Tiny
Lights Sampler
Highlights
From Past Issues
Jump
to essay
Editor's
Notes by Susan Bono Summer 1995
Peace
and Quiet by Liz Hanselman Winter 1995
If
You Don't Ask by Laura Williford summer 1996
O
Christmas Tree, Oi Christmas Tree by Gwynn O'
Gara Winter 1996
The
Importance of Moustache Trimming by Rodney Merrill
Summer 1997
An
Exerpt from Autumn Lessons by Laura Sauter
Spring 1998
Editor's
Notes
Susan Bono Tiny
Lights Summer 1995
The hour is always late, it seems, before I call
it a day. Because I am the last one awake, it
falls on me to make the rounds, secure locks,
adjust windows, put out the cat, put out the lights,
cover the shoulders of restless sleepers. With
these small actions, sometimes grudgingly performed,
I loosen the hold of the waking world, and begin
to enter the grip of the next. Last thing before
bed, I usually end up standing at a window in
the cluttered darkness, looking out over our town's
western slopes, somnolent under a wide strip of
cloud-streaked sky.
There's never much point in star gazing; even
without a moon, the persistent glow of human habitation
fades the celestial backdrop to silver and gray.
Instead, I am drawn to contemplate the earthbound
constellations that dot the silhouetted hillsides,
each as mysterious in its own way as anything
in the heavens. I wonder about the lives around
each light, such anonymous glimmers at this distance,
but up close, how big and bright. Once in bed,
I let my eyes close over the image of these beacons,
believing somehow that they will always shine,
and that each one marks the place of a heart as
full of dreams as mine.
Back
to the Top
Peace
and Quiet
Liz Hanselman Winter
1995
I watch my three children bound toward their father's
car as it swings into my driveway. He is running
late, as usual. As he opens the car door to hug
them, they are tumbling over him, fighting for the
front seat. They are ready to be whisked away for
the holidays, to drive the five hours to Grandma's
house where his side of their family, the half of
their lives I'm not a part of, will celebrate Christmas.
They have all been sweetly washed, and the correct
numbers of socks, underwear, and toothbrushes have
been packed, along with the gifts they've carefully
made: cotton ball snowmen, bread dough ornaments,
hand-stitched sachets. I've spent the morning packaging
my young ones into little images of perfection for
the benefit of my ex-mother-in-law. They are usually
never this clean.
The car, now packed, speeds away, the shrieks and
laughter fading as I turn back into the house. I
sit for a while in this new silence. I have been
looking forward to a five day holiday without the
children. It will be my first Christmas without
them. I have taken someone's shift at work for Christmas,
in order to avoid the reluctant dinner invitation
from my father's wife. The air is cold, my living
room is getting dark. I don't stand up to switch
on the light. I think about taking a bath, but don't.
I should get up and sweep the mounds of snowflake
cutouts, castoff paper chains left by busy little
fingers. I need to sponge the glue and the oatmeal
off the dining room table. Today's dishes are balanced
on top of others in the kitchen sink. I have projects
I could resume, several years' worth, stored here
and there. But the house is too quiet.
Although I've never had one, I'm plagued with the
image of a "perfect" Christmas. The generic kind:
a peaceful family smiling round a bountiful spread,
a slow lazy morning of unwrapping gifts. The mother
looks calm and relaxed as she passes out mugs of
cider. This Christmas Eve, for the first time, I
won't be staying up till two a.m. wrapping the last
of Santa's gifts, filling stockings, kneading sweet
bread dough. I haven't sewn matching velvet dresses
and hair ribbons for the midnight mass, and I won't
be setting out a plate of cookies for Santa.
This Christmas Eve, I will take a walk alone to
see the lights. I'll look in windows for towering
trees, flickering candles. I'll notice the crisp
slap of air on my face, the clarity of the starry
sky. I'll be a spectator of this silent, sleeping
world. I'll think of my babies, probably dirty and
sticky now, dreaming in their makeshift beds at
Grandma's.
This holiday, I will read and sleep. The projects
I've wanted to finish will not get done. The paint
for the children's room will stay in the garage.
The study will still be a mess. I won't bother about
the stacks of papers on my table. It takes time
to refill a hole. I've only just found its depth.
Back
to the Top
If
You Don't Ask
Laura
K. Williford Summer
1996
Pat's headstone is a simple slab of dark polished
granite. It bears her name in large block letters
and beneath it, the years of her birth and death.
The only decorative touches are the carved roses
that bracket her name. She and I once coveted the
pink roses that lined the iron fence by the Far
Hills Avenue gate of David Cemetery. She told me
about stopping one late fall day to ask one of men
working in the flowerbeds nearby if they intended
to dig up the roses and, if so, could she have a
few? She imitated the southern drawl of the
gardener who told her, "'Every year at least one
of you ladies ask for my roses. They stay
put.'"
"I wouldn't have had the nerve to ask," I replied.
She smiled and shrugged. "Hey, if you don't ask,
you'll never know."
The roses were just starting to bloom when we buried
her there last June.
Pat
moved to Dayton at about the same time I did and
for the same reason: our husbands Greg and Michael
had accepted jobs at the newspaper, positions that
advanced their careers. We'd bought nice houses
in good neighborhoods. I was working; she was a
full time mother to their four year old daughter
and seven year old son. When we met, Pat was looking
forward to finishing her first course of chemotherapy
and Michael was recovering from his first surgery
for a malignant brain tumor.
Michael and I came to dinner on a raw March night.
The fire in the living room, the aroma of baking
bread and Pat's friendliness quickly put me at ease.
"We'd only been here two months when I found the
lump in my breast. We've been so busy coping with
my cancer that we haven't had time to make many
friends," she explained apologetically. Then she
laughed.
"To the people Greg works with, I'm 'The Wife Who
Has Cancer".They think I must be dying. Puts a real
damper on your social life."
A few weeks later, Pat and I toasted our newly formed
friendship with margaritas on the patio at Friday's
on a warm spring evening. She scooped up salsa
up with a chip.
"I can't wait until I'm done with chemo. I just
want life to be normal again, to stop thinking about
cancer all the time."
"I can't stop thinking about it either. I wish I
could talk to Michael about it, but he gets so angry
at me when I bring it up."
She nodded in sympathy. "Greg's been real supportive,
but he's so tired when he gets home from work I
hate to dump on him." She took another chip from
the basket. "People don't understand how being sick
turns your life upside down. It's nice to have someone
to talk to who understands."
In June, after a three month leave of absence, I
quit my job to take care of Michael. Driving him
to doctor's appointments, going to the pharmacy,
and making sure he took his medications on schedule
while managing the mundane details of our daily
lives was more than a full time job. I stayed busy
so I didn't have to think about what was happening
until one afternoon, after another doctor's
appointment, I heard a tiny voice in my mind telling
me that he was going to die. I helped him
into bed, closed the door and staggered down the
hall into the den. I sat in my rocking chair, feeling
as if I had been pinned under a stack of lead dental
X-ray aprons. The weight on my chest made it hard
to breathe. I could not raise my arms. I sat without
moving for hours, too stunned to cry.
Thoughts of losing Michael, of being widowed at
age 36 and losing the future I'd hoped for terrified
and depressed me. I turned to family and friends,
even a professional counselor, for help.
"They say, 'Don't be such a pessimist,' or, 'Think
positive.' I tell them I'm scared of what will happen
to me after Michael dies, and they tell me I should
pretend he's going to be fine. It's crazy."
Pat pushed the box of tissues across the coffee
table to me and waited until I stopped crying before
she spoke. "Of course you're scared. A terrible
thing is happening in your life and you have no
control over it." She turned to face the pictures
of her children on the mantel above the fireplace
and said softly, "I lie awake at night and wonder,
if I die, will my kids remember me ten years from
now?"
Michael died shortly before noon on a gray January
day after a seven week stay on the acute care ward
at Hospice. I arrived at his bedside well before
dawn and waited for daylight before calling Pat.
She brought sandwiches, black coffee, and a thermos
of hot tea for me. Until she placed the sandwich
in my hand, I had not known that I was hungry.
I stroked Michael's arm while she and I whispered
gossip. She started to tell me a story about a man
having a vasectomy. Suddenly her hands flew to her
mouth in horror.
"Oh God, do you think that bothered Michael?"
I started to giggle. "Pat, I don't think vasectomies
are a problem for him right now." We tried to muffle
our laughter, afraid the nursing staff would hear
us and think we'd lost our marbles.
About an hour later, we watched Michael's breaths
come slower and farther apart, until at last he
sighed and did not breathe again. At that moment,
Michael looked thin and frail and the room seemed
crowded to me. Even after his long illness I felt
surprised, unprepared. I looked at the people in
Michael's room: his brother, nurses, friends, co-workers,
wondering where they had come from, and asked myself,
Is that all? A few days later Pat called to
thank me. "Since my cancer was diagnosed I've never
been worried about being sick or the pain, but I've
been so afraid of dying. Michael showed me dying
wasn't hard and I'm not afraid anymore."
In the months following Michael's death, Pat and
I combed yard sales looking for good "stuff," went
to movies, visited Dayton's restaurants in search
of the perfect margarita and authentic Mexican food.
She planned a backyard flower garden and we scoured
area nurseries for plant varieties and colors she'd
chosen based on her research. She and Greg hosted
impromptu summer barbecues that lasted far into
the night. Drinking wine on their deck by the light
of citronella candles, we talked about our futures.
I asked, What will become of me? She asked, What
if the cancer comes back?
By October she winced when she sat down too quickly
and had trouble climbing stairs. A bone scan revealed
that the pain in her back and hip was recurrent
cancer. She began receiving daily radiation treatments
and started a new round of more aggressive chemotherapy
with the oncologist we mockingly referred to as
"Cheerful Chang."
That spring members of the Methodist church brought
casseroles, neighbors watched the children, others
ran to the pharmacy and the grocery store. One Saturday
afternoon, a group of friends pulled weeds in Pat's
flower garden while she supervised from her chair
on the deck. I stopped by a couple of mornings a
week just to chat or to bring her cafè lattè
from the deli. I struggled with my feelings of frustration
and inadequacy, wondering what I could do for my
best friend that someone else wasn't doing already.
I stopped to visit on Memorial Day weekend before
heading out of town and found her sitting in the
shade on the deck out back, surrounded by her husband's
cousins from Cleveland. She told me that they
had pushed her in the wheelchair to the edge of
the steps, and that she was only able to walk a
few steps without stopping to catch her breath.
The cousins from Cleveland retired to the house
but took turns coming to the screen door to check
on us. They seemed to feel guilty about leaving
Pat to my care for even a few minutes, but also
grateful to be relieved of the burden of making
cheerful conversation.
The sun felt warm on my head but the air was still
cool. Pat turned away, coughed, and spit thick mucus
into the shallow green basin on her lap. She pulled
a tissue from the box on the glass table and gingerly
wiped her mouth. Breathing heavily, she closed her
eyes for more than a minute before she spoke again.
"My neck is so stiff I can hardly turn my head."
"Let me rub it for you." I put my hands on her shoulders,
then thought, what if she gets embarrassed, or I
hurt her by mistake?
The muscles of her neck felt like stiff ropes as
I drew small circles over them with the tips of
my fingers. Her head tipped forward slowly as I
worked the spot at the base of her skull. I stood
behind her and watched the knobs of her spine protruding
from underneath her colorless skin.
Before he died, I'd spent hours rubbing lotion into
Michael's feet, massaging his arms and legs, stroking
his hair. We'd always been affectionate with touch.
Some days at Hospice it was the only way I could
be sure he knew I was there. Aside from the brief
hugs of well-wishers, I had touched no one since
his death. I felt absurdly grateful to Pat for being
allowed to rub her neck.
"You know what the worst part is about having cancer?
No one touches you anymore, not even your husband
or your kids." She burst into tears and reached
for another tissue. The intensity of her grief caught
me by surprise. I stroked her matted, tangled
hair while she cried, her head resting against my
stomach. Suddenly, I understood what I could do
for her.
"Hey girlfriend, you like having your feet rubbed?
I do a serious foot massage, with oil and everything."
I held my breath, hoping she wouldn't say no.
She turned to look up at me and wiped her nose.
"That would be heavenly."
The following Tuesday, I arrived before the children
were due home from school. I spread a towel over
the end of Pat's hospital bed and opened Michael's
old shaving kit bag which held bottles of scented
massage oil and all the other accouterments for
doing a pedicure. "Choose a scent."
She sniffed each of the bottles before choosing
one. "You know, in college, my roommates and I took
turns tickling each others' feet with this big ostrich
feather." She smiled and glanced around the room
as if someone might overhear us. "It was so decadent,
and it felt so good."
The fragrance of roses filled the living room as
I flexed her toes and her ankles, rubbed extra oil
into the dry calluses on her heels. She sighed and
thanked me. When I looked up a few minutes later,
she was asleep.
I came back several times during the next three
weeks to massage her feet. Sometimes we shared gossip
or talked about her wishes for her family. Often
we said nothing. Toward the end, she mostly slept.
The last time was in early June. I listening to
her labored breathing and the hum of the oxygen
machine, looking past the end of the hospital bed
out the tall living room windows at the trees. A
storm was coming, and the leaves and branches shook
in the wind. Then she whispered to me.
"So many people want to come see me now and I tell
Greg, no, I'm too tired. When I think about
who I want to come over, I think: Laura."
I was startled. "Why me?"
"You don't expect anything; I don't have to work
to make you feel okay about my dying." She closed
her eyes again and lay quiet so long I thought she
was asleep until she said, "You just let me be me."
Back
to the Top
O
Christmas Tree, Oi Christmas Tree
Gwynn
O'Gara
Winter 1996
Unlike some of our friends in mixed marriages,
my husband and I haven't joined the Jewnitarians
or formalized how we're going to present Godhead
to Junior. Basically we worship at the altars
of Charlie Parker and Edith Wharton. We're hanging
loose and not making a big deal about yarmulkes
or virgin births. We light candles at Chanukah
and keep crucifixes at bay. Our son is young and
doesn't need complicated theology. Except for
the foreskin question, the ride's been smooth
and simple. And fortunately, we both grew up with
Christmas trees, so this isn't an issue for us.
But a friend of mine's husband won't allow a Christmas
tree in the house and this infuriates me.
Especially because my friend is one of Kris Kringle's
daughters, weaned on reindeer milk, fortified
by fruitcake. She, her parents, and sisters, believe
that a year shouldn't go by without all the Christmas
trimmings and trappings. It's her tribe's annual
excuse to give goofy presents, eat a lot, and
be together. And now that she and her husband
have two little girls under the age of four, it
hurts her not to be able to celebrate around an
evergreen.
Hubby's too intellectual to believe in God, and
an ecologist to boot. He thinks bringing a tree
indoors and covering it with flashy baubles is
wasteful and silly. But I think his stance is
cruel. When a custom, any custom, means so much
to one partner, the other should ease up and tolerate
it. Especially since decorating a tree at the
winter solstice is an ancient practice, celebrating
the victory of life over death. As the old German
carol says,
"O Christmas Tree! Fair Christmas Tree!
A type of life eternal!"
Celebrating the cycle of death and rebirth around
a tree is a tradition that's been passed on for
millennia. The Tree of Life was central to the
Aztec, Hindu, Persian, and Scandinavian cosmologies.
The Chinese god of longevity was often pictured
sitting under a pine tree, and a tea brewed from
pine needles was taken to prolong life. Even the
Israelites borrowed the Near Eastern Tree of Life
for the Menorah.
The German Yule was a one-to-two month feast beginning
in early November during which time an evergreen
was dug up, rooted temporarily in a tub, and brought
indoors. Over the years the Yule Tree got combined
with the Paradise Tree, which was hung with apples
to symbolize eternal life. Later celebrants added
stars, angels, and garlands of roses.
Banning a Christmas tree is like banning mistletoe
or holly, which was done with little success by
the early Christians. In fact, for the first four
hundred years, the Church fathers prohibited the
decorative use of greenery as a form of pagan
idolatry. That's also when they ordered the sacred
groves to be chopped down. I hope the coming millennium
doesn't include a coalition of the fundamentalist
right and the atheist, ecologist left, who join
forces to ban greenery and Yuletide trees! But
seriously, in these days of tree farms and living
trees, what's wrong with a little pagan fun?
Christmas trees get all tied up with who we are
and what and who made us who we are. I'm hardly
a practicing Catholic: the only time I go to church
is for funerals. At the last Midnight Mass I attended,
there was mistletoe hanging from the Gothic arches,
and a couple making out in a nearby pew shocked
me so much I've never been back. But for me a
Christmas tree is sacred. It's not a religious
icon, but a ritual object. It's a conduit to my
mother who died nine years ago. Even when all
else failed, she always managed to gather my brother
and me around a Christmas tree. And not only did
we gather around it, we helped her select, carry
it home, and adorn it. Having a Christmas tree
is one of the few ways I have of celebrating and
mourning time and people passing. In other words,
it's a necessity.
Whether it's a Scotch pine or a Douglas fir, just
having a tree in our house is a pleasure. We welcome
the guest from the forest, and its sweet, resinous
fragrance fills our home. There's something primeval
about living with a tree. However, like my sure-fire
ability to pick the longest line in the grocery
store, I never fail to pick a lopsided tree missing
lots of central branches. But all trees are beautiful,
and anyway, it's not the tree that matters, it's
the ornaments.
Gewgaws festooned with sequins, pearls, velvet,
and glitter sparkle among the branches strung
with lights. So much artifice goes into celebrating
what's real. Styrofoam balls from this and that
school fair, each year nibbling at their ribbons
and doodads. We still use the cardboard Star of
David I made when my husband and I were courting
and he first came to Christmas dinner at my mother's.
Trimming a tree is about attachments, about honoring
and celebrating them. This is not the season to
perfect one's Zen-like detachment. A silver bell,
a crystal reindeer, angles from Chile, France,
the Five & 10, all reminders of parents and
grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and other
loves, some dead, some far away, some lost, some
near. They all come alive in the tree, like the
fairies and elves our ancestors believed in.
Trimming and living with a tree for a couple of
weeks is a way to connect with nature, to fight
off chaos and death, to mark our time together.
Call it a Yuletide tree, a Christmas tree, or
a Chanukah bush, but for goodness sakes, husbands
and wives, lighten up and smell the pine needles.
Let your mate trim a tree. Try it yourself! It
may seem absurd, but to many of us a Yuletide
tree is a dream of peace, a hand stretching out
from the past, a way of supporting ourselves through
the darkness. Who knows? In time you, too, might
even sing to it.
Back
to the Top
The
Importance of Moustache Trimming
Rodney
Lewis Merrill Summer
1997
I've had a moustache all of my adult life and
I'm not sure I could ever bring myself to shave
it off. One reason: The chromosomal casino dealt
me a nose shaped like an eagle's beak, a philtrum
shaped like a garden trowel, and tiny kewpie lips.
The moustache cloaks these flaws, somewhat, and
once improved my appearance.
Narcissism no longer justifies its upkeep, though.
My formerly soft, mahogany moustache is now a
mottled bristle of brown and gray. Vanity screams,
if anything, that I shave it off. Yet, I hesitate.
Not due to arrogance, but as tribute to Kim -
my high school best friend - to his family, and
to the importance something as simple as a moustache
trimming can play in shaping a young man's life.
When
I was twelve, I could no longer stand being beaten
and abused by my parents, and I convinced my grandparents
to take me in. Ma resisted the idea, but my father,
characteristically, said: "If he doesn't want
to be here, let the little bastard go."
A few weeks later, I moved to New Hampshire and
a new life. My grandparents were poor, but giving
and kind. And I met Kim Kimber, my future best
friend. He had a contagious smile and a raucous
laugh. He was tall, lanky, with a complexion of
cinnamon. His tenebrous brown eyes reached out
to embrace you, but withdrew at the same time,
something I couldn't understand until much later.
Looking
back, I realize that Kim selected me. He had many
casual friends, but his closest friends had one
thing in common: they were considered oddballs
and misfits by the other kids. We were poor. And
we admired "Black Music".
Kim was the only black kid at Lisbon Regional
School. Val, his adorable sister, was the only
black child in the
elementary wing of the same school. In fact, Kim's
family constituted the entire black population
of our town, maybe all of Grafton County.
Come to think of it, African-Americans weren't
officially "black" yet. "Polite" white folks called
them "negroes." The less polite called them "coloreds"
or "darkies." My family and most people we knew
called them "niggers." In fact, the word "nigger"
was used so casually in our house that it seemed
normal. Hearing it gave me neither pleasure nor
discomfort. Rather, it puzzled me. I never called
anyone "nigger" or "kike," or "spic". Not that
I was an especially insightful or charitable kid.
I called people "shithead" and "needle dick" without
hesitation or remorse. It's just that racial slurs
made no sense to me.
Of course, I knew by the acerbic inflection in
the word and the reaction it got that being called
"nigger" was not a good thing. When a white guy
called a black guy a nigger, the black guy had
few options. He could try to "Uncle Tom" his way
through it, fight, or run. When a white guy called
another white guy a nigger, the reaction varied.
If the slanderer said it in earnest, the other
guy usually came out swinging and cursing. If
he spoke in a sporting tone, though, most guys
took it as amicable ribbing. My father would bellow,
"Hey, 10 million niggers can't be wrong!" in response
to a guy's choice of beer or cigarettes, and everyone
would bust a gut laughing.
"What the hell's that mean?" I'd wonder. "Why
is that funny?"
I had many chores after school and never felt
up to walking to Kim's place afterward, but Kim
often appeared at my door between six and nine
o'clock, rain, snow, or sleet, having walked six
miles if he had started from home. No wonder he
was lanky!
My grandparents loved having Kim over. He ate
my grandmother's cooking and said she was a good
cook. (She wasn't.) He laughed at my grandfather's
stories and said they were funny. (They weren't.)
Kim was always welcome at our house. They said
they loved him. Well, actually, they said something
more along the line of, "He's as black as the
ace of spades, but we love him." That was probably
the best they could do.
The first time Kim invited me to his house, we
decided to walk the railroad tracks rather than
Main Street. Kim was an expert at this activity.
He floated effortlessly atop his track, sliding
one big desert-booted foot in front of the other
while I slipped from my track at regular intervals
and barked my ankles.
In the years to follow, we would walk over the
same few miles of track again and again, accumulating
hundreds of miles and leaving behind the treads
to dozens of shoes. Walking the tracks gave us
the chance to talk for hours about nothing of
consequence. And, once in awhile, it gave us the
adventure that only racing across a trestle -
just steps ahead of tons of thundering steel -
can give.
On that day, though, the tracks were quiet.
As we sauntered up the driveway, Kim's mother
waved to us through the kitchen window. The minute
we opened the door, she asked, never taking her
eyes off the floor, "You hungry?" Being teenage
boys, of course, we were.
Mrs. Kimber got two burly red apples from the
refrigerator and rinsed them under the tap. She
handed one to Kim. Then, she carefully wiped the
other with a cloth and dropped it into a napkin.
Looking at the floor again, she offered the apple
so that I could pluck from the napkin. I smiled
and said: "You needn't do all that, Mrs. Kimber.
Just do me the same as Kim."
She began sobbing. "What's wrong?" I asked, looking
to Kim for help. He took my elbow and dragged
me to another room. "Don't worry about it," he
said. "She gets that way sometimes." I sensed
the truth; he wouldn't talk about it. I later
discovered that the Kimbers routinely suffered
obscene and threatening phone calls. When they
first moved to Lisbon, the "Nigger Go Home" calls
were virtually nonstop, day and night, and they
had taken their toll on Mrs. Kimber.
I visited Kim's house more often, sometimes staying
overnight. With time, Mrs. Kimber grew more at
ease in my presence. She didn't smile at me constantly
as she had in the beginning. And a delicate, genuine
smile gradually replaced the abject, defensive
grimace that once stood in its place. She began
to take her turn in the family storytelling that
became a regular part of my sleep overs. But there
were no made-for-TV miracles. We never made physical
contact. And, though it grew less apparent, she
continued throughout our relationship to lower
her gaze when she was speaking directly to me.
Mr. Kimber, on the other hand, was a talker. I
remember one evening especially well. When he
got home from work, he came directly to the living
room, sat down with us and talked. And talked.
Mostly about how pleased he was that Kim wasn't
"nasty tar black" like some of his relatives.
About some white Jewish guy back a few generations.
"Kim inherited some of that," he said, winking,
"and turned out a beautiful bronze." I had no
idea what he was talking about or why. I just
knew it was something vital to him, so I smiled
and nodded politely.
I figured it was the lacquer talking. He was the
"lacquer man" at the local furniture factory.
Intoxicated by lacquer fumes, he often staggered
to his car after work, earning himself the reputation
as a closet drinker. He also had occasion to defend
himself against charges of drunk driving. According
to my grandfather, once a lacquer man himself,
"Walt's lacquer drunk half the time. And a few
years in the lacquer room will put a permanent
stagger on a man."
Mr. Kimber was a handsome man of medium height
and wiry build. He wore cropped but natural curly
hair - not straightened and slicked down - and
a dark thin moustache, like the ones worn by Clark
Gable, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Ernie Kouvacs.
One evening, I told him: "I'd have a moustache
just like yours - if only I could grow one." My
grandfather contended these guys had a fungus
on their lip, but I paid him no mind. Women had
make-up, hairstyling, clothes, jewelry, padded
bras, and what-not. All a guy had was his body
build and facial hair. Being 5-foot-11 and 130
pounds, I was really counting on facial hair.
"It's not so much growing a moustache," Mr. Kimber
advised. "You're man enough to grow one," he said,
smiling, "but you got to cultivate it. Want me
to show you just what I'm talking about?"
"Do I?!" I croaked in disbelief, "You mean, right
now?"
"Yeah," he chuckled. "Right now."
He careened out of the room and returned with
a shaving mug, a boar bristle brush, a straight
razor, a leather honing strap, and a towel. I
have to say I was a little worried. This wobbly
man intended to shave me with a straight razor!
Then, I remembered how I survived when my father,
drunk out of his mind, whittled away half of my
thumbnail with a modeling knife "to get at that
splinter." I survived when he poured near-boiling
olive oil in my ear "to kill the infection." What
harm could this guy do giving me a shave? Still,
watching him strop that straight razor gave me
a rush of adrenaline.
When
he finished stropping the razor, he soaped a patch
of his arm and drew the razor across it. It slid
like talc across a baby's butt. Not a nick. And
not a hair missed. I sighed and leaned back in
my chair to let the man do his thing.
First, he lathered under my nose with hot shaving
soap, then prodded the soap with his thumb, a
little this way, then that. He stepped back, crossed
his arms, and arched his back. He cocked his head
and squinted his eyes. Finally, he darted back
and pushed the side of my nose with his thumb,
moving it slightly up and off-center. He fixed
the razor under my nose, paused, then slid it
down a quarter of an inch or so. "There!" He sighed,
wiping the razor on the towel. He positioned the
razor again, this time further away from my nose
and closer to my lip. He paused, then let it slide
down. "Perfect!" he gloated. Same on the other
side. Nudge the soap. Place the razor. Zip! Nudge
the soap. Place the razor. Zip!
He wiped the remaining soap from my face with
a flutter of the towel, leaned back, and smiled.
"Oh, yeah!" he said. "Get the hand mirror, Kim."
When
I held the mirror just right, it was there, a
pale but detectable band of red, light brown,
and blond hairs set off by pallid hairlessness.
Sensing my disappointment, Mr. Kimber applied
just a wisp of colored moustache wax. "You gonna
need a lighter color," he advised, "but have a
look." And there it was!
I stayed for dinner, then slept overnight. When
I returned home the next day, I was surprised
to find my father there. His visits were rare.
Massachusetts had permanently revoked his driver's
license after several DWIs and numerous ensuing
convictions for driving with a suspended license.
He got around by bus. And that meant no drinking
along the way.
He was still drunk most of the time. When he drank,
he was the life of the party and everybody's best
buddy - at first. Then he'd take to reading peoples'
minds and hearing them say things about him. Sooner
or later, he'd punch someone or club them with
a piece of lead pipe he kept hidden at every tavern
he frequented - "just in case." Or he'd brandish
and discharge firearms.
He didn't ask much of a firstborn son. He just
wanted a buddy to drink, fight, and whoremonger
by his side. But I failed him. Once, when I was
eleven years old, he glared at me and jeered:
"I should have shot your batch into the bushes."
So, I steered clear of the guy. And I was shocked
to find him at my grandparents' house when I got
home. I thought maybe he thought it was my birthday
or something. On such occasions, when tinctured,
he sometimes got sentimental and expansive. He'd
take me into town to look at guns. Or out the
mountains to fish for brook trout. Real father
and son stuff. Never mind that I didn't like guns
or fishing.
But this day, he just sighed and said, "Stayed
over with your little nigger friend last night,
did ya, Rocky?"
"I stayed at Kim's house," I said.
"I hear you let Walt Kimber trim up your moustache."
(I had been so excited that I told my grandmother
all about it when I called to ask if I could stay
overnight.)
Unexpectedly, I visualized an old picture of my
father. In it, he is posing in World War II Army
Infantry dress uniform and sporting a long, slender,
neatly trimmed moustache. I flushed with unanticipated
delight as I realized that, finally, we had something,
if only a moustache, in common, something to share.
"Yeah," I said, beaming, "Isn't it cool? Didn't
he do a slick job?"
"Damned if I'd let a nigger hold a razor to my
throat," he snarled.
"He ain't a nigger," I mumbled, "he's Kim's dad.
He was just being nice to me."
"They're niggers, Rocky. Kim's a nigger, his father's
a nigger!" He ranted, "And you don't let any nigger
hold a razor on you! Never! What the hell do ya
want to hang around a bunch of niggers for, anyway?"
"They're not niggers!" I blurted. "It's Kim and
Val and Mr. and Mrs. Kimber."
My father raised his fist and I cringed. He'd
beaten me before. And I'd seen him down men twice
his size with a single blow. Luckily for me, my
grandparents stepped in. If this is how it's going
to be, they said, there's no point in visiting.
He cursed us, then turned and left.
I've worn a moustache ever since.
Back
to the Top
An
Excerpt from Autumn Lessons
Laura
Sauter Spring 1998
Winter is coming. The sky has turned slightly into
the north; at the zenith it is a deep boundless
blue, but behind its limpid placidity, ice threatens.
Three days ago, we woke to the sound of the first
rain, a faint susurration from the eaves; a world
blurred and obscured by water. The first rain never
lasts long; by the afternoon the sun had found us
again, but we knew. This morning it was thirty degrees
on the front porch and a skin of ice had formed
on the water bowl. In the garden, the squash, bean,
and tomato vines hung drooping and dark like dirty
flags. The still unripened tomatoes gleamed faintly
among the shriveled leaves; we pulled the plants
up and hung them in a sunny corner of the porch;
the fruit may still ripen. As always, on the day
of the first frost, we picked the pumpkins; for
some reason the vine produced only one pumpkin this
year: a giant. My daughter twisted it off its stem,
but it took my husband to carry it to the porch.
In a little more than a week it will be Halloween-All
Souls Day, The Day of the Dead, the time when the
barrier between this world and the next thins and
dissolves, becomes permeable. As the days grow shorter
and more golden, I understand why our ancestors
picked this time of year to celebrate and remember.
Life and death seem very close now, hanging together
on the same vine: lustrous green seed-globe and
withered leaf.
I find great comfort in the inevitability of the
changing seasons. Something in me relaxes, some
knot in my stomach dissolves. I give myself over
to certainty as a child takes a parent's hand. The
changing seasons cannot be controlled, outwitted,
or resisted. Nothing can be done against the coming
of winter except simple chores: patch the leak,
clean the stove pipe, lay in a supply of winter
fuel. I look forward to dark days of rain and storm
when, untempted by the sun, I can read and write
and work in cozy security.
Now the golden light calls me out-of-doors. The
hills are sere, fox-tails stick to my socks, the
light shines through the Lombardy poplars along
the road. Back in the canyons it is dank and cold,
smelling of shadows and leaf-mould. Among the redwoods,
the sun only reaches at high noon; in the mornings
the thin rime lingers for hours. The creek runs
slow and shallow; in a month it will be swollen
and turbulent. The world burns gold in a slow flame
of anticipation, as if everything, each leaf on
the willow, each ripe berry and fat seed pod, were
hanging, silhouetted in a doorway, waiting to pass
through.
Back
to the Top
|
