The thug has brought two new henchmen with him, two kids, maybe still in their teens, both apparent amateurs at intimidation.
“Hey, I was in Latin club,” the taller of the two replies. “Veni, vidi, vici.”
“Veni, vidi, vici right back at you, brother.”
The thug finishes trashing the kitchen, then instructs my new Latin buddy to punch me. “In the gut.”
The kid approaches uncertainly, draws close and aims a fist at my stomach. In the instant before the blow falls, though, he blocks the thug’s view with his body and pulls the punch, barely grazing me.
I make a big show of doubling over in agony and collapse to the floor.
“Tell James that we called,” the thug says on his way out.
~ ~ ~
Thursday, November 18
Amy Madigan falls in step with me as I’m crossing from the Union to Bondurant Hall. “I met with my fiction staff yesterday,” she says. “We’ve gotten several surprisingly good stories. One of them will really shake people up when they read it, I can promise you. Jerome Baker wrote it.”
“Where do I know that name from?”
“The Black Student Union. He’s their president. Big guy, built like a Marine. To look at him, you wouldn’t think he’d be a writer.”
At that moment, Clamor dashes past us on the sidewalk, probably late for class.
“There’s somebody else I can never figure out,” I say. “What’s your guess – a girl or a boy?”
“What?”
“Clamor. Girl or boy?”
“What are you going on about now? Claire Marie is a girl.”
“And you’re sure of that because . . . .”
“I’m sure of it because she’s my cousin. She’s slept in my room during family reunions. We’ve been swimming together. I know she’s a girl.”
“Your cousin? Really? I’ve never seen you two hanging together.”
“Certainly not. She’s a disgrace to the entire family. I mean, just look at her. Would you want to claim a relation to that?”
“Well . . . that’s not a very Christian attitude, Amy. Doesn’t your religion have something about ‘Judge not, lest you be judged’?”
“That doesn’t apply to family. You of all people should understand that.”
We part company on the walk in front of Bondurant. “This has been pleasant,” I say. “We must do it again.”
“I’d appreciate your not telling anyone about Claire being related to me.”
“Why would I tell anyone?”
~ ~ ~
Friday, November 19
The line outside the Lyric stretches all the way to the Gathright-Reed drug store. Garrett tells Rose and me that the crowd’s been appearing for every weekend showing since the October 23 Commercial Appeal story about the “avant garde film experiences being screened each Friday and Saturday night just off Oxford’s sleepy square.”
I vaguely recall meeting the reporter that night when we arrived expecting to see Carnal Knowledge but were treated to three out-of-order reels of Shaft interrupted by Porky Pig cartoons, World War II era newsreels, and a soft core porn short of a woman having sex with a watermelon.
“It’s a sign of our times when a batty old woman getting stoned with the weekend projectionist becomes cutting-edge art,” he remarks.
“What’s supposed to be showing tonight?”
“Some Walter Matthau epic called Kotch.”
We take our place at the end of the line and shuffle slowly forward with the crowd, which is noticeably upscale from the usual demographic of patrons at the Lyric. Trend-setters and trend-seekers from Memphis, for the most part – professionals, professors and artists slumming for a culture fix in an out-of-the-way hole. When the wind shifts from the east, the scent of weed drifts its way down the row.
“I’ve heard that the theater is absolutely filthy,” a woman ahead of us is saying to her date. “You need to bring newspaper, because you don’t want to make contact with the chair cushion.”
“We call it the ‘Two Stick,’” Garrett says.
“Two Stick?”
“As opposed to the ‘One Stick’ across the street. That’s the Ritz. If you go to a movie there, you need to bring a stick with you to sit on. At the Lyric, you need two sticks – one to sit on, and another one to beat the rats away.”
We’re standing about five yards from the door when a “Sold Out” sign appears in the ticket window. Lamentations rise from the crowd. Old Jeff comes to the door in a necktie that looks like wallpaper from a Santiago brothel and flashes everyone a one-toothed smile.
“Sorry, folks, we can’t let any more of you in. Fire code. But the manager has decided that tonight we’ll offer a special midnight showing for anybody who wants to stick around for a few more hours.”
Garrett and Rose turn for home, but it’s a pleasant autumn night with a fingernail sliver of a new moon. I take a walk down to the end of Van Buren and strike out along the southwest curve of the railroad tracks where the now-dead kudzu vines hang like curtains in a haunted house. I’m almost in sight of the top bleachers of Hemingway stadium when a sound of rustling behind me reaches my ears.
I glance behind, see nothing, walk on.
I resume my pace, glance back once I’ve taken a dozen or so steps forward, and spot a movement among the vines.
I’m being watched. And followed.
It’s an animal, keeping its distance. Not stalking, exactly, but interested in me. Or curious to see a person at this particular place at this time of night. I pause, crane my neck, and discern a shape perched on haunches behind drapes of dried kudzu. It’s a dog. As I gaze, it stretches its front paws forward, lowers its chest onto the ground, and sinks its head onto its arms.
Light from a street lamp reflects in its eyes – two ancient, mournful green orbs that watch me, and blink. Familiar eyes. Eyes I’ve seen many a time before.
“Citizen?” I call. “Is that really you? Come over here, boy! Come on.”
The eyes blink once more, and vanish, as I stand calling, open handed, to an empty space.
~ ~ ~
Saturday, November 20
Cindy has managed to score leftover meat plus three from Grundy’s lunch menu for all of us. We’re parked at the kitchen table with fried chicken, corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, and cornbread muffins. A feast.
The stereo is playing Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. After side one ends, we all continue eating, nobody volunteering to get up, walk to the parlor and turn the record over.
“Do you remember Citizen?” I ask.
“No,” Garrett replies. “I can’t remember something that didn’t exist. And neither can you.”
“Who’s Citizen?” Cindy wants to know.
“Daniel’s imaginary dog. He drove us all crazy with it when we lived in the Earth.”
“He wasn’t imaginary. It’s just that none of the rest of you ever saw him.”
“What did he look like?” Cindy asks.
“He was invisible,” Garrett answers. “He bore a remarkable resemblance to empty space.”
“He was a retriever,” I say.
“He was an hallucination.”
“I like retrievers,” Cindy says.
“Anyway, I think I saw him last night by the railroad tracks.”
Garrett rises from the table to turn the record over. “Did it ever occur to you that your imaginary damn dog was one reason Melissa left you for Paul?”
I ponder this. He’s right, of course, but the memory isn’t a welcome one.
“You really know how to hurt a guy, Garrett.”
~ ~ ~
Sunday, November 2)
My jeans pockets hold enough quarters for two washer loads and two dryer loads at the laundromat near the Beacon on Highway 7.
As I strip the sheets off my pallet, I discover an unexpected item: Ashley’s Chairman Mao t-shirt, the one she wore (and then abruptly wore no longer) the night she arrived last October.
&n
bsp; I lift it to my face. The cotton cloth still carries the slightest hint of her scent. For a moment I hesitate over adding it to the pile, consider keeping it unwashed as a memory, but then drop it into the laundry bag with a sigh of regret.
Here in the land of cotton, some old times are best forgotten.
~ ~ ~
Monday, November 22
I leave the Nickelodeon with my new copy of E Pluribus Funk, having taken advantage of Dottie’s latest discount offer that she’s devised as a response to the “Keep the Square American” campaign.
Dottie’s called her sale “Get Rid of the Square American.” It’s 10% off any record that’s not by Pat Boone, which means her entire inventory.
I’m on foot, headed south on Van Buren, toward home. As I start across the intersection of South 9th Street, I notice a green Cadillac idling at the curb opposite St. Peter’s Episcopal.
I’m a few steps into the street when the Caddy lurches into drive with a squeal of rubber on asphalt, barrels through the stop sign and whooshes past, barely missing my quickly retreating ass. It catches the light on University, hangs right, and has vanished in under seven seconds.
No witnesses. Gone too fast for me to get a license plate number, but I know the car from twice before, and I’m curious to know who wants to run me over.
~ ~ ~
Tuesday, November 23
“Stop telling me what’s right about my poetry,” Becky protests when I attempt to compliment her latest scribblings. “I want to know what’s wrong with it. How can I improve what I’m doing?”
We’re at the corner booth in the Grill, Becky with a 15 ounce cup of Coke, me with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a microwaved cheeseburger. Clamor slouches in the seat across from us with a chocolate shake. Rapt in a brain freeze, she dangles spoonfuls of the thick solution over the table as she swallows the shake with little grunts of satisfaction.
“Lighten up,” I advise. “Writing’s a game. Have fun with it.”
Becky fixes me with a look of deadly seriousness. “It’s not a game to me. Poetry’s going to be my life’s work. My poetry’s going to change the world, make things happen.”
“Poetry makes nothing happen,” I quote.
“I don’t take advice from Auden,” she replies. “There’s nothing worse than a sentimental cynic.”
“Poetry makes nothing happen. That’s from ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats,’” Clamor volunteers.
We both look at her. The surprise must show on our faces.
“What?” Clamor says. “I read poetry. I’m cultured. But what I’ve always wondered is why all the modernists have initials instead of real names. W.H Auden, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot. I mean, what the fuck does T.S. stand for?”
“Tiny Scrotum,” I say.
“Does not.”
“Gospel truth. Most modernists were born to spiteful parents who resented their children and gave them embarrassing names that would weigh the kids down for the rest of their lives. W.B. Yeats is a perfect example.”
“And his name was?”
“Withered Buttocks. You see how that could warp a child. At least old Tiny Scrotum Eliot was an American. Withered Buttocks was a Brit who was shipped off to some aristocratic boarding school the moment he was old enough to walk and wipe himself. The other boys tormented him cruelly.”
“So, what about W.H. Auden?”
“His mother was a speed freak,” I say. “Reason for W.H. having his amphetamine addiction. Loved dime novels, spent every spare penny the family had on ‘em. She went on binges, stayed awake for weeks reading them. Ned Buntline was her favorite writer, especially his Buffalo Bill series. Odd for a proper lady of her breeding, but there you have it. Later got into Deadwood Dick, Jesse James, Kit Carson. No food, clothes, heat in the house, just mountains of dime novels. Tragic childhood.”
“And his name?” Clamor prompts.
“Westward Ho. Westward Ho Auden. Very embarrassing for a proper British poet. You see why he uses his initials.”
“That’s probably what turned him into a cynical old fart who says that poetry makes nothing happen,” Becky complains.
~ ~ ~
Wednesday, November 24
With campus closed for Thanksgiving break, I enjoy another sleepy morning on my pallet, pulled away from it only by the emptiness of my belly and of the kitchen larder.
I take a short walk through November drizzle to Colemans for lunch, where I find Jimmy and Tiger in brotherly conversation over barbecue and coleslaw in the booth nearest the door.
“Ocarina vermillion,” Jimmy calls to me as I enter. “Get your food and join us!”
Tiger appears ill at ease to have me there. Jimmy inquires after the health of all his good friends on Tyler Avenue. I inquire after the health and well being of their sister, Ho.
“She’s good,” Jimmy answers, lifting an imaginary hookah pipe to pursed lips, audibly inhaling. “Keeping happy.”
Tiger begins to fidget in his chair when the conversation turns to the restaurant, and he’s distinctly unhappy when Jimmy invites me to view their progress in renovating the old bridal shop. Which turns out to be no progress at all.
Jimmy takes me in through the alley entrance to the old bridal shop. The place smells dusty, stale. While the merchandise has been removed, the racks and display stands remain in place. I can’t detect a single modification that would suggest that this space is being prepped to house a working kitchen and a dining room for patrons.
“When are you scheduled to open?”
“January,” Jimmy says. “Middle of January.”
“You have a lot of work to do before then.”
“Yes,” Jimmy agrees. “We have much to do.”
The he slaps my shoulder and laughs like we’re sharing a joke.
~ ~ ~
Thursday, November 25
“Champagne, Mr. Medway?” Dr. Goodleigh greets me at the door with a tray of genuine crystal stems.
She relieves me of my shearling coat and escorts me into her living room, which this evening is packed with guests.
“My annual Thanksgiving dinner for all the faculty bachelors and old maids,” she explains. “And other distinguished guests,” she adds as Dottie Carroll emerges from the kitchen with a pan of Spanakopita.
“You’re not having dinner with your sons?” I ask Dottie.
“Do you imagine I’d spoil a perfectly nice holiday spending it with them?”
Apart from a few new faces from Law, Economics, and Computer Science, I know almost everyone in the room. I spot Dr. Evans in the dining room. He’s been a regular since his divorce three years ago. Dr. Sutherland, however, is a new member of the group, this being his first year of bachelorhood.
I join him on the couch. We dutifully clink our glasses in toast. “This brings back memories of Virginia,” I tell him. “I lived for two months on champagne and saltines – they were the only food I could hold down.”
“I subsisted entirely on vodka and malted milk balls during my dissertation,” he replies. “Everyone in academe is mad. You should get out while you still can.”
My mind is distracted from our conversation as I constantly scan the room for cats. I catch glimpses of moving shadows, a flick of a pink ear, a tail wrapped about the leg of a chair, fluid motions across the carpet, between the feet of the guests.
“It’s a Soviet device,” Dr. Sutherland is saying when I turn my attention back to him. “The CIA smuggled the designs into the United States. The Russians seem to have been working with brain wave patterns for decades, some pretty sophisticated research. The doctors can’t guarantee what the effects might be, but I’ve volunteered to be a test subject.”
I’m wondering what he’s talking about when Dr. Goodleigh calls us to dinner. The cats have congregated under the dining room table. I sense noses at my feet and ankles, tails brushed against my calves, an occasional claw on my leg. It’s all very distracting. I’m grateful that Dr. Goodleigh has seated me by Dottie, who manag
es to carry on a lively conversation without assistance from anyone else.
She’s recounting the details of a recent meeting of the Oxford Merchants Association when a talking point finally occurs to me.
“I had a very strange encounter yesterday.”
“Really?”
“With Jimmy and Tiger. Jimmy gave me a tour of the restaurant.”
Is it my imagination? Does Dottie avoid eye contact? “Oh?”
“Have you seen it? Nothing’s been done yet. You know what? I’m worried that there’s not going to be any restaurant. I’m worried Dr. Hirsch is being swindled.”
Dottie is about to say something when somebody across the table mentions the hijacker who jumped out of a jet over Oregon last night with $200,000 in cash. She instantly pivots to that conversation.
“I heard all about it on the Today show this morning, just before the Macy’s parade started.”
Dr. Evans has heard nothing of yesterday’s hijack. “Wait, are you saying this man took a ransom of $200,000 and jumped from the exit door of a 727 at 10,000 feet? In the middle of the night? During a storm? Damnation. He should be easy to find.”
“How’s that?” Dottie asks.
“The FBI should start looking for a guy with the biggest balls on Earth. No wonder he had four parachutes. He’d need three of them just for his balls!”
“What’s the use,” Dr. Goodleigh remarks, “trying to host a civilized Thanksgiving dinner if every time – year after year – somebody at the table has to start talking about balls?”
The doorbell rings. Dr. Goodleigh rises to answer it. A few moments later, a statuesque woman is standing by the foot of our table.
Dr. Evans rises from his chair and she rushes to him, hands at his shoulders and face pressed into his chest.
They kiss. They kiss in a way I’ve never seen old people do, outside of a movie. They kiss like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Bogart and Bacall. Brando and Eva Marie Saint.
I don’t think I should be watching this, out of politeness. Out of respect. Out of common decency. But I can’t look away. A quick glance around the table assures me that I’m not alone. Everyone’s gaping.
The woman finally says something in Italian. Dr. Evans answers, also speaking Italian. A dozen words. A few sentences. He leads her swiftly from the dining room and down the hallway. We hear a door close behind them.
Dr. Goodleigh eventually breaks the silence. “Well, our bachelor circle seems to have lost a member. Who wants coffee?”
~ ~ ~
Friday, November 26