The Shelf Life of Fire

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The Shelf Life of Fire Page 9

by Robin Greene


  k

  I save my document, then rise to use the bathroom. When I return, Jake snores lightly, and I hear his troubled breathing add tension to the room.

  As I sit down to write, I’m back in 1959—not ’69—early summer now, and I give myself permission to be here, to allow connections to emerge. Coherent narratives, I tell myself, are overrated.

  I’m at the fort behind the chain link fence by the concrete playground, with Teddy, Glenn, and Barbara—the club’s only members—and we’re having a disagreement about membership. Teddy wants to disbar Barbara and me because we’re girls. Barbara, hair pulled back into a ponytail like her mom wears, and I, with my shoulder length hair pulled into a half-ponytail and fastened away from my face by a metal barrette, stand near the oak tree by the boulder that marks the entrance to our fort. The boys are sitting on the crinkly brown-leaved ground.

  “If you throw us out, you’ll only have two members,” Barbara argues.

  “That’s right,” I add. I’m wearing a seersucker button-down, short sleeve shirt with a bright red balloon stitched into the front pocket and polka-dot pedal pushers that cover my scabby knees. A few days ago, I fell on the concrete playground.

  “Girls can’t climb,” Glenn says, and looks at me. He was the one who helped me when I fell. “And they can’t fight and can’t keep secrets.” Glenn is adamant. Teddy nods in agreement, his deep dimples visible when he talks.

  “Can too…” Barbara asserts.

  “And they got to go behind the Big Bushy Bush to pee,” Teddy adds. “The guys do it outside the fort room.” Teddy raises his voice. This last point seems like a slam-dunk, the final argument that will seal his case.

  “All right. Listen here,” I begin. I put my hands on my hips, begin walking back and forth, gathering my thoughts. “We don’t split. We’ve all taken the oath. Boys and girls alike. We four are together. We’re all the same.”

  The group is silent, and I realize that I’ve gotten everyone’s attention. My time to lead is now. “Girls are as good as boys,” I continue. “Sometimes better, sometimes not. We all have good and bad points…”

  “But…” Teddy interrupts.

  “No, let me finish,” I insist, pacing, my voice raised. “We’re the same. Boys and girls. Our hair is different. Girls wear it long; boys wear it short. Other than that, we’re the same.”

  “But…” Glenn tries to interject.

  “We’re the same!” I shout at the group, bending aggressively toward them. “Who tells me that’s not the truth? How else are we different? Girls and boys are the same.”

  Nobody speaks, though I know that what I’ve just said isn’t true. They know, too. The earlier reference to the different bathroom needs of girls and boys indicates that Glenn and Teddy know there are other differences. Also, Barbara has a new baby boy cousin, and I’ve seen her help her mom change his diapers. I take baths with my brother, and sometimes we pee together—me sitting while Dennis aims between my legs. But my argument holds, nonetheless.

  “Rachel is right,” Barbara chimes in. “You all know that. So what if we put on dresses sometimes, wear our hair long. Boys and girls are the same.”

  And with that, the argument is won. The criteria for club membership will remain gender neutral.

  k

  It’s almost 5:00 p.m. now, on a sultry, August late afternoon in Fayetteville. I’m walking Jake in a field behind the university, where we usually go for our short jaunts. Young male students are tossing a baseball, and two girls jog by, headed toward the nature trails and the Cape Fear River that serves as the eastern border of the university’s five-hundred-plus acre campus. There are ticks in those woods, so I never hike the trails in warm weather, but I do like to walk there in winter.

  Years ago, however, before the tick problem became bad, Nick and I would often take Cal and Will and our other dogs—first Byron, then Jarrett, and Gandhi—on long nature walks through the elaborate trail system. We’ve seen eastern rattlesnakes, grouse, black bear, fox, and wild turkey. This geographical region, known as the Sandhills, provides a climatic enclave, where the temperature is warmer and the soil composition is sometimes clay, but mostly sand. Longleaf pine forests once covered the entire coastal plains, but this was during the Miocene Epoch, twenty million years ago. The sea fossils found here indicate that this area was once under water before the sea receded the ninety or so miles to the current coastline.

  I’ve grown to love this landscape, the mixed vegetation, even the stifling blood-thinning summer heat. I love the subtle season changes, short winters, occasional warm January days with their much-needed reprieve from the cold. I’ve developed an appreciation for Carolina blue skies and for thunderstorms with their sheet or streak lightening, dramatic rain showers, downpours, and wild flash flooding.

  What I haven’t grown to love are many aspects of Southern culture. And today, as I walk old Jake, who hobbles with an unsteady back hip and has stopped to sniff the borderland between grass and woods, I think about being called ma’am, men who insist on opening doors for women, or who won’t swear in “mixed” company, and the million other smalls ways that polite Southern manners irk me.

  Why? I wonder. Do other women struggle, or is it just me? I think back to the page I just wrote—how sexualized I seem. And too young. Why, why, why?

  I yank Jake, who resists then yields, happy to move next to the big grass clump by the electrical power box near the trailhead. But my cell phone is ringing, I realize. Opening my bag, I hear it more clearly. On the face screen is the word “Nick.”

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Hello back,” Nick says.

  “Good day?” I ask, immediately recognizing his cheerfulness.

  “Yeah, went for a hike this morning. Cold here. Then wrote for most of the day.”

  “What you working on?” I’m by the ballfield and ready to turn around, head for the car. Jake has just pooped, and he’s limping more than usual.

  “Poems mostly. But I began a new piece. Sort of a personal essay. Memoir. How about you?”

  “I’m good,” I say, now crossing the asphalt parking lot and nearing the car.

  “Your work, I mean. The novel. How’s that going?”

  “Sort of. Not really. I’m kind of lost. Writing a little. Just stuff.” I press the key fob button, popping the door lock, and open the back door; Jake jumps in.

  Nick is quiet for a moment, lets it go. I’m grateful. “Hear from Cal or Will? I’m feeling out of touch,” he says.

  I’m in the car now, cranking it up and turning on the air. Jake is panting on the backseat.

  “No,” I say. “I’ll give Cal a call during the weekend if I don’t hear from him. I think he’s got an IBM conference in Chicago. And Will, he’s probably fine too, just busy. I’ll give him a call…”

  “So, you’re managing?”

  I’ve decided to drive around the deserted parking lot. I work Ruby into second gear, throw her into neutral and coast in a large circle.

  “Yeah, of course,” I answer. But then I feel tears well up, a convergence of shame, guilt, sadness, regret…

  “Write it,” Nick says. “It. Everything.” But he can’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t even know.

  A car is driving down to the back lot where I’m making my circles, so I decide to put Ruby in gear and head out. “Gotta go,” I say.

  “Love you. Take good care of yourself. Hear?” Nick replies.

  “Love you, too. Speak with you tomorrow.”

  seventeen

  That night, Will calls, as if on cue. He’s been busy, he explains, assisting an older glass artist, well-established in the Asheville area, and Will has news.

  “Mom,” he begins. “Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I was working, then I went rock climbing on Friday. Took the day off. Went to Chimney Rock with JT.”

  “Were you safe?”

  “Always. We don’t take risks, Mom. Really.”

  It’s almost 10:00 at night, and I�
��ve muted some PBS nature show that I’ve been half-watching as I skimmed through a recent issue of The New Yorker.

  “Be careful,” I say. “Extra careful.” I don’t want to hear too much about his rock-climbing adventure as it makes me nervous to visualize my son on a rock face held only by ropes and clamps. I’ve sometimes looked at his Facebook and Instagram climbing photos and short videos, and that’s been quite enough.

  “Listen,” Will says, “what I called to tell you is that I’ve been invited to exhibit my work at a gallery. It’s pretty high-end. Yeah, the curator called on Friday, said she saw my work online and that Robert had recommended me…and long story short, I’m in.”

  I’m immediately happy. It’s as if I’ve won a small but significant prize. I feel my depression lift like someone has taken a large flat stone off my chest.

  “I’m hungry, so I can’t talk long. Just wanted to tell you. Also, I updated my bio and artist statement. But I think they’re okay.”

  “You want me to look at them?”

  “No, Mom. They’re good, but thanks. I’m going get take-out with Suzanne. Good news. Just wanted to share.”

  “Yeah. Very good, congrats, big time. Really great news. Send me your stuff. Say hi to Suzanne and call again soon. I love you.”

  “Bye, Mom. Love you, too.”

  I hang up the phone and realize that I’m smiling. I unmute the TV, and a bald eagle calls from a rock ledge, takes off into a powerfully blue sky, and then glides smoothly across the large flat-screen.

  k

  It’s Sunday morning, and I wake up feeling sad again. I think about calling Cal but decide against it. Better wait until I’m more cheerful.

  I’ve fed the dog, made coffee, and now, as I sit down to my laptop, I decide to follow Nick’s advice: write everything. Turn the faucet on full force, get wet, even drenched.

  I start typing to find myself back at 1969, the first evening of my summer vacation, a week before I leave for camp.

  My folks have gone out to dinner at Garbadino’s, their favorite restaurant, with Evelyn and Frank Schmitt, good friends who live in the neighborhood, and Aunt Em and Uncle Leo, in an adjoining development. Then they’re all planning to play bridge at the Schmitt’s house. They’d all been taking bridge lessons with Ada, an Israeli expat, who lives in Queens but offers group lessons in people’s homes.

  Dennis used to babysit me when I was younger, but that stopped when I was about twelve. Now home in the summer after completing his first year at Drexel, he watches TV—a new portable purchased for his dorm room. He has few friends at home because most of them remained in their college towns to work summer jobs. Dennis is a Political Science major and hopes to become a lawyer. He’s supposed to look for summer work to help pay his tuition, but he hasn’t been out of his room much since he returned from school almost a month ago.

  I know Dennis smokes a lot of pot in his room, so I assume that’s his plan for this evening, and that’s why his bedroom door is closed.

  I’m going to my boyfriend Russell’s house. Russell is the oldest of three brothers, and he’s on duty tonight as his family’s babysitter.

  Russell lives on the same block as my Aunt Em, Uncle Leo, and cousins Sheryl and Ellen, who having moved near us, remain our favorite relatives. I could walk the three-fourths of a mile to Russell’s house but instead I’ll ride my bike.

  “Dennis,” I call past his closed bedroom door.

  “What d’you want?

  “I’m going out,” I yell back. “To Russell’s house. On my bike.” I’m dressed in my ripped jeans and faded blue work-shirt. My hair is loose, and I’m wearing old tennis shoes.

  “Okay,” Dennis shouts back. And he turns the TV volume up.

  I love Russell, with his blonde hair, green eyes, freckles, and wistful, almost sullen look. I’ve been dating him for about a year, and although my parents like him, his folks aren’t keen on me. I’m too hippy-looking, too free-thinking—and his mom, in particular, thinks of me as trouble. I know all this because Russell confides in me. He calls his mom Rookie—a reference to some family joke. She wants him to date only conservative Jewish girls with excellent grades and promising futures.

  My grades over the last two years have been erratic. First came the junior high walk-out last year—and then my bout with mononucleosis, which laid me low for months. Although I did well on my Regents Exams, my fourth quarter grades weren’t good. And this past year, I excelled in History and English but didn’t perform well in Chemistry and Algebra. Russell is two years ahead of me, so he’s now officially a senior. He’s taken his SATs, and I know he’s done well. He doesn’t want to attend a college in New York but is thinking of George Mason University near Washington, DC. Why this school, I’m not sure.

  Russell intends to become a doctor, but he’s secretly afraid of blood. He thinks he’ll outgrow his fear, however, and he’s not about to let it stop him. He recently fainted when he had blood drawn, and we often talk about this issue.

  Also, Russell is very Jewish. His faith is strong, and he attends early Saturday morning service at the orthodox temple. And when I go to the dude ranch for summer camp, Russell goes to some conservative Jewish camp, where the boys wear yarmulkes. Russell was bar mitzvahed, and his mother keeps a kosher house.

  In fact, Russell’s family culture is very different from mine, more rarified, intellectual, and I like that. Russell’s home has hardwood floors and imported hand-loomed rugs throughout. His dad, who owns a button factory in Brooklyn, recently purchased a new, beautiful teak high-fidelity stereo system, and all the family members take music seriously. They listen to classical music and jazz. Russell is the one who introduced me to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” which at first I didn’t like but now is my favorite piece—ranking even above the Stones’ and Beatles’ songs I love.

  I leave my bike unlocked against Russell’s garage door and hop up the stone front steps, ring the doorbell. Younger brothers Bradley and Phillip both answer in their pajamas. They let me into the house, a split level, and I can see that Russell is reading in the living room. But I follow the younger brothers into their shared bedroom through the upstairs hallway so that they can show me the model plane they’ve been working on.

  Bradley, the middle brother, explains that I’m looking at a C-130 Hercules, designed for combat troop transport. It’s an older aircraft but is used currently in Vietnam because it can take off from hastily-made dirt airstrips. These planes are often equipped, Bradley says, with 20 mm canons and 7.62 millimeter mini-guns.

  The glue is drying, and I’m not allowed to touch it. Phillip hugs my waist and stands on my shoes so that I can lift him and walk ploddingly around the room.

  “Nice,” I say, struggling to lift my feet with Phillip attached to me. He’s growing, and carrying him around like this is becoming more difficult. I look at the plane, which seems very generic, nondescript, with its four propellers and typical uplifted tail. “Let’s go see what Russell is up to,” I say.

  “No, walk me more,” Phillip insists. Bradley has gone over to his desk, put the plane down carefully over the newspaper spread out over his desk, and is getting out small, square bottles of acrylic modeling paint from his drawer.

  “Okay,” I say. “A couple more times,” and I lift my heavy feet, one, then the other, balancing Phillip’s body against mine, as I make two circles around the bedroom.

  “This is fun!” Phillip calls out. “We need a sister.”

  Later, when the boys are asleep, Russell and I kiss and touch each other on the overstuffed living room couch, lying down, rubbing our bodies together, making mock love. Sometimes we watch TV, but more often we listen to music, until we find ourselves necking. Russell loves all things romantic—especially Impressionist paintings and old poetry, which he memorizes and recites for me, as he does this night:

  Come live with me and be my Love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  That hills and valleys, dale and fie
ld,

  And all the craggy mountains yield.

  There we will sit upon the rocks

  And see the shepherds feed their flocks,

  By shallow rivers, to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals.

  When no one is around, Russell calls me his “melodious bird,” and sometimes his “French milkmaid” after Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which he just read for Honors English.

  By midnight, I leave—his folks usually come home between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. This night they’ve gone to Lincoln Center to attend a performance of Tosca, and Russell has reported to me that Rookie looked very elegant.

  Outside, in front of the garage, Russell kisses me goodbye, tells me to ride home safely, and reminds me that he loves me. After he says that, we kiss one more time, passionately, and I tell him that I love him, too. Then, I’m off.

  Russell is my first love. Others will follow, but a first is a first.

  k

  I get up briefly to get a glass of cold water, first saving my work. By the time I return, I’m somewhere else…in fact, I’m back in Queens again, in bed, and I’m praying.

  I’m four, maybe five, and I’m alone in our bedroom. My favorite babysitter, my cousin Jackie, is watching me. She’s in the living room with Dennis, allowed to stay up later, and they have the TV on low. I hear the muffled voices and some road sounds as shadows appear and disappear, traveling along my wall and closet door as cars pass by. I pray in harmony with these shadows, which I believe are important messages from God.

  Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad. I repeat these words a number of times to correspond with the frequency and duration of the shadows. I’ve developed a code that, I’m convinced, interprets God’s messages to me.

  I evoke the She’ma like an incantation. Around it, I have a complex of rituals and repetitive behaviors, developed to keep me safe.

 

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