I didn't know my brothers well.
The younger was a sullen and cruel creature and even as a young child was prone to fits of violent temper, defiance and obscenity. He rarely spoke at the dining room table, content to shovel food into his mouth until he'd had enough and then sulk away. He was a loner with slightly suggestive mongoloid facial features and a perpetual smirk, one lazy eye and ragged, dirty fingernails chewed to the quick. As a teenager, he took to slicking his hair back and grew a straggly mustache, smoked and drank heavily, and spent most of his time with other leather jacketed teenage thugs. Physically as well as emotionally, he took after my mother - chunky, fleshy and short of stature with a hot temper, a natural sneer and an inclination to degrade and deride everyone not white and Protestant. He was born, so my grandmother liked to say, at war with the world. He favored dirty jokes, racial slurs, hard core pornography and guns and I was grateful he shunned eye contact and kept to himself.
My youngest brother was more like my daddy, a peacemaker at heart who longed for normalcy and closed his eyes to conflict. He was on the shy side, not growing out of his introverted nature until he was well into his 20's. He was taller and more compact with an open and friendly face, a vivid imagination and a natural respect for rules, breaking only minor ones and always repenting. He rarely skipped school, hung with a rowdy but reasonably well behaved group of friends, and as a general rule could be counted on to be honest and upfront with his feelings. He became obsessively protective about my mother after his marriage and during her last years would often confront me, accusing me of being hardhearted and uncaring, stubborn and intractable. He wanted me to forgive and forget and I would not accommodate him.
We were a houseful of strangers from the beginning. There were three and five years between my brothers and myself and we had no common ground, we shared no interests, no friends, no history. When our paths happened to cross, it was sheer chance. We had nothing to talk about and were too far apart to know where to begin even if we had wanted to. We went from indifference to hostility to all out warring with each other and finally to total and permanent estrangement - the thin threads that had held us broke with my mother's final illness and her death finalized the split once and for all.
It's hard to regret the loss of something you never had.
My oldest friend is in love.
Happy as a clam, scared witless by her own vulnerability, filled with joy and promise, terror and curiosity. Her messages to me are a combination of romance and intimacy, fear and passion, discovery and satisfaction. Each day is an adventure in becoming part of a couple, of learning to share her time and feelings, of taking steps that frighten and attract her, of trusting and expressing herself to another. I think she has found a good man - open, honest, unselfish - carrying his own burdens and trying to find his way out of a dark place and into the light. He is slowly entrusting her with his heart and she is slowly offering her's in return. It's a good match for life, love and the process of becoming whole.
Everything is a process, everything is a journey not a destination and if we travel with someone else, we make sacrifices and take risks. Pain is as much a part of the process as joy and the people who come and go in our lives all have purpose, all have something to offer and something to take away. If they stay, it's a matter of finding the balance - defining boundaries and limits, recognizing and appreciating differences, knowing where to look for harmony without giving up identity, helping without hurting. We can be part of a couple but we still must know how to stand alone and stand our ground. To ask for what we need and sometimes accept a little less is not inherent in our nature - to be truthful and risk being hurt does not come easy - to be with someone and fear hurting them is difficult. Love and partnership walk side by side but sometimes must be on separate paths and parallel courses.
I wish them well and hope they will endure. We all deserve someone to walk with through the process.
When it came to cribbage, nobody could touch Uncle Hubie.
He was in his mid fifties, a rolypoly little man with a perpetual red face and a hearty laugh who lived alone in a tiny house behind his mother's and drove a badly beatup VW bug with muffler problems. The little car announced itself, he liked to tell people. He was a sometimes fisherman, part time ferryman, all purpose handyman, and in a pinch would drive the mail or run the projection booth on Saturday nights. But mostly, he was a gamesmaster. Checkers, chess, cards, monopoly, dominoes - but his heart belonged to the cribbage board. He carried a portable, fold-up game and a deck of cards in his back pocket, not wanting to miss any opportunity. He played for pebbles or matchsticks with children, pennies or cigarettes with adults - he was not, strictly speaking, any sort of gambler, although Nana often told me he'd be buried with his cribbage board so he could play with the Good Lord on Judgement Day. God plays cards? I asked and then took off, narrowly avoiding the inevitable swat from her broom.
Hubie was a fixture at the Saturday night dance. He came alone and favored all the girls with at least one spin around the dance floor, singing along to Johnny Horton and Kitty Wells and smelling of leather and Old Spice. He didn't drink but for the occasional beer and could always be trusted to see that we got home on time and in one piece. On some Saturday nights, the little VW crisscrossed the entire island, it's reassuring and roaring muffler announcing we were home safe and sound, if not always on time. No harm ever came to anyone in Hubie's care and despite the best efforts of many of the island matchmakers, he remained a lifelong bachelor, always a step ahead of the preacher. He loved the company of women but had no desire to share it on a permanent basis, preferring his freedom and independence, his games, and the easy availability of solitude. He did keep an old, nondescript and sleepy hound dog for company, a stray who had wandered up one day and taken a liking to sleeping in front of the little wood stove in the kitchen. For no particular reason, Hubie named him Banjo and they became a familiar sight - the dog was good natured and trusting, mellow to a fault, and more or less useless but he had been in need of food and shelter and Hubie had both and was more than willing to share. Besides, Hubie confided to Nana, I think he gets the games. Nana nodded agreeably and Banjo unexpectedly barked. See what I mean? Hubie grinned and scratched the old dog's ears with pride.
Hubie died halfway through a cribbage game with the schoolteacher, Banjo asleep at his feet. He was buried in the small church cemetery and a cribbage board and a deck of cards were carefully placed in his coffin. Some years later, Banjo went to sleep in front of the schoolteacher's classroom and never woke up. Jimmy and the children, after some serious pressure was brought to bear on the preacher, buried him alongside his master, in a solemn ceremony. Each child brought his or her dog to the graveside as tribute and Jimmy spoke of a heaven which united dogs and owners, where every day was warm and sunny, and where games were played under the watchful eyes of God.
My first lesson in bike riding came at the age of 5 or so.
My daddy had bought a scooter of sorts, vivid red with white stripes, and training wheels. After supper, he and I went outside to the sidewalk and he began the slow process of teaching me balance, confidence, and paying attention to where I was going. After several nights of instruction and bruised hands and knees, he removed the training wheels and set me on my way and I made it all the way to the old dirt road without falling then crashed headlong into a tree. He came running, his face halfway between panic and pride, trying hard not to laugh or be over concerned, righted me and the scooter and said calmly, Now try again. When I hesitated, he smiled and ruffled my hair. If you want to learn how to ride, he told me, then you have to learn how to fall and get back up again. Not long after that, the red and white scooter was retired to the basement and my first real bike arrived.
It was gleaming metallic blue with black handlebar grips, white stripes and blue streamers, a big bike that would turn time meaningless and distance into nothing. She's too small for it, my mother warned and my daddy just laughed, You grow into a bike, he told her, she'll be just fine.
And after a time I was. There were some tumbles, a few minor collisions, once I skidded to a stop just inches from a fast moving oak tree and went head over heels into a ditch but it was worth it to climb aboard and ride like the wind. None of the broken bones or concussions my mother predicted came to pass and when winter came and the bike was stored away, I felt suddenly tethered and restless, as if someone had taken my freedom. I itched for spring and riding weather to return but time was against me and it was a long, cold winter. My daddy iced over the front lawn and taught me to ice skate, we went sledding and made snow forts, but it wasn't the same, there was no sense of escape to it, no independence or breaking free.
The season did finally turn and on an almost warm, pre-spring day in March, I rolled the bike out onto the sidewalk, dusted it down and pedaled off. I rode toward my grandmother's, an easy 10 miles or so and mostly level ground, made the turn and came back again, past parks and schools and the shopping center where Nana always bought our Easter shoes. I saw ducks and little league baseball games, a cheerleading practice, the now closed skating rink, relay runners from the high school. There was not a trace of snow or ice anywhere and the wind was warm as it blew through the tree branches, just beginning to bud and flower.
Spring was just around the next corner and my bike and I were ready. Just as my daddy had said, I hadn't forgotten and I hadn't fallen, not even once.
Looking all the world like Elvira Gulch from The Wizard of Oz, Miss Clara arrived at our backdoor and hitched her old painted pony to the woodbox. Alice! she shrieked, Alice! The spice garden came!
My grandmother sighed and put aside the neat pile of ironing she'd been about to start. Clara threw open the door and was immediately mobbed by the dogs - she always carried some sort of treat in her apron pocket and never asked anything in return - the dogs adored her. She was, as always, all in black, down to her petticoats and high heeled lace up, pointed shoes. She rustled when she walked, a whispery sort of sound that could be eerie if you were to meet her on a foggy, damp night, collecting weeds and water plants along the side of the road and muttering to herself, but Nana said she was harmless, that she lived in her own peculiar and isolated reality, a widow for most of her life, and deserving of kindness. So in she came, carrying a long, rectangular box wrapped in brown paper and tied with black shoestrings .Not likely to be roses, Nana told me under her breath, Better put the kettle on.Clara had been married at fifteen, widowed at seventeen, and alone for the next fifty years. She'd had her second chances - she'd been a striking young girl before she turned odd - but none had lived up to her teenage husband and she remained a widow. In her twenties, she began gardening and experimenting with soil and self invented growing techniques, she built a greenhouse and became obsessed with herbs and wild ferns. She made teas, poultices, seasonings, powders and potions and it was a short step to spell casting and witchhood. When she was in her thirties, she burned all her clothes in a tremendous bonfire on the beach - but for the tide coming in, Nana said, we'd all have been turned to ashes - and after that she dressed all in black and went, as Nana remarked serenely, mad as a hatter. She kept to herself except for prowling the woods and roads at night, splashing in the ditches and gathering water lillies and moss by the light of an old kerosene lantern. It was said she could cure warts and baldness, make crops grow, turn a man mute with a wave of her hand, even bring love into a lonely life. What idiotic, emptyheaded nonsense! Nana snapped, What absolute tripe! She's a plain and simple, ordinary madwoman, not a witch! Still, Clara was sought out and prevailed upon to cast spells and brew her teas, bring rain or prosperity, heal a lifetime of lameness or foretell the future. She did this with resignation and a flair for the dramatic, and the magic sustained her and kept her company.
She had seen the spice garden advertised in the Spiegel catalogue and immediately trudged the five or so miles to The Point to enlist my grandmother to order it for her in exchange for a frantic chicken and the promise of fresh eggs. There were seeds and soil and wooden containers, tubing and heat coils and an instruction manual for beginners - all neatly packaged and labeled - lemon grass, edible ginger, curry leaf, peppercorns - soon a maze of herbs and spices was spread out over the dining room table alongside Nana's coffee and toasted English muffins. Clara handled the brightly colored seed packets lovingly, drawn by their exotic and strange sounding names, by the promise of saffron and chili, the suggestion of green teas and soothing mint leaves. My grandmother summoned John Sullivan and his tool kit and the afternoon passed as the spice garden took form. Toward evening, the entire project was packed into the old Lincoln and driven ever so cautiously to Clara's greenhouse where Nana gave Long John a new ten dollar bill to stay and arrange it all to Clara's specifications. John turned the money down, saying that time spent with Miss Clara and all this foreign-ness was payment enough.
The following summer, and for many summers afterward, my grandmother's kitchen reeked with clove and cinnamon and ginger - Miss Clara's spice garden thrived and she shared her spices generously and often, arriving on the painted pony with a black cloth bag slung over one shoulder and carrying with her the scent of faraway places and a hint of magic. Just a hint, Nana would say with a smile, just enough to balance the madness.
Out of what could only have been misguided goodness, someone once gave us a pair of cockatiels, beautiful and elegant white birds with a singular gift for setting off the alarm and imitating wolf whistles. Each week, we cleaned the cage, laid clean newspaper and filled the little dishes with fresh seed which they would then commence to spit in all directions with alarming velocity and pinpoint accuracy. They shrieked and fluttered and chattered endlessly, making a constant mess and noise, driving the cats to distraction and the dogs to emotional thin ice. In the summer, we moved them to the screen porch where they could torment the local wildllife with their squawking nonsense - there was no peace of mind to be had during this time, no stillness or serenity to be found. They didn't appear to like anyone and barely tolerated each other, ignored the toys we bought, and didn't care for any of the locations we tried, sun or shade, up or down, view or no view. They were malcontents, protesters, bitter complainers with long life spans and far too much vocal agility. Each day I prayed to remove the cage cover and discover their still, lifeless little bodies, gone to a heavenly flock in the sky. And each day they greeted me with a cacaphony of scratchings, ear piercing whistles and the occasional curse word, thoughfully taught to them by a previous owner and delivered with startling clarity. It was an uncivilized and unnerving way to begin a morning.
As a general rule, I'm reasonably neutral about birds. When we were children, my mother always seemed to have a parakeet or some such in a cage somewhere, perky little packages of feathers that cheerfully chirped and twittered and accepted their confinement with minimum fuss. They came in blues and greens and soft pastel yellows and always seemed to be happy little birds, replaceable and hard to tell one from another. In the winters, we would scatter seed in the back yard near the maple tree and my daddy would see to it that there were always several feeders in place for the sparrows and cardinals and even the raucus bluejays and crows. I suspect we fed more squirrels than birds some of the time, but there was always enough to go around. The old orange tomcat would watch all this with fascination and great curiosity but he never made a move toward the flighty little creatures, knowing in his heart that to cause their death would've brought dire consequences, feline nature notwithstanding. He brought no gifts of mangled little bodies, no hunting trophies were laid on the doorstep. Like the birds themselves, he recognized his limitations and abided by them.
There is joy in birds, my daddy would tell me as we threw handfuls of seed onto the fresh snow, joy and the freedom of flight. The birds would gather around us, landing every so lightly on the new powder and leaving skittery little tracks as they pecked and hunted, hunger overcoming apprehension every time. They would land on the bare branches of the maple tree and alight on the cyclone fence, singing songs and throwing the snow off their wings in a dazzle of early morning sunlight and shadows. My daddy would tell me stories about swallows returning to Capistrano, about pigeons that faithfully carried messages during the war, about doves and olive branches, about falcons and hawks and sleepy barn owls in the dark eaves of the hayloft. And when we were done, he would make me hot chocolate and buttered toast and we would watch the birds and squirrels feeding peacefully together under the maple tree.
My daddy would've had patience and compassion for those damned cockatiels.
She searched and searched and finally found what she was looking for at the bottom of the barrel - an unemployed, abusive, hostile, adulterous and self serving man. And she latched on with a death grip, cleaning his house, taking care of his son, paying his rent and expenses, providing his food and being on call to share his bed. She didn't see that she was being used and couldn't comprehend her own misery. She took her case to all her friends in the vain hope that one of them would take her side and tell her to stick with him - when no one did, she retreated into a gloomy, nearly sullen silence. Mistaking co-dependence for love had cost her dearly - her identity was gone, her self esteem was in shreds,she had become helpless, confused, uncertain and desperate, trapped by her own emotions.
I watch this with sadness, frustration, a sense of futility and an uncomfortable familiarity. A part of me reaches out to her while another wants to slap her silly - I can't expect more from her than I was willing to do myself - but she's so young to be so wounded, so full of promise to be so beaten down. I see traces of myself, in too much pain to act for my own good, convinced that change was just another day away, immobilized at the very thought of breaking free and unwilling to give up the good and heroic fight. There's a twisted kind of satisfaction in martyring yourself for someone you think you love and it's far easier to maintain and feed than independence.
So she puts herself second, hoping her sacrifice and suffering will reach him, wake him up, make him change and be worthy, appreciative, willing to share and include her. What began as love or at least refuge, has turned to quicksand and now she talks of her life and future as empty, a long road with no end in sight, no rest stops, no exits. It's a hard outlook for twenty-one, and a mistaken one. Much as we all would like to help her, she must come to terms with this on her own, must spiral down until she hits the ground and is willing to accept a hand up. She has to find her own anger and her own spirit, has to see in herself what is so clear to the rest of us.
It's always easiest to be the one giving advice.
The boats came in one by one against a backdrop of late afternoon sun. Weary fishermen in slickers and hip boots shading their eyes and shouting orders began preparing to download the day's catch, their sunburnt faces all smiles. It had been a good day for fishing.
I stood on the breakwater, a shiny quarter in my hand. Haddock, Nana had told me and made me repeat it, A nice, fresh haddock, no cod or halibut. She was planning on fish chowder for supper and only haddock would do. The boats began tying up, the fishermen waving at the waiting factory workers and good naturedly wrangling for their place in line. I could smell fresh fish and gasoline fumes, salt spray washed up against the pilings, motors idled like giant purring cats. Catches were unloaded, weighed in, tallied - the work would go on for several hours, probably until after dark when all the holds were emptied. Decks would be washed down with salt water and the boats would be moored until the next morning when it would start all over again. It was hard work, dawn to dusk, backbreaking, blue collar work with few rewards, all dependent on the generosity of the sea.
My brother and I waited patiently, staying out of the way. The first boat finished its unloading and the crew climbed the rusty iron ladder to the top of the breakwater, greeting everyone with rough laughter and the satisfaction of a good catch. Nana wants a haddock, my brother told them and I held out my quarter. We waited while they found an adequate fish, wrapped it in newspaper and tied it with string, then handed over the coin and began to make our way carefully off the slippery wharf. The gulls were circling overhead and screeching and we never saw or heard John Sullivan's old black lab until it was too late - the dog came bounding down the planks and skidded toward us, my brother sidestepped, lost his balance and went over the side with a frantic yell, followed immediately by the old dog.
The dog easily swam to the shore but it took Long John and a grappling hook to retrieve my little brother - he was unceremoniously hauled out of the water, coughing and spitting salt water and fish guts, and deposited back on the breakwater, much to the amusement of the fishermen and factory workers. Long John scooped him up with one flannel shirted arm and me with the other, and without a word carried us both home. Accident, he told Nana gruffly, trying to hide a smile, Reckon he swallowed more'n was good for him. No harm.
My grandmother, a wise woman who knew a thing or two about old dogs and fishermen and who also had a clear view of the breakwater from the sunporch, nodded. Dog ok? she asked mildly and John shrugged, Swims like a fish that one, he said dryly, just ain't too bright on land. Laughingly, my grandmother stripped my brother down and wrapped him in towels, took the haddock and laid it on the counter. By the time she turned back, John was gone, headed down the side path to the road, uncharacteristically whistling, with the old black lab trotting at his side. Later that evening she told me that none of the men who spent all their time in boats could swim a lick, It's superstition, she said quietly, They think it would be tempting fate. You never can tell about the mood of the sea.
She flounced into the shop, dripping furs and diamonds, a patronizing and insincere smile fixed carefully in place, her husband trailing a few steps behind her like a subservient house boy. When she reached the counter, she rapped her red nails sharply on it and said I''ll have a bottle of the Chateau St Michelle.
Which one would you like? I asked her mildly and she narrowed her mascara caked eyes at me suspiciously. There's more than one? she demanded with the haughtiness of the privileged few and I nodded. We have two Reislings.... I began and she cut me off abruptly, No, no, it's not a Reisling, her tone suggesting that I had offered her Boone's Farm, It's the one from the movie!
The movie? I asked tentatively, not having the first idea of what she was talking about and she raised her voice
unpleasantly and impatiently rapped the counter again with her nails, The movie! she repeated, Bottle Shock! This is a wine shop and you do work here? Come, dear, the Chateau St Michelle!
Could it be the Chateau Montelena? I suggested and her husband actually snickered, a small sound that he instantly turned into a combination cough and throat clearing. She gave him a brief over the shoulder glare and then turned back to me scowling. Whatever, she flicked one diamond studded hand in a dismissive gesture. Hiding a smile, I went to the cellar and pulled a bottle of Chateau Montelena from the rack. She produced her American Express Gold Card, holding it between the tips of two fingers, then hesitated for a fraction of a second. How much is it? she asked and when I said Five hundred and eighty five dollars, she blanched and withdrew the card hurriedly. Extortion, she muttered, Sheer extortion! And with a flurry of furs and Gucci boots, she turned on her heel and was gone. Martin! she snapped at her husband, We're leaving! He shrugged and pulling his hat brim over his face, obediently followed.
It could've been wishful thinking on my part, but I'd swear he was grinning.
