Tag: life

Lisa’s Last Dance

Posted on by smithaw50

Author’s Note: I’ve always thought dancers are just about the most athletic in terms of strength and conditioning. There are those that excel, those that get by, and those who will never realize their potential, through no fault of their own. This story is for them, because they still dance in their memories, their imaginations, and their hearts. They are still, to my mind, dancers…

In the halls of her school, Lisa heard the comments.
“Such a promising career ahead…”
“Never dance again…”
“…a tragedy…” “…a shame…”
“Never walk again …” “…dancing is finished…”

Her face would heat, and she’d roll the chair a little faster, enduring the day, the comments sown like bitter seeds in her heart. Time was against her; her muscles hadn’t atrophied yet, but they were on the way.

She sighed, but today, she managed not to cry.

***********************
Her father rolled her like a cargo of five gallon drums into the back of the van after school, and took her home.
She did her homework before dinner since there wasn’t much.
Her parents were watching television when she rolled the chair in front of them.
“Lisa? What is it, honey?” her mother said.
“Take me there.”
“Honey, please. We’ve been over this. The doctors…”
“Yes, I know, Dad. The doctors, it’s always the doctors said…”
“Lisa, be realistic!”
“No!“
She slammed her fists on the arms of her wheelchair, and her parents jumped. She got her breathing under control, kept her eyes averted to blink back the tears that threatened; if she cried now, it would be over.
She looked up at them after a moment, her eyes clear, her gaze steady.
“No. Take me there.”
Huffing in frustration, but without another word, her father clicked off the tv and loaded her into the van. Her mother rode shotgun, and they rode in silence.

**************
The dance class stopped when Lisa came to the door.
“Lisa?”
“Hello, Mrs. Castro.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to start over.”
“Lisa, honey, I can’t…”
“We told her, Mrs. Castro,” her mother said. “We told her what the doctors said, but she insisted.”
Mrs. Castro sighed. “Let her come to grips with it. It’s the only way they’ll stop sometimes. I’ve seen it before.”
Lisa rolled the chair past Mrs. Castro.
***************************
The other girls watched in stunned silence.
Stopping before the mirror, Lisa took a good long look at herself, taking stock of what she was about to do, and whether or not it was worth it.
And she turned the chair sideways, placed her feet on the floor and placed her hands on the barre, her breathing deep.
The other girls watched at first, as her arms began to shake, her knuckles tighten and slip; she wiped her hands on her useless knees, and got another grip, and pulled again.
And little by bit, Lisa began to pull herself up, trembling, shaking, but slowly rising.
“Lisa, don’t do this,” her mother said, her hands over her chest.
“Lisa, stop!” her father said.

**********************
She bit her lip as the tears stung again, and one escaped, and she rose a little higher.
With her next pull, she gave a small cry of pain, and one of the girls broke from the circle and got behind her, and put her arm around Lisa’s middle, supporting her, her knees and thighs aligned with Lisa’s own, which were almost like a marionette’s, but there was still something there, and she pushed the chair a little distance away.
Lisa went higher, her breath hissing between her teeth. The girl behind her was straining with the weight, and she didn’t want to fall backward.
Another one joined her, and stooped to put Lisa’s hands on her shoulders as she supported Lisa’s arms.
Lisa went higher, even as the pain ripped through her and she cried out again.
Two more joined and supported the two girls who were holding Lisa.
She went up a little more.
And another came, and another, and then the rest, reforming the semi-circle that had been around Mrs. Castro, and they began to call out.
“Do it, Lisa!”
“Come on, girl!”
“Kick, Lisa! Higher!”
“You call that a pirouette?”
“If you can’t hack it, pack it!”
“Get that leg up!”
“Balance, keep your balance!”
“Spin faster, stupid!” They all laughed a little louder at that, and Lisa strained with the effort.
And kept rising.

**************************
The girls began to cry through their smiles as Lisa struggled, inch by inch, her own cries lost in their laughter and shouts and cheers of tough love that sounded like reprimands they’d all heard and said, standing together back then as vulnerable and fearful children, standing together now as vulnerable, fearful young women with confidence and hope.
And today, centered on their broken, fallen angel, they anointed her with all they had, and it filled the studio like morning vespers.
And when Lisa finally stood, leaning on their arms and shoulders, wracking, drenched, and beautifully terrible, still shaking, crying and trembling as they embraced each other in bittersweet victory, it was for different reasons.

A Friend of few words

Posted on by smithaw50

Thinking back on it now, she never really said much.

Not that she was shy, mind you.

She could wax eloquent on the things that mattered to her, and be knowledgeable enough and persuasive without being smug, condescending, or dismissive of a different view.

Truthfully, I don’t know how she managed it.

I did ask her once, though, why she didn’t speak up more.

“Silence stacks the deck in your favor.” she told me, but that was all she said, leaving me to puzzle it out.

So we sat in our overlong silences, drinking overpriced coffee, then going our overly lonely, separate ways.

Eventually, I got it: when encountered by someone who’s (overly) content to be quiet, people will pay more attention when they do finally say something, or they’ll reveal something about themselves to fill the silence.

I knew her when we were young, and when we pulled ourselves into mutual orbits, she gradually trained me to be more like her: quietly comfortable, and comfortably quiet. I don’t remember how or when the silences grew longer, only that they did.

When the orbital pull eventually weakened, I emerged from the eclipse of her shadow, and the words, my words, returned to me, albeit tempered.

They were seasoned, if not sage, with my own brand of pop wisdom and zodiacal frippery.

We’d grown from aligned planets to two different kinds of meteors; she’d make an impact in her world, and I’d do the same in mine, but never simultaneously.

Now, when I sit alone in this coffee place on rainy days, listening to the backwash of raindrops accompanied by a background of soft, classical strings, I feel her enigmatic smile on my own lips, and wonder what we’re thinking about now.

And who will be anointed to hear it.

A Writer Walks into a bar

Posted on by smithaw50

(*A story written back in 2016)

In the dying light, evening shadows spilled like ink across the city streets as neon lights buzzed and flared with new life, and I finally arrived at the bar.

Millie was there, as always, her face tan, leathered, with deep lines sketched and stenciled by the tandem drawing of time and alcohol. She turned to look at me through eyes still somewhat beautiful, not quite bleary, but full of lost hope and unrequited love.

A local girl, she’d been feeding off the carrion of maudlin, weepy drunks for too long.

Getting out had been her dream. She’d been waiting, as they say, for her ship to come in, but someone told her to hold the anchor, and when she did, the ship left without her.

She squinted at me through a screen of patchy, blue-white smoke, slowly unfurling like spirits on drugs.

“Hey, Al.”

“Hey, Millie.”

“Book’s done?”

“Yeah.”

“Good for you.” She swiveled the stool to turn her whole self toward me.

“You need an agent?”

“I do. Know anyone?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore, sweetheart. Think you’re good enough?”

“I’m hoping.”

She tapped the cigarette ash into a gray-black ashtray and looked over my head. I followed her gaze to see a huge fly buzzing around a light bulb.

We watched it longer than was normal, until she finally looked at me again.

“I used to write.”

“I know, Millie.”

“I wasn’t good.”

“Not what I was told.” I ordered a beer.

She smiled, showing stained, chipped and missing teeth; if you weren’t used to seeing it, it was disconcerting at first. It never ceased to be heartbreaking, at least to me.

“You believe what you’re told?”

I straightened up on the barstool, seeking some sort of lumbar support that wasn’t there.

“You didn’t believe in yourself?”

Her eyebrows arched at that, and in a couple of heartbeats, her eyes welled.

She wiped the water away before it ruined her overdone mascara, but somehow she managed smudging it anyway.

“No, I didn’t.”

I waited a bit, letting her get back to herself.

She shifted on the stool, hooking an ankle around the circle on the bottom.

“Hard to get an agent these days, Al.”

“But not impossible.”

“No,” she shook her head slowly, and turned her left profile to me, “not impossible.”

We worked on the drinks, each of us sitting in separate silences of rising ambition and faded glory.

She finished her double, put out the cigarette, sidled off the stool, put her hand on my thigh to steady herself, and kissed me on the cheek.

Her lips were bourbon scented, her breath heavy with tobacco.

She patted me on the chest then stepped out of view behind me.

“Good night, Al.”

I watched her in the mirror as she opened the door and went out into the oncoming night.

I looked up at the light bulb.

The fly was gone.

“Good night, Millie.”

Notebook Miscellany

Posted on by smithaw50

It’s a silly obsession with some of us who write, these gathered notebooks.

These bound things bind us to them in turn, using our words to link us to all of our thoughts, hold us to all of our promises, keep all of our secrets and confessions.

And yes, hide all of our pain.

Even though we may not use them all, it speaks of longing to fill them with something of ourselves that bears witness to our existence, and will speak of who we were to a world we’ll never see.

It’s the small sacrifice of a seemingly useless purchase that shows determination to leave something of value and beauty behind, born of something inside of us that we feel is worthy of legacy.

The empty notebooks perhaps tell the most noble of tales, bought as an act of defiance amid the onslaught of a world that speaks to us of random, earthly insignificance, an indifferent universe, and dead gods.

The empty, dusty notebooks you never fill are those that call the world a liar, for there is as much longing of the heart, profundity of thought, and depth of emotion on the blank page perhaps more than any other.

While there is yet time, you may impose the will of your intent on these blank pages, but if you never get the chance, or find your words unable to be shared in the end, they are no less a legacy to say something to the world, however joyous or painful.

Your work may be unfinished, Writer, but you are never incomplete.

Wish I Could Go Back Knowing What I Know Now

Posted on by smithaw50

   Deep in the abandoned culvert, the portal appeared.

   Walking along the waterfront, I thought I heard kids playing inside the drain pipe.

   Stupid kids. Wish I could go back sometimes, knowing what I know now.

   I huffed my way down to  get them out of harm’s way.

   There was light where there shouldn’t have been.

    At the other end, I saw myself.

                                                   *******************

   Kid -me surrounded by friends, looking every bit the kid that got bullied. Skinny and awkward the way child nerds are,nowhere close to any slang that would describe him as cool. But he and his friends were happy. 

    About to make a wish, he saw me, and shook his head. 

   I wasn’t invited.

                                                   *********************

 Teenage-me walking down Broadway with my poet friend, the city streets energized in the warm evening, full of bright colors, short skirts, and festive noises, and a busking sax player trying to tear a hole in the sky. 

  We were on our way to my first poetry reading at the cafe.  I was nervous but excited.

  Teenage-me stopped talking to his friend when he saw me, and shook his head.

   I wasn’t welcome.

 

                                                   *******************

    A quiet Sunday afternoon in the hospital, grad-me stood beside the bed where his wife trembled from the c-section shots. The doctor handed the bundle to him.

   His newborn daughter looked at him, as quiet as the day, and melted his heart.

   ‘She’s beautiful.’ he told his wife, and let her see.

   Then grad-me saw me,standing at the end of the portal, and shook his head. 

   I wasn’t part of the family.

                                               

                                                   ******************

 

   The light faded, leaving me in darkness. 

    I walked back and started home, wiping tears.

    They weren’t invited, allowed to fall, or part of the family anymore.

    I never made that wish again.

    

A Place for Peace

Posted on by smithaw50

The bright red of the painted bench seemed an act of rebellion in and of itself.
Since his discharge from the army, the prospects for his postwar success dried up like raisins in a drought. The rooms for rent grew cheaper and seedier, but never free, and a man can only descend so far.
He was down to just carrying his duffel bag, the last of his money, and the end of his rope. Swallowing the bitter pills of the last of his pride, he left the hot, dirty building for the hot, dirty streets.
Didn’t think I’d be sleeping under the stars again so soon.
*************
The city’s citizenry were increasingly uneasy with the rising homeless population.             They were less helpful, more hostile, and there were bullies and worse who thought nothing of preying on them.
Fighting over there had prepared him. Still, he was aware of every nervous tic and twitch that made him look like a shell shocked, restless bum. All too aware of every movement, and every sound.
He saw the bright red bench gleaming like a rising red sun on a green sea; there was no one around, and he decided to take a rest on it. Perhaps even a nap.
I hope the cops don’t roust me; that could end badly.

************

He  searched his duffel bag, rooting around: with his fingers he shoved the medals aside and peered into it. He still had two camouflage jackets, two journals bound with black leather covers, and a knife with a large, wicked looking blade.
He repacked the medals and threw the knife in the manmade lake.  Curious, he opened one of the journals, but it was too dark to read it clearly now.
The park was emptying as people went home to their lights, warmth, and loved ones, but he had nowhere to go.
He went back in the duffel and took out one of the jackets, placed the duffel under his head, and stretched out to sleep. Where his previous training would have had him on edge listening for sounds that meant he was a target of someone hiding in the trees, he felt no sense of danger and vulnerability now.
Sleep took him under its wing.
Through the night, the dreams and nightmares played tag.
He relived it all.

                                                      ************

         The long, hot nights with working girls that gave an artful illusion of love for a few hours in smoky, perfumed places.

        Running across the killing fields, legs pumping on adrenaline as bullets tugged at the extra cloth on his uniform as he fled, the splattering of broken, busted flesh with bones poking through skin at odd angles as the man running next to him was suddenly no longer there, and he couldn’t hear his own screams or his heart hammering in fear.
     The slap and flutter of well worn cards played by small fires, and eating silently in the dark on stormy, starless nights.
     Sleep was as rare as finding an uncut diamond in plain sight, and far more precious.
     Taking stock when the skirmishes were over: the dead, the soon-to-be dead, friends, and some precious few he’d named as brothers.
     The scent of blood, the cacophonous clusters of crows, flies, and vultures.

***************
Something hit his head, jolting him; he’d fallen asleep, slipping off the bench, bumping his head.
He felt light and unburdened somehow.
He knew the dreams had been dark, but couldn’t remember them at all. Everything he recalled seemed innocent, even innocuous.
All the memories of war’s ravages were gone.
How did I get here? What am I doing here?

************
In the morning a jogger found him and called the police.
The EMT’s zipped the body bag closed as the birds began to sing and a rind of orange sun turned the night clouds shades of pink and blue.
The cops went through the duffel, saw the medals.
“All that combat,” one said, “and he gets to go out peacefully in the most quiet place in the park.”
The ME took a look at the bright red bench with an expression that got the cop’s attention, so he looked at the bench too.
“Something wrong, doc?”
“Nothing. Just, it’s not the first time it’s happened at this spot, and a lot of old veterans seem to find their way over here.”
“No kidding. Why do you think that is?”
The M.E. came out of his reverie, looked at the cop and shrugged.
“I don’t know. Guess it’s what you said yourself: it’s the quietest place in the park.”
“Makes it easier to slip away?”
The M.E. looked at the bench again, the red gathering some vibrancy in the growing, paling light, then at the midnight black body bag loaded in the back of the ambulance as the doors closed.
“To be finally at peace? Yeah, that ends all kinds of wars.”

The Day I was Handy

Posted on by smithaw50

My relationship with tools can best be described as ambivalent.

I wasn’t afraid of them, but whenever they had to be used, they produced in me a sense of dread because it meant that something had to be repaired or assembled, and there was always the lingering question: Will I have parts left out when I’m done? Because that meant an improper assembly or repair, and I’d have to do it all over again.

My father was handy, and could pretty much fix anything; he handled tools with a craftsman’s concentration and confidence. He didn’t live with us, but when my mother wanted something done to our apartment and he could do it, he would.

I watched him painstakingly match wallpaper and tile so the patterns weren’t broken.

I watched him glue, wire, carve wood, spackle, grout, paint, and garden (at his place) with alacrity. I had no such confidence in my own skills to even remotely approach the quality of his work.

And then I became a Dad, and then we rented a house with a sizable yard that I was now responsible for as a man whose idea of nature was visiting Central Park and the Bronx Zoo.

Cribs, bikes, dollhouses, power outages, plumbing and car problems when there was no money to pay the tradesmen took care of those things all combined to come at me in a variety of configurations.

And so began the accumulation of hardware, of knowledge that demanded dexterity (if not speed), caution, and in time, more confidence than not. (No pieces left over! Yes!)

Those days are past me now, and the presence of my father is no longer on the earth, but the dust, dirt, and rust on my own toolbox has been hard won.

My ambivalence remains because, as I said before, it means something has gone wrong ( Aw man, a problem…)  and needs immediate attention, but I think of what my father would do, and how his legacy of excellence guides my hands. (Problem solved!)

The Writer and The Page

Posted on by smithaw50

“Good morning, Page,” the Writer greeted the blank field of whiteness awaiting him.

“Ah, good morning, Writer. Come to challenge me again?”

The Writer smiled. “Not challenge, conquer.”

The Page returned the smile, though the Writer couldn’t see it. “A worthy, lofty goal.”

“It’s what writers do.”

“Oh? Tell me, Writer, is it worth the isolation, the distant look in the eyes of the person you’re talking to about what you’re writing, the alienation of family and friends, for the sake of justifying the most mundane of arts?”

“You think writing is mundane?”

“You don’t?”

“If I thought that, why would I do it?”

The Page smirked. “Because writers love to moan about their suffering. Dancers and painters alleviate their pain, or live with it, toting their equipment hither and yon. They don’t go on and on about it. They accept the pain as part of the price, but writers somehow always seem amazed by the cost of their craft.
“But the great ones, those artists who don’t write, embrace it. They are the ones who get remembered, the ones who last through the ages.
“Even musicians struggle with their demons, exorcising themselves through their instruments, but they’re on another level of suffering.”

The Writer found himself intrigued. “How so?”

The Page chuckled like a parent at a silly question from their child.

“When dancers have shows, they rehearse. When painters or sculptors have exhibits, they set about creating work that fill the spaces.
“Musicians? They daily spew their demons out into space, and those who hear and understand their gibbering respond to it. They’re taken along down whatever road  the music leads them, whether to perdition or redemption.

“Musicians are the eternal Pied Pipers of the times, destined to be followed even when they’d rather be alone.
“Only writers get to bemoan how real life plunders their ability to create. They say, ‘Oh well, no writing today then. I shall double my output tomorrow.’ And of course, they don’t.
“Every day they whine about their lives: children, spouses, and other family members who just don’t ‘get it.’ And my personal favorite: the pet who demands time and attention, or the kittens asleep on the keyboard.
“They act as if moving the animal is against the law! They let their creatures have their way over practicing their craft. It’s laughable.”
The Page laughed, and said when it was over, “My point is this: these are days writers don’t get back, but act as if somehow they will.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Abandon this art, take up a trade and make yourself useful. Leave the writing to those already published. You are too undisciplined, lazy, and unfocused to make this work.”

“But my English teachers all said–”

“They were wrong. They deceived you.”

The Writer sat back, catching his breath, staring at the Page, who stared back, serene, but not smug, at least not outwardly so. The Writer honestly couldn’t figure out if it really believed what it said, or was just baiting him.

He suspected the latter, but he couldn’t let it go yet. “All of them?”

The Page stayed silent, content to let the seed of doubt sink in and hit home.

The Writer poured a shot of whiskey and took it with him, getting up to look out the window.

There were lives out there. Every one unique, going to destinations and fates unknown.
His book would be a droplet in the sea, in a world where there were better disciplined, laser focused, faster writers than himself.

Maybe his teachers were wrong. Had they smiled at him and lied? ‘That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain?’
His girlfriend said she always thought he should write, but did nothing to encourage it or support him. She read the occasional snippet, and praised it, but nothing more.

The whiskey burned his throat, and his flesh heated as the alcohol suffused into his bloodstream.

He held up the glass. How many of his kind had succumbed to this weakness. Or was it a weakness? Maybe not.Did the page back then, like this one, drive the writer to defeat as they drowned themselves and their talent, shot by shot?

He went to sit back down, staring again at the white silence before him, a white silence awaiting his words, subject to his imagination, unwilling to do his ready will.

The Page’s laughter was low, deep, reverberating as if they were together in a cave, and the Writer couldn’t see it standing in the shadows, drawing its knife.

Leave me, writer. I grow weary of your presence.

The Writer drained the glass, and put it back in his desk drawer.

Don’t you want another…?
The Writer didn’t answer, flexed his wrists and fingers over the keyboard.

You have nothing. You’re fooling yourself. It’s undignified, and beneath you. Stop it, ‘writer.’ Stop it, now.

The Writer sighed, and began to type: I am a Writer, and Page is my servant. A defiant, exasperating fool of a servant, but mine nonetheless…

Liberty’s Roommate

Posted on by smithaw50

His hospital room had a view of the Statue of Liberty.

It seemed like a twisted sort of joke, since he was bound and wired to gadgets that kept track of his vital signs, and the symbol of freedom stood there in the harbor, a deaf and blind sentinel with a false promise in her mute mouth, holding a long extinguished torch.

His nurse, Jeanette, was pretty, though, so that was something. Young, efficient, professional, eyes bright with hope.

He hoped once. Hell, he even saw the Bright Path to Promise back then, but somehow took a detour and ended up on the Dirt Road of Busted Dreams, telling himself that it wasn’t his fault, the lie dying like a gunshot victim before he spoke it.
It didn’t matter now, did it?

He was still where he was, and had to start over again, again.

It was getting to him, all this starting over.

As much as he still thought of himself as young, his eyes, knees, and nether region told him he was way beyond that now. He was slowly accepting it, but felt no obligation to do it gracefully.

People called him ‘sir’ and ‘mister’ now when he was perfectly fine being called by his name, and gave him senior discounts he didn’t ask for.

He took another look out the window to see the sun going down.
Ha! In more ways than one.
“Don’t be maudlin…” he muttered.
“Did you say something, Mister Locke?” Jeanette had come in, and he never heard her open the door.
“No. No, Jeanette, I didn’t.”
She puttered around and checked his vitals. “You okay?”
“I’m in a hospital. Does that make me okay?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean–”
He waved her off. “That’s fine. I know, I’m sorry. I’m just tired…”
“I understand.”
No, my young bright, sweet, hopeful girl,  you don’t. You can’t. Not really, and not for a long time. Hopefully, if you play your cards right, you never will.

She finished, flashed him a bright smile. “See ya later.”

“All right.”

The light from the setting sun caught the metalwork of Liberty’s torch flame, reflecting flares that looked like pennants, as if to let him know her presence in the harbor was no joke, and not to be taken lightly.

He shrugged, turned away from the window, and shuffled back to the bed, clicking the remote for the tv, a hollow laugh track filling the silence, chasing the dark thoughts with empty ones.

Freedom, huh?  

He’d enjoy it, he guessed, however limited, in the time that remained.
For now.