Prose

Betrayal

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by Ira Rubin

The hostess, nationally syndicated Hollywood reporter, Myra Klotchman, welcomed the audience to her weekly television show, “Do You Want To Hear A Secret?,” in which ordinary people reveal startling secrets about their lives in return for a weekday meal at a local Chinese take-out. The first guest was Amanda Lamar – not her true name – a 22-year-old woman studying to be a professional beauty consultant, vulgarly called a hairdresser, from Hackensack, New Jersey.

After exchanging small talk with Amanda, Myra cut to the chase.

Myra: Tell us, dear, what secret could a sweet young woman like you possibly have?

Amanda: Oh it’s horrible, Myra. I may never recover from the embarrassment.

Myra: About something you did?

Amanda: No, it was my fiancé, Jerome. How could he do this to me?

Myra: Oh my God; don’t tell us you found him with another woman?

Amanda: No, Myra, he didn’t cheat on me with a woman.

Myra: (gasping): You mean it was with a man?

Amanda: No he didn’t cheat on me with anyone. It would have been less humiliating if he had. I walked in unexpectedly on him last week and I couldn’t believe what I saw: he was admiring himself in the mirror dressed in my new wedding gown.

Myra: That bastard; how shocking that must have been for you.

Amanda:  Absolutely; I hadn’t even tried it on yet, and now I just can’t.

Myra: Because you’re too embarrassed?

Amanda: No, because it’s stretched out of shape. And that’s not the worst part.  I can live with his cross-dressing. What I can’t accept is he looked better in the gown than I did.

Myra:  Poor dear; that truly is a problem. How will you cope?

Amanda:  What choice do I have? It’s too late to find a new gown.  Tomorrow I’m going to shop for a tuxedo I can wear at the wedding.

Myra:  How inspiring! Audience, give this courageous woman a hand for facing up to and overcoming her potentially crushing secret. And now a word from our sponsor, Fantasy Vacations, the perfect place to design your ideal getaway or honeymoon. 

Ira Rubin has been a member of LP2 for the past four years during which he was a continuing participant in the writing class study group which provided valuable feedback on a draft of this piece.

 

 

The Book of Leonard

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by Ira Rubin

The other day I read with interest an article in the New York Times about a newly discovered biblical scroll, dubbed by scholars as the Book of Leonard.

The book tells of Leonard, a shepherd overwhelmed by misfortune: his camel was flatulent, his wife wanted to move to Babylon, and he was starting to lose his hair. In despair, he cried out to the Lord, “Most Holy, please come to my aid.” There was a thunderous crack, lightning flashed, and a cone of swirling winds appeared.

Hesitantly, Leonard began to speak, “Lord, the one true God, King of the Universe.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” interrupted a powerful voice from within the whirlwind. “What do you want?”

Leonard sobbed, “Lord, who hath all power, have pity on me.” He followed with his list of problems, adding for good measure his unhappiness about not being selected for the main role in the village’s annual Purim play, and begged the Lord for relief. 

The Lord answered, “What’s in it for me?”

Leonard responded by offering to sacrifice three sheep to the Lord on the following Sabbath. [According to the Times article, some scholars believe Leonard missed a critical opportunity here. In their view, the Lord was not asking for a sacrifice, but for a part in the Purim play. As proof, they note the Lord’s penchant for casting Himself in a starring role in most Biblical stories.]  

“Here’s the thing, Leo,” the Lord replied, “a lot of people have been sacrificing animals to me lately, and I’m starting to get a bit flabby. Instead of slaughtering the few healthy sheep you have left, I’d like you to do something else. All your people talk with a lisp. For example, the word is “has”, not “hath”. I’m embarrassed to tell you this, Len, but some of your neighbors are saying the lisp is a sign you’re the kind of men who like to have sex with other men. Personally, I couldn’t care less, but it makes it harder for Me to get converts, especially when you call yourselves My Chosen People.”

Leonard wasn’t sure how to respond. What’s a lisp, he thought, and why would men want to have sex with other men when there were plenty of sheep around?  Even so, he was desperate and agreed to the terms of the deal.

The same afternoon, Leonard gathered his family together to tell them his plan. He would wander the world in search of someone who knew what a lisp was and how to correct it. The family members listened calmly until told they would have to cancel their annual trip to the bazaar. At that point, they had a gerstenboomer (roughly translated as a hissy fit). His children refused to talk to him and his wife served him only yogurt at meals, which was not only monotonous, but gave him stomach cramps because he was lactose intolerant (or milkshugenah, as it was then called).

Leonard traveled far and wide before he came upon a people in the southern most part of the land whose speech included a sibilant ‘s’. At first, everyone scorned him for his lisp, but he kept up his pursuit until one woman agreed to teach him to speak as her people did in return for an expense-paid vacation at the Desert Sea Spa.

When his instruction was completed, Leonard returned home and called out once again to God in a strong Southern drawl. “Lawd, ah am back and speakin’ fine. Y’all c’mon down and listen to this good old boy’s sweet, sonorous, sibilant sounds.”

As before, thunder roared, lightning struck, and a whirlwind appeared. “Oh, it’s you, Leonard. What do you want?”

“I have fulfilled your request, Your Magnificence. Listen to my speech.  My lisp has disappeared, and I seek my promised reward.”

“I don’t remember, Leo.  Did we have an agreement?”

“Yes, Lord. You agreed to relieve me of some of my burdens if I corrected my lisp and taught my people to do the same.”

“Sorry, Len; I still don’t remember.  Look, I’m a little busy right now. The angels and I are debating the best way to stage the next extinction event.”

“What’s an extinction event, Lord?”

“It’s some type of disaster in which I wipe out most of the life on earth.”

“Why would you do that, Your Beneficence?”

“Same reason as always – boredom.”

“How will you extinguish us, Merciful One?”

“Good question, Lennie. We can’t decide between fire and flood. Any ideas?”

Seeing a chance to win the Lord’s favor, Leonard answered thoughtfully. “Well, fire would be quicker, but it’s harder to control and you still might need a flood to put it out. Worse, hot air rises. That may make heaven almost as hot as hell. All in all, I think a flood is the way to go.”

“Makes sense to me, Leon. Any thought about how to save some animals from drowning, so I don’t have to start all over?”

“Why not get someone to build a large boat to house a male and female of every species like you did with Noah; that worked out well, didn’t it?”

“I’m afraid the Holy Scriptures don’t tell the whole story, Len. I had to edit out some events to improve narrative flow. The carpenters picketed the building site because Noah wasn’t a dues-paying member of their guild, and the sanitary conditions aboard the ark were nauseating.”

Leonard was about to suggest that the next ark include a bunch of litter boxes in odd sizes, but the Lord spoke first. “Uh oh, time to go. I have a meeting with Papyrus Press. They want to publish a follow-up to the Bible in which I answer those people who question my actions. I’m going to call it, Because I Can.”

Leonard waited for the Lord to return, but He never did. Eventually, the forlorn shepherd gave up, went home and opened a shop selling umbrellas and rainwear.

The Times article states that scholars agree that the Book of Leonard is a parable, but are uncertain about its moral. Does the story caution about the ambiguity of God’s will, the foolishness of questioning your fate, or the harmful consequences of poor diction? Personally, I am most persuaded by Rabbi Mordechai Horowitz’s more pragmatic interpretation: “Never do work for someone else without a signed contract.”

Ira Rubin has been a member of LP2 for four years during which time he has greatly enjoyed and benefited from participating in an on-going writing study group.

 

 

JFK Comes Home to the Garment District

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by Sara Petitt

 The industry that I was part of for so many years has disappeared along with the wooly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger. From the years after WW 2 until the 1990’s the garment district and textile manufacturers’ buildings lined the streets from 34th Street to 42nd Street on 7th Avenue.

During John Kennedy’s bid for the Presidency, he came to give a speech on a platform hastily built on 7th Avenue. It was October 27th, 1960 and the sun was shining when Kennedy mounted the platform. Workers from the nearby office buildings flooded the streets while hundreds looked down from open windows. I was packed in the crowd with other textile artists from my company. 

He started with an off the cuff joke given in his Boston accent, “I have returned to my people” which was followed by uproarious laughter from the crowd of mainly natives of Brooklyn and the Bronx. We all heartily cheered this handsome aristocratic looking man so alien to our neighborhood. 

When he finished his speech the cheering crowds threw swatches of fabric from the windows instead of the usual ticker tape. Then the frenzy really started. All eyes left Kennedy and flew upwards towards the cascading remnants of fabric. Voices around me shouted, “Look, look, Lowenstein is using Periwinkle Blue…do we have any in our line?” “Over there Cone Hall Marx is using olive green!!” Then the crowd dispersed and we all ran back to our offices not to discuss politics, but to repaint designs in the array of colors that floated from the sky that sunny day.

 

Although Sara Petitt taught design for 30 years at the college level, she always loved to write and often integrated writing into her artwork. 

 

Happy Writing?

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by Mary Padilla

Attaching an emotion to writing – specifying one in advance – seems unlikely to succeed. How could you know what will pop up when it’s all about spontaneity?  Each thing leads to the next; if it’s working, it’s unpredictable. If we could anticipate it, we wouldn’t need to do it – or want to. What makes it interesting is finding out where it wants to go on its own. Such things are not subject to free will. Perhaps nothing is, but surely not such things. Let the pencil go where it wants and follow where it leads. If we’re leading it, it’s lemmings for sure. How can we know what we think until we see what we write?  

Art that can be planned is not worth doing. We need it to surprise us, as it always will if it comes from what we don’t know that we know. That way we’ll never be bored, nor will the reader. To be happy is to be engaged, to be interested in what’s coming next, and to want to be around to find out. This is why we show up – because we want to. And wanting something is necessary but not sufficient for being happy. We need to care about something enough to want it. Whether we get it or not is much less important, neither necessary nor sufficient. 

Not trying allows it to happen of itself, if we’re not invested in making it materialize. It’s not some product we’re after, but the experience of having it pass through us freely and without interference, not needing or wanting for it to be examined or perfected. Being unexpected, it will be original – there is no other choice.

If we’re happy writing, then we’re not thinking about whether or not we’re happy.  If we’re wondering whether we’re happy, we probably aren’t. If we’re happy to be happy, that’s about all it takes. It doesn’t matter what it is we’re happy about. And if we’re not happy in this moment, that doesn’t mean that we won’t be in the next one.  It’s just not predictable. These things can come and go without our knowledge or consent, but they’re not entirely beyond reach. Just keep writing.  And then comes the most important part: knowing when to stop. When whatever we add makes it worse, it’s complete – before we start to over-think and over-write, just STOP.  

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

 

 

 

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

by

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.