month. “Our priest will say a mass in the church where Jesus was born, and I will pray for my son and all my family. We will go to the places he walked, he did miracles, where he died and where he came back to us.” Her youngest son has a job with the New York City ferries which he loves, and her husband, who had been unemployed, has found a job.

I see her in December. It turns out that her trip was cancelled, following the October 7 Hamas attack, and she is disappointed. Her church is going instead to Rome, and holy places in France and Portugal. I tell her that that will be interesting: Rome is beautiful. “No,” she says, “I will wait for peace in the Holyland. I want to go where Jesus lived, and I will pray for peace. It will come soon.” I wish I had her faith.

I see her in late January, a cold gray day, before leaving for sunshine in Barbados.  Her phone rings and it is her son.  She is down when she returns.  He told her he only got some frozen rice for dinner. “ I told him to heat it on the radiator but there is no heat”. I check the temperature in Elmira, New York:  -10F.  A prisoner was found dead that morning:  he was sick and begged for help but was left to die, his screams echoing through the prison.  Is this in NY, with its vast wealth?  Are we now land of the cruel, home of the callous?

That summer Ana is optimistic. She has good news. “My son will move from upstate New York to Sing Sing. It Is much nearer and I can go by train, then a short cab ride to visit. They will let him start studying. He wants to be a paralegal.”

We discuss her outfit for her nephew’s wedding. She needs three different dresses: for the rehearsal dinner, the church, and the dance party. We look at her phone and I weigh in. “Yes, those are the ones I like best,” she says. “Now I need shoes.”

I see her a few days before the election. I have my “I voted early” sticker on. We discuss nail colors and she notices the sticker. “I will vote tomorrow, but I am worried. My youngest son’s girlfriend is illegal. Her mother brought her here when she was three, and she never got her legal. She shows me a picture of her and her son. “Oh they are an attractive couple. She is so pretty.” “Yes, she is a sweetheart, and so smart. She is studying to be an x-ray technician. But I don’t know what will happen if….” I wonder if she is in the DACA program, but I don’t ask.*

I change the subject, saying that it must be good having her son closer to home.” “Well, yes and no. I do see him more but the wait to get in is much longer. The other day it took four hours.” “Where do you wait?” “We wait outside.” “Why?  Did you wait outside upstate in the freezing winter weather?” “Yes, but never more than two hours. Here they say they are short-staffed.”

For the first time her voice is angry and bitter. “Why do they treat us so bad. We don’t do nothing bad. We work and work and take care of everybody. Why do they treat us like animals? No, they treat animals more better here. Why do they punish us?’

I too feel angry. This is the richest country in the world. When I worked at Queens Plaza, I used to see a long line of women and children, waiting for the bus to the prison at Riker’s Island. I now wonder how long they had to wait, standing outside in all weathers, and how they were treated,

Ana sighs heavily. “What you gonna do?” I am done. The next client enters. Ana puts on her bright and breezy face to greet her. I leave with her “God bless” and walk out into a golden afternoon. God bless America.

**

*The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was announced by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications in August 2012.  It was an executive order, never passed into law, and can be revoked.

 

Jenny is a retired English teacher who taught high school and college.  These pieces were written during the writing SG in Fall 2024, coordinated by Charles Troob and Susan Smahl.