Morpheus

by Charnofsky, Stan;

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Closure. If you could face off the asshole, force him to admit his trespass, get him to show some remorse, it might give you peace.”

  “I haven’t seen him in three years. The family, even though they’re all sick and won’t admit what he did to me, even they think of him as the sickest, a disappointment.”

  “Maybe so, but he plagues you day and night, muddling your days and haunting your nights. I want you free of the asshole. My shrink encourages face-to-face confrontations to settle issues. She says it cleans you out, that it may route nightmares and ugly memories. Someday I may have to do that with my mother.”

  “I’m not interested in seeing the prick.”

  “Okay, but if you did, what would you say?”

  She seemed to get it that I wanted a performance of some kind. She took a deep breath, rolled her eyes, and said with sarcasm, “If you’re trying to gather material for your novel….”

  “I’m not. I want you to get clean.”

  “You seem to think I’m sick because of what happened to me when I was sixteen. I think I’m wounded. That’s all.”

  “I didn’t say you were sick. You’re weighed down by old memories. We all are, and sometimes they keep us bubbling, when we’re awake and in our dreams.”

  “Oh, all right. What do you want me to do?’

  “Pretend I’m Alejandro. What do you say?”

  “How did you know his name?”

  I had talked myself into a corner, blew it, a misstep, stupid, dumb!

  “I confess. I was talking to your mother—you know, about the fire and all—and his name came up.”

  She looked at me askance. A good reader of faces was Abby, and mine showed both remorse and culpability.

  “You’ve got some kind of conspiracy going.”

  “No. I swear. I only want you to put the old crap to rest.”

  Her eyes flashed, and I saw familiar sparks from the inferno I knew was just below the surface. She gave me a piercing look, took a deep breath, and exploded.

  “Son-of-a-bitch! You freak! You sicko! You dare touch me and I’ll split you open with a carving knife. Take advantage of an innocent girl, will you; too bad your papa didn’t catch you at it, you degenerate! Your life is in the toilet. You reap what you sow. You’re a worthless hobo. Worse, you’re a beggar. You’d be better off dead. Eat shit you piece of shit!”

  I felt like applauding, but didn’t want to make the moment too theatrical. Instead, I said, “Good, good. Now, don’t you feel better?”

  During her tirade, she had lurched toward me until her face was three inches from mine, the dark eyes on fire, the mouth drawn up in a terrible snarl. Now, she pulled back and laughed—not a giggle, not even a polite titter—a full-blown, hearty laugh.

  “You are out of your mind! Feel better? I feel insulted. You think I never rehearsed confronting the dick? Never wanted to sneak over in the night and stick him forty times with a stiletto? I’m screamed out. I’m limp from screaming at him. My dreams are saturated with confrontation. I wake up exhausted from the effort.”

  “I’m sure. But it’s in the real every day world that the face-off has to happen. The dreams are the rehearsal, but you wake up knowing you haven’t really done anything yet.”

  I could see she was getting sated with my unsubtle enterprise. She sucked in a huge breath, waggled her head, and said to me, “What do you want, Clare? Why are you doing this?”

  I decided to lay it all out. “I saw him.”

  “Who, my miscreant cousin? Where? Why?”

  “Please don’t be mad at me. I’m only trying to help. Your mom told me he lived in a beat-up old hotel on the west side. I went there in the morning and saw him limping along, looking like a down-and-out bum, seeming to have no purpose, aimless, a beggar with his hand out.”

  She shook her head, without words, offended, smoldering.

  “My hope was to get you to discharge your anger right at him, feel the reality of putting the villain-of-the-piece in his place.”

  “He wouldn’t get it,” she said with desperation. “He might not even think it happened. He’s sick, disturbed, can’t think straight.”

  “So, even if he doesn’t absorb it, at least you’d have the satisfaction of laying it all out.”

  No comment. She was upset with me, certainly, but more: she was sitting on her fury, the recalling of the ugly history setting off internal alarms, restimulating an old, entombed heartache.

  I began to question my brazenness to think I had the answers to heal her long-held internal sense of corruption. Perhaps my own therapy had given me the insight and the nerve.

  Tentatively, I asked, “Would you be willing to go with me down to where he hangs out? I’ll be there. It could only be for five minutes.”

  It seemed like an eternity as I watched her face change—like the Jekyll and Hyde character—from wrath, to ambiguity, to serenity.

  “Why not?” she said, without conviction.

  TWENTY-TWO

  My mother didn’t forget about me. Months had passed since her marriage to bland Barry, and as far as I could tell, they had settled into precisely the one-up-one-down configuration I would have expected. Mother absorbed people. They used to say that about China and invading outsiders; they didn’t stand a chance, and over the centuries would be swallowed up by mother China, culture, attitude and all.

  She would call me weekly, insist that I visit, pressure me to commit to an exact time. Understandably I resisted, terrified that she would suck me in and eat me up.

  In my therapy, I was beginning to see Mother as a prime source of my nocturnal discontent—though I was yet to figure out in what specific ways. Dr. Sophie was patient as the mountain ranges that surrounded Los Angeles, and just as they would shrug and shake now and then—and grow a few more inches—so would she leap in and challenge me, not savagely, but with hard energy that would rock me off my cozy perch and hopefully spawn growth in me.

  To complicate an already demanding time, my father and his wife began to include me in their family get-togethers, an occasional aesthetic evening where musicians would attend and entertain, a picnic in Will Rogers State Park, passages: Stevie’s nineteenth birthday, Jeri’s eighteenth.

  My mother and my father were still like fire and water, or put into a domestic animal image, like cats and dogs. No. More like a big cat in the wild on her side—a leopard or a lion—and a wary buffalo or wildebeest on his. He didn’t state it publicly, but I knew he was constantly on the alert for some malicious activity aimed his way.

  Abby was always noted in the invitations from both parents, but more and more she would decline, telling me to go by myself, that she felt out of place, was busy, had some writing to finish.

  The bond between us was stretching, and I was reminded that she once told me she was certain I would run; again au contraire, I saw her as the one revving up to run, and didn’t know why.

  In my zeal to help her get beyond her sordid cousin memories, I believe I inadvertently threatened her.

  I decided to wait before trying to settle on a time to confront pathetic, old-before-his-time Alejandro.

  In the interim, I had dinner with my mother, without Barry, not worried about how she explained it to him. I was certain that, by then, she had established the stolid parameters of their relationship, and he wouldn’t dare question her decisions.

  It was familiar torture, her manner increasingly offensive to me, but since my waiter’s job hardly paid enough to cover my expenses, I still needed the occasional “gift” from her, which she named, insisting it was not support.

  We were in a family-owned Chinese restaurant, named Mandarin King, only a few blocks from her and my former home. I used to go there a lot and loved their variety, including soups loaded with chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, and those delicious stuffed dumplings.

  “How is your book doing? Is it on the New York Times list yet?”

  “You know it isn’t,
Mother.”

  “Just being positive, that’s all. It may be some day.”

  “Not that book. It’s pitched to a certain audience. Maybe my next one, if I ever finish it.”

  “You will. Of course, you don’t want to be distracted. I mean by silly entanglements and…,” she stopped, then added, “false passion.”

  I could have let that slide, but in my newfound assertiveness—more than a little enhanced by my therapy—I took her on.

  “What, exactly, does that mean?”

  “You know, the creative urge comes unbidden, and the greatest geniuses often seclude themselves to focus on their task.”

  “Yeah, like Picasso, who had how many wives and mistresses? Or Hemingway, who was wicked as a satyr in his habits.”

  “I’m on your side, Clare. I only want you to keep your eye on the gold ring, not the substitutes. Life has a way of camouflaging and seducing us away from our purposes.”

  Seated with her there, in a public setting, I felt so different from all the other patrons, a little boy again, and, in my sensitivity, was sure the couple across from us, or the family of four the next table over, sensed it. Our voices were low but our intensity obvious: the Mother educating—lecturing to—the child.

  “Are you referring to Abby?”

  “Oh, how is the dear girl? Do you still see her?”

  “Often as I can. She’s doing about the same as I am, working on becoming a good writer, struggling with the effects of a stormy childhood.”

  “Thank goodness that is not one of your issues.”

  She paused, gave off one of her appallingly phony smiles, touched my arm, and said, “Didn’t we have fun!”

  That comment I did let slid; instead––my little act of rebellion––said, “I’m thinking that someday I may marry Abby.”

  Her external posture hardly changed at all, except for a narrowing of the eyes, as she peered at me over a spoonful of Won Ton soup.

  “Yes,” she said, painfully controlled, “well, that would be a grand mistake.” She waited an instant and added, “And you know it.”

  “Mother, you didn’t consult me when you hooked up with your Mr. Klotz, and you’ve never asked if I like him, don’t even seem to care if I do. It’s your life and your choice.” I stared hard at her and said coolly, “This is my life, and I make my own choices.”

  “You’re missing something, Clare.” She said my name with a bite, glowered at me, and added, “I am a mature woman who has lived a demanding life, with tough choices, a husband who walked away, disappointments in business ventures—a mountain of challenges. When I decide on something, it is with knowledge and hard-earned wisdom. You, on the other hand, are young and naïve. You might do well to learn from your mother, instead of making the typical blunders of the young.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t live my life through your experiences. If I grope around to find myself, that’s how I learn. Life isn’t error-free, but successful living comes with getting beyond the errors and coming to new truths.”

  “Painful way to go, sson. Hard lessons to learn, and suffering isn’t necessary. Lots of young people pay attention to their elders and benefit from their enlightened views.”

  A waiter interrupted our charged interchange, detouring our focus as he asked if we wanted green-tea ice cream for dessert. He was short and oval-faced, with straight black hair that covered his ears, but his manner, pleasant and self-effacing, I ignored, certain that he, too, saw the configuration of our little tandem, and, in his silent judgment, amplified my feeling of strangeness.

  When he left, I smiled in conciliation, and said, “You’ll appreciate, Mother, that if I want your enlightened views, I’ll seek you out and request them.”

  She did not look happy when I took my leave of her, but plastered on her matronly grin and said, “You’ll have to come to the house and visit, and we’ll talk through all these thorny issues.”

  Sarcastically, which I don’t think she caught, I answered, “Absolutely, Mother.”

  My father’s wife, who had the boy’s name of Bradley—likely why she gave her daughters the gender-neutral names of Stevie and Jeri––was one of the really sweet people I knew. Now there was a true, caring, unobstrusive mother who had reared her children with compassion, and a nonconfining leash that had all but disappeared now that they were grown.

  I could tell from the girls’ demeanors that they felt loved and appreciated, and the gift their mother had given them was reflected in their solid self-esteem.

  They were sturdy people, different as wood and metal, but strong in will, as Tennyson said, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

  I had gotten to know Jeri a bit over several months, as she was a regular companion at our lectures. She gave me a story she wrote and asked me to critique it, and though I was reluctant to judge her, found her writing to be not only acceptable but exceptional; she had a solid feel for emotion, and with insight was able to uncover her characters’ deeper feelings. I had only praise for her, and she received it with modesty and genuine pleasure. If I had to pick one trait that shone with Jeri, it was how she displayed her joy—openly, transparently, a childlike honesty that could only be labeled healthy.

  Stevie was still on the make, though I confess to being flattered by that lovely young woman’s interest in me. She had taken a job as an evening hostess at a four-star hotel on Sunset Boulevard, got to wear stunning evening gowns, often met Hollywood big shots, and was—in all likelihood—not far from some producer or director wanting to convince her that he could make her a star. She was grounded enough, I believed, that she would discuss any such proposals with Mother Bradley.

  My dad, whose first name was Phillip, adored his wife, called her Lee for short, and was clearly happier than I had ever known him to be.

  They invited me to a gathering at their house where a friend of Lee’s, a poet from San Francisco, in town for a series of readings, was to recite his latest works. Forty people crowded into the living room, I fortunate to sit in the second row of folding chairs rented for the event, between Stevie, freshly returned from her work and wearing a black, low-cut dress that showed her flawless skin, and Jeri, enthused, radiant as morning sun, leaning against me to make a point, as if touching a man were the most normal thing on the planet.

  Abby had been invited, but, as had been her pattern of late, declined, saying she had other priorities.

  The poems were abstruse and esoteric, the kind I had a hard time getting, unless I could read them over a couple of times. They were recited with passion, though, and a spark in the rendering that told of a tortured man, certainly in love with life but emotionally scarred.

  Don’t know why I did it, but I instantly projected that he must have grisly dreams—well I do know why, it’s because I do. Without thinking about it, I whispered to Jeri, “I’ll bet he has ugly nightmares.”

  She smiled curiously and answered, “Because you do.”

  I wondered how she knew that: Abby, maybe? Or perhaps she was simply astute about people’s internal lives.

  “What?” Stevie asked. “What did you say?”

  “We were talking about bad dreams. Like Hamlet had. Like people with—what’s it called?—post-traumatic stress.”

  “I can’t remember my dreams. My mother says it’s a sign of a clear conscience.”

  “I keep a pad and pen on my nightstand so I can jot a dream down as soon as I awake,” I told her. “If I let it go even a few minutes, it fades.”

  The poet, whose hair was in a ponytail, which dangled to the midpoint of his back, looked heavily out at his audience, eyes dark with complexity. That he thought of himself a poet was not surprising; he gave off the aura of an ark crowded with metaphorical creatures aching to burst free.

  The man, with the cycloramic name, certainly self-taken, of Virtue Vista, was saying, “Here is a short, short piece, one of my latest: ‘Heart, oh heart, tremble you, less, leap more, rise with love, rest in the cozy elbow of affection,
reach for tranquility, touch the stars with eyes of hope, refute guile, exorcise rage, whisper the magic of connection: the planet reels from abstinence.’”

  Applause. I looked both ways, at each of my charming companions, and shrugged slightly. It was okay. Self-indulgent. The line about exorcising rage I should remember, to share with Abby.

  Jeri said quietly, in my ear—I was stirred by her sweet, youthful breath—“I like poetry that builds from start to finish, with the voice expanding its wisdom. Otherwise, it’s just an exercise in clever words.”

  “How did you get so smart?” I asked.

  “She’s my little sister,” Stevie said.

  When the reading concluded—several more, short, lyric pieces and two long narrative poems that required heavy concentration—we all moved to the large den where a buffet of finger foods and wine was set. I was pouring myself a glass of Mondavi-Brothers Zinfandel, when Lee approached.

  “Clare,” she said in that welcoming voice I had already learned to appreciate, “I am so pleased that you are friends with my daughters. They just love you.”

  “I don’t know about them loving me, but it’s a sure thing that I love them. What’s not to love? They’re both adorable and spontaneous, and filled with life.”

  “Thanks. We had our tough times, especially when their father and I split, but fortunately—different from your parents—we’re friends, and the girls are never put between us.”

  “Don’t I wish! My parents are aliens to each other. Just have to accept it, that’s all.”

  “You turned out so well, even if you had to live through an ugly breakup as a little boy. I give your mother some credit for that.”

  “Well, thanks, but don’t give her too much credit. She assumed responsibility for me, but I wouldn’t say she was all that loving or nurturing. I like to think I grew up despite a nutty mother.”

  “I’ll stay away from that,” she said, smiled warmly, and took her leave.

  I looked about and saw the amiable crowd gabbing variously, about the poet and his images, I presumed, but it could have been anything. On the opposite side of the large room, I spied Mr. Virtue Vista, wine glass in hand, laughing uproariously (my projection?), his ponytail gyrating as if its owner were on a wagon negotiating a bumpy dirt road. Good for him, I thought, that he can get down to the mundane with some of the guests. But then I noticed it was Stevie he was laughing with, and his hilarity was accompanied by intermittent dabs on her shoulder or forearm. The word crossed my mind: “letch,” though so far I hadn’t seen any clear confirmation. My estimate was that he was thirty-nine, a good twenty years older than Stevie. He seemed to be alternating sipping at his wine and plopping in red grapes, his laughter an unappetizing full-mouth eruption.