by Douglas Gray
This is my first meeting with the poetry staff of the still-to-be-named magazine. Three English majors have shown up. One is a would-be freak who insists on flashing peace signs and saying “far out” to every statement anyone makes. The second is a pimply freshman from Yazoo City.
And then there’s Little Becky, who may truly be the tiniest grown woman I’ve ever seen. Shorter than Garrett, almost albino blonde, straight-haired, with a face that belongs to a 19th century porcelain doll.
“What secret is that?” I ask her.
“Well, I guess it isn’t so much a secret since Dr. Evans told us about it in class today. You took first prize in the Southern Literary Festival a few years ago. James Dickey did the judging. I found a copy of that year’s anthology in the library.”
Here she produces the paper-bound program from the 1970 Southern Literary Conference, with all the winning pieces printed inside.
“I like ‘Portrait of the War’ best, I think. I like its caesura structure. You borrowed that from Hopkins, didn’t you?”
I’m impressed. This girl is smart! I turn the pages of poetry I haven’t seen since that stoned night in Columbia, South Carolina, years ago.
“Oh, lord,” I groan. “Did I really write a poem called ‘The Attack by Owls’? How about ‘An Ear at 4:36.’ That’s terrible. It sounds like one of Amy Madigan’s titles.”
“Is it true that you got drunk with Dickey?”
“Yes. I belong to a select group of maybe 10,000 people who can say they’ve gotten drunk with James Dickey.”
“What happened?”
“Didn’t Dr. Evans tell you?”
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Well, we were at some bar in Columbia. We were drunk, as I said. A bunch of us – Dickey, some of his students, people from the conference. We got into a conversation that turned into a debate and then into a shouting match between me and some grad student from Duke. Anyway, at one point Dickey chimed in by saying that real poets don’t write to win awards. The grad student challenged me to tear mine up. It was a certificate, all embossed, with a dozen signatures on it from all sorts of writing teachers. Dr. Evans tried to stop me, but I did it: I tore it in half. Then I ripped the book into confetti and tossed it into the air all over the bar.”
“You must have been really stoned.”
“It was the first time I ever drank tequila. I always try to have a good reason for my stupidity.”
“I was wondering,” she asks, “if you’d be willing to look at my work.”
“You write, but you haven’t submitted anything? That’s one of the perks of working on the staff – you’re pretty sure to get something in the magazine.”
“I wasn’t sure my poems were good enough.”
“Good enough? Have you read anything in this pile yet? It’s awful.”
She makes a face. “I don’t care about how bad theirs may be. I care about how good mine can be.”
~ ~ ~
Wednesday, November 10
Dr. Goodleigh examines my cat wounds and declares them healed. The swelling is gone, as is the redness. I’ll likely have nothing more than a few small puckered scars to show my grandchildren.
“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?” she asks.
I admit that I don’t.
“I’m having a few people over for dinner. You should come.”
“Will Linus and Melpomene be joining us?”
“I’m afraid you got off to a bad start with them. I’d still like for you to get to know each other better.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
I return home a few minutes after 6:00 to find Cindy staring at the television.
“What’s on?”
“Star Trek. Remember that show? Channel 5 has started showing the re-runs.”
I sit beside her to watch. It’s the episode about the energy field that’s holding the crew and a bunch of Klingons hostage on the ship, forcing them into battles so it can feed off their negative emotions.
“I almost forgot,” Cindy says when the commercial comes on, “you had a phone call. Here, I wrote it down.”
She hands me a note that reads, “Daniel, you had a phone call.”
“Damn,” I mutter. “Didn’t the caller leave a name?”
“No. Just asked if this was where you live, and said he’d be in contact.”
“The voice,” I ask. “Did he sound a little like Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle?”
Cindy giggles. “You know who it was, then.”
I rise calmly, cross to the kitchen, open the utility drawer, and return with a screwdriver. I unscrew the plate covering the outlet. I twist off the wire connections, pull the cord from the wall, wrap it around the phone, open the front door, and hurl the machine into the darkness.
Cindy watches my actions without a word, at last patting the cushion on the couch beside her as I close the door.
“Hurry back. The show’s started again.”
~ ~ ~
Thursday, November 11
Veterans Day. No school, no classes, no Museum hours. Campus is closed. There’s nothing I’m expected to do, all day.
I lie on my pallet until sometime after 11:00, dozing and listening to the sounds of rain on the roof, and the occasional cars and trucks passing on Tyler Avenue.
I consider and reconsider my options. Skoll knows where I am. Should I run, again, or stay put? Every time I reach a decision, I back away from it, retreat to the opposite corner and start over again from the beginning.
Enough of this. I crawl out from under the sheets, dig for a coin in my jeans pockets, find a nickel and toss it.
It comes up heads. Okay, decision reached. No running away this time. I’ll stay to face the man.
The rain has tapered off, with a few hints of warm sunlight appearing. I take Herodotus, a cup of coffee and a joint onto the front porch, and that’s where Garrett finds me when he arrives for his lunch break from the head shop.
He halts on the sidewalk and peers curiously at the hedge. “Can you explain why the phone is in the boxwood?”
“Because I missed. I’d meant to kick it all the way to hell.”
He retrieves it, plops down on the wicker chair, takes a toke. “Better watch out, boy. This is the property of AT&T. Those people are ruthless, and they hate hippies. They’ve been known to kill. Besides, what did this phone ever do to you?”
“I got a call yesterday. From Skoll.”
Garrett curls his upper lip in disgust. “Bummer. So I guess you’ll be leaving.”
I shrug. “Not much point to it. Skoll seems to find me wherever I go. I thought that hiding right here, in plain sight, might have thrown him off the scent. It was my last, best gambit. So I’ve decided to stay. Besides, I’ll need to be here to testify in James’ murder trial, after he kills you.”
“I was wondering when we’d get around to discussing my little indiscretion,” he replies, with a sideways glance. “In my defense, I simply have to say this: I’m the luckiest goddamn son of a bitch in America. Who’d have guessed that Rose would turn out to be a short freak?”
“Short freak?”
“Girls who get off on short guys. I’ve run into a couple of them in my extensive travels, but none like Rose. She’s sui generis.”
“James is going to come back eventually, you know.”
“Well, maybe he won’t catch on.”
“He’ll catch on. James is paranoid, but he’s not stupid, or unobservant.” Garrett sighs. “Yeah, if only he were stupid.”
~ ~ ~
Friday, November 12
Indian Summer day. Sky cloudless, perfectly still. Sun warm. Leaves turning, starting to fall. Heart stirring. Mood lifting. Spirits rising.
Guess I’ll be late to class, but the platform of the old train depot beckons me onto its dew-dappled planks to meditate as I walk to campus. I face east, assume the position, locate my hara, and breathe. Thought stops. Time stops. The illu
sions of space and matter vanish. Now is all there is.
Now . . . and another presence. Eyes watching me. A mind angry. Heart pumping, blood pressure building. The world returns in a rush of irritation.
I open my eyes to find an old man descending the hill from one of the nearby houses on Van Buren. He’s dressed in khaki trousers, a flannel shirt, and a cap with the VFW insignia above the bill.
“See here!” he fusses at me. “Stop that. Stop that right now!”
I begin to disentangle my legs as he approaches the platform, which is about level with his chest where he’s standing on the ground. He raises a walking stick, and for an instant I think he’s going to use it on me. Then he strikes the boards.
“Go now. Get! Scat! You can’t be here. Damn foreigner!”
“I’m not a foreigner,” I say. “I’m from Pass Christian.”
“No? Then double shame on you, acting like one, sitting around like some damn Chinese heathen. Get out of here now, or I’ll give you the whipping you deserve.”
I manage to back away just as the stick lands again, harder and closer than before.
“Okay, okay, just hold on a second, man! I’ll leave. I don’t want to upset anybody. But just as a matter of principle: you can’t make me go. This is public property.”
“Not anymore! The Baptists bought it last week.” He brandishes the stick. “Now get, and take your foreign gods with you. Don’t let me catch you round here again.”
~ ~ ~
Saturday, November 13
“Nick,” Suzie pleads, “just put it down. Please, sweetheart, don’t do this.”
“You’re confused right now,” Garrett reassures him, tone placating. “That’s all it is. Just a little mixed up, what with the baby coming and all.”
Nick shifts his eyes suspiciously between the two of them, then glances at Cindy and me, standing helpless behind them.
He lifts the razor between his thumb and forefinger, regarding the blade in the light, then looks back at us.
Cindy shakes her head at him, a silent “Stop!”
“Don’t you people understand?” he finally says. “I’m doing this because of the baby. It’s the right thing.”
“That’s just crazy talk,” Garrett counters. “C’mon, man. Put it back. We can go to Tyler and reason this out. I’ve got some great shit back at home. We’ll get a good buzz on and talk.”
A middle-aged woman shopping the deodorant section at the end of the aisle turns to glare at us, then storms off toward the cashier’s station, likely to report the occurrence of naughty talk in Leslies drug store. We ignore her.
“The baby doesn’t want you to do this,” Suzie says. “I don’t want you to do this. Nobody wants you to do this.”
“Come on, Nick,” Cindy urges. “Let’s get wasted. You’ll forget all about this silliness.”
Nick gazes at the razor, somber, for a long moment before setting it back on the display rack. Suzie lets loose a sigh of relief. Garrett claps him on the shoulder. The drug store manager approaches.
“Is there a problem here?” he asks, a little flustered. The customer and the cashier are watching.
“No problem, sir,” Garrett replies. “Our friend here was threatening buy a razor and shave his beard, but we’ve talked him down.”
“I’m going to be a father,” Nick explains.
“Listen,” the manager says, “could you kids find someplace else to hang out? You’re upsetting the other customers.”
~ ~ ~
Sunday, November 14
Breakfast at Colemans. Dr. Hirsch, Cindy, Clamor and me. Hirsch is treating. During the night, somebody’s posted more handbills about “keeping the Square American,” with over a dozen just on the window of the old bridal shop. While most of the good citizens of Oxford are puzzling over the meaning of this message, its import is clear to those of us who know what’s going to be occupying that space soon.
Somebody – or some group of Oxford citizens – doesn’t like the idea of a Chinese restaurant in town. The Chinese are Communists.
Hirsch seems oddly unconcerned. “Everything’s under control,” he says. “All will work out okay. You know, ever since our little pizza party, I’ve been seeing life in an entirely new way. I’m not worried about anything at all anymore.”
“Ocarina vermillion,” Clamor says, mouth full of Hostess lemon fruit pie.
“Ocarina vermillion, exactly!” he agrees. “I may even be ready to start meditating.”
“You should move right on to astral projection,” Clamor says.
“Oh, that sounds interesting. What is it?”
Her answer to his question takes a while. Clamor puts the fruit pie down and begins talking about out of body experiences, somebody named Robert Munroe, Emanuel Swedenborg, etheric realms, silver cords, the Golden Dawn, and astral bodies.
“Where did you learn all of this?” Cindy asks.
“Some chick named Melissa.”
I choke on my coffee, have a coughing fit, fight to get my breath back.
“Melissa Allen? Dark blue eyes, stands about 5’7”, straight hair? Sounds like every word she utters is spoken with her last dying breath?”
“I didn’t get her last name, but that sounds like her. I ran into her one afternoon on University Avenue. Said she was just passing through town. She’d gone to the old Earth commune to find some friends, but the place was full of Baptists.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t remember exactly. End of September. Just after the Harvest. I liked her. She took me to the Holiday Inn for dinner. We had oysters and she told me all about astral projection. She’s really into it.”
“You probably don’t know where she was headed after she left town.”
Clamor thinks for a minute. “She said something about California.”
“Not Turkey?”
“No. Why would anyone go to Turkey?”
“To study Turks.”
~ ~ ~
Monday, November 15
“A girl brought this by for you,” Dr. Goodleigh says, and hands me a manila envelope. “At least I think it was a girl. A very, very tiny girl. When she first came in, I thought she was a hand puppet.”
“That’s Little Becky. She’s a poet.”
“She must write haikus.”
I open the envelope over lunch break. Six neatly-typed poems, roughly 30 lines each. Lots of assonance, unexpected internal rhymes, cunning use of refrain and eclipsis. Subtle echoes of Dickinson, Williams, Stevens, Moore, Yeats – their intellect, their absence of sentiment.
“You’re off your game, Mr. Medway,” Dr. Goodleigh interrupts, returning the mimeograph master of next week’s Greek drama exam I typed for her this morning. “The correct title of the play is Oedipus the King, not Oedipus the Kind.”
“That’s actually the title of Sophocles’ sequel, in which Oedipus surrenders his life to Jesus and sets about doing good works.”
She glances at the pages of poetry on my table. “How is it?”
“Good. Really good. Really damn good. I think I’m in love.”
~ ~ ~
Tuesday, November 16
On my way out of Bishop Hall, I encounter Mr. Duck leaning on the rail of the bridge with a cigarette.
“The University’s decided to turn that open study lounge into offices. I’m here to give them an estimate on the dry walling.”
“Too bad. I like that lounge. It’s a great place to lounge in.”
We make arrangements to meet for lunch and rendezvous at 12:30 in the cafeteria, where Dr. Giordano has just convened today’s ad hoc symposium.
I am haled while exiting the food line, and while I’m reluctant to be subjected to another brow-beating from the great man, Mr. Duck is eager to meet the legend in person.
“Hey, Anglo-Saxon, what is that on your plate, eh?”
“A salad.”
“Salad,” he mocks. “Are you a homosexual? We are discussing Strauss. You know Strauss?”
>
“Richard Strauss?”
“Leo Strauss.”
“Richard’s brother?” I hazard.
“I’ve read Strauss,” Mr. Duck says quietly. Giordano’s gaggle of grad students turn surprised eyes on this blue-collared interloper. “The City and Man. ‘Political Philosophy and the Crisis of our Time.’ Persecution and the Art of Writing. Thoughts on Machiavelli. What would you like to know about him?”
Giordano pauses to answer, eyeing his unexpected intellectual equal. “It’s gratifying to discover that the common man appreciates our greatest contemporary philosopher.”
“I only said I’ve read him. Never said I appreciate him. I think his philosophy is asinine. I’m sure you’re familiar with Noam Chomsky’s critique of Strauss.” Mr. Duck turns his attention to the students. “Chomsky’s written that Strauss’ social theories really come down to a new rendition of Leninism,” he begins.
Giordano slams his hand on the table, in an explosion that echoes through the entire cafeteria. “No!” he shouts.
Mr. Duck replies with a smile. “Excuse me?”
All eyes in the room are on Giordano as he rises from his chair and glares at all of us. “No one is allowed to quote Chomsky at this table. Especially not a common working man.”
Mr. Duck pretends to look abashed. “Well, I do apologize. I thought we were just having a nice little philosophical discussion here. Didn’t mean to stir anyone up. Maybe I should just find another table.”
I pick up my tray as well, and we relocate to the next room.
“That was fun,” Mr. Duck says. “I’m going to enjoy working here.”
~ ~ ~
Wednesday, November 17
I’m in the kitchen again, middle of the night again, confronting James’ thugs.
“Ah, man! Not the food again!" I plead. “Listen, if we really had whatever you’re looking for, do you really think we’d hide it in the Cap’n Crunch?”
The thug empties all our cereal onto the kitchen floor, with a sneer.
“You know where James is,” he says.
“Believe me, if I knew, I’d surrender the bastard to you, so you’d stop harassing us. Do you have any idea how much food costs these days?”
He opens the sugar jar, scatters the contents around the room.
“Great. The roaches are going to love that, man. Do you suppose you could hurry this up? It’s almost three, and I’ve got a long day ahead of me tomorrow. The Batesville high school Latin club is scheduled for a Museum tour.”