OCR Text |
Show Pag a Two .... w S5stlii " Future Past ...story by Annette Thornbury "The first thing next spring," he said, "as soon as it's not raining all the time, we'll have to do some heavy hiking." There was a draft squealing through a crack in the window where the stripping had come off last summer. He had never bothered to fix it, she suspected, because it was on her side of the car. She took her hands out of her pockets to get them cold enough to feel the warmth when she put them back in again. He pushed the lighter in and set a cigarette between his lips. "Howusthatsound?" "It's too cold to think about it," she said. "Ask me in the spring." As though she would still be around him in spring. But not to have siad it would have been too brusque. It had been a chance to get it said, and again she had let it go by. The lighter popped out and he held it to his cigarette. The tip glowed red in the dark, and brighter when he drew on it. "And if it's a rainy spring we can go to Mexico and fish. Not off Baja or those tourist places. Someplace isolated, where it's warm." " are y0u, my social chairman?" she demanded. "Why the hell didn't you get this window fixed?" "It was on your side of the car," he said. "And when it gets too hot in Mexico, we can goto Washington or Oregon. Maybe Alaska. Think you could dig Alaska?" "Not broke I couldn't. Where would we get the money?" "Remember," he said, "last summer, when you said we could go to Alaska as brother and sister and I could be the pimp and you " "No I don't remember that." He grinned. "It was your idea. You said it would be very lucrative because the ratio of men to women is five to one." She sat silent. "OK," he said cheerfully. "We'll be tourists instead." He did not understand that she did not want to go to Alaska to practice free enterprise en-terprise aad that she simply did not want to go to Alaska. Or to Mexico, or hiking, or anywhere else with him next spring. He did not understand, and every time she passed up an opportunity to make him understand, she was making it easier for him to think all thiis was not going to end someday. She pushed in the lighter a little harder than necessary and wrenched it out. "That," he said, "is why I didn't fix the window. You are insufferable to my lighter"." The day after I sprained my ankle at Peter's house I began to understand that in Germany, pain is not taken seriously. There was sort of an existential void about it. If you were not careful at the time, then naturally you could expect an accident, and should not be coddled fa ft irresponsibility. "They're all Prussians," I told Ife hurts." "Soak it," Mona said. Monawasff-love Monawasff-love with Germany and wanted to bet lated into the culture. "Soak itl I can't even walk i bathroom." Mona glanced at me, irritated thatl: wallow in private pain. "You ski walking on it all you can. Peters'-; hiking to some other villages r That's a perfect chance to exercises The perfect chance took mybulte annd I across rain-damp meadowjs-spread meadowjs-spread to some pine trees covering tj-f over irrigation ditches and down sr.: path that I thought would be ires joyable if I could submerge my aft-But aft-But Peter and Mona were already far ;-of ;-of me, his hunched form drapedk: nunrnn-it har kininiorl hflaH hflhn'.' and down red when she stepped n-over n-over rocks. But being alone together : them time to talk about Jim, Peter'sbr who the summer before had m Mona with steak and yogurt and w " who she missed. Jim was homer thesis on Moby Dick, and in Jure -coming over too. Mona had said tre -months's wait was going to kill. At the bottom of the hill before village, Peter stopped and looked te me. "Come on, "Mona yelled, tsrr bad, is it?" Peter called. I wished pain and destruction on both, and called back cheerfully that enjoying the countryside. They waited there for me, squelched through the mud up toi' church with a bell tower. Pew knees almost unnoticeably before in, but we only scraped the ir shoes since we were rear side, after my eyes could i gloom and I became accustomed '; smell, I limped down the a, e W j Itt was empty, but Peters.,! "Look on the walls," e said, at gold-framed icons of reds and purples and gold l two or three hundred years' masterpieces. Done for the men who felt they were returning their talent." u I sat down inapwtW my weight off my foot T, gone down but, bound in loosely-tied boot, it was re ; my leg almost tc .my hiP- J ; of the humble church, kne.., set in and I was going e four hours, far loved me. Peter. parents and attend to sh 0, home, and my coffir silence-cloaked f bravely Stoic family a sation-seekinpass Kag Five " it " once." "Because someday I picture myself having a little informal chat with some people about authors we've read, and someone will mention Hedda Gabler and I'll say 'Oh yeal I took a class in Ibsen once." "God!" she laughed loudly. "What an ego. Namedropper." "Not that," I said earnestly. "Really. Just a little scenario in my head. I want to take this class for a one-liner I'll probably never get to usse. What does that tell you about my psyche?" "That, God, you're weird." She sipped some coffee and wiped her mouth with a paper pa-per napkin. "Maybe," she said, deliberately serious, "It's really pretty scary to you now so you put it in the future where you can look back on it. Softened by memory into something some-thing quaint and lovely. Like us sitting here'll be someday." She studied me evenly. "Actually "Ac-tually Ibsen's not that bad. He was just a little tormented." Not far from home he pulled the car into an all-night supermarket. "We're out of coffee," he said and opened the car door. "You're out of coffee," she said. "I have plenty at my house." He hesitated. "You wouldn't want to bring it over, would you? Since you usually eat at (continued on page 6) 1 fuWrePast icontinuw ( want to snow 3 Come on, rew the farms. yu oneu t he all right if I stayed here?" TSat -ein annoyance "I'm M" Tmy whole leg hurts now." sorry,, W1 " ' . eXactly the worst thing "pl d. "You shouldn't quit. You I gZZ walking on it. This farm I 1 should keep unusua Hm Meer V SrS waterfalls from his irrigation caHea'nd Mona walked out chattering softly, n3 he moment before I pulled myself up ! I gangrene shoot through my leg I ' . an atheistic prayer that this would be over and I could simply have it to look back on painlessly. HoTuiedTnto the intersection when the r turned green and the back wheels slid. Bthat guy you were talking to?" he asked. Taf handsome devil in the plaid thing. God was he putting the moves on you." to was in a class I had once. Funny. I never said one word to him that whole barter He's in architectural psychology and , hes doing a project on how certain shapes off rooms cause emotional stress. Like when l vou're too closed in you tend to get irritated easily or if ceilings are too high it can create feelings of distance from other people." "Thafs been done before," he said and stubbbed his cigarette out. A few ashes fell, red fireworks, and died before they hit the doormat. "Why doesn't he do something original?" . "Maybe ifs original to him. "Naive guy, isn't he? Ask you out?" () "Of course he didn't ask me out. I was ' with you." t "That shouldn't stop him." The pettiness of it angered her. Controlled, HI joking pettiness because he really didn't think she could enjoy someone else all that much. No danger there. Mentioning it because he was making her feel appreciated. Because of it she resisted retorting that he had been doing all right with that blonde. She refused to mention it and give him the satisfaction. She had felt honest relief to see him being charming with someone else, because maybe there was a chance of the beginning of letting go. "You see that blonde chick I was talking to??" "Yes. She's very pretty." He pushed the lighter in again and she reached over and stubbed her cigarette out. "No kidding," he said emphatically. "Was she interesting?" She fumbled to get another cigarette out of the pack. "Ballet major. Almost made it in the Radio City Rockettes. Studied in Europe under some big name guy. She's been on TV too. Inn a chorus line." "It sounds glamorous. And anyone who'd go in for that much hard work is well, admirable." He pulled the lighter out carefully. "She's too hung up on her body. She kept passing the hors d'oeuvres on and she wouldn't drink anything but a diet ginger ale. By the way," he said, and handed her the lighter, "you ate like a horse." "I was hungry." She held back that they should have eaten before they left home. It sounded too homey. "You weren't nervous about me? I mean, she was a looker." In the glow from the dashbooard she could see him smiling. "Why should I be nervous when you talk to people? I was glad you were talking to her. I was having a good time. Why shouldn't you? By the way," she said, and flicked ashed out the crack, "I may eat like a horse but 1 have a splendid personality." "Good," he said. "It's good you weren't jealous or anything. I guess. you trust me more than I trust you." He took a long drag and tapped the ashes off. He did not understand that trust was not the pant at all. And one more time she did not explain what the point was. It did no good to hold things back, because the things you did not say could not hurt people But it was too hard to say the things that would. "Henrik Ibsen," I said. "I'll take that " Ibsen s a bitch," Susan said. "He was all tormented." "I'll need another three-hour class." She flipped through the class schedule. "Loook. Here's a nice one in Realism Versus Symbolism. Thafs three hours." "Nope. You tell somebody you took that and it sounds garbled. 'Ibsen' sounds concise. Sort of exotic." "How many books have you read by their covers lately?" I reached in the bag for another doughnut. They were still warm and sweet glaze stuck to my fingers. "Don't eat the Bismark," she saaid. "Really we should have cider with these." "Perfect," she said and looked up from the schedule. "Do they have it?" I looked over the grill where the edibles were listed. "You got a quarter?" "No," she said, despondent. "We bought coffee with it." She stared at her cup. "Coffee just doesn't make it after you think about cider. Ohwell," and reached in the sack for the Bismarck, "theirs is probably cold cider. I meant real cider. Hot with whole cinnamon sticks in it. Cold cider is the product of an inflationary economy." The cafe door opened and a boy and a girl and a gust of cold air came in. Outside the door I could see red-brown leaves pressed into the corner. "What the hell are you going to do with economics?" "What the hell are you going to do with Ibsen?" "You want the godawful insane truth?" "Sure," she said, and cherry filling squeezed out where she sank her teeth into sugar-coated dough, "luzapsychmajor- Age Tired and old her voice like a paper thin brown moth rustles and scratches through the room she searches memories sifting through rusty wire mesh screens senses no escape and lies back down where sheets camouflage her fears Joan Bramlette "No," she said "When I look back on ft don't want to say all I did was watch & movies." "Okay," he said "But when we're old won't be able to watch Kirk Douglas becaus they'll be showing Elliot Gould." "I don't want to watch movies...evei." And I don't want to go to Alaska and don't want to go to Mexico. I just want iti be two years from now when I'll be stab! and alone and maybe juat maybe, happy. He held out a wedge of orange to her ar patted the space next to him on the court "'What's the matter?" he said when sb took it and sat down. "Haven't you tej getting enough attention?" The swelling in her foot had gone to the next day and she got a Dplus in the Ibss class and there was no scar from the biopsy "I don't want any attention," she sis; ped. "All right," he said agreeably and tuns back to the television. And in a little she got up and went in the kitchen and rest a magazine article about life on the kibbutz And in a little while she did not go home. myself in the mirror. In the white robe, my hair pulled back and my color washed out by the light, strong and clear and cynical, I looked frail, I thought. Not wan, maybe, but frail. Like Beth in Little Woman. Not pitiful, because of my inner strength. A Trojan. I knew he was only being polite to call i a lump. I would rise above my deformity. "They're not taking it off, are they?" Beck asked me later in the cafeteria, propping her French book at an angle on her purse. "No, not this time." "Look," she said and grinned. "I've known a million people who've had biopsies. No big deal. You want some coffee?" "You know," said Jack, " if they did take booth of them off, you could walk around topless and never get arrested for indecent exposure." "I'm not really worried about it," I said. "It's just one of those things you have to live with. I'd like to have it over with." "You probably dig all the attention,"Jack saaid. "My sister sure did when she had hers. I think it's a big women's plot against mankind to make us appreciate them." Beck's head shot up. "Women are a part of mankind." Kirk Douglas smoothed his collar. There are two kinds of women," he said. "Mothers and the other kinds." "Just old movies,"she said. "And I," said Kirk Douglas,"know which kind she is." "I'd sort of like to read." "You can read at your house. While you're eating your mozarella cheese." "There are two kinds of men," Susan Hayward said. "And I know how to handle both of them." "All right," she said. "I'll finish my cigarette.." At the end of the commerical she stood up. "Don't you waant to watch the end of the movie? To see how it comes out?" "I know how it will come out. They'll bitch at one another till they get married and then they'll keep on bitching." "This is high class bitching. These are a couple of tough guys." "But it'll have a happy ending." "And you don't believe in 'em." "I've never seen any." He looked at her, amazed at the gap in her loogic. "Then watch the MOVIE." I Future Past (continued from page 5) my place anyway." She stared at him impatiently. '1 bought food all last week." She stopped and looked out her window. Pettiness. "You're just mad about that blonde." She pulled the handle back and stepped into a pile of cold slush and slammed the door and walked in ahead of him. Nearly midnight and there were lines at the check-stands. check-stands. Behind her he had stopped in front of the oranges and was feeling the skins for ke paying for rinds. She picked up a slab of mozarella cheese in a plastic wrapper, a package of hot dogs, andd a jar of relish. She found him comparing com-paring prices on jars of coffee, blocking traffic with his cart. She ignored him and started to push the cart down the aisle. A woman in a mauve silk dress probably coming from a party too stared at her. "I believe that belongs to that genteleman." "So does this," she said, and dumped her cache into the cart. She trundled it down the aisle and aot into line behind a man with a cart filled with bread loaves and rolls and hamburger and hot dog buns and graham crackers. There was a gallon of milk sitting in the kiddie seat. "See this guy?" she said when he joined her holding a $1.49 jar of coffee. "He's the warden. Buying food for the prisoners. Bread and milk, like they told us in school." "That old broad thought you were shopliftiing my cart," he said. "I must look like somebody's moll." "A little." At the next check stand there was another couple in dungarees buying a box of macaroni and a giant Pepsi. The girl was speaking, smiling, and the boy was watching her, a smile growing on his face too as he listened. Other people, she thought. Probably that mauve woman wouldn't have said anything to that girl about the cart. She would have guessed they were together. She turned around and looked at him. He was staring at the canned peaches display. Six cans for a dollar. "It's nothing to be afraid of," the doctor said leaning over me," but I think we ought to have it taken care of." "Fine," I said. "When?" "As soon as possible. Next Monday?" "Fine," I said. He took my hand and pressed my fingers on the lump. "It's not too far under the surface so it won't be at all difficult. Can you feel it?" "Yes. What about the other one?" - "No problem," he said. "We'll numb the area and then give you a tranquilizer. There should be very little discomfort. A calm person per-son like yourself is the best kind to operate on." He patted my hand and smiled. "See you Monday then." After he. had gone I sat up and looked at "Except when they plot like this," he said and sucked resolutely on his straw till he made a loud rattling slurp at the bottom. "It's no plot,"l said. "I hate him when he's like this," Beck said to me. "Hate is a base emotion," said Jack. "We in mankind do not have it." I laughed. "Damn you guys. You won't let me feel sorry for myself." "Another trait of womankind." Beck slammed her book shut and stood up. "I'm getting some coffee." "Get me another coke," he said and watched her weave her way between the tables over to the line. "I have a feeling she's not going to get me another coke." I pulled a cigarette out and he lit a match for me. "Just think, in five years when we're all middle-class, middle-class, we'll have you to all our parties. You'll be a good conversation piece." And we'll look back on this and you'll feel bad because you made fun of me." Never," he said "I never look back It makes the sordid present too disappointing." It wasn't until they got to his house that he noticed what she had bought. "Why'd you get all this crap?" It looked good." "But I don't like mozarella cheese." - "Well, I do." - "Then take it to your house." He set it on the counter and dug in the sack for an orange. He did not offer her one but went into the living room and turned on the television. She set her mouth and dug in the drawer for some scissors and cut open the cheese package. And then she stopped, and put the scissors back in the drawer and placed the cheese on a shelf in the remgerator. She went in the living room and sat down and lit a cigarette. "There's nothing on," she said. Signpost He sat silent, undreaming. In a parched fever Mute signpost on the road to water. Travelers offered dry biscuits and commiseration But continued quickly on As the sun rose and spread. Others of easier conscience Stole his boots Checked his dry canteen Discarded it then picked it up again Salvaged what they could From another casualty In a long line. A student mistook him for a saint of sorts, A wiseman or a priest. Told him her uncle had known Gibran, Asked him what he saw What peace he found In barren hills And sun-baked plain, Begged him for a copy of the book When published Revealing mystic visions New insights, simple truths. She soon left, Leaving name address and phone. He sat silent, undreaming. In a parched fever Mute signpost on the road to water. ' ,,.,i., Michael Witbeck |