Orchard 101

       Of course, I, the old soul, knew better than to talk to her.
       It was early October when I'd first talked to her. I had come upon her in the orchard. She was sitting in the tall grass, rock in hand, cracking open hazel nuts.
       "Ah," I said, stepping off the gravel path, "foraging some lunch, eh?"
       She looked up, smiled. "Every one has little bugs inside."
       Her clean voice sounded familiar. "There you have it," I said, "bugs and nuts; a total protein if there ever was one."
       She lost her smile. "I don't eat bugs."
       "But the birds eat bugs. They seem to like 'em."
       "I don't eat bugs."
       "Sure you do." I raised a gloved hand. "Bugs are always crawling in your food, but you just don't know it." I moved my leather fingers then--moved them like insect legs.
       She didn't say anything.
       And I couldn't say anything. I'd set out to get a laugh. What I was getting--the glare a bad dog gets--was making me sick.
       "You're sick," she said, getting back to her filbert.
       I walked away, my eyes on my workboots scuffing the gravel, my gloved hands tapping my pockets like a gunslinger taps his six-shooters. No, I had no guns in my pockets. What I tapped was a greater weapon; my pad and pen.
       Where the orchard ended, the stepping stones began. Going in, this line of stones always looked inviting. Of course, the effeminate scissor-step required to negotiate the stones always left me cursing them out.
       "Bastards," I said, throwing my gloves down, "I'll teach you." I quick-drew my pad and pen, wrote, "Remove stones first thing in the morning."
       For good measure, I added, "Refuse to give orchard woman time of day for rest of eternity." I turned, looked into the orchard. But, no, I couldn't see the orchard woman for the overgrowth. Pop, pop, crack, went the sound of her rock. 
       Every one has little bugs inside.
       Having pocketed my pad and pen, I bent over, grabbed my gloves, cursed the stones again for making me walk like that. "I mean it; come morning, you're history--history and then some!"
       Fanning my face with my gloves, I stomped up the hill towards the gallery. No, nothing like a stretch of asphalt to put the butch back in a man's gate.
       I was adding bow to my gunslinger legs, when I stopped. Stopped because these cocky male airs were altogether alien to me. No, I wasn't above indulging is some ego now and again, but nothing I hated more than the cock-sure male.

        I took a step uphill, only to stop again. Stopped so this wayward old soul might face the only thing worth facing; truth. I quick-drew my pad and pen. "Oh, what a crooked ditch the straight man is willing to dig that he might bury the glaring fool he's made of himself under the high noon of woman." 

       Shaking my head, I got back to climbing the hill. At least we old souls knew better than to get mad at the fool--that only gave the fool credence. All we could do, really, was have a laugh at the fool. 

       Having got up a laugh, I raised my gloves, slapsticked the back of my head for good measure.

       Desperate to stay up--I was prone to depression--I thought I'd take a shot at a positive-track technique I'd scoffed off recently. It involved listing things one liked in life. 

       I stopped climbing, quick-drew my pad and pen. 

       "I liked working at the Art and Craft College of the West. I liked what ACCW was about--developing the human spirit through creativity. I liked being part of the nonprofit team; one of the few David's left in a field of Goliath's. I liked the contrast in perspectives: Where the corporate Goliath's--looking inside our college crib--saw bright-eyed children playing with stuffed animals, we--looking outside at the field of greed--saw dull-eyed adults stuffing ribcages with straw."
       Say, that was gold. I don't know; maybe Marge's positive-track had something going for it after all. Then again, the purge of laying words on paper--whether positive words or negative--had always gotten this writer up.

       Wanting to indulge in up, I reread my gold. Which, of course, caused me to fall. It was the die-hard critic in me. No, gold was great for the Goliaths of the world, but for we David artists, we did our best work when we were humbled by poverty, starvation, ideally at death's door. Here, let me go at it again, with a bit more ground going for it this time. 

       "I liked my role at ACCW. As sole groundskeeper I worked on what I wanted when I wanted. And though the ten acres was more ground than I could keep, I loved the rolling campus with its curved walkways cut into hillsides, old growth trees and artfully landscaped shrub beds. Even the architecture was tasteful, separate buildings for every craft, all homey, with lots of windows and cedar siding. No, they didn't pay me much, but what groundskeeper's going to piss and moan when it's a neck of Eden he's been called upon to keep?"

       I panned my campus. Not the best face of Eden; this shaggy field below the gallery. But just up the hill, on the other side of the gallery; now that's where my neck of Eden really came into its own.

       I closed my eyes, envisioned that neck now.

PHOTO here

      

       Driven to see that neck in the flesh, I pocketed my pad and pen, got on my way up the hill.

       Of course, my Eden was not without its faults. Take this stretch of asphalt leading up to the gallery. Because it was rotten, one had to mind ones step. One didn't want to catch a toe in a crack, trip, make a fool of oneself within eyeshot of the one one was out to impress.
       I imagined the orchard woman running out of the orchard now--running out to tell me she didn't really think I was sick. But, no, she wasn't the one I was out to impress. Up above, on the gallery patio, sat another. Though all I could see was the back of a head, I knew it was Apolena--only Apolena had pumpkin hair.
       Oh, Apolena. 

       How about that; I was no longer driven to see my neck of Eden. No, that was the problem with we Adam's; we couldn't see our Eden for our Eve. I laughed. Yes, what would the biblical creator of Eden think of apple Eve in this day and age; having dyed her hair an unearthly orange?
       Apolena appeared to be picnicking. I walked taller to see if anyone was picnicking with her. But then I tripped, so I got back to minding my steps.
       There was a patch of tall grass I had to cross to get to Apolena. Before stepping off the rotten asphalt, I saw Hayward coming down the walk. Taking a stand on rot, I shoved my hands in my gloves, waited.

       Hayward was the president of the college. One didn't see Hayward much, so one didn't think of Hayward much. Even now, the sound of his shoes on asphalt--capital, capital, capital--didn't make me think of Hayward so much as the come-back line I'd custom-crafted for him.  
       But first some token civilities. "Hayward," I said, punching one gloved hand into the other, "word has it you wanted a word with me."
       "Nothing untoward," Hayward said, smoothing his tie under his sweater, "just wondering why the grass isn't getting cut."
       I looked down at the spit-shine coming off Hayward's shoe; waited for the line he was always laying on me.
       Instead of that line, Hayward tipped his bald spot towards the orchard. "Eyesores can be condoned in nether regions. But this," he stirred his elbow patch over the tall grass, "this is the gallery area--the civilized area. We really need said grass quaffed." 
       My turn to speak. But first I had to pull out my pad and pen, score a couple of words. No, as much as Hayward rubbed me the wrong way, the guy sure contributed to my arsenal. Why, just last week I'd scored 'ode.' As in, "But, Anton, we didn't hire you to compose odes to that which is Mother Nature. We hired you to subjugate her."
       "Anton," Hayward said, pulling me from my scoring, "I asked you a question."
       Pulling out, I noticed two things; Apolena turning to hear my answer and Ezra, her professor, passing by on the other side of Hayward. Wanting to impress these two--and piss off Hayward in the process--I booted up my best Hayward voice. "The grass isn't getting cut because a meadow makes for a richer ecosystem over the sterile monoculture of that which is the lawn."
      Apolena, having thrown me a smile, got back to picnicking. Ezra, having checked his laugh, stumbled back on the stretch of asphalt leading down to the orchard. Hayward, having thrown me his high brow, stomped the asphalt with his Oxford. "Anton, it's imperative we appear professional."
      And, there it was; the line Hayward was always laying on me. Poor guy, he'd been courting corporate America for so long--for their big bucks--he'd gotten it in his head that we, a nonprofit, should re-create ourselves in their image. 
       I opened my mouth to deliver my come-back line: 'What's imperative, Hayward, is that we not allow Big Brother to cut the heart out of us.' But I didn't say it. Couldn't say it because I was afraid. So afraid I was feeling nauseous. No, I wasn't afraid of getting fired. I was afraid of what my firing spelled: The end to the perks picnicking with the likes of Apolena. The end to the larks hanging out with the likes of Ezra.
       "Anton," Hayward said, "you appear wan. Have you taken ill?"
       It was then that a light went out. I looked down. Oh, a yellowjacket had landed on Hayward's Oxford.
       Every one has little bugs inside. 
       "Not ill," I said, swallowing, "but that bug I swallowed sure ain't sitting right."
       "Well, hop to--get on that grass."
       "I'll get right on that." Like a bunny I hopped across the uncut grass. "Apolena, hi."

****

 
        
       
      

     

Shovel 102

        Hopping onto the Gallery patio I wanted to laugh at Hayward stomping off in a huff. "Loss-of-capital, loss-of-capital," went the sound of his Oxfords on asphalt. And I would have laughed but I had writing to do; had Apolena, here, to win over with a word or two.
       Though a groundskeeper by profession, I was a writer by predilection. Not that I ran around broadcasting that. No, you'd be hard-pressed to get me to say, "I'm a writer." It was enough for me to lay words on paper. Or, like now, air a little something on behalf of beautiful Apolena, here. 
       What I was looking for was a little something that breezed in an ear like prose, but, afterwards, festered in a head like poetry. Something personalized, say. Let's see, what did I know about her?
        Apolena was twenty-two, an exchange student from the Czech Republic. Though her hair was dyed way too orange for a nature boy like myself, still, she was beautiful, and her Czech accent warmed me like Saint-Emilion, my favorite red wine.
       Coming round the pumpkin, I was wetting my lips to touch on wine, women and warm, when Apolena threw me an eye so on the level, all I could say was, "My, what a nice day for a picnic."
       Apolena raised her fork, shaped that hand into a visor. "Nice, yes," she said, "but my eyes; they're burning in the sun."
       But my eyes; they're burning in the sun.
       Because Apolena struggled with English, she'd string the sweetest words sometimes.
       I looked at my shoes. 
       Hard, wearing the shoes of a writer. Where the one shoe wanted to run off, hole up, write an ode to every word the girl had birthed, the other shoe--the nether shoe--wanted to stay put, use the writer's craft to woo the girl.
       I looked at the fork shielding her eyes. 
       "Apolena," I said, removing a glove, "don't let the sun burn your eyes. I like your eyes just the way they are." I chopped my hand towards her forehead. I'd wanted to help shield her eyes, but, damn, my knuckle had run into a tine, knocking the fork out of her hand.
       I grabbed the fork off the patio, tried handing it to Apolena. Instead of taking the fork, she looked at me guardedly. "My eyes," she said, "what way; just the way they are?"
       I licked my puncture wound. "Your eyes are . . . are powerful just the way they are. And if you ever put a lick of make-up on them," I threatened her with her fork, "I'll personally attack you with make-up remover."
       Apolena laughed, said something with too much Czech for me to understand.
       I faked a laugh, wiped her fork on my soiled pants, laid it next to her plastic food container.
       Apolena made a face at the fork, then eyed me from the side. "Your eyes, Anton; are they, too, burning in the sun?"
       "Yes," I said, placing a dusty boot on the bench of her picnic table, "I hate the sun. Can't wait for some good Pacific drizzle. What about you Czech Republicans; get anything in the way of drizzle?"
       "Yes, many many days, clouds over Prague."
       
       Having asked several Czech Republic questions, Apolena cut me off. "You," she said, "last week, you . . . so many questions it made me late."
       Turned out Apolena had been on her way to a meeting that day I'd stopped to introduce myself and then some. An important meeting with Ezra, her Photo prof. 
       "I have worry now," Apolena said. "Worry I will get bad grade."
       Nausea hit again. No, Hayward wasn't returning; my old ways were returning. Here, again, I'd interfered with a student's better education.
       "Anton, you went white. What's wrong?"
       "Nothing untoward; probably just something I et."
       Of course, Apolena couldn't make hide nor hair of that kind of English. Hard-pressed, I had no choice but to touch on the fact that I was a writer. "I'm a writer, Apolena."
       Apolena didn't say anything.
       "Hard, being a writer, though. Hard in America, anyway; a country where immigration has made a goulash of your mother tongue, ha, ha."
       Apolena didn't laugh. 
       "English, Apolena. I don't know how Czech goes down in your republic, but here, in america, English is a such a bear all we writers can do is make fun of her."
       "Anton, my English . . . I try hard. Please don't make fun of me."
       "Oh, no, I didn't mean--" I stopped, stared at my shoe. Hard, wearing the shoe of a writer. No, I didn't know whether to compose another line of English, or kick myself in the ass.

       Some days the word gods shine down on a writer. Other days, no. Not wanting to dig my ditch deeper, I excused myself, headed off to get my shovel.
       
       Because groundskeeping involved little stress, we groundskeepers didn't know how to manage stress. Take the guilt I felt for victimizing innocent Apolena. I processed that by getting angry at another student who had victimized innocent me.
       Every one has little bugs inside.
       In the pine grove behind Metals--where I stored my tools, I picked up my shovel, cocked it like an axe. "Call me sick, will ya?"
       Though I didn't like being wronged, I did like reenacting the scene in which I'd been wronged; getting in the face of the person who had wronged me, saying all the mean things I should have said right after they had wronged me.
       I closed my eyes, recreated the scene. There she was, the orchard woman, looking up at me. I opened my mouth to say my mean thing, only to close it. It was her eyes; the way they were looking up at me--up at me and me alone. 
       Or, was it something else? 
       No, it was her eyes; the way they spoke of promise--dark, full, spilling over.
       For everything that presents itself in life, we old souls have trained ourselves to ask: Is this a gift or a test? I asked that question now. Asked it so I wouldn't have to ask the question young souls were always asking themselves: Why is the hook line and sinker so hard to digest?
       Though my head was leaning towards test, my body, clearly, had already concluded gift. Gathering in the legs that had gotten away from me, I peered out of the pine grove. "All's clear," I said, thankful no one had observed my ape performance; bouncing in circles, using my shovel as a dance partner.
       "Can you believe me?" I said, leaning my dance partner against my chest.
       My shovel didn't say anything.
       "I can't either," I said, blowing clear one nostril, then the other. "I mean, a girl calls me sick, and the next thing I know, I'm bouncing around in forest clearings as if I've already got her in my pocket."
       Which reminded me of something. I placed my hand on my heart. No, my reading glasses were still in my pocket.
       I threw my rusted shovel in my squeaking wheelbarrow, wheeled my way out of the pine grove. I was in the market for dirt. The damned camp kids, over the summer, had worn down all my earth berms.
       My eye peeled for mole mounds, I got back to my shovel. "Why so down, shovel?"
       "You," I had my shovel say, "dancing me around like the girl you want. Would it kill you to show me a little respect?"
       I shaped my face into what I suspected a little respect looked like.
       "Don't give me that," my shovel said. "Save that shit face for after you break your vow."
       "Vow?" I said. "What vow is that?"
       "That woman vow you made when you turned forty--no more twenty-somethings."
       I parked by a mole mound, forced a laugh. "You're a shovel. Vows we humans make shouldn't concern a shovel."
       "Vows made in the face of a shovel, concern a shovel."
       That shit shovel of mine. Maybe it was time I got me a new shovel.
        

**** 

      
         

Dirt 103

       We groundskeepers knew dirt. We writers knew speech. We old souls knew we didn't know, but had an inkling speech was a lot like dirt.        
       On the low end of speech you had your "clean fill"--clay dirt chunked up with construction waste. On the high end of speech you had your compost--top soil in a marinade of steer manure.
       I, of course, grew up speaking clean fill; and the low end of it at that. I'd say I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, except that I grew up on the tracks; my parents' house faced the tracks--four sets of tracks. Not that I felt deprived; in my kid head tracks were it--as good as life got.
       "That's because you're a bonehead, son."
       There were two kinds of moms; those who picked a kid up, those who knocked a kid down. Getting knocked down was all right by me because I was a fighter.
       "Ya, well, I'm goona be a hobo when I get big, and you can't stop me."
       "Why a hobo, son?"
       "Cause Hobo Ed is the happiest guy I know."
       "You're mistaking happy for halfwit, son."
       "Hobo Ed is too happy. Says so cause he's got his freedom."             
       "But freedom ain't real, son. Freedom is . . . freedom is what a guy gits in his head when he ain't got nuttn in his head."
       "Freedom is too sumpm. Freedom is . . . Hobo Ed says when you hop a box car, ride it to the end of the line, freedom is what you git."
       "No, son, freedom is what I git when my good-for-nuttn son pushes me to the end of my rope." 
       Mom would reach above her head then, pull on a pretend rope. After her tongue fell out, she'd make a face like she couldn't believe she was dead. Back from the dead, she'd say, "Your choice son, you can ride the rails--put your ma in an early grave, or you can make your mom happy; make a sumpm of yourself."
       "What, a sumpm like dad?"
       "Son, there's two kinds of dads; those who pick themselves up, and those who knock themselves down. See, son, for a boy to amount to sumpm he needs a game plan. Now, your dear old dad had no game plan--had none cause he hadn't a clue. Git a clue, kid: Git yourself off to college, so you don't end up a nuttn like your father." 
       Boy, that sure hit home; not only was my father the unhappiest person I knew, he hit me every time he came home from the plant. That was that, then; though I wasn't about to give up on freedom, I was determined to make a sumpm of myself. 
       
        Years later, in high school, I visited my sister in college. What a shocker; teenagers from every backyard in america, every tongue true to the yard dirt stuck there. Sumpm, how I fit right in. "Wrong" my sister said, "In college we speak something called "proper English."
       After almost having to go to war, I got to go to college. My goal for college wasn't an education per say; it was the 'per say' itself--loading up my tongue with steer manure. Word had it, the professors there spread a lot of it. 
       And they did.
       When I started working at ACCW--decades later, I expected the professors there to speak the same.
       They didn't. 
       Take Ezra, the head of Photography; he spoke clean fill--though a high end of it at that. But what really warmed me to Ezra was the 10,000 lakes coming off that Minnesota tongue of his.
       After touching on my Minnesota roots, I asked Ezra where he'd grown up?
       "Anoka," he had said.
       "Huh," I said, "never heard of it. But sure sounds Minnesotan."
       "Anoka's an old river town; where the Rum runs into the Mud--The Big Muddy as it were." 
       Oh, what a time Ezra and I had recounting those humid Minnesota summers out in the killing fields of our youth, our white necks black from nature's own sunblock--the dirt, sweat, and the 10,000 misquitoes smashed there. 
       Perhaps it's at the dawn of middle age when guys start practicing their elder speak, for Ezra and I--both forty then--kept hearing ourselves say: "Ah, kids these days; don't know how easy they got it." Then we'd follow up with the hardships we'd experienced growing up in the dark ages of our youth.
       Except the 1950's were pretty bright. No, growing up post WWII in the breadbasket of the world, everywhere you looked was a peice of pie, a peice of cake, and peace. We baby-boomer boys were all about the sugar, sure, but didn't care about no peace. All we wanted was to grow up and fight in a war like our lucky dads got to do.
       Of course, our lucky dads, mysteriously, refused to talk war. So we boys got our war talk off the Big Screen. Talk that told us blood and guts and war was pure glory. Home from the movies, we'd dig our fox holes. No, a boy never felt more manly hunkered down in his fox hole. Never more productive than popping up to slaughter those bastard gerry's--Germans. Of course, it never dawned on us Minnesota boys that we were largely German ourselves.   
       I was nine or ten, fresh home from seeing the movie, "The Guns of Navarone," when my dad and I finally had our war talk. "Boy, don't you go tellin your ma this, but shortly after the war I took a wrong turn and my life's been nothing short of hell since."
       "Screw hell, dad, tell me about the war--the blood and guts, the way you had to wait to see the white's of their eyes before you killed those bastard gerrys."
       "You're a bonehead, son."
       "Ah, you can't blame a boy for wantin to get his head around some blood and guts."
       "Get your head around this, boy: War is spending the night in a foxhole with the blood and guts of your dead best buddy. War is coming home on a ship, trying to get your head around a word like "lucky" when you feel guilty as hell that every one of your buddies came home in a body bag. Of course, after the war I got hitched to your ma and pretty soon I could see; it was my dead buddies who were the lucky sons-of-bitches."
        Dad pulled on a pretend rope then, his tongue fell out, and he made a face like death was as good as it gits.
       After dad came back from the dead, I said, "I understand, dad; mom's mean to me, too--says I'm out to put her in an early grave."
        "Get off your high horse, boy, you're killing me too. Your sis is too. That's what I'm trying to tell you, young man, don't buy into it."
        "Into what?"
        "Into the marriage, the kids, the nine to five. Get a clue, boy, for a man the american dream is a nightmare--the end to freedom. No, boy, if I was you I'd jump the next train west. West, young man, west where the sun never sets on the rogue male."
       There were two paperbacks kicking around my parents house: Rogue Male and The Bride Wore Black. I never saw anyone reading the books, but after our man-to-man it dawned on me; these must be dad's books.
       
       The Saturday after our man-to-man, I packed up Rogue Male, a baloney sandwich, my life savings--the three bucks I'd saved towards a new bike, headed for the tracks. 
       When a boy is nine or ten, looking out the sunny side of a box car, the engines jugging West towards his freedom, it never dawns on him that things may just as well go wrong as right. Things went OK till I started dying for a drink--never thought to bring water. I was starving too, but knew better than to eat my lunch before noon. I passed the time watching the 10,000 lakes passing by. Oh, how I longed for the next town when the train would slow down enough to jump off.
       Turned out, trains don't slow for one saloon towns. That's the trouble with america; every settler overly optimistic; thinking the town he founded would amount to sumpm.
       It was evening, before we came to a bigger town. At least, I'd saved my lunch to go with some rail side pond water. Drinking, a hobo showed up. He wasn't happy-go-lucky like Ed, and before I knew it, the dirt bag had conned me out of my lunch. Later, an even meaner hobo pulled a knife on me, stole my three bucks. And as for Rogue Male; I used the first chapter Saturday night to get a fire started. And Sunday morning I used the second chapter for some emergency toilette paper--that green pond water was a bit thick. 
       I had some down time Sunday afternoon--riding a train back East, so I opened Rogue Male. But having not read the first two chapters, I couldn't make hide nor hair of the third, so I chucked the rogue male out the box car door.
      Sunday evening, I slipped in the side door of my parents house--been gone all weekend and no one noticed. 
       Well, my sister noticed.
       "Damned the luck; little brother isn't dead, after all."
       I didn't say anything--too busy wolfing down my bowl of sugar, milk and cereal. 
      "Oh, well," she added, "while you were gone, I had the best day dreams ever--you, bleeding to death in some dark culvert."
       "Thanks for not tellin mom I was gone."
       "What, and blow your cover? No way was I saying anything till I was sure you'd bought the farm."
  
       
                                                                                   

****

       

       

Pull 104

       Before I called the orchard woman The Orchard Woman, I'd called her The Woman Who Wasn't Trying. I'd first observed her at Fall Orientation--not trying. 
       Having taken a seat on the outdoor stage, I checked out the pool of freshmen on the Fibers patio below. A few girls pulled on my eye, a few on my lip, but this one girl, why, she'd-a pulled me clean off stage had I not dug in my heels. Oh, sure, she was petite, brunette, pretty face, my type, but that wasn't what pulled on me. 
       I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote, "I saw a girl, and now I want to write something." 
       What I wanted to write, of course, was a word or two that would blow away the gods of literature as I knew them. But, knowing them, first I needed to divine what it was, exactly, that pulled on me. 
       I put pen to paper. "What pulled on me, I think, was the way the girl spoke, shaping her words with her hand." I looked up. I looked down. "Then again, there was no little pull in the way the girl listened, stirring her pony tail with her finger."   
       Subjecting myself to pull for the better part of the lunch hour, I took note of an odd pattern. Though all of twenty-one, my one girl kept turning towards those thirty-five and older. Perhaps she turned to her elders for advice.
       I put pen to paper: "Yes, youth, seek out the advice of your elders. Not for the advice--one only learns from ones own mistakes, but to give the poor elders a break from beating themselves up over all the wrong turns they'd made in their youth."
       Wait; I was an elder myself now. Why was I always forgetting that? Perhaps because I was always working at forgetting that. Sure, there was that one wrong turn I'd made in my youth, but . . .
       I put pen to paper: "What elder bangs his head against yesteryear's boulder, when he can reverse aging by stoning this year's youth?"
       I panned the pool of twenty-somethings. Yes, ha, ha, look at the self-perceived selves, grinding away, trying to be everyone but themselves. And that's when it came to me; why my one girl pulled on me--she wasn't trying.
       How rare; a twenty-something who had already settled into her self. Which begged the question: What had this high human been put on this low earth to do? Answer: Something to do with me, no doubt. 
       Standing back-to-back with my one-and-only was Ezra, Apolena's Photo Prof. Perhaps I needed to have a word with Ezra. Working to come up with that word, I eyed the arc in front of Ezra; the arc that was always in front of Ezra--the arc of twenty-something women competing to lock up the panning eye of the distinguished professor.
       That word came to me then; the name of an artist Ezra had advised me to check out. No, I hadn't checked out the artist yet, but knowing Ezra, that wasn't important. Pocketing my pad and pen, I walked off stage. 
       "Ezra," I said, taking up a slot in the arc of young women, "can I have a word with you?"
       "Sure," Ezra said, shooing away his worshipers, "What's up?"
       "That artist of yours: Goldsworthy. I checked him out. You were right, his stuff is . . . is like . . ."
       "Phenomenal, yes," Ezra said, and, skirting all cross examination, he started lecturing nature this, found object that.
       I nodded Ezra on, and with each nod I jacked my head higher that I might get my eye on the stirrings on the other side of Ezra. 
       Of course, having jacked my eye high enough, I took a blow to the eye. I couldn't believe it; a freshman boy had moved in on my girl. "Really, dude," he called her, "you got to check this out." And away he went with my girl, back towards the stage.
       It took some creative coaxing, but I got lecturing Ezra to follow me stage-ward. How pathetic, the fresh boy was showing my girl a section of wall. Get a clue, greenhorn, you want to show a girl a moving sunset, not cast concrete.
       Then again, my girl seemed genuinely interested in the concrete wall. So interested, I took an interest in the wall myself.

       
       Yes, there was something in that wall. Something in the way of spirit. The spirit of a bird, I decided. I wanted the spirit to exude blue heron--I was partial to blue. But seeing how there was no blue, I decided I'd go with the white pelican. Yes, the beak was definitely more pelican than heron. Now, what omen, exactly, was the pelican messaging? 
       Hard to read an omen, though, when you got the big hand of a greenhorn going into the small of the back of the girl who had been put on this low earth to pull on you and you alone.  
       Maybe I needed to have a word with my girl. I was raising a foot to do as much, when another word came to me: Jealousy. What, monk Anton, jealous? I dropped my foot that I might present a defense.
       "Clearly, your Honor, this isn't about jealousy. Why? Because this isn't about a boy stealing a girl that isn't his. What is it about? Why, clearly, this is about a bastard who sees fit to steal a section of wall that isn't his--this favorite section of wall of mine." 
       OK, that was a stretch. 
       Truth be known I'd never noticed this section of wall before. But, still, I'd been sweeping under the entire wall for years. That made the wall my wall, not his.
       A good thing to turn to when you have no defense is fiction. So I told myself the story of how the wall came tumbling down then. How the greenhorn's birdbrains got squashed like a bug next. How the monk stepped up to the plate in the end, swept the girl off her feet with a line like--
       Ezra nudged me. "Infectious, isn't it?"
       "Infectious?"
       "The Oz-eyed freshmen."
       I panned the patio of Oz-eyed freshmen.
       "Hear 'em?" Ezra said, cocking an ear. "They're recounting every fork in their yellow brick road to art school."
       "Funny," I said, cocking a neck, "they're all looking up. What do you suppose they see up there?"
       "Pie." 
       I liked pie. But, no, I couldn't see the pie in the sky for the meringue in my ear--the sweet voice of The Woman Who Wasn't Trying.
       A crusty voice got me looking her way. Say, things were looking up; the fresh boy was gone and in his place, a woman, thirty-five-and-older. I listened in. Though my girl's clean voice registered well enough, I couldn't make out her words for the forty-five-and-older Ezra.
       "In truth, that's why I teach. Every Fall the new hopefuls arrive, each believing they and they alone are to become the next Stieglitz or something. And before I can think better of it, I've caught the bug myself, head for the classroom, believing I and I alone can turn them into as much."
       "Stieglitz?" I said, "Wasn't he--"
       "Phenomenal, yes." And with Ezra lecturing Georgia O'Keeffe this, Gertrude Stein that, I checked out the two female freshmen--one old, one young--each beav-eager to dive into this new chapter of their lives.
       Say, maybe that's what I needed: A new chapter in my life. And getting my eyes back on what inspired me--that ponytail getting stirred, I worked on my new chapter.
       Chapter, hell. What I had separating my ribs was the better part of a novel. What was I doing, idling the day away at Orientation--an event I wasn't even required to attend--when I could be at home at my laptop, banging out that great work I knew I had in me. That great work I'd been threatening to write since college. That Great Work the earth's ass would be hard-pressed to be saved without.
       It came to me then; what this singular woman was here on earth to do. A realization so phenomenal, yes, I had to cut out on Ezra mid-lecture. 
       Back on stage, I put pen to paper: "Art may be great. The artist who made it may be great. But neither is phenomenal. What's phenomenal is the muse who drives the artist to go through all the hell it takes to create the art that, without the muse, would never have gotten off the ground."
       I looked up to thank the word gods. "Thanks for the muse, gods. But mostly thanks for stepping in, keeping me from passing a word with my muse--the biggest no-no in the Muse Book." 
       My thanks received, the giving gods rewarded me with a word: Puissance. I didn't know what the word meant, but, boy, the precious way it pulled on my lips sure captured the effects my muse had on me. 
       I was about to write the word down--so I could look it up, but I had something more pressing to get down just now; the age-old code every artist must stick to who allied himself to a muse. That sure-fire code I'd extrapolated upon in a paper I'd written studying medieval chivalry in college. That die-hard code of courtly love I thought it an honor and a privilege to stick to.
       And, oh, how hard I put pen to paper that I might make the code stick this time, gol-dammit. 
       Of course, etching code that deep is bound to cost one--that precious word the giving word gods had gifted me; gone.  

****

        
       
       

Face 105

       Early on, when I was getting to know Ezra, I kidded him about the simple way he had of speaking. "But, professor, how am I to look up to you when you speak like a groundskeeper?"
       "Hey," he had said, "I'm a professor; I have nothing to prove."
       Later on, Ezra kidded me: "But, groundskeeper, how am I to look down on you when you speak like a professor?"
       "Hey," I had said, "I'm a groundskeeper; I have something to prove."
       After that, for larks, we spoke to one another according to our pigeon holes. This was an easy hole for me; revisiting the ditch of my youth, littering my speech with the trash I'd picked up along highway 61. And, oh, what a kick the professor got out of my white-trash speak. Such a kick, he suggested I work some of it into my writing.  
       "Oh, no," I had said, "a writer of my caliber doesn't resort to anything so sophomoric as butchering his mother tongue." 
       "Hey," Ezra had said, "if butchered English was good enough for the Missouri boy to paddle his way down the Mississippi, why shouldn't the Minnesota boy use it to pole his way up?"
       Boy, that sure hit home. No, you want to influence a writer in America, just drop him on the same raft as Twain. So, driving home that day, I'd envisioned myself on a raft with Huck, poling our way up Old Man River. No, for old Huck and I, it was all, "Lake Itasca or bust."
       Home, I'd opened my laptop, had so much fun unchaining the junkyard dogs, I had to kick myself in the ass for letting the joy of writing get away from me. Which begged the question: Where, exactly, had the joy of writing gotten away from me? 
       Writing sure was a joy in college. A joy till my writing prof cut the heart out of me with: "Please, Anton, share with the class why a writer would want to serve his better reader a plate of road kill."  
       Then, out of college, I cut my heart out even more when, trying to get published, I took to considering my better editor. Embarrassing, the close shave I gave my voice that it might raise the penciled brow of that English major who, fresh out of college, was called to New York to raise the bar of Literature, only to find herself at the bottom of a slush pile in search of the canned cat food that made fat cats fatter.
       Well, rejections got me to thinking of doghouses, and doghouses got me to thinking of dog shows, and dog shows got me to thinking of the close shave you give a dog to get ready for a dog show. Oh, what a standard poodle literature in America had become. No, Ezra was right, time for Lassie, here, to bite Timmy in the ass, run off, join the pack.
       OK, so I have yet to find me a following, but I sure get off seeing myself on a makeshift raft, the lone wolf of literature, poling my way up Old Man River--poling up without a care in the world. Well, I have one care; the power Old Man Time has over reach. No, like every writer in America, I'd like to dip my bucket in Itasca, not kick it in Anoka.  
     
       Back to larks. 
       Ezra had the harder pigeon hole; speaking high brow. Though Ezra wasn't exactly working-class--his dad taught math, neither was he ivy league. I suggested he find a fellow professor to fill his manure spreader. But, no, upon review, ACCW was an art college anchored in craft; all the profs spoke without pretense.
       Ezra's speech coach showed up one day when he and I were talking perspective. I, seriously leaning on my broom, thought we were talking The Big Picture. But then Ezra, fiddling with his camera, said, "Take this view to the south. I can increase the depth of field if I narrow down on the aperture."
       Before Ezra could put his eye to his camera, Hayward appeared. Having sized me up, Hayward said, "Phenomenal, yes, how our groundskeeper can position his chin on the end of his broom and call it motivation."
       For a response I added head weight to my broom handle.
       Hayward left in a huff, and checking my chin, I said, "Phenomenal, yes, how our president can position his tongue on his high brow and call it motivational speaking."
       "Hey," Ezra said, "we all have our flaws: Hayward's got that callus on his tongue from licking his high brow, and you got that dent in your chin from leaning on your broom." 
       I pulled on my chin. "Good one, Ezra. And where, exactly, do you wear your callus?"
       "On the end of every finger." Ezra pulled on his fingers. "See, Anton, teaching art's easy. What's hard is the rib spreading. Every student's got it in there, for sure, but it's like pulling teeth to get what's in there out."
        I didn't want to pull teeth. "That Hayward, the way he speaks; makes me want to punch his teeth out. I hear he's from the East--old world money, no doubt."
       "Wrong," Ezra said. "Hayward grew up poor in Poughkeepsie. But then he won a Rhodes scholarship, went off to Oxford." Ezra pulled on his chin. "Oxford; you're bound to come back with some tongue stuck to your brow when you go off to Oxford."
       "Big deal, so Hayward's a frigging genius. All the more reason not to like him."
       "We don't have to like him. But we do need Hayward to talk Oxford. If he talked Lake Wobegon like you and I, the rich wouldn't trust him--wouldn't let him stick his hand in their deep pockets."
       I didn't say anything. 
       "Like it or not, Anton, it's largely Hayward's hands in the pants of the well-to-do that keeps this place afloat. So, you be nice to Hayward."
       I didn't want to be nice to Hayward. But I did want Ezra to like me. 
       Changing my tune, I did my best to positively criticize Hayward. But I don't think Ezra was listening--caught up in shooting his view to the south.
       Yes, Ezra's view to the south was something. And given the art professor, here, busting ass to capture it, I guess that something spelled art. Of course, I, the groundskeeper, couldn't see the art for all the work those turning leaves spelled for me. 

       
       The days passed, and I got a better feel for the ACCW community. And what a singular community it was. Where I had worked before, everyone saw the landscaping as something you walked through to get to a job. Here, the staff, faculty, and students saw the landscaping as something you sought out when it was time to get what was inside you out. 
       The Dean of the college touched on it one day when I was standing in a daze trying to get a handle on what to do next. "Why so serious?" she said.
       "Oh," I said, lifting my chin off the end of my rake, "my new spread; just trying to put some two-and-two together on how to keep it all."
       "Two plus two? That's four. Nothing serious there."
       Pulling on my chin, I was tempted to take the Dean to school on the difference between two-and-two and two-plus-two. But I really needed the academician, here, to get off the subject of math. Though I could put two-and-two together with the best of them, two-plus-two was about as far as I'd gotten in math. 
       "You're right," I said, "it's not serious. I mean, look at the great grounds I've landed. No, really, I must be one blessed cuss, to get to keep all this."
       "This art and craft college is something else. And we're counting on you to keep it something else."
       "Me? Hell, I wouldn't know art if it hit me in the craft." I laughed.
       The Dean didn't. "You have a hand, right?"
       I displayed my left, surprised not to see a glove on it. Damn, where were my gloves? Oh, there they were, airing out on my wheelbarrow.
       "Anton. Put your hand into this place."
       "My hand?"
       "Each hand is unique--like a signature. Everyone who is involved in this school is working hard to honor that singularity of expression."
       I did understand this. We writers, too, worked hard at nailing down our singular voice. "Wow, this place is something else."
       "That's because we have exceptional people with an exceptional program in an exceptional place. You are largely responsible for place. Instead of seeing yourself as the hired hand, see yourself as the hired paint brush." She waved her hand over the grounds. "The campus is your canvas. Now, inspire us."
       The Dean left, and I framed in a section of my canvas.

       I don't know; looked like a finished painting to me.
       Nevertheless, I dropped my rake, headed for the Front Desk. As a staff person, I got a free class as part of my benefits package, and I wanted to see if there was any space left in Painting 101. 
       
       My new calling as painter weighed on me the next few days. Adding to that weight was an old lady who came walking down the main walk. "Greetings," she said. "You must be Leif's replacement."
       Turned out this lady was the landscape architect who had designed the campus some twenty years back--the real artist behind the painting. She was cordial, but she put more pressure on me than the Dean. "There are two types of pruners," she said. "Most are sculptors. A choice few are painters. Leif was a painter. He believed plants should look like plants. I believe if you machine the life out of these plants, you'll find a foot in your ass."
       I looked at the old lady's foot.
       "Not my foot, Einstein. The foot of the spirit of the place." She waved her hand over the place. "Believe me, if there's one foot you don't want in your ass, it's the foot of the spirit of this place."
       After a year or so of mulling over my new role as Painter and, moreover, how to keep my ass free of spirit feet; I came up with a game plan: Not to prune at all. No, for five years now, I'd been letting things go. Oh, sure the bold brush strokes were consuming walkways, eating entire corners of patios, but, by god, things sure looked painterly.
       And it all worked out for the best. Because I wasn't pruning, I had more down time. More and more, I found myself lying in the dirt under the old madrone tree. This tree, like a carved figurehead, grew out of the prow of the campus. There I'd lay, look up, learn stuff. 
       Take today. I learned so much I had to sit up, take notes like a schoolgirl: "The college's signature tree, the madrone, showed us how to grow. The tree willingly shed old leaves and bark to make way for new leaves and bark. The tree was old but that alone didn't make it wise. Our madrone was wise because no matter how big it grew, the tree remained ever green."
      OK then; time to get back to class. I laid back, looked up.

photo here

****        

Seeds 106

       

       The way I looked up to Ezra, one might conclude I had an inferiority complex. Of course, I, the old soul, would call that a stretch. There was this other guy, Bob. The way I looked down on Bob, one might conclude I had a superiority complex. That would be less of a stretch, but we old souls were all about climb. The Bobs of the world were all about decline. No, that base Bob of mine was hardly worth mentioning.

       Then again, I was a writer. And when it came to the joy of it, there were more kicks in looking down a nose, than there were looking up. 

       I climbed in my pickup, headed on over to Bob's. This friend I'd had since high school was as good as a guy could get. He still had his original four cylinder engine, his original paint, battleship gray. Though a ride of sorts himself, Bob was no friend, just some bonehead I'd met a year ago in a writing workshop. So much of a bonehead I'd adopted him as my personal fool.  

       This was something new for me.

       We old souls, striving to evolve beyond human, had no use for Bob's kind, hell-bent on devolving into animal. But the day I met Bob, I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote, "Often an old soul will saddle up with a new soul. Why? To lighten the load that comes from having to serve yet another life sentence down here on this nether earth plane."
       Though Bob and I had little in common, what we had in common--other than age and wild hair--was a passion for writing fiction. Or, was it a passion for living the life of a writer?
       Bob had approached the writer role differently than I. My game plan; get mindless jobs so I could work on my writing while I worked. Bob, on the other hand, had majored in Business Administration in college. His plan; put off writing, stalk the big bucks so he could retire at forty and do nothing but write. Well, Bob was retired now, but he didn't write much--his life too full of the arts and crafts of retirement; drinking and chasing women.
       Though pleased with the kicks I was getting, sometimes I'd forget Bob was my sidekick. After all, we old souls were down here, largely, to inspire individuals, wherever they were, to take the next higher step. Truth was, Bob was a better writer than I, and, sometimes, fed up with Bob's hedonism, I'd get on my high horse, tell the pig to quit horsing around, open his laptop, contribute to society.
       Of course, we literary types must choose words carefully when high on Old Paint. There are, after all, better ways to light a cellar than razing the house. A good way is to open the cellar door, pull down on the string strung from the bare bulb.
       "See Bob," I'd say, using the littlest of fingers to rest upon my chest, "writing requires a degree of sacrifice. A writer is he who gives a measure of his life to the blank page that he might, through the living page, plant seeds in the dear readers of the world who--to the avail of the publishing industry--are too afraid to join the living."
       "That reminds me," Bob would say, his big finger in my face, "when are you going to get a life?"
       "Hey," I'd say, "what I have I'd take any day over what you call a life."
       "Ya, well, good luck taking death by the horns; I'll stick to life."
       "Which begs the question, Bob: Is it you who's stuck to life, or is it life that's sticking it to you?"
       "That reminds me," Bob would say, "there was this chick I stuck it to the other day, who . . ."
       Bob's tales of conquest were always captivating, for Bob was very creative when it came to lying his way into a girl's pants. Of course, he had to ruin every tale with his pig ending. "Ka-ching," he'd say, blowing imaginary smoke from his gun finger, "another notch for the old gunstock."
       I knew Bob said this to upset me. And it did upset me. No, not the score-keeping part--most men saw women that way; there for the slaying. What upset me was the way his "Ka-ching" spanked me awake, filling me with guilt for having bit so hard on his pig tale.
       
       It was a rare day I took my pickup out on the freeway. Freeways were for rats who had signed up for the race. Though we peace-seeking old souls preferred the slow scenic route, sometimes we took to the freeway just to get a feel for life.
       Or, so I took to telling myself when I'd been forced onto the freeway by some fucking asshole in a sixteen wheeler who had refused to yield.

       Getting on I-5, I got a feel for life all right; the bulk of traffic, trucks hauling capital. Of course, my 1951 4x4, geared down for ranch work, would only do 45. With certain death passing me on the right and left, I waited expectantly for my life to flash before my eyes. It didn't, so I reviewed my day. 
       I thought of the fork I took on the gallery patio. I licked my puncture wound. I thought of the "sick," I took in the orchard. I reached for my heart. In the way of my heart were the contents of my breast pocket. Exiting the freeway, I removed my new reading glasses--a level stronger than my old.  
       At the stop light, I got my face in my review mirror. I never liked my nose; too big for my pinhead. And today, with some trick of light, my nose was the color of the sky. I liked blue, but it was no color for a nose. Then again, when you have a nose the size of a silo, the sky's your friend. 

       Bob had lost his wheels--cited for drunk driving, so I helped him out on occasion. Today, I was taking him grocery shopping. Or, more accurately, taking him to the grocery store so he could hit on every lipsticked chick under thirty.
       No more had Bob climbed in my pickup when he started opening and closing my glove box door. This rapid-fire activity seemed to fuel his favorite topic; the worship of women as objects. After a mile or two of hot-box this, hot-box that, Bob stopped banging, looked at me. "Peculiar," he said. Only he pronounced it, pecooliar. This was what Bob always said when he was about to critique something, or more often, someone.
       I, of course, baited him by saying, "What Bob? What's pecooliar?" I knew he was about to lay in to me, but I was an old soul, a master of detachment. Instead of finding criticisms insulting, I found them entertaining.
       "Well," Bob said, getting back to his banging, "I try everything to get you to go on about women, but you just sit over there and shake your head like you're not interested. Sometimes, I think you might be going gay on me."
       "Ya, right," I said, knowing better than to present a defense.
       "And then you go on and on about how you haven't gotten laid in over a year, as if that's some great accomplishment."
       "That is a great accomplishment."
       "All that accomplishes is making me think you've gone gay on me."
       "I'm straight, and you know it. It's just that I respect women."
       "I respect women," Bob said. "Every woman I respectively nail."
       I looked down my nose at Bob. "Women are more than a place to put it, you know."
       Bob looked up my nose. "I'm more than a place to put it, you know."
       I pulled up at a stoplight, studied Bob rolling down his window. Why was he being such an ass today? Perhaps he'd gotten a jump on his evening drinking.
       Bob stuck his head out his window, yelled at the woman in the car next to us. "My boyfriend here; the most insensitive significant other ever. All I am to him is a place to put it. I hope your boyfriend treats you better. Say, what are you doing tonight? Maybe we should get together, badmouth our men over a glass of wine."
       Hand shielding my face, I took an interest in things out my window. Maybe that's why I hated the color red--my face was always turning it. A good way to put the fire out in ones face, is to lose oneself in a cooler color. Say, maybe that's why my favorite color was blue.

      

       

****

Story 107

        Home, I closed the door. Before getting in the shower I could die for, I panned my studio apartment, saw it as a certain woman might see it for the first time.  
       "My," she might say, "what bare walls you have."
       I might laugh. "That's a monk thing; we have an aversion to clutter."
       Of course there was the clutter in the corner where I stood and wrote. Clutter in the nook where I sat and ate. Clutter on the floor where I lay and read. I moved a stack of novels so I could better see what was climbing in the spirals of my notebooks--those precious journals that housed my bare-bones words-to-live-by. Whoa, put that on your list-to-do: Sweep up dust bunnies. 
       "What's that?" the woman of my certain interest might ask, peering into the corner I never went in, where stood the blue fish chair I never sat in.
       "That?" I might say. "Nothing really. Just a bad chair my last girlfriend gave me."
       Oh, we writers; some nights we can't get a shower in for the dialogue pouring out.
       Undressing, I thought of my last girlfriend, Rachel. She'd come over and say, "How can you live like this?" I'd say, "I'm a monk." She'd say, "You're no monk, monkey boy. Monks are celibate. You have sex with me every blue moon, so climb off your monk high horse already."
       Out of the shower I thought of the positives of living alone. OK, so I was getting overrun by dust bunnies, but, for negatives, that was it. No, I'd pretty much cleaned house where negatives were concerned--those burdens that come from having a life.
       Out of the shower, I liked to pace along my wall of south windows. No, I'd wax-papered my windows so the neighbors couldn't see me naked--or worse; pacing like an inmate at the zoo. Pacing, I itemized my positives: Nobody knocking on my door. Nobody calling me on the phone. No human contact whatsoever. 
       Well, other than colleagues at work. 
       And Bob, my sidekick. And a handful of ex-girlfriends I'd taken measures to stay friends with. Oh, ya, and my movie buddy, Deirdre.
       I stopped pacing, looked at my phone. Damn, why doesn't Deirdre call? I sure could go for a movie about now. Let's see, what's playing? Oh, well, Deirdre will know.
       I stepped up to my phone. Dialing, I thanked Hollywood. No, nothing I liked more than escaping into the Big Screen.
       But wait; Deirdre wasn't home--had moved out of state.
       I slammed the phone. "Thanks for the burden, bitch. Now I got to find me a new movie buddy." 
       For a girl, Deirdre made for a good movie buddy. She didn't go to movies to have a good cry--went home to her live-in boyfriend for that. No, Deirdre, like me, went to the movies to laugh at how love made asses of us idiot humans.
       I looked at my door. Now what was there to look forward to? Then again, I was a monk. Monks didn't need anything to look forward to. Well, sure, we looked forward to death, but that was it.
       OK, then; I'd give up movies. No, that's how we monks did it; with the wave of the hand we'd give it up. Then again, there was the popcorn. Which reminded me; tonight was pork shoulder stew night. I always looked forward to pork shoulder stew night.
       Whistling, I set about doing dishes. Or, more accurately, dish. Fifteen years ago I'd received my divorce settlement; a saucepan. That's all I'd asked for. For fifteen years now I'd eaten cereal out of my pan for breakfast, salad out of my pan for lunch, stew out of my pan for dinner.
       Then again, I didn't consume everything out of my saucepan. Take red wine. Occasionally, religion was called for of an evening. Saint-Emilion was my religion. And, oh, what a clean religion mine was. Without as much as dirtying a glass, I'd chug right out of the bottle whatever level of worship was called for of an evening.
       Of course, tonight I had no saint--needed no saint.
       
       My stew boiling, I took a seat. The tenant before me must have liked the stage; she'd wallpapered my kitchen nook with depictions of Sarah Bernhardt. I had a TV, but I found conversation with my wall more engaging. There were half a dozen of these Sarah's on my wall, and I'd select a Sarah depending on what kind of energy I had left of an evening.
       This evening, I was beat, so I selected Sarah at her most provocative.

        
       By her body language, the actress seemed to be saying: "If you are my waking reality, I'm going to sleep." This was all an act, of course--an act to get me to climb the wall. Which made me feel sorry for the actress. Night after night she'd put on her pathetic play-hard-to-get. And night after night I'd refuse to bite.

       Tonight, I leaned back in my chair, said, "Ya, ya, Sarah, you're sexy and all, but where ever has sex gotten a guy of an evening?'"

       Sarah didn't say anything.

       Sarah was from an era when women had little to no say, so it always took some coaxing to get her to say anything.

       Wolfing down my stew, I coaxed. "I know, Sarah; I know you had problems with the men of your era; shoving you onto pedestals, giving you no say, all so they could better worship you as object."

       "You're right," I had Sarah say, "men in my day were idiots."

       "Not to say men of my era have evolved much. But you're lucky to be hung on the wall of the one who has. No, Sarah, turns out I'm that rare type of guy who actually encourages his pedestaled women to speak."

       "You're right," Sarah said, "you are an idiot."

       "I'm no idiot."

       "I stand corrected; you're an ass."

       I didn't say anything.

       "What you need, Anton, is a history lesson. Here, let me take you back to my era; show you what say we women had over our men."

       Sarah was always doing this; inviting me to revisit history. I liked history, so I often bit. What I didn't like was how the history lesson always ended with her--in her milieu--making an ass of me, out of mine.

       Time to talk about me in my time.

       Pivoting in my chair, I placed my pan in the sink. "Say," I said to Sarah, "that finger of yours. Ya, the one in your mouth. Reminds me of a finger I saw the other day at Student Orientation. You should have seen it; stirring a stub of a pony tail like there was no tomorrow."

       "You don't say," I had Sarah say. "Perhaps this girl--this girl with the finger--is the same girl you talked to around noon today?"

       I didn't say.

       "Yes, I believe it was--the very girl in the orchard you talked to today like there were more tomorrows."

       "Dammit," I said, sitting back, "I'm a working man, at the end of my work-a-day. The last thing I need is some dead actress giving me the third degree."

       A good way to regain the upper hand with a depiction of a dead actress, is to switch depictions. So I took my eyes off the most provocative Sarah, planted them on the most innocent. This Sarah had a finger in her mouth as well, but, by her eyes, appeared to be bombed out of her mind. Now, to get the upper hand. But wait; what's up with the innocent's other hand? Why, it's a finger I'd never noticed before.

       
       I couldn't believe it; Sarah the innocent, giving me the finger on the sly.

       "Read it," I had Sarah say. 

       I knew what she was referring to. The code of conduct I'd written on stage the day of Student Orientation. The code I didn't want to recall. For it was the very code I had had the honor and privilege of breaching at first opportunity--breached around noon today.

       Seeking escape, I closed my eyes, recalled something I'd observed the day after Orientation. I had looked up from my grounds work, and there she was, The Woman Who Wasn't Trying, passing by with that boy from the wall. Because he was keeping his hands to himself, and she was looking down, talking at him without cheer, I didn't think much of it at the time.

       I thought more of it in the days that followed, when every time I looked up, there she was, The Woman Who Wasn't Trying, looking down, walking with that same boy, talking at him without cheer. Sure, I was elated she seemed miserable in his company, yet devastated this boy-always had all the earmarks of a boyfriend.

       "Read it," I had Bernhardt say.

       I opened my eyes, stared down Sarah's middle finger. "Why?" I said. "I read it, you lay into me. I don't read it, you lay into me."

       Thank God we writers had that advantage over non-writers. When it came to the heavy lifting of leveling with ourselves, we delegated that dirty work to peripheral characters.

       I panned all my Sarah's; had them speak in unison: "And you call yourself an old soul. An old fool is all you are. The greatest gift an artist can receive was given you. A muse, a well spring of inspiration. And what do you do at first opportunity? You diffuse the muse by talking to the muse. And now that great work will never be created. The novel slated to save the world, never written. Fool; the seeds of Eden were placed in your hand. You ground them into flour."
       This nether earth-plane, enough to drive an old soul to . . .
       But tonight I had no saint. Needed no saint.

       

       I liked working weekends. Though the pager they made me wear could be a pain. I checked it now. I wore a pager so in case of an emergency--breach of security, tripped breaker, plugged toilet--the Front Desk could get ahold of me. Nope, the battery was pretty much dead, so there'd be no pain today. 
       Of course, some Saturdays, a guy doesn't feel so good. It was a little before 9AM, and I was in The Center, complaining to Marge--the Front Desk person--how I wasn't feeling so good.
       Marge rolled back in her chair. "There is that bug going around."
       "Bug?" I said, rubbing my eyes. "I wish all I got was a bug."
       "What did you get then?"
       "I think I got old overnight."
       Marge laughed. "You're not old. You're just tired. Drink some coffee."
       "Yech, you know I don't drink coffee."
       "Why are you so tired?"
       I leaned on the bar-high counter that snaked along in front of the Front Desk. "I don't know," I said, gazing at the skylight overhead. "It all started last night when I couldn't get to sleep."
       Marge rolled forward. "What, something on your mind?"
       Though these ACCW receptionists expertly carried out what was required of them--pleasant with the asses on the phone, patching up bleeding Book Arts students, playing bartender to everybody's hard-luck stories--one had to be careful when leaning on the Front Desk. The Front Desk was the hub the ACCW wheel, and these eager receptionists were the station masters of Gossip Central.
       "No, nothing on my mind," I lied. "Probably just a full moon last night."
       "No," Marge said, "it was a new moon last night." Marge wasn't young, but was all spring chicken now that she had her face in the feeding trough. "That's right, Anton, your year is about up. Who is she?"
       Since I'd signed on at the college, Marge had used her crowbar skills to pry open my private life. From that breach she had concluded, I did a girl for a year, then took a year off. Did a girl for a year, took a year off. And now I was wrapping up that year off, so, of course, she assumed I was all beav-eager to dive into yet another relationship that had wrong turn written all over it.
       "No, no," I said, "no new woman in my life. It's just that I couldn't get to sleep, so I--"
       "Really," Marge cut in, "it's a wonder you get any women with that extreme creed of yours."
       This creed--compiled from my six failed relationships--was my attempt to learn from my mistakes. Now, when woman showed an interest in me, I promptly laid my creed upon her: "I don't do kids, I don't do dogs, I don't do 'I do's'"
       "Ya, well," I said, "a guy's got to do his screening. Anyway, I couldn't get to sleep, so I--"
       "I got it," Marge cut in again. "How you could do your screening more efficiently. You could stand up at Orientation, call out your creed like the town crier. That way you wouldn't have to go around crying your creed to every freshman girl like you usually do."
       "Marge, I'm trying to tell a story here."
       "You and your stories."
       "At least they're short."
       "OK, tell me your story."
       "Ya, see, I couldn't sleep, so I says to myself, 'Hey, what you need is some wine.' Well, of course, I had no wine. So what do I do? I crawl out of bed at midnight, go get me a bottle, drink the whole thing. And now, damned if my head ain't pounding like there's no tomorrow. What you got back there, some aspirin or something?"
       While Marge searched for some drugs, I heard The Center door bang behind me. I turned. Cry me a creed! Making a beeline for student lounge was the woman of the orchard, in her hand, a beefy coffee mug she carried like a briefcase.
       "Anton," Marge yelled, slamming the aspirin bottle on the counter to break my trance.
       "Thanks," I said, snatching the bottle. "I'd better get some coffee to wash it down."
       Chasing the bobbing ponytail into the student lounge, I shook the aspirin like lucky dice. Odd, I wasn't feeling all that hung over just now. Not old at all. How about that? It was I who was all spring chicken now. I thought of Marge back at the feeding station. Maybe I'd come down too hard on Marge. After all, us forty-somethings needed some haul-ass horse to hitch our broken wagons to. So Marge hitched hers to gossip. Was I any better hitching mine to bobbing ponytails?
       The bobbing stopped at the coffee pots warming on the hotplates. A golden saying came to me then: "If you find a fountain that works, youth it."
       Sure, I wanted to quick-draw my pad and pen, harvest the gold grain. But a door had opened--the door to forgetting my old age--and if there's one door we elders knew how to haul-ass through it was that door to the never never land of forever young.
       I was reaching for a mug when the orchard woman said, "Oh, no, a bird flew in; is banging against the window."
       This called for a different mug.

       
       Yes, this wider rim was better. Even had a little bird in it--if one tipped it right.
       Off I went to save the bird.
       Hovering over the bird, a movie came to mind. "Easy, little fellow," I whispered to the bird, "I'm here to help, not hurt."
       OK, so it wasn't a whisper, exactly. Could it be that this whole Horse Whisperer scene wasn't for the bird, but to impress the girl across the way?
       It could, indeed. 
       "Calm," I said boldly, but with lots of air. "Calm, dammit. I only want to get you out the door. Ya, so you can get back to getting it on with the other birds. And bees."
       Maybe it was my bold male airs, but the bird didn't calm, kept banging its bird brains as I chased it from window to window with my big blue mug.
       Beat up and exhausted, the bird finally fell to a sill. I scooped it up, carried it out the door. Blowing out my mug, I hurried back in--had that working fountain to youth. But, damn, the fountain had left the lounge.

       Why did things keep going wrong with this girl? I had failed to talk with her at Fall Orientation. Failed worse when I had talked with her in the orchard. "Bugs are always crawling into your food. But you just don't know it." 
       Returning the mug to the shelf--the bird hadn't shit in it or anything--I took to thinking where I'd taken a wrong turn this time. No, instead of jumping to task, chasing bird, I should have stayed put, filled my cup with the fountain spilling over with youth. 
       "Damned birds," I might have said to her, "they're always flying in the door."
       "Better birds than bugs," she might have said.
       "Ya," I could have countered, "birds are always flying into my food, but I just don't know it."

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