Riding With Eddie and the Drifters

Long before LaVerne died and Eddie lost his anchor, he was a drifter. LaVerne used to say Eddie was the kind of man who was gone before he got there. Then she’d open her mouth and laugh halfway down her throat, showing the sweet gap in her front teeth.

Eddie had heard her talk about his wandering ways too many times to laugh, but he never tired of seeing the gentle roll of her belly under her dress when she chuckled at her own remarks. With friends, laying back on the couch waiting for the football game to start, he’d study the toes of his boots and smile at her over the rim of his contentment, a cream-licking cat stroking his whiskers.

East Bay Dragons Motorcycle Club, an all-black,
all-Harley-Davidson riding crew. Photo probably from the 1960s

 On Saturday mornings before the end, she kept her eyes closed when Eddie got out of bed before the sun. She’d fit the familiar sounds of his movements as he prepared for a run—the rustle of jeans pulled up and zipped, the predictable clunk of a dropped boot--to her memories. She’d hear the squeak of leather and pull the pink comforter tighter under her chin sensing it was time. She knew he had his gang colors on, but she wasn’t afraid. He always made it back.

In the half light before dawn, her mind swayed with the rhythmic prelude of his leaving, reminding her of when they used to ride together, when she’d clung to his back, hands locked around his hard belly, fingers warmed by the furnace of his spirit. He set the pain pill set by the bedside. She registered the soft closing of the bedroom door, then hot cracks from the bike firing up. The horn’s one short beep signaling he was off. She rested in familiar images of Eddie in the saddle, stretching to his full height in the brightening morning light, then slipped into the darkness of her pain.

  

Bessie Stringfield, born in 1911 in Jamaica, was the first woman
to ride a motorcycle across the the U.S. solo. She was inducted
into the Motorcycle Museum's Hall of Fame in 2002

 After 27 years of marriage, Eddie’s heart crashed and burned when she slipped away. He laid his bike down, throwing sparks and spinning out, broke his ankle, sat expressionless in the front row at the funeral home, cast resting on a chair, shook hands, said thank yous. He left his old gang and hung up his colors.

About a year ago Eddie sat doodling at the kitchen table where he and LaVerne used to drink coffee and eat cinnamon rolls on Sunday mornings before she got sick. Back then they’d go back to bed on Sundays for some extra sweet stuff. This morning sunlight cast its gold across Oakland and the streets were still, then the silence broke and he heard a far-off rumble, probably a flathead Harley, he thought.

Without realizing it, he designed new colors for the back of his riding vest – a flaming red and orange heart. He found some new boys – professionals and businessmen like himself – and they put on the colors too. Today they’re running to Capay Valley, following the course of Cache Creek spilling down the Mayacamas Mountains, the water searching for the Sacramento River, but halting the easy flow where the road connects to Interstate 80 and the gang rumbled back home to Oakland.

I met Eddie at the Jack-in-the-Box in Vallejo, where Highway 37 crosses Highway 29. I was running late for a Saturday writing workshop and he saw my impatience, let me order ahead of him, leaned forward, paid for my coffee. We talked and he told me about where he and the boys were headed, asked me if I wanted to ride sissy.

I shook my head, glanced at his bike, started to say no, but he interrupted, said if I waited, all I’d get is older. Seemed like he knew what he was talking about. I believed him when he said all I had to do was hang on tight.

Next Saturday Eddie and the Drifters will run someplace and I’ll weigh anchor, drift.

History of Black Motorcycle Clubs: Who Paid the Price for Black Bikers Who Ride Today?

It's true I met Eddie and members of his motorcycle club at Jack-in-the-Box in Vallejo on the way to a workshop on writing personal essays. Eddie and the Drifters MC were on a run, decked out in riding leathers and heavy boots, more splendid than rodeo cowboys. Eddie was kind and funny when we talked. He bought me coffee. I felt a wistful sadness in him and tried to guess the source, prompting this essay, fueled by a dip into the fascinating history of Black motorcycle clubs in Oakland, CA, in America. 

Flattened

This morning I'm fighting off a bit of depression, going over things that aren't working in my life. If I focus on it, the list gets very long and the load of dissatisfaction grows heavy, too heavy to bear. But then I bounce back, well, claw might be a better word. Kinda like crawling hand-over-hand on slender vines while dangling off the side of a cliff. I glance down at the rocks and the sliver of water and keep pulling myself up, thinking about what a mess I'd make if I let go.

Before my surgery, right after Christmas, I had an amazing experience that helped put the perils of the abyss in perspective. Before Christmas, I'd been running around filled with the need to do this and that for the holidays -- clean, socialize, plan, wrap, visit, love, catch up, worry, intensely practice yoga, kiss, hug, dance, sing, sometimes even brush my teeth and comb my hair. Sleeping little, sometimes spinning my wheels, I was happily engaged. Confirmation of breast cancer Dec. 22 changed the tone of my holiday ruckus.

In January, two days before my holiday vacation ended and I went back to work, I went to bed, mind whirling, unable to sleep and found I couldn't get back up. It was like a lead weight pressed me down on the bed. The room spun. I was hallucinating wide awake, aware that it was happening, but helpless to make it stop. I checked the bedside clock, considered calling 911. I've never want to disturb emergency dispatchers at an ungodly hour, that is after dark. Just seems too presumptuous, but it felt like I'd lost my grip on sanity, what would I say? "Help, I'm nuts!". So I waited and the experience continued with increasing vividness.

I clearly saw my sons, everyone in the family -- my grandchildren, my nieces and nephews, my siblings, friends, co-workers, myself.

I realized everyone was growing and changing as I looked deeply into all our lives -- into the past, forward to the future. It became joyful and reassuring, kaleidoscopic, voyeuristic, and I also realized there's still much work for all of us to do, that it's getting done despite my impatience and meddling. I saw everyone handling their own life business very well, thank you.

I tried to shut down, go to sleep pinned to the bed as I was, unable to lift arms or legs, but couldn't. So I envisioned a warm and healing white light focused on my body. I often do this visualization during yoga meditation. 

Then from the left side of my mind came an intense white light, pure, strong and overpowering in its brightness. I stepped closer to it, looked for its source, for the energy behind the emanation, but could not penetrate the light, could not see beyond the engulfing brightness, and was afraid. I stepped back it gradually faded. Alone in the dark of my room I slept deeply, woke up feeling rested for the first time in weeks.

I don't understand this experience. I've never felt like that before. I've tried to explain it to myself -- fear and stress from having breast cancer and facing surgery, lack of sleep, too much yoga, over stimulation from the holidays, overwork to make the holidays special, worry, anxiety, anger, disappointment.

What I clearly saw is that everyone was growing into better lives, better selves, transforming in beautiful ways -- even me. It was reassuring to see and understand. I saw my work as a writer, met characters I want to know, learned stories I need to tell, sensed feelings I need to express.

It's a lot of work, my work, and I'm growing and changing. I felt washed with knowledge and amazement, cleansed with a deep understanding that everything is fine, working just as God has planned for me, our family, you, our world.

Say what you will about this experience. I don't feel fit to judge it. I can only report truthfully what happened on the other side and be amazed. When you have a moment to talk, I'm here waiting. Love you.

P.S. Nearly a year has passed since I saw the light. Went to the oncologist last week. She said, "You're cancer free." They caught it early through a routine mammogram, caused minimal damage to my body. She said, "You're a writer. You need to tell people routine mammograms save lives." In my case, the discovery did more than save my life. It cracked me open and gave me a glimpse of a new life. 

Boiling piss on St. Patrick’s Day

Went to the grocery store to pick up corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day. A gaggle of old folks gathered around the meat cooler, turning over the shrink-wrapped meat, picking and choosing, taking their bloody time. What were they looking for? It’s all the same, right? Why are all the purchasers of this traditional Irish meat just old folks (me included)? Good questions. I’ll get to them.

In the meantime, here’s another question: Everybody celebrates St. Patrick’s Day, right? Green beer, green rivers in Chicago, green lights on the opera house in Sidney, green parades in Canada, green pubs in Buenos Aries where not a single person of Irish decent shows up. There are jokes on the Internet about drunks in yoga positions. “Kiss me I’m drunk or Irish or whatever” T shirts. On March 17 the whole world is Irish and few people know why.

Never mind. I’ll cook corned beef today in honor of the part of me that’s Irish, wear orange on St. Patrick’s day for the part of me that’s not. No one will give a rip about what I wear and I’ll wipe my hands on the seat of my pants while cooking – in my Irish way. People don’t know the history of what they’re celebrating, don’t care, they just want somebody to pass them another Guinness stout.

But, you see, just like every Hispanic is not Mexican, every Jew is not Polish, every Swede is not blonde, everyone of Irish decent is not Catholic. I’m Presbyterian, which has been an issue in England, Ireland and Scotland since before the 1600s

My ancestor Archibald Campbell, a stout member of the Church of Scotland, which became the Presbyterian Church, was beheaded on the 'Maiden' in 1661 for his religious and political beliefs. People in Great Britain have been killing each other for religious, economic and political reasons for more than 500 years. This conflict helped launch the founding of America.

The Maiden. Courtesy: National Museum of Scotland

“I love Highlanders, and I love Lowlanders, but when I come to that branch of our race that has been grafted on to the Ulster stem I take off my hat in veneration and awe." Lord Rosebery, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian, British Prime Minister 1894.

Until 2010 in America, I was part of this stem, this distinct ethnic group of immigrants identified since the founding of the nation through the U.S. Census as Scots-Irish. In 2010, Scots-Irish citizens comprised 1.05 percent of the U.S. population. The government no longer recognizes this minority even though more than a third of all U.S. presidents had substantial ancestral origins in Ulster, the northern province of Ireland.

President Bill Clinton spoke proudly of this fact, and his own ancestral links with the province, during his two visits to Ulster. Scots-Irish Presbyterians founded what is now Princeton University in the U.S. as a seminary for its ministers. Mark Twain and Elvis Presley were Scots-Irish, for heaven’s sake.

If this marginalizing of a minority had happened to Puerto Ricans, 1.52 percent of the U.S. population; Chinese, 1.12 percent; or Sub-Saharan Africans, 0.9 percent; there’d be a huge outcry from Americans. For the Scots-Irish—not a peep.”

Here’s a Wiki list of famous Scots-Irish Americans – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scotch-Irish_Americans that may be a surprise.

We’re talking a lot of history here. For example, during the American Revolution, Scots-Irish troops fought successfully to prevent the British from taking control of the Hudson River Valley during the Saratoga Campaign. George Washington said of the American troops who fought those fierce battles that, if the war was lost everywhere else, he would take a last stand among the Scots-Irish of his native Virginia.

The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga by John Trumbull. The painting was completed in 1821, and hangs in the rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D. C.

He saw the Highlanders’ heart, knew the Lowlanders’ tenacity. After the Scots-Irish successes in battle, Congress declared December 18, 1777, a national day "for solemn Thanksgiving and praise;" the nation's first official observance of a holiday with that name.

So, keep in mind that Saint Patrick’s Day is a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. It’s also a feast day in the Church of Ireland. The church calendar avoids the observance of saints' feasts during certain solemnities, moving the saint's day to a time outside those periods. St Patrick's Day is occasionally affected by this requirement, when March 17 falls during Holy Week.

So, not everyone of Irish descent is obligated to go to church or get drunk on Saint Patrick’s Day. Not everyone wants to wear green. Not everyone wants to kiss leprechauns or idiots who have no idea what the holy day of remembrance is about.

I guess it’s the loss of history, culture and tradition that bothers me most. People assume I’m Irish, which is true, but I’m also Scottish, which they don't seem to get. I’m a two-for-one American with history that literally stretches back to the late 5^th Century and some say the Campbell's are descended from the Briton Arthur the Hero King, the one in the Knights of the Round Table myth.

I guess I’m miffed because these days being Scots-Irish doesn’t mean much in America anymore. I get what's going on, but only pinch me for not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day if you're looking for a fight.

Under every kilt are Irish genes.

Now, about that corned beef. Here’s the deal. The old people at the grocery store know best. They take their time looking for a firm, rounded cut of brisket with no sign of gristle and a good balance of fat for tenderness. They will, as my mother used to say, take the beef home and “boil the piss out of it,” throw onions, carrots, potatoes and cabbage in the pot.

The meat will be tender and sweet, make great sandwiches on rye bread the next day, and remind me and my family we are Scots-Irish, enjoying the leftovers.

Post a comment, I'd love to hear from you. Éirinn go Brách Ireland Forever!

Red-tailed Hawk and a Fractured Valentine

I recently got an email from an old friend of my ex-husband,

who now lives in England. He inquired about John's whereabouts.

I wrote him back with the news.

Dear Dan:  Thank you for your kind note about John. I'll pass it on to our sons, Mark, 35 and Mike, 24. I know they'll appreciate your remembrance. They've taken the loss of their father hard and they're still getting over it. They were relatively young to lose their Dad and have been rudderless since, as I've been for the past few years. John was always so big and robust, wherever he went he filled the room. It's still hard to believe a mere virus could diminish him, take him away.

John and I had a challenging relationship, as you know, and we were not living together when he died. He died alone by choice and it was a month before his body was discovered. I regret the way he died and miss him very much. He was my biggest supporter and we all wish we had been there for him. But, in the end, big and gruff, he chased everyone away in his bitterness.

As you may have gathered, I'm a writer and have worked as a reporter for many years. My work has often taken me to remote locations. John was always there for the boys and they easily went back and forth between us. He was proud of my work and in many ways made it possible for me to do it. I now live in Sacramento and work as a writer and photographer specializing in environmental issues. After Mike graduated from high school, I began to take creative writing classes -- short stories, poetry -- and I began a novel, Adrift in the Sound, published in 2012, that includes several characters modeled after John.

I worked my day job and worked on the novel nights and weekends. It's set in Seattle in 1973, its about what happened after the "Free Love 60s" ended and a new era began -- end of the Vietnam War, Watergate Scandal, Roe vs. Wade that legalized abortion, launching of the war on drugs, the Arab Oil Embargo, etc. The story is about Lizette, an addled street artist who hooks up with the Franklin Street Dogs, a ragtag tavern softball team, it's about the gritty drug scene and the pristine beauty of Orcas Island, its about John and me and the only thing that really matters. But, remember, it's fiction.

I struggled to find an ending for the story, but it eluded me. One night I had a dream, vivid and powerful. John and I were in bed on a sunny morning. We were young. In the dream, he went to take a bath and I went along to keep him company. In the dream every hurt, resentment, tension, grievance between us was resolved and in that moment only comfort, love and acceptance washed between us.

It was as if John came to me in person. It was 2 a.m. and by 6 a.m. the end of the novel was written, the story complete. I had a strong urge to call John, check in, see how he was doing, but put it off. As best the San Francisco Coroner can figure, he died the day I finished the novel. I believe the end of my story was his final gift to me, the gift of feeling his complete, untarnished love, and a gentle, resolved ending to a grating story. Sorry, but I can't go on telling. It makes me cry.

Gerald and Buff Corsi ©
California Academy of Sciences

At John's funeral, we had lots of chocolate and roses and friends from John's days in San Francisco's Haight Asbury. When it was over, I went outside and a huge red-tailed hawk swooped low and ruffled my hair then perched on a cornice of the building. You would think this an exaggeration, but I have witnesses.

The hawk was vigilant, as if guarding. It was still there after everyone left and I was alone with this magnificent bird, standing in front of an ornate and historic mausoleum. I hated to leave him there and my brother had to drag me away. We sprinkled some of John's ashes in the Panhandle at Golden Gate Park where he played baseball as a kid. I have kept the rest.

Find Adrift in the Sound here.

Lessons from my carpet guy

Damn sure right! I moved it all, everything I own into the backyard about two weeks ago. OK, not the china cabinet with my grandmother’s Bavarian china and my wedding Lenox and the odd crystal tid-bit pieces handed down through generations or the turkey platter that came over on the Mayflower, I kid you not. It came on the boat wrapped in a petticoat trimmed with tatted lace.

And, I didn't pack all the books and put the boxes out on the scruff we now call in that gentile Tidewater way “the back lawn” in drought-ravaged California. I moved almost everything out myself on a Thursday night, used a hand truck and force of will. Got help with mattresses, couch and recliners the next morning, expecting the carpet-cleaning guy to appear between noon and 2 p.m.

At 10 minutes after 12, the carpet guy was late according to my watch. I checked my calendar to find, actually, knees weakened by the realization, my appointment was actually the following Friday, as in a week away. When the blood rushed back to my head and I started breathing again, I looked around my empty house for someone to blame.

When I recounted this situation – everything I own in the back garden in a jumble – friends asked how mad I was, like I’ve got some kind of internal dial reading: annoyed, upset, steamed, hotter than a dropped penny on a summer sidewalk, Mount St. Helens flipping her lid.

Since I have no gauge to precisely measure dismay and no one but myself to blame, I remained calm and went out on the back patio to survey the wreck of my earthly goods – dusty lamps, ancient quilts, particle board end tables, a coiled and tied bulldogging rope, rocking horse, 5-foot tall candlestick holder, cassette tapes for a player I no longer own.

I rummaged around for a folding chair, sat down. I was mad, yes, but there was more in the gush of emotions--there was fear and disgust, a sense of the senseless. Since I did this to myself, I questioned my sanity, watched senility quietly stalking me, smirking through the hedges at my unsuspecting naiveté. I saw that mocking look hovering over the paltry trappings of my life, my household wreckage and quavered near tears. My heart spoke, pointed out my husband was dead, my children don’t love me and my life doesn’t amount to much. My heart has always tended toward the melodramatic. My gut said: "Get over it."

But truly chastened and humbled, I went back to work, joked about my stupidity with coworkers, explained why I couldn't call the carpet guy to come earlier, that I’d bought an online discount coupon for the cleaning and the company said they were very busy, but agreed to work me in. What I didn't tell them is that it had probably been five years since the carpets were cleaned, that addressing the grim of my life seemed pointless at this point, but there it was, everything I own sitting outside.

Perhaps this will make sense: I have grown sons who for this reason and that have moved in and out with bikes parked in the dining room and cherry and plum residue on their shoes that got ground into the carpet, popcorn kernels, spilled soda, grease and mud tracked in from east and west, cats that have spewed feline fluids, spiders that crept in and set up housekeeping, dust raised along the Western frontier.

There are cake crumbs in corners, rubber bits from popped balloons, curled scotch tape used to fix streamers to the chandeliers, scraps of shopping lists, toenail clippers slipped under the coach. In short, a full life lived boisterously and joyously in a little cottage by the river.

Bringing all the worn and tattered things I've accumulated and lugged around my whole life back inside, only to move them out again in a few days, seemed like a waste. I got a foam camping pad from the garage, made a pallet on the floor in my suddenly cavernous bedroom, bunched my favorite feather pillow around my neck and thought about my life, the things I carry—what to save, what to throw away. I thought about where I am, where I want to go, what I want to touch and see. What is me and what do I want to do about it?

I thought about Mary Oliver’s poem “Summer Day”: “Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

And I began to clean—baseboards, sooty air registers, bricks around the fireplace, chandeliers, light covers, switch plates, furniture legs, tables and chairs. I hauled the recycle bin from the side yard and began releasing things, then more things. I vacuumed nightly, with abandon, scrubbed the kitchen, cleaned the oven, washed bedding, hunted cobwebs, dusted window blinds. I fell exhausted each night on my pallet, got up in the dark, cleaned more in the rising valley heat.

Went to work, studied the garage mess before I closed the overhead door for the day. I questioned everything before the week was through, questioned each object to see if it was sturdy enough or pretty enough or held enough memories to fit my emerging plan for what I’ll do with my one wild and precious life. If I hadn't decided to get my carpets cleaned, I would not have thought about it.

Eric arrived to clean the carpets at the appointed time on the proper day, took one look around and said he’d seen carpets worse than mine, which I'm sure he tells every old lady with a cockapoo. I don't own one, but, I told him the truth: I do not love the carpets, don't worry about stains, that I didn't want the powder blue plush raised from the dead.

Today I’m moving the things I want or need back in. Summer is blowing away on fall winds, winter is kicking at the door. Leaves are streaming onto the clean carpet as I lift the objects I want back inside the house. On the newly polished dining room table are bicycle wheels, tires, inner tubes, a tire pump, spray on battery cleaner, a huge pipe wrench, hammers and a small stuffed panda. I ask myself again and wonder about you -- what will you do with your one wild and precious life? 

Peddling Poetry -- A Time-Honored Tradition

Restored peddlers wagon, Ohio

Beyond the flow of mainstream media, where mega-best-sellers barge by creating big wakes, there are quiet bays where writers row in welcoming waters, where a tide of readers wade in and tug their turquoise and yellow books to shore. I've been hanging out in these quiet inlets, splashing in the tide pools of poetic arts, collecting.

I've gathered prickly urchins and violet anemones, shells that play madrigals and rondos. I've taken them home and treasured each one. Many of these collected "chapbooks" include the poems of friends or writers I've heard read their stories at literary events. Some are the work of acquaintances on social media and others passed along by poets.

These slender volumes created by working artists follow a centuries old tradition made popular by "chapmen," peddlers of sometimes dubious character who tramped the byways of 17th century small-town Europe offering housewares and hardware and the occasional booklet to rural residents. These pamphlets included political and religious tracts, folk tales -- and often poetry.

Peddler in modern China

Although the Industrial Revolution brought better printing presses and the chapbook fell out of favor, the publishing method never completely died out. The appeal of inexpensive booklets easily distributed was not lost on thrifty residents of rural towns or on avant garde artists seeking attention for their work -- the American Beat poets of the 1950s and 60s published frequently in chapbooks, for example.

American poet Allen Ginsberg's ground-breaking work "Howl and Other Poems" was originally published this way by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books, as were works by Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, William Carlos Williams and Gregory Corso. Today a first edition chapbook of "Howl" sells for about $600, but back in the day probably cost less than a dollar. There's a lively trade in collectible chapbooks these days and many independent booksellers maintain a special section. Not true for chain book stores, however.

But, chapbooks remain one of the world's most widely-accepted forms of publishing poetry. Given the centuries-old tradition of bringing pots and pans, as well as prose and poetry, to customers worldwide, these minimalist, low-cost volumes don't carry the modern stigma of vanity attached to longer, self-published works. Heck, every American poet from Whitman to Frost initially published this way.

Right now there are a number of chapbooks on my bedside table that I turn to when I settle down for a quick read before sleep. I'll highlight them in coming weeks. The author's aren't household names like J.K. Rowling, John Grisham or James Patterson. Instead, the books are small, personal and beautifully made by real people with something to say. Here's an example:

Grand Slam, poet Alan Kleiman's premiere collection features many of his most popular works, offers deceptively light verse that pops with charm and catches the reader off-guard with unexpected insights. He finds poetic occasion in life's ordinary events: Sardines, a barn reflected, feta dip, sliver removers, wanting girls, slow dancing and kisses.

MORE

Kiss me a hundred times

and then a thousand

and then more that that

and then even more

and you will begin

to touch

the spot where

I want to kiss you more.

 "It's a pleasure to praise Alan Kleiman's brave and strange poetry, with its various

strands of innocent yearning and worldly resignation. 'The Emperor's clothes don't fit anymore,' Kleiman has found. The result is a whole new wardrobe, this time, without excuses" -- Jeff Nunokawa, Princeton University. 

Kleiman, who often works under the pen name Ace Mulvihil, lives in New York City and is as an attorney. His poetry has appeared in publications around the world. Grand Slam is available online from Amazon.

Today I join the ranks of chapmen, rattling my wagon from town to town, calling to housewives: "Hot poems. Hot Poems. One a penny, two a dime. Hot Poems!"

Flash Fiction -- Flight of the Herons

The sun comes up in the east and summer follows spring. I’m a literalist, a black-and-white person, comfortable with the way things are, the way they've always been. When we moved here, not that far, a thousand miles, and landed at the tiny airport, I expected birthdays and Christmas would be celebrated just like before—a special meal request from the birthday person and a homemade cake. On the 15^th of December, we’d put a Christmas tree in the front window and on the 25^th we’d bake a ham, boil potatoes.

But, relaxing in my recliner sometime after we’d arrived last year, my son looked at my feet and asked why I didn't paint my toenails like other moms. Honestly, I had noticed the women in grocery stores and at Little League games painted their toes, but chalked it up to working class affectation. If you wear closed toes shoes, like I do, what would be the point of painting your nails?

And there’s the issue of toxic chemicals and slave wages for the salon workers. Perhaps the women here do it, I thought, but it’s likely they don’t realize clear nails provide vital insights into ones health, a window it’s wise to gaze through often. For my money, a pedicure is about as stylish as shoeing a horse.

My husband gave me a gift certificate to the neighborhood nail spa for my birthday last year, his way of criticizing without saying a word.

I have principles, but don’t waste money, so I settled into the big recliner in front of the foot bath and he turned on the vibrator, gently pressed my shoulders back, whispered "relax." I didn’t tell him it was my first time, but he seemed to know. He picked up my gnarled right foot like it was a pink carnation and settled it in warm water tinted aquamarine. Then he took my left and nestled it beside the first, the water jetting around my ankles.

He was beautiful, his black hair gleaming as he bent over the foot basin, swiveling from side to side on a rolling stool. He rubbed, scrubbed, and buffed, then painted each nail cotton-candy pink. “Good for summer,” he said, almost smiling, before extending his hand and leading me to the drying station where a fan sent breezes dancing across my toes. He was crippled, stood over me like a heron balanced on one leg. He massaged my shoulders and I yielded to his touch, surprised us both with a soft sigh.

I presented my certificate to the cashier, who called the manager, who called a grandmotherly woman from the back. They studied the document and I watched him with one eye as he ate sushi with chopsticks from a Styrofoam box, seated beside a golden Buddha statue. Above him hung a poster of a beautiful girl in an apple-green sari and characters in black type that I guessed promoted an airline.

I began to feel anxious, not from the questions posed by these people who examined me head-to- toe like a fake twenty dollar bill, but because I knew eventually he would fly away and leave me. They took the certificate and then I gave them all my cash. "Tip," I said, feeling foolish until he looked up and I caught a glimpse of his cinnamon eyes. 

Last week I went in for my standing appointment, expected to see his twisted grin, watch him hobble to my feet. The grandmotherly woman said, “Rocky gone. Went home. Polio too bad. You want somebody else do you?”

I flew to my car in tears, collected myself. At home I found my family watching baseball, too absorbed in the game to say “Hi.”

"Flight of the Herons" is from Hard Holidays, a flash fiction collection. Catch up with my new serial novel, Drowning in the Delta. Installments are free online or for download on serial fiction site www.jukepop.com. Lots of great stories in every genre. Perfect for summer reading. Vote, Comment, Enjoy.

Knowing Cezanne

Before his mind completely collapsed, Denny said it was easy. He used a razor blade, cut it away and walked out with the Cezanne rolled and tucked under his arm. He didn’t carry it as a prize or slouch to the door. He said he nodded to the elderly security guard, noticed the finger smudges of other patrons as he placed his palm on the museum’s polished door plate, pushed. Afternoon sunshine streamed through the glass panels and he stepped out. That’s all, he said.

Questioned more closely, we were all a little drunk by then, admiring bathing nudes on the canvas rolled out on his apartment floor. He said taking it was a mind state. He said it was his; it rightfully belonged to him. No one stopped him or disagreed, he said, because it was true to the bone. Invincible knowing.

He talked about philosophy of mind, stimuli arriving to inform the essence that steers us to what we want or need—worldly belongings, like squash soup. He’d taken the squash from the community garden at the senior center and put it in the pot on the stove. Went in, he said, picked out the best one, walked, caught the bus home. He gave us some soup. It was chalky awful, but Denny chewed mushrooms, sipped the soup from a chipped mug, didn’t seem to notice.

“Now, Christmas,” he said, “is unnecessary, you see. Why wait for people to guess what you want or need? Find what you like? Take it. It belongs to you. Most people don’t give a shit or are too stupid to think beyond their twisted nucleus accumbens, brains only wired to jack off and grunt. That’s about it. Think they’ll give you what you want? Or stop you from taking what belongs to you?”

Somebody, a skinny guy sitting on the floor beside a bucket filled with peacock feathers said, “Fuck that.” He explained how he and Denny snuck into the zoo and used a squeaky dog toy to attract the birds, then they’d challenge the cocks, make them overheat and shit their pants. He bobbed his head like a turkey to demonstrate their technique.

“They dropped feathers all over the place, rattled their turquoise asses. We just picked the feathers up and brought them home. They belong to us.”

~  ~  ~  ~

When she pulled the wooden tiles for oxazepam a few years later and scored 392 points, a royal flush in Scrabble, she mentally thanked Denny that she'd ended up in drug rehab in Hollywood, where it was so easy to be a winner. She’d been thinking about his theory of positive thinking and then drew the letters.

Before rehab, she just said oxy, never knew the proper spelling of her drug of choice, not until the counselors at Bright Way Life Center spelled it out. After she won the game and took a shower, she stepped onto Sunset Boulevard. Some kids were selling hot apple cider in front of a church, singing holy Jesus Christmas carols. She took a steaming cup, kept walking. In a mean voice, someone yelled, “God Bless You!”

In front of the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel she paused, looked up at the flags and flood lights, adjusted the Dior scarf she’d just picked up on Rodeo Drive, and placed her open hand on the entry door’s brass plate. A uniformed doorman held it while she passed into the marble foyer where huge vases of red roses glowed under a crystal chandelier. He spoke sounds like a cow; the words made no sense to her. She nodded, moved to the art gallery off the lobby, her hands freezing.

“This is split bamboo position,” the man in the purple ascot said, putting the carved ivory piece into her palm. “A very rare 17th century netsuke of woolly mammoth ivory. If you look, you can see each pubic hair. Exquisite, really.” The figurine was warm and she wrapped her icy fingers around the ivory. It belonged there, twisted passion inside her grasp. She asked to see another carving, one in the arc position. He turned. She tightened her fist and stepped away, walked into the winter-brittle sunshine, knowing.

"Knowing Cezanne" is from Hard Holidays, a flash fiction collection. Catch up with my new serial novel, Drowning in the Delta. Installments are free online or for download on serial fiction site www.jukepop.com. Lots of great stories in every genre. Perfect for summer reading. Vote, Comment, Enjoy.

Memorial Day

We were late getting there, what with traffic and a not-so quickie in the truck-stop rest room off I-5 that smelled of toilet bowl freshener. We took the slow lane, didn't zip down the highway. Why rush? he said and caressed my inner thigh. I agreed, but felt fatigued by the time we landed on his mother’s doorstep last night, the faces of his family blurry and blank.

I gushed insincerely about his mother’s amazing flat, the hardwood floors, the view of the bay, the double glass doors separating the living and dining rooms, skipped over mention of her now gone husband, his soldier's photo in the place of honor on the mantle. She'd start with "we"  or "he" then stop. "Vietnam," she whispered, following my eye to the photo.

His brother talked about flying in from the East Coast with his family in a nasally voice. He told how the guy next to him blew his nose on the airline blanket and then spread it over his chest. He said the cab from the airport smelled of stale hash and warned us the kids get up early, then slouched off to the back bedroom behind his wispy wife. We got the living room fold-out without much padding, the inflexible frame now cutting into my spine.

At first light, she began setting the holiday table at a dogged pace. I watched through the glass doors with one eye, riding my attention over the bunched pillow like a sneaker wave, to spy her fondling each saucer and candlestick. She flapped a white tablecloth, smoothed it with veiny hands, pulled brown napkin rings from a drawer in the battered sideboard, held up a cobalt glass goblet to the dim light, studied it, put it away, stood hunched before the dining room window, facing east, wiping her eyes, twisting her wedding band around her bony finger, thinking she alone was staring at the first hints of a mimosa sunrise.

I ignored the warmth coming from behind, his knucklehead nosing my thigh. Clearly, his mother, my hostess, was lost in painful reverie. Lost, but she didn't have on blinders. I pushed him away, suspecting her hearing was still pretty good. Relenting with the next nudge, I arched my back and surrendered into her grief.

From Hard Holidays, online flash fiction prompts from writer Meg Pokress, author of best-selling flash fiction collection Bird Envy.

Stalking the Rose

MAY

7

Note to Mister: It comes to this. Of course, I love you. I’ve loved you in the darkest hours of the night, the thieves’ hours—when the world is asleep and stealing what I want is easy. An unlocked window, a child’s rocking horse close at hand, darling in its painted saddle, tufts of brown plush for a mane. I reach in and snatch it, no one awake to see, and the child doesn't deserve it, not this precious little toy. I carry it under my arm, ditch it behind the dumpster, come back later to get it or leave it.

It’s easy and the world is asleep.

I slip in a back door, trip on a soured mop, catch the handle before it drops, move to the front, to the mailboxes, lift the little brass doors with my chewed thumbnail, rifle the envelopes for checks. Take what I need, take the love offered in the darkest hours, lift my hoodie, blow on my cold-stiffened fingers, slip out, soft. It comes to this often. I loved you then and now, tonight, when the fullest moon, the perigee moon makes you howl like a dog and you grovel on your purple couch and clutch your red and black hula hoop. Swing it. Hang on, because, of course, I love you. 

 I wrote you a book, told you a story in the darkest hours, hours stolen in my four-poster bed with it’s down comforter and handmade Sunburst quilt I bought in Solvang when I was alone, traveling to nowhere, nibbling pfeffernüsse. It was a daytime impulse, not a dark obsession like writing a book, not like you.

And, later, your memory with me in the dark motel room, I sensed you sniffing at the rosemaling tattooed on the drawer fronts and complaining about saccharin, about the wooden shoes planted with flowers. You were turning a phrase, talking about latex and restraints, turning my head with the story of the boy on a subway with a knife and cat eyes, while I worked saltine-flavored songs on my laptop.

Now it’s done and I’m writing letters and flyers and press releases to tell everyone what we did in the thieves’ hours, offering to show them and buy and sell them, seduce them and make them mine. Of course I love you, but it has come to this:   

I wrote you letters and you read them, made vague grunts. But, I study your letters long for clues about how to write, not sentences, but for state of mind, for emotion, for truth and heat, for the moment when the artist lets their guard down—like I did with Rilke, Anne Sexton, Conrad, Flannery O’Connor, Steinbeck and Hemingway, Joyce. I see your the tangled path to truth and try to follow with panting heart, treading the rocky trail, stumbling on roots and skinning my palms. And now, of course, I write again in the thieves' hour because I’m afraid.

I sit very still now, wonder what's going to happen? Tomorrow, I'll get up with thieves and stalk you, wait. I can’t sleep without you, without getting up to steal the writing and read the emails from everyone, but especially from you.

Note: This post is inspired by an email from writer, Stephen Elliott, publisher of The Rumpus. I came home dusty and wind blown from a rose seminar, tired from walking the test fields, and read Stephen's email, popped out a reflexive response--a melange of fact and fantasy. It's a jazz riff, a variation on theme.

About my obsession: My novel Adrift in the Sound, is available in paperback and e-reader I’ve also published a slim book about the final editing of Adrift, co-authored with my editor, Tom Thomas. Between the Sheets: An Intimate Exchange on Writing, Editing, and Publishing is available now through Amazon for e-reader and in paperback.

And, I've started a serial fiction on the site www.jukepop.com. It's a story installments about a willful, foolish woman who finds ruin and redemption in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Find Drowning in the Delta online. It's a free read, at least for now.

But, no matter. Remember that in the still, black hours, it comes to this: I love you. Thanks for visiting the Word Garden, thanks for dropping comments and encouragement like rose petals. I'll be listening to Brahms and Boney James, waiting for you.

Brahms on a Variation of Paganini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiTwSK8PvIM&feature=kp