Seeds and Other Stories

by Ursula Pflug

  The bird sang into the room, and with its appearance Rickie suddenly knew what the other two were thinking, food shopping at Phoebe’s favourite Little Italy stores, far across town. Joey was trying to shrink his monster as usual, and his shame made her feel a brief sudden hatred, a flare of it. What was the point of trying to make his creature small if it was still so ugly?

  Gryphons were supposed to be large, proud, beautiful. She knew then that his monster was her bird transformed. He’d drowned his gryphon so long it had died, been reborn earthbound, ugly. His muse transformed, darkened, grown teeth and hair and misshapen.

  That was when he’d become a drunk, when he’d given up the needle. It hit her like a truck. How could she not have seen it? It wasn’t like he hadn’t hinted enough times. She hung around with musicians half her waking hours and thought they spent their time eating pie. So focused on the music she never even noticed all the attendant lifestyle pitfalls. Carlos could murder his mother under her nose and she’d say, “Good solo, dude.” A fresh faced kid from Ithaca, that’s what she was. Unspeakably naive.

  Her bird, she knew, was so shy because it was terrified of his monster, terrified it would be drowned by proximity: stained, destroyed. “But what if you can heal?” she asked. “What if?”

  And the bird said, “I’m not strong enough.”

  And Rickie said, “Oh, but birdie, you might have to be.”

  It was about Sally. Six years they’d been married, Joey promising he’d quit. And finally when he gave it up she’d left anyway, too tired. And he’d reached for the bottle, replacing one comfort with another. It only happened when Rickie sang, that she could know like this, so richly and full of detail, and she was as always both afraid and full of wonder.

  And birdie said, “Sing more.”

  sss

  Rickie, in homage to the first summer heat was wearing a white strapless dress. She removed the huge white flower from the tiny cut glass vase on the club table to tuck behind her ear.

  “Very Billie,” Joey said admiringly, wishing he remembered what kind of flower she’d worn.

  “Who’s Billie?” Rickie asked, and Joey groaned. What was the world coming to? Rickie was mixed race but she was a small town girl whose parents probably listened to Belafonte. Or Zep. But what had it been? A camellia? A gardenia? One of the facts he’d once known, dissolved by heroin, by alcohol. Or just aging, if he was kinder to himself. Or even, if he was kinder still, simply for lack of use. Use it or lose it. Our lady of the flowers, he thought, our lady of sorrows. Suddenly he knew what this girl needed, what to offer her next, in his unofficial role as her musical educator.

  Yet how long was it since he himself had thought much about the blues, his first love, the one that had compelled him, at seventeen, to pick up a saxophone unlike his white friends who, listening to Zep, had saved up their pennies for Strats? And Rickie had more range then she knew. Range she’d yearn for if she listened to the greats.

  A midtown west side bar. It was an open mike night they’d gone to, promising friends. The bar was still almost empty so Joey got up on stage and did Strange Fruit, just on his sax.

  “What is that?” Rickie asked when he came back. The usual wannabes were shuffling in, complete with their built in audience of girlfriends, boyfriends, roadies, and partners in crime. But Joey went up first, before the manager had even had time to write down a lineup. Joey could do that; he knew the guy forever. Sometimes having been around the block a few times was still an advantage.

  And Rickie came up this time too. He began the haunting song again, she reached for words that didn’t come; she didn’t know them. But the music called for song and so she let her voice out; a vocal improvisation made not of words but of sound. Her voice was a bird let loose in the room, and they could all see it then, a bird golden and black.

  “What’s with this eagle?” Phoebe asked herself, softly so it wasn’t heard above the music, all alone at their table under the stage. There were no other creatures in the room, except Joey’s, snivelling and drooling. Phoebe winced, couldn’t help but compare. Rickie’s eagle was golden, shining so bright it hurt their eyes, swinging under the lighting before it headed out to the darkness of the barn-like room. Wanting room to soar. As though it could, here. And Phoebe knew at that moment what Rickie would become, felt exquisitely pained by it.

  His monster’s gotten smaller the last few months, she thought, and he drinks a little less; somehow we’ve been a good influence on him. It curled at his feet, seemingly warming him, almost kindly. Phoebe knew from having shared the sofa bed that Joey’s feet could use a little warming, were ice cold even in summer. And clearly Joey was good for Rickie too. If his gift to Rickie had been her voice, could he extract a like miracle from her? As if there might be a genius worth a creature hidden within; it was too good and too hopeless a dream to consider. She looked at Joey’s monster again to remind herself what little use talent was, but at that moment it was beautiful, its yellow eyes blinking. It was being fed, was already a little larger. She’d have sworn it was purring, as if she could hear it above their music.

  But supposing she could have a creature, what would it be? Not everyone needs to hack an arty muse; some people were more inclined to be logicians. I wouldn’t have a bird, Phoebe thought, I’d have scissors. Scissors. What kind of creature is that? Something toothy, can make nice clean cuts, discriminate. Perhaps a lizard of some sort, or a big cat. But that’s always been for other people. The bright lights, the smart ones, the ones who know who they are. Not for people like me.

  Her friends were still on stage, jamming Strange Fruit. The bird circled the room, its wingspan three feet now. Phoebe thought, how will she ever fit it back in her mouth, and laughed at herself. She stared from Rickie to her golden bird, a mixture of pride and envy. I think I’m happy in this scene but heroin eats more musicians than it lets go. Phoebe snagged the waiter walking past; he set down eight drafts. She wanted the refreshments there for Rickie and Joey when they got back down. Her train of thought was making her lonely.

  Rickie and Joey were finished now, and the room filled with applause. More than Rickie had ever had. She turned to Joey and hugged him, tears in her eyes. The applause was for both of them, and she couldn’t have done it without him. How she loved this man, who could make such a thing with her. A golden bird. A healed gryphon. A room full of hands clapping. Music.

  “Billie paid for your sins so you wouldn’t have to repeat them,” Joey said pointedly when he sat back down. “I’ve seen it too often. You’re too smart to waste. Not that I expect you to listen to an old man,” and Phoebe noticed a glimmer of understanding in Rickie’s eyes. But she didn’t want Rickie to know, not yet.

  “How d’you like her Billie then?” Phoebe asked to change the uncomfortable subject.

  “Unconventionally brilliant,” Joey remarked. “But then what could one expect from a woman like that?”

  “But Mr. Joey, you’ve got big ears,” Rickie said, “always have had.”

  “It’s Rickie who’s got the big ears,” Joey said. “She can hear people think, especially, she says, when she’s singing.”

  “Now there’s an unusual talent,” Phoebe said mildly.

  “The street eats hangers-on even faster than musicians,” Joey said, back on track and Phoebe winced again.

  “Perhaps,” she said, mostly just to placate him, “I should study computers, make a new kind of instrument, never been done.”

  But Joey looked more than interested, said, “Logician, magician. I want to see this instrument of yours; my fingers are getting arthritic. You know Rickie, even if you’re a rocker born and bred, you’ll only get better by having learned them. Billie, Sarah, Aretha, the rest, the best.”

  “But you already told me all that on stage,” Rickie laughed, “with your saxophone and much more eloquently. Why bother with English?”

  Phoebe star
ed at his fingers. “You never said.”

  “No.”

  “Did you really used to be a junkie, Joey?” Rickie asked and Phoebe thought with huge relief, it’s not me she’s guessed about at last, but him. Still she wanted to run away, to hide, to hit up in the bathroom. Anything to make the shame go away.

  But Joey winked at her, comforting, promising silence all over again, said blithely, “Mojo told you that? Now you won’t like me anymore.”

  Rickie asked, “What’s it like?” and Phoebe was so grateful for his foot beneath the table brushing hers.

  “Better than Billie,” he whispered. “The only thing.”

  “Why did you stop then?”

  “Why d’you think? For just that reason. Better than Billie. At first I thought it fed my music but in not too long it was bigger; it ate my marriage, ate my music, shamed my animal, yet still seemed like the only thing. One day you wake up and realize maybe your woman, your proud creature, and your work were more important after all, that you chose the lesser thing. Seems obvious I know.”

  Phoebe remembered that comfort went both ways, reaching out to pat his hand with its swollen joints. How could she not have noticed? She was so selfish; he’d noticed her secret, as careful as she thought she’d been, and kept it for her. This was a different kind of shame, these distended knuckles. Why not share a thing like that? It was the shame of growing old.

  Joey reached for the last beer, and Rickie thought again how he’d replaced one comfort with another. We all drink but there’s a difference in the way he does it. Desperately. “Here’s your friend, miss,” he said, and there it was. Rickie’s voice, shrunken to pigeon size, settled on her shoulder. It cooed and billed her cheek, glittering.

  “And yours, sir,” Phoebe picked up the winged mouse, proffered it in her outstretched hand. He nuzzled it briefly and tucked it in his jacket.

  “I’ve never seen it so friendly,” Phoebe said. “But it should be bigger.”

  “Will be,” Joey said. “If Rickie lets me go with her where she’s going. Only small now so it can ride home in my pocket.”

  “Of course you’re coming,” Rickie said, still brimming with elation. “I won’t get there unless you come too. I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life.”

  Management locked the door on the last club kid and came over to chat, but Joey wasn’t up to it, not tonight. “Okay ladies, let’s hit the road.”

  On the street, walking towards Seventh Avenue to catch a Checker downtown, Joey linked one elbow through Rickie’s and one through Phoebe’s. And Phoebe, meaning it this time, said, “I’d give almost anything for an animal of my own. As original as Phoebe’s bird, as persevering as your gryphon mouse. It’s hard to tell what shape it’s going to settle into, Joey, now that it’s not a monster anymore.”

  “I think a gryphon mouse is a monster,” he said. “There’s benevolent monsters too, you know. Benign demons. For some people nothing less than a monster will do. Something with teeth.”

  “Or scissors. Perhaps a dragon,” Phoebe said, wondering.

  “There’s only one way for you to find out what your creature might be, and you know what it is.”

  “What?” Rickie asked and Phoebe kicked Joey in the shin and he laughed, but still she wondered what her choice would be and knew for the first time it would never be any easier, that she would always be standing on exactly this fulcrum, this moment. She might never grow a creature, be able to call its strength and beauty to her, but she had to try. What else was there? Even Rickie, who seemed so enviable, stood always at this same crossroads, choosing, choosing, again and again and again. There was no other place, ever, not in Manhattan, or on all of Earth. Only this one locus, this one choice. Whether to desecrate one’s light or shine it.

  A Room of His Own

  CASSIDY WAS RIVETED BY HIS HANDS. They were trying to disengage what looked like yellow gauze from the torn screen of the door to her new potting shed. He was picking at the gauze with those long fingers, at once sensual and gnarled, an expression of great intentness and some worry creasing his long handsome face. She thought perhaps it was his favourite scarf. She herself might wear just such an expression if her favourite scarf, a fine purple silk brought from Rome by her sister Mara, had caught on a protruding nail.

  But how had the screen torn in the first place? It looked like he’d been trying to break into her new shed, tearing the screen to unlock the door from the inside. It served him right for catching his scarf on the snags. It had taken Cassidy so long to get the shed in the first place. She re-potted plants in it, and kept her gardening tools neatly organized. Henry had little use for trowels and spades and cultivators and wasn’t likely to pinch and then lose them.

  “Could you help?” the man asked. He had a low fluty voice; it sounded a little foreign.

  Cassidy began to unhook the yellow gauze from the tiny, clawed metal ends of screen. He made a face when she did that, and twisted his entire body quickly. Cassidy saw his back then, saw how the yellow gauze was attached to his shoulder blade. How the other shoulder had a matching scarf, this one draped magnificently over his arm, almost alight. Not moving but capable of movement, she was sure.

  She unhooked ten or twenty tiny metal ends of torn screen from the yellow gauze. She thought he might have nerve endings there, and so she was as careful as could be, as if removing slivers from a young child’s tender feet. Not that she knew much about that.

  The stranger craned his neck; trust in his pale grey green eyes. Puce, his eyes are puce coloured, Cassidy thought, using a decorating word from one of her magazines. He moaned a little, and turned back around. Perhaps it had hurt him to face her, twisting the yellow gauze that was heavily veined as if by the finest of tendons, the softest of cartilage. More like a bird or a bat than a butterfly.

  At last he was free. “Mind if I stay here for a couple of days?” he asked. “I can’t quite leave yet.”

  “Shall I bring you food?” Cassidy asked.

  “A bit of honey might be nice,” he said. “Otherwise I can graze.”

  “Graze?”

  “Not like a cow,” he said. “More like a hummingbird or a bee.”

  “Oh,” Cassidy said. “I’ll look for honey and if we’re out I’ll buy some.”

  He nodded. “Unpasteurized if you can find it.”

  And Cassidy went back to the house and read decorating magazines. There was nothing wrong with their house that several thousand dollars wouldn’t fix, but now that they were semi-retired, they needed to hold on to their savings.

  “This dresser,” she told Henry when he emerged from his basement, “would look quite nice with a coat of white or palest yellow.”

  “Or puce,” Henry said.

  “Why puce?”

  “It’s a funny word, that’s all,” Henry said. “Like chartreuse. What colour is chartreuse again?”

  “A kind of yellow-green,” Cassidy replied to Henry’s back. He was already receding, having poured himself fresh coffee. Soon she’d hear his footsteps on the basement stairs. He was refurbishing old tube radios. The tubes were dangerous to work with, he’d once explained. He mostly did it to occupy his time, and because he enjoyed it. Luckily, because his skill was rare he was occasionally paid nicely. He only worked in the hardware store a couple of afternoons a week now, doing the ordering and such.

  “And a vase of fresh flowers,” Cassidy said to no one in particular.

  She’d meant to spend the day in the potting shed drawing. She’d recently bought a good sketchbook and watercolours, and real coloured pencils, not the cheap ones children used. She’d had to drive forty minutes each way, because Brookside only had a crafts store. The art supplies store in Stony Creek boasted a little espresso machine. The owner made her a cup before she rang up Cassidy’s things. Cassidy downed the tiny cup, and drove home very fast.

  She
’d make notes instead of painting right away, just as she did for her decorating projects. She would plan her paintings in advance. A vase of flowers first, she thought, and then a bowl of fruit. And on the third day, a tall thin man with puce-coloured eyes, his yellow wings caught on the torn screen door of her shed. Thinking about him, she felt a little giddy. She was afraid to go down to see whether he was still there, or even to peek at her art supplies, which she’d stashed under the bench after she got home from Stony Creek.

  Cassidy called goodnight down the basement stairs to Henry. She went up to bed, holding her glamorous feeling for the stranger close to her heart.

  In the morning she hunted through cupboards till she found a dusty unopened jar of honey. She and Henry put sugar in their tea and coffee; she must’ve bought the honey to use in a recipe she’d clipped. She remembered it then: orange honey cake, supposedly a traditional rural cake, although she’d never heard of it till she’d read the article. She’d clearly never attempted it either; the unopened jar of honey was proof.