by Tom Larsen
Good times, that’s what they were missing. Harry feels like he’s been locked up for years and someone finally opened the door. They were at the point where he had to do something, now that it’s done there’s no going back.
“Beat yourself up if you want to,” he says out loud. “It won’t change a fucking thing.”
And it makes him feel better, it really does, for a good ten miles, maybe twenty. Then the buzz flattens out, the clouds roll in then it’s raining again, wipers keep the beat. He thinks of the Sleepy Hollow motel, how rain will always remind him of it, lousy weather and how it can work on you.
“After Stevie was dead the weather turned lousy,” he hears himself say. What the–? Oh man, this can’t be good.
***
Lena runs a finger over the photos. Within the hour they’re scattered across the sofa, memory lane leading back to high school. A polaroid of Harry and her first husband Joey opening a concert in the park, heads joined at the mic, sweat slick and hair to their shoulders. The Church Street Four set to hit it big, wasn’t that how the papers put it? She pages ahead to the brown newsprint sheathed in plastic. Poised on The Edge of Stardom, above a solemn group shot begging for an album cover. It was Joey’s band, the sixties but they never really cooked until Harry joined up.
In the end they went with Lena’s dog for the record cover. The album never happened, but for years she kept the covers in a box, moving it from place to place until a leaky pipe welded them into a solid block. One yapping Barney after another, peeling in shreds as she pried them apart. When the deal fell through Joey slipped over the amphetamine edge. A year later he was in the slammer and she and Harry were set up on Two Street.
Summers on the beach in Wildwood, the trip they took to California, a dozen different Christmases, names and faces long forgotten. It’s been years since Lena’s gone down this road, but instead of bringing things into focus, the pictures hint of the trouble to come, Harry getting older, the good times fewer and farther between. There’s Lambertville Frank fresh out of rehab, Butch Fellers with puppies at his feet, Marilyn Miller vamping in a halter, gone longer than they were here. Lena sees them as if for the first time, life losing steam as the years begin to blur. The photos span the decades, a measure of when and who had a camera. Harry’s goatee, a winter’s affectation, Lena in the cloche hat she lost less than an hour later. She’s almost to the end when the telephone rings.
“Lena? Did I wake you?”
“No mom, I couldn’t sleep.”
“I had an idea you might be up. That’s how I was when your father died. Everything looked different.”
“Like I’ve been away for years.”
“Like the life has been drained out,” she can hear the words catch in her mother’s throat. “Oh Lena, how could this happen? Harry was a young man.”
“He didn’t suffer,” she thinks to say. “It was just like going to sleep.”
“And no children! No one to carry on. How many times did I tell him? Give me grandchildren.”
“There’s still Bennie and–”
“I even offered to pay for their college. You two, so irresponsible! And who ever heard of not having a funeral? No grave, no headstone. How will you visit him?”
“I won’t have to visit. I brought a little of Harry home.” Lena flips a photo page. Minna at their loft on Race Street, younger than Lena is now.
“Who ever heard of such a thing? Your father bought our plot the second year we were married.”
“A little morbid, don’t you think, mom?”
“People took care of things in those days. They didn’t leave a mess behind for others to deal with.”
Lena beams in on the image, the Minna she remembers. “Look mom, I’m sorry I don’t have a brood of fatherless kids and a dreary graveyard to visit, but that’s the way it is.”
“You have it there with you?”
“Have what?”
“Harry.”
Lena glances at the box on the coffee table. “Right here.”
“It would be a comfort, I suppose.”
“We’re looking through old photos. There’s one of you in a loden coat.”
“Good heavens! I remember that thing.”
“With the bangs, Harry said you looked like The Sound of Music meets Mary Tyler Moore.”
A strange noise comes over the line and suddenly Lena’s six years old again, telling knock-knock jokes at the kitchen table. Decades now since she’s heard the sound, her mother’s laugh, brittle with neglect.
“That Harry, he always knew how to get my goat.”
“You liked him, didn’t you, mom, behind all that Catholic indignation?”
“I did, yes,” Minna’s voice softens. “I didn’t approve at first but he worked on me. Your husband knew his way around women.”
“He liked you too. Harry said you were the best straight man he ever had. One time he bet a long shot named Mother ‘N Law and bought me pearl earrings with the winnings.”
“Your father was a lot like him when we first met, always a laugh at someone’s expense.”
“Dad? A joker?”
“Once, oh I shouldn’t tell you–”
“No, I want to hear it. Please?”
“This was before you were born. We were still in Olney. You remember Kelsey, the neighbor?”
“The postman? Big guy, nasty.”
“My goodness, you were an infant. I must have told you this already.”
“Never. You didn’t tell stories.”
“Anyway, your father entered a contest, you know how he was always entering contests.”
“No, I never knew that. Contests?”
“Yes, you know, twenty-five words or less on why you like Babbo over Arm and Hammer.”
“Oh this is priceless! Babbo?”
“They were clever. Not poems or anything, but well written. Your father was an excellent speller.”
“Okay, ten minutes, three major life revelations. You should call more often.”
“Well, I have had a bit to drink.”
“Oh Minna, I love you for this! What about the contest? Tell me.”
“He won a new set of tires, but it turned into a nightmare. Other prizes never arrived. Your father was convinced Kelsey was stealing the mail!”
“Jesus, Min, how many contests did he enter?”
“It was his hobby, not so much after you kids came. So he decided to send himself a package. He even wrote the word prize under the address. Inside was a brand new toothbrush in a handsome carrying case.
“What’d he do to it?”
“Do you remember Mr. Jeffries’ Labrador? The one that always did his business in our yard?”
“. . . He didn’t.”
“After that we picked up the mail at the post office.”
***
Harry hops from bar to bar, knows it’s a bust but just can’t stop himself. It’s like when he was a kid and they’d do something crazy, climb the water tower or run the railroad trestle, risking it all for a cheap thrill. The same mix of madness and melodrama, the rite some poor schmuck doesn’t live through. Lena must never know of this. Not ever.
He checks himself in the rear-view mirror. Not so bad if he shuts one eye. Oddly enough he’s driving okay, speed steady, curving smoothly. Spots a roadhouse in a grove of evergreens.
“‘That time of year thou mayest in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang.’”
“Can it Casey, the guy’s not interested.” The bartender, Willie, calls over.
“No, hey,” Harry holds his hands up. “Really, I don’t mind.”
“You’re sure? Drives most people nuts.”
“‘In me thou see’est the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;’”
“He’ll run out of steam pretty soon.”
“Shakespeare?”
“In his dreams.”
“‘In me thou see’est the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth does lie,’”
“Hamlet, I think, or Macbeth.”
Willie shrugs. “I don’t know dick about poetry.”
The old ham, Casey, pauses for a snort. With the moustache, the nose and the elbow patches he’s Colonel Schweppes gone round the bend.
“Give our learned stranger a round on me,” he jabs a finger at them. “Tis so seldom we drink at the trough of enlightenment.”
Harry gives a nod. “So it is Shakespeare.”
“The same,” Casey nods, “and not without a certain level of interpretation, I trust.”
“I thought it was terrific. Best I’ve heard in, oh God, months.”
Casey seems to consider this then fades to barely breathing.
“I’m Gerry.”
The left eye pulls open. “Hats off to you, friend. Willie? Gerry’s drink?”
Willie turns to the bar, losing himself in his own reflection.
“The thing about poets?” he tells the mirror, “I never know what the fuck they’re talking about. Where I come from you say what you mean.”
“If we said what we meant the streets would run with blood,” Casey counters.
“It’s like what’s his name, Dylan. I mean what the fuck is that guy talking about anyway? And how come poets are so freakin’ whiney? Explain that to me, would ya?”
“If only there were time.”
“Chrome horse with your diplomat? I mean what’s up with that?”
“Are you of the local citizenry, Gerry?” the name sounds funny when the old man says it, like what it is, bogus.
“I’m thinking about it,” Harry tells him. “Try and sell me.”
“Well, I can get you into Fairview Cemetery. Just had two lots go up for bid, perpetual care included.”
“That is a tempting offer.”
“Handsome view of the Con Ed towers. We offer a pet-free environment and the added benefit of soundproof crypts.”
“Pet free?”
Casey’s head wobbles visibly. “Felines in particular, ghoulish creatures, cats. The grounds are patrolled at three-hour intervals. Our dogs are trained to chase, not kill.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Most importantly, we are well above the water line and we use no motorized grounds keeping equipment. No power lawn mowers or leaf blowers, no chemicals or pesticides.”
Harry holds his palms up. “That’s it. Count me in.”
“‘So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night’”
“Also poems should rhyme,” Willie beats the dead horse. “And they shouldn’t look like, I don’t know, a building or something. The shape of them, you know what I’m saying?”
“I gotta go with you on that,” Harry belches. “If it doesn’t rhyme we got no time.”
“And no way ‘shown’ rhymes with ‘born’ or any of that. A rhyme’s gotta rhyme. Rule number one.”
“What about ‘thous’ and ‘see’ests?” Harry wonders
Willie thinks for a few seconds then shrugs. “I’m okay with the ‘thous’. They don’t bother me.”
Casey makes his way to the bar, not far, but it’s touch and go, in his eighties easy, tacking slightly, chortling to himself. Harry braces to catch him, as if he wasn’t as drunk, or drunker.
“’Bout time for you to head back to the boneyard, ain’t it, Case?” Willie checks him in the mirror.
“You live in the cemetery?” Harry has to ask.
“It was a dream of mine when I was a boy. The only one that was realized, sad to say.”
“Must get kind of creepy sometimes.”
“He reads ‘em poetry,” Willie snorts. “That’s how come he knows all that stuff. Been up there for years howling at the moon. The kids call him the Grim Reaper.”
Casey paws through the beer nuts. “When it comes to children the dogs of Fairview go for the throat.”
“I mean on foggy nights, I’d go batty” Harry can almost picture it.
“Not to worry,” Willie laughs. “Everybody knows the dead just stumble around like robots. A good head fake and you blow right by ‘em.”
Casey shakes his head. “I’m afraid in my case it would be the tortoise versus the tortoises.”
“Just don’t let ‘em corner you,” Willie warns him. “That’s when they get you, every time.”
“Reading poetry to the dead, what about that?” Harry strains to focus.
“Reciting, please,” Casey corrects him. “My audience can be quite demanding.”
Willie barks a laugh. “Yeah. They hang on your every word.”
The door opens. A woman circles to the bar without giving them a glance. Willie and Casey ignore her.
“Every time I go into a bar lately Shakespeare comes up,” Harry tells them. “Like he just died and he’s on everyone’s mind.”
“Shakespeare will never die!” Casey pronounces. “All hail the Immortal Bard!”
“That’s the other thing,” Willie gets a puzzled look. “This immortal crapola, what’s it been, like three hundred years since the Shakespearian era? Four?”
“Don’t tax yourself, young Willie.”
“Who’s to say a thousand years go by and all kinda stuff happens and before you know it nobody’s ever heard of the guy. Hey, it happens! Look at the Aztecs.”
“Must we?”
“How do we know they didn’t have this super poet? Guy could make you laugh or cry at the drop of a hat. And rhymes? No ‘moon in June’ stuff either.”
The woman clears her throat and Willie loses the thread. He looks to Casey then heads off to take her order.
“That’s my cue,” Casey slides from the stool and steals a look down the bar. “My granddaughter, Louise. Right now she’s unhappy with me.”
“How come?”
“I won’t permit her to escort me home. I’ve explained to her that when the time comes when I can no longer navigate the way it will be time for me to die.”
“She’s probably worried you’ll fall and break a hip.”
“I can think of no finer fate. ‘He was found frozen stiff in a Hudson Valley snow drift.’”
Louise is in her thirties, handsome but severe with no makeup and streaked hair tucked in a wool cap.
“Does she follow you?”
“It’s only two blocks. She has one drink then drives past to make sure I made it. I find it extremely motivational.”
“Well, you take care of yourself,” Harry lifts his glass. “I’ll look you up when I get settled in.”
“Please do . . . Gerry,” he wrinkles his considerable nose. “Something about that name doesn’t suit you.”
“You get used to it.”
The old man looks around in vain for Willie. “It seems our philosopher king has run out. Tell him I will see him on the morrow.”
Casey toddles off and Harry turns back to his drink. His reflection blinks back like an old crony. This place certainly fits the hideaway bill, open country, cozy watering hole, not to mention primo burial plot. People live in places for worse reasons. He’ll have to think it through when he’s sober, but Harry’s got a good feeling about this place, whatever it’s called. The matches on the bar lettered in branches, Pine Needle Tavern, Owl Hollow NY.
He pushes to his feet. He really should wait for Willie but he’s got it going, steadies himself against the bar, fumbles with the zipper of his jacket.
“Do not go gentle into the good night.”
Harry turns. “I’m sorry?”
The woman stares straight ahead.
***
It’s nearly dawn when they say goodnight, the longest she and Minna have ever spoken, by far. Lena stares up at the ceiling, filled with thoughts of her father, the house she grew up in, dogs and neighbors long dead. Mindful of the night’s connection, linked to a Minna she never knew.
For years she’s envied Harry’s freedom from family. Now, as with everything, it feels all wrong.
Her mother reaching out after all these years, only something drastic could do that. Sister M taught them that tragedy brings out the best in people, even when the tragedy is a sham.
She waits for the sadness to hit, but when it does the impact is minimal. As if her wounded spirit has finally scabbed over, still there but firmly encased, the hard thing sealing up.
***
Harry’s eyes snap open and he knows something happened, smells her in the bed sheets, the woman, Louise. Remembers the name but the face is a blur, streaked hair, missing bicuspid. He lies perfectly still, trying to detect her presence. Recalls the pitcher and washstand from his room, but nothing about how they got here.
His foot inches past the point she would be and he grunts in relief. Lying here like this, he can pretend he’s okay. With Harry, hangover is a full body bummer, total recoil, light, sound, movement. As long as he’s still his body won’t know. But it takes some effort and his bladder beckons. Ears, eyes and brain pounding, body primed to a hair trigger touch. Feels it come as if from a distance. One good sneeze and Harry’s head explodes.
***
Chef Kim peers in close. “You’ve been a bad boy.”
“Please, I need aspirin.”
“Relax. I will bring some for you.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
A whole fistful, it turns out, plus a platter of deviled eggs, a pot of coffee and half a fifth of Wild Turkey. Harry passes on the eggs.
“Salud, my friend,” Kim settles on the radiator. “Have you seen her yet?”
“Seen who?”
“Meryl, she’s usually made an appearance by now.”
“Meryl Streep?”
“Yes,” he bobs his head. “In the dressing gown? Many of our guests have seen her, though most won’t admit it.”