Memories, Dreams, Fantasies, Rhymes, Reflections

Silver Hill A Memoir

I held Grandpa's massive hand when my outstretched fingers barely covered his palm. We walked along Washington Street with his dog, Prince, alongside. Prince was old and gentle with us, but ferocious to the fox who tormented Grandpa's chickens. We walked through aromas of rye bread and sweet cheese from a Jewish bakery and the pungeance of salami and provolone from Venezia's Market next door. A few blocks later the macadam changed to gravel, then hard dirt, where burgeoning patches of silvery weeds and dandelions struggled to reach for the sun. I made a game of hopping around them, as if to avoid land mines.

I knew we were near the cottage when we approached the rose arbor. The dirt path through the arbor was flanked by my grandmother's flowers. Grandma said that her garden was like America, a multicultural mix of forms and colors, but beckoning in unison to the same breezes. The path ended at a courtyard, shaded by vines of fat purple grapes and leaves that were larger even than Grandpa's hand. He nurtured those vines with pride, the fruit destined to become wine for the Sunday dinner table.

Grandma greeted us at the front porch with lemonade. Grandpa and I sat in a glider that had been on that porch forever. The seductive aroma of garlic, basil, and fresh tomatoes wafted through the screen door as Grandma prepared pasta in the kitchen. The glider moaned with the slightest movement. If I try, I can still hear its squeaks and grinds cutting the stillness of a summer afternoon. I could never understand why grandpa greased the hinges of that old glider because it squeaked as loudly afterward as it had before. I guess he greased it because he was supposed to. He always did what he was supposed to do. He was as predictable as the rise and set of the sun.

Grandpa built a swing for me on a plum tree in a corner of the courtyard. I loved to hang back and gaze up at the ropes where they disappeared behind the plum blossoms. I dawdled for hours on that swing, listening to the twitter of birds and the hiss and buzz of flying insects, as nature's ambassadors paid their respects to Grandma's garden.

The ropes of the swing were so thick that the tips of my fingers could not reach around to the tip of my thumb. I measured my growth by that closing gap. By the time my fingers were long enough to reach around the rope, I wasn't dawdling on that swing any more.

When it rained, even the roof seemed to rejoice in a tin symphony after each streak of lightening darted across the sky like the fiery wake of a magic wand. During those summer storms I played with the Victrola in the sitting room. When I cranked it too hard, the baritone voice of Enrico Caruso sounded like that of a young choirboy. When I didn't crank it hard enough, the melodious arias sounded more like the moans and groans in a monster movie, but it was hard to be frightened in that happy cottage. Gusts and rumbles could not transmit gloom through Grandma's chintz and ruffled curtains.

I visited Silver Hill recently but the arbor, the garden, and the cottage were gone, replaced by a tract development of split-level homes with manicured lawns. I heard the sounds of noisy children from a school playground nearby and the air was punctured with the smell of burning autumn leaves in someone's illegal fire.

The sounds and smells and feel of that long ago place stay real, even though a stop sign occupies the spot where I think the plum tree stood.

_______________________

The Shallow End A Poem

I can have it all, they say, plumb the unchartered course of my heart!
Be anything I like: scholar, bride, wife, mother, woman, in that order.
So many opening nights
With no dress rehearsals.
Like the deep end of a pool hitting me in the face-- FLOP !
Jump in and wave your arms, they say, and head for the shallow end.
You can do it.
Yes.
Yes.
While little ones grow legs strong enough to carry them away,
From baked bread and vacuum-fresh carpets, ironed sheets, and PTA,
Vegetables to grow and put in jars
In my spare time.
Now they give me hugs on holidays.
I get a job and I leave home.
I think he left first.
It is opening night again.
Early evenings I enter my quiet apartment
With fast food
And library books.
He goes to a condo with swimming pool and workout room.
Occasionally he visits and complains
About his young companion upon whom he cannot rely.
I nearly smile.
I have reached the shallow end.

________________________________________

No Complaints A Short Story

First appeared in VOICES Literary Magazine, Winter 1998

Albert finished remodelling the attic just before Christmas. He put an electric space heater in each of the three rooms and two electric fans in the closet for summertime.

Mary rented the apartment the day after Christmas. When it was too cold, she turned up the space heaters all the way and she put on an extra sweater. She never complained. In all her forty-three years Mary had never complained, not even once. Some people never think they got anything good coming. They just take it all as it comes down the pike, good and bad, makes no difference. And they go to work every day.

She walked six blocks to the bakery, rain or shine. She knew how to dress for the weather, but sometimes she made a mistake and had to carry an umbrella in the sunshine. Once she forgot her kerchief and the wind came up so when she got home, her salt and pepper hair was blown all over like a banshee.

She stayed home to take care of her Pa long after her Ma died in her sleep. Mary's only sister, Rita, had moved to the other end of the state with her new husband and Mary's brother, Herb, was fighting the big war somewhere in the Pacific, so there wasn't anyone left to take care of Mary's Pa except Mary.

When young girls were dressing pretty and going out to dance at the army base on Saturday night, Mary was home doing the laundry. Of course, Mary didn't mind missing the dances too much because she never was a looker and she knew it. Her face was too round and her pale grey eyes were too small. So was her mouth kind of small. When she smiled, it wasn't a big smile, and her teeth were small, so lots of gum showed. She was always a little overweight, too, probably from working in the bakery.

In those days Mary was at the bakery six days and Sundays she spent cooking for her Pa so he wouldn't have to do too much for himself. She would cook things like a beef stew he only had to heat up during the week or spaghetti sauce so he'd only have to boil the pasta. Couldn't do much anyway, with his rheumatism. Finally finished him when he fell on the ice and broke his hip. Mary's Pa never did come home from the hospital.

That's when she sold off their little house and most of her folks' stuff and moved into Albert's brand new attic apartment.

You could always catch her smiling on the stairs if she met Eddie coming down on her way up. Eddie was the only child of Albert and Louise. He wasn't born until they had been married twenty years and he was a handsome one. Kind of skinny, but he had a slick light brown mustache and manicured fingernails. Eddie was good to his Ma and he always tipped his hat to Mary.

Mary knew Eddie had girlfriends, but she didn't mind too much. Her kitchen was just above Eddie's bedroom and sometimes she stayed up drinking tea into the wee hours just so she could feel close to him. Midnight was her favorite time of day, when Eddie would be coming in from a night out and she knew he'd be just under her kitchen floor, getting ready for bed.

Sometimes on the way home Mary would stop in at the library and check out a book. She always had a book to bring back, too. Miss Curtain, the librarian, always made a joke about Mary probably reading everything in the library once and if she didn't slow down, she'd run out of books pretty soon and then she'd have to start all over and read the same books again. Mary never talked about her books at the bakery because nobody at the bakery bothered much with reading and Mary wasn't much for conversation anyway.

By that time Mary was well along in years, too late to start her own family. Anyway, there was no-one to start a family with, especially since Eddie was getting engaged. His mother, Louise, Albert's wife, told Mary all about it one day when she brought a plate of her fresh strudel upstairs. Louise wasn't going to like having "that woman" for a daughter-in-law and said as much.

"She's a good girl, Mary is," Louise would say at the dinner table to Albert and Eddie. "Some lucky man is going to claim her one of these days." Albert and Eddie would just keep eating and not answer.

One day Mary watched out the window for Eddie's car about the time he was due home from work. She rushed to the kitchen and took the wastebasket, which was only half full. She scrunched up the evening paper, which she hadn't even read yet, and filled up the waste basket. As she was carrying it down the stairs to the trash bin, Eddie met her coming up. He smiled his big flashing grin and tipped his hat.

"Hello, Mary, how are you today?"

Mary knew she wasn't imagining that Eddie looked her straight in the eyes and she felt herself get weak in the knees. She looked up at him and smiled as sweet as she could and didn't see the big bag he was carrying. She toppled over it and went crashing down to the foot of the stairs.

"Mary!" Eddie called after her, but it was too late. She lay motionless on the landing. He rushed down and picked her up. Then he carried her all the way up stairs to the apartment, leaving the waste basket tipped over and all Mary's trash scattered about the hallway. She woke up in his arms and was so embarrassed that she pretended she was still unconscious. She didn't want him to see the brand new evening paper rolled up into trash balls, so she hoped that if she stayed unconscious, someone else, maybe Albert or Louise would clean it up.

Eddie carefully laid her on the bed and rubbed her hands vigorously. "Mary! Oh, Mary, it's my fault. I should have moved my bundles out of your way. It's all my fault. Wake up, Mary, please wake up!"

Mary opened her eyes to see Eddie sitting on her bed, begging her to forgive him. She thought she may be dreaming or even died and gone to heaven. "Eddie?" She looked confused.

"Thank God, Mary, you woke up. Does it hurt anywhere?"

Mary thought for a moment and suddenly her face twisted and wrinkled up in pain. "My ankle. I can't move it. And my back. My back hurts terrible."

"Okay, Mary, you just lie here quiet. I'll get Ma so she can get Dr. Thomas for you."

Eddie ran down stairs and Mary lay there, all scared and excited. She didn't want Dr. Thomas to come, but decided he wouldn't know whether she was lying about the pain anyway. And her ankle did ache a little, but Mary was sure she could work it out if she stood up. What would Eddie think if she stood up? If she could stand up, Eddie would leave. Now that he was here, she couldn't bear to think about him leaving. He was so kind and so worried that he'd hurt her. This was the most wonderful day of her life and she wasn't going to spoil it. So Mary learned to complain.

After that, Louise fixed Mary's meals and Eddie brought them up to the little attic apartment. They ate together and Eddie couldn't do enough for her. Louise told her that Eddie's fiance called it off because Eddie spent too much time upstairs.

"I always knew she was a selfish girl," Louise told Mary one rainy afternoon. "After all, Eddie feels responsible for your ailing. He's a gentleman, my boy is, and knows how to accept his responsibilities. I raised him that way. A girl like that doesn't deserve my son, I always said it. But you, Mary, you're different. You cared for your poor dear parents, and sacrificed your own life for them. You're a good girl, Mary, don't you worry, Eddie and I will take care of you."

"My job at the bakery..."

"Don't you worry none about that, now, dear. You just get well."

But of course, Mary never did get well. She ailed from that day to this. Albert passed away first, then Louise. And Louise left the house in joint tenancy to Eddie and Mary. They were married in a civil ceremony so Mary could properly move downstairs to live in the big house.

Eddie goes out to get pipe tobacco once in a while. Mary gave him her library card so he gets her books. And sometimes Mary forgets all about her pain when Eddie reads to her. For that, Eddie is grateful.