Part of me wanted to leave, but the other tethered me to the moment.
***
My heart wanted a race, the brain a linear road while the legs danced to the tune of idleness. Suddenly the phone rings. Rachel is on the end of the receiver.
Continue reading #ShortStory: Unfold Before My Eyes – Part 2
(Originally written in 2012, edited today.)
It’s in every home, apartment and even in garages—the fridge. For some, the fridge and in particular the fridge door, is transformed into the family bulletin board with: doctor’s reminders; kids’ arts and crafts; report cards of a “job well done!” and photos. However for me, the fridge door has had a different purpose: A cemetery of an imperfect past and an altar to perfect illusions.
I chose the right dress, a black and brown floral piece that I hadn’t worn. A garment that didn’t have the mark of error. Some argan oil was sprayed onto my split-end hair. Next I put on the vintage floral earrings I bought in a San Antonio second-hand store. The teal shawl was purchased during a trip with my mother. The weather was damp and offered opportune reason to wear the beige trench coat. I finally dressed up.
My memory fails me as to when I had last put on a dress for an official capacity. Easily more than four months. And I opened the closet to see the disarray and there it was, the bottle. I dabbed the last few drops of verbena perfume. It was supposed to be saved for a special date but then again, why not smell nice for the ultimate being instead?
You see, for some this was no regular day. Now, to be clear with you, I myself I am very unclear about the whole thing. Part of me feels that if I go past the point of no return, that if I venture too much into the whole affair, then I will be aware of some knowledge that will make it difficult for me to come back to the other side.
However, I woke up with some lines that pegged me as a sinner. Then later in the day and in my deprecating manner, I claimed to another stranger that I was so loaded with past lapses in judgement that now if I walked into the place the whole structure would come asunder. “Holy water evaporates on my skin!” And sin is relative. Maybe mine weighs differently?
So now I move the hamper. The “cleaned up” version reflected in the full-size mirror. When I looked at the boots, the bright scuffs shined. Now, since the belt was too tight around my waist, bending was a bit difficult but I managed to polish and cover the marks. It’s at this point that notice that my baby girl had clawed the leather. A bit of frustration set in, but within the nanosecond I realized I could have avoided the whole situation if only I had put things back where they belong! I was insta cool.
It didn’t matter. Where I was going they wouldn’t notice but someone above might. I combed my hair and twirled some of the ends into curls. A rarity for me but I wanted to feel special. And shouldn’t I feel special? I mean today someone gave their life for me. So surely, I must be it.
Twenty minutes were left on the clock and I put enough items in my purse to take me through. The book, some cash for donation–it’s at this point when the question of my stinginess enters. “Could I show more proof? Do I have faith? What is the cost of peace to ya?”
I gave what I had to give but sometimes not always for the best reason.
Down the block, there were promises of new luxury apartments which encroached in ghettoes. Women sat on the stoop smoking but guided me to the place. I rarely came up this way but took a wrong turn and almost blasphemed. Then I realized my soon-to-be hypocrisy. Today was the day to cease and desist.
Everything was damp. On the left and right, it seemed that every apartment was called “Mount Everly” while churches had engraved promises of “hope” and flanked by regal lions. Funeral homes took odd numbers and half blocks. Faith and Death were neighbors on this street and few ventured out. Emptiness accentuated by few stragglers made me clutch my purse. Then I see an old lady with a black fur coat clutching her cane. She took a cigarette drag. The high-bar fence separated us, but our vision was clear. Bars are no match for a union. We smiled.
But in the distance I see the long skirts and venture in their direction. Now inside the building ladies come adorned with green hats and faux pearls. Others take their fans to offset the humidity. It felt like Sunday church. I longed for my fan and hat to match. And so I promised myself that in old age I would return with a grand style.
And there she was spilling out of the chair, a beautiful purple lily with a wonderful purple hat that covered white. Her hands were like balloons, and I could just imagine eating her homemade biscuits. But then upon seeing her grace I was caught in words mixed with shame. And it wasn’t a lie but I wasn’t very clear either. She thought me one of them and I didn’t say anything further to correct the impression. I felt skinnier on my chair.
“I came early to get a seat,” I said to her.
“Oh, the brothers wouldn’t let you stand up. They would give you their seat…but you already knew that.”
And I didn’t because I wasn’t one of them. Now I kept losing the inches of my waist while she expanded like a hot air balloon.
Her voice was deep and sprung from the Carolinas. The 30 years up North didn’t dent her southern twang. The purple lily was a mother of eight and 47 years ago she had her first great-grand kid. “I stopped counting them after a while.”
Now she mourned her latest son. “He was so good, really he gave so much to others. I think too much…”
And all I could say was sorry and this was said honestly. Then the man at the front got on the podium and we laughed intermittently when he said, ” I don’t want to go to heaven! They don’t have sweet potato!”
The purple lily rolled her eyes and we laughed. Then the man spoke again: “And let’s get this right. Women didn’t bring sin. It was Man. So Man did it, we can’t blame her.”
I did my best to not say “amen” and jump off my seat. In the end, it didn’t matter who brought the sin.
“And it was through Adam that we became slaves to sin and death,” said the speaker.
But when the speaker presented himself upon the audience only the last name was given, Hickman. The memory rush kicked in.
“What are the odds?” I thought.
Hickman was the same name of the street which holds so much sorrow for me. The name for a street where my father found himself in a dead end. Now a man with more faith chose the same name. Even his skin was an opposite. A past was now reinterpreted into the present.
“Only 144,000 will be in heaven and they know who they are. It’s like when you go to a funeral and there is assigned seating. Those that are part of the family just know where to sit.”
But promises of sweet potato, wolves playing with lambs and children next to snakes were made. Cups with wine and leavened bread were passed. “This is no grape juice,” he said to bring humor.
And reminders were made of how this same moment had occurred for over two thousand centuries.
But the speaker quoted passages and I couldn’t show my lack of knowledge. Then I peeked at the purple lily and the direction in which her faithful hands flipped the pages of the book. Yes, I copied her and thought how this would make a funny story. Really, who cheats in church?
Several prayers were made. My mind went in and out. The moment ended and we all exited but I was stuck holding the door. A samaritan test. And men came out and only thanked me. And I did my best to rationalize. “The elderly couldn’t hold the door, but I still could.”
So I see them all in a file and hear countless “thank yous.” And right toward the end, I was relieved by a brother too old to hold the door. It didn’t matter, someone had to hold the door back then.
The women sit in groups of four along the stage. Their glances are part of the waiting game. Red lights cover their lips and whatever else needs to be hidden. It’s another night at the Bar San Luis.
Chepina walks past them and with an ever-ready smile.
“Hey, how are you honey?” Chepina says to one of the men at the nearby table.
He’s a regular and gets up to greet her. They exchange a handshake without her missing the strut. Chepina wears 5-inch black stilettos boots that remind you of a commander at ease inside a stiletto paradise.
“She’s the first lady,” says Gerardo with his index finger high up in the air. “We started out together when we were 19 years of age.”
Gerardo, the owner of the club, looks like a retired soap opera star with his long-swept black dyed hair. The shiny silver material of his suit makes him twinkle like a diamond in the dark. With a whiskey on his hand, he looks at the dancing women.
“All women lie about their age,” says Gerardo about how Chepina takes years away from her age.
However, no one contradicts Chepina. Now, she sees herself as a confidant.
“I just hear the men out. They just need someone to listen,” says Chepina about the changes she’s made to the dance routine.
In the heyday of her presidency, Chepina didn’t bother to have a house. She opted for first class hotel rooms but with three kids to feed, not much was left for savings. Now, Chepina has to wait in the new order where the young get to eat first.
“If I’m falling apart, then Okay. I’ll quit,” she says while she drinks a beer. “Look at me. Really, take a guess at my age? I think I got more in me. Dontcha think?”
On the dance floor, there is one newcomer in her early ’20s with long black hair. She dances with a man three times her age. The long red satin dress she wears is too big for her small frame causing the shoulder strap to fall out of place. Now her exposed brown shoulder is within kissing distance of her dance partner. She stares at the floor. He looks at the band. Without much effort, the rhythm is understood.
A dancer charges $1 per dance and to buy her a drink costs ten times as much. The paid entourage at Bar San Luis is not cheap.
“That’s how the business works!” says Gerardo.
He owns six clubs and employs 100 dancers. How the money is divided among the girls is not certain but the red lights, the live band and the reminders of the club’s 1940’s glamour are enough to hook some.
Chepina’s first time in the club was when she came on a date. The following Friday she went alone and never left–and that was several decades ago.
“I never wanted to do anything else,” says Chepina. “I mean things have changed, you look at some of these girls and they don’t have the class that we used to have back in the day.”
The bar was born in the ’40s when the danzón movement was in it’s pleno apogeo. The club has a long wooden bar, waiters don black tuxes, and the black-and-white checkered floor is reminiscent of an upscale European cafe. Now to accommodate modern tastes, a gold-stringed curtain forms a backdrop for the band. A neon light of a naked woman that sits inside a champagne glass frames the entrance of the ladies powder room.
“Everyone comes here. From the proletarians to the wealthy,” says Gerardo.
A group celebrates a birthday party and they only hang in the back. They bring their own women to the dance and take the floor until the end of the night. Instead of suits they prefer J-Crew vests while the working men dance first and wear their Sunday best.
Two regulars enter and Chepina sees her cue. She makes a straight line for them, greets them like long-lost friends, and with a laugh that overpowers the horn section.
Finally, Chepina takes the floor. The band leader gets on the microphone and says, “Chepina, show them how it’s done!”
The crowd forms a circle. She shimmies and sees the spotlight fall on the twirl of her long black skirt.
The broken pieces of glass with its residue were left unswept for days –now they’re glued to the floor. I do my best to pick them up for her.
Rachel is blind. Today she leaves for a trip and by mere chance I stopped by, however, I realized the unfolding instead.
Jan sat on a bench and under the sun’s peak light. This was his lone moment before what he felt was the “leap of faith.”
Meanwhile, joyful school children ran along the manicured lawns. Elderly Danish tourists killed time before their departing bus. The regulars read the news in Prague and enjoyed ice cream cones. Portly women with round ’70s shades used colorful rose-printed scarves to cover their over dyed hair. Another day in the Franciscan Gardens.
For them, it was normal but for Jan, the next half hour would be the longest in the millennium. He sat on the bench with legs stretched out but with crossed arms. It was almost as if he hugged himself. Then he let his face catch the rays and took a deep breath.
Next to him sat a tourist. This was her last day in his city before her own leap of faith.
Her legs showed new varicose veins earned from the long walks. With nothing else planned, she wandered into the Franciscan Gardens. She needed the rest. So she took off her sandals and lifted her skirt.
Jan noticed her.
“The sun is good today,” said Jan.
“Oh, you speak English. Yes, the sun is good. I’ve been walking for two weeks now. I need the sun to cover my veins.”
“Oh, is that why you do it?”
“Yeah, I need the camouflage.”
Both laughed.
“Where did you come from?” asked Jan.
“I was in Berlin and this is my first time in Prague. It’s really my first solo trip.”
“You?”
“I’m from Czechoslovakia but moved to the city.”
“Good for you. It’s really lovely here.”
“Yeah, things are good.”
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I started my own company. I do business development for the internet.”
“Good for you. It must be a lot of work. Glad you came to the Gardens to clear the mind.”
He laughs. “Well, I’m actually going to meet a woman in a couple of minutes. I here waiting before going over to her. My mind is not clear.”
Jan rubs his eyes and forehead.
She now laughs. “Like a lover?”
“Well, I want to be a lover for her. I don’t know why I’m saying this to you.” He laughs.
“Oh don’t worry. She must be special. It’s ok to be nervous. I’m also hoping to meet someone as well. I know how you feel.”
They both laugh again.
So Jan retells how he had met her once but he wasn’t ready. Now he hadn’t seen her for half a year and felt that it was the right time. To prove his interest he sent her 200 roses.
Now he worried. He was so busy working and hadn’t taken care of his body. Thoughts of his unattractiveness had caused him to feel ugly.
“You sent her 200 roses!?
“Yes, I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my chest. I think she’s the one.”
“You’ve won her already. Guys don’t send roses anymore. Don’t worry. If she’s meeting you, she’s interested.”
She now turns her whole body toward him to look him up and down.
“I’ve been walking the streets of your city for four days. You by far are the best looking man I’ve seen so far in Prague. Don’t worry, you are good!”
He laughs and gives her many thanks.
“Believe me, you don’t think she’s nervous? You are good looking, starting a business and send her 200 roses!”
He laughs again.
“Listen, I’m just like you. I met someone once, we’ve been writing for years and now I’ve asked him to meet me tomorrow. I don’t know what will happen, but I’m going anyway.”
“He’s written all this time?
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t know he’s in love.”
“It’s ok.”
“My name is Jan, thank you.”
“Good luck but you don’t need it.”
Jan shook her hand and had his appointment. She left and saw another city.
“Memory is the worst editor.”
But we couldn’t take notes and only wanted to listen.
***
She sat on a window seat overlooking the tarmac. There was little else to be done; in the weeks prior her mother had passed away. And although she loved her dearly, Marie now felt that the restart button was lit.
With 50 years of living in the same place, Marie could now think about leaving the small town.
Despite her age, Marie looked younger. Her face had no wrinkles and it reminded you of a polished ivory pitcher with an engraved chamomile flower.
“I never had kids, that’s how come I look so young,” she would say with a quiet smile when anyone remarked about her youthful glow.
And when one saw Marie, one also saw all the others that came before her. The remains of a French and Native Indian love affair that coursed through her veins. Her hair was thick and full as a horse’s tail with no visible grays.
There was a slow and deliberate style in her speech. When she did venture to say anything, it sounded like a faucet dripping silver.
“We’re chasing the sun, that’s how come you see those brown streaks in the sky,” she said about the sunset’s effect on the horizon as the plane traveled West.
Marie sat erect to take in the small view offered by the window seat. Despite the small chairs, Marie’s full body would easily fit without interfering with the next passenger. This was a modern miracle because Marie reminded you of a hibernating bear.
The temperature was cold inside the flight, but she wore a T-Shirt; it didn’t matter since one just wanted to be near her, like a blazing fireplace making the place cozy by proxy.
The only inkling that something was different about Marie was her skin. As opposed to her face being a virgin canvas, her left side of her body was covered in ink. She was a painted totem pole of Japanese goddesses, lotus flowers mixed with skulls and roses.
“It’s something that can never be taken away from me,” Marie would say about her tattoos. “My dad never saw them.”
Now Marie wanted to find a job out West in a tattoo parlor. She had made some friends in San Diego and they extended an invitation to finish her colored armor out there.
Now she worked as a receptionist in the only town’s tattoo parlor.
But her mother’s home and town no longer offered much for Marie. She now dated her high school sweetheart after a bad love affair with the town’s bad boy.
Although Marie had no children, she was fond of birds. This was no easy love to keep in a small New England town that received more than 70 inches of snow a year.
“I kept it warm for them, always 77 degrees,” she spoke like a proud mom.
Marie had over 100 birds inside her house. She bred them for a living, but she had some that were just for her.
“One day I came in and they were gone, all of them,” she said without a pause and without emotion. “He did it. He killed them.”
So Marie left that day.
“First I’m visiting cousins but then I’m going to San Diego. It will be nice there,” she said as the plane landed.
Copyrighted Jumahchaguan.com
All she remembers of the thought was that she climbed up the stairs to the second floor of a warehouse. The late-afternoon light, which entered through the large windows, cast a glow on the shelves. The sign above the aisles read “Pens.” And on the shelves were milk crates filled to the brim with these pens. Men, working against the clock, formed never-ending lines and put more crates on the shelves. She found herself without her camera and asked to return.
They told her she could.
***
Something crept among them. The first case was noticed in the northwest quadrant.
It was discovered that a yellow Bic pen started to bleed at the bottom. When it was asked what was wrong, it no longer could write, but only draw out eight blank lines. Then the other Bic pens in the shelf exhibited the same symptoms. Each pen drew out eight blank lines and became silent for ever more.
“How many cases have been reported?” wrote Chief General Carver Duofold. This pen oversaw the clandestine PLUMA group.
“General, well, we think we have about 200 crates, all in all we estimate about 200,000 fellow pens,” wrote Secretary Monteblanco.
General Duofold had not seen anything like this in his lifetime. He came from a long line of leaders who helped pen wonderful ideas. Now he feared the worst. How could more ideas come about if they, the pens for restrained and sophisticated writing, were gone?
Right before the start of the evening shift she stands across the storefront. Its her daily ritual to pause and look up at the sign that adorns the store.
” ‘Free People,’ I love this store, but I’ve never been in it,” says Shelley. “The name just makes me happy. Ya know what I mean?”
Shelley always has a new hairdo: sometimes a pixie with a purple streak or other times a tight bob.
“Girl, they’re wigs…. it’s easy!” she says with a laugh as she pushes the trash bin.
Her smile is her make up. She always has it on. About her laugh, one can think of what it would be like to taste honey mixed with sugar.
“Hey, ya gotta job for me? Know of any thang?” asks smiling Shelley of those she’s come to trust while riding the elevator.
Those that get off wish they knew of something.
So Shelley comes and picks up the trash, straightens the office chairs so those same workers return to find their space unexpectedly brand new and ready for a brand new day.
If you are there after working hours and she trusts you, then she’ll speak about her love life.
“I got this young boy, he’s like ‘I want to be with you, I think I can straighten myself up with you,’ ” says Shelley with wide eyes. ” I’m like, ‘whoa, whoa, hold on partnah. I’m workin’ on me, I don’t got time for fixin’ anyone else up. Ya know what I mean? ‘ ”
Like many, money is tight for Shelley. She used to go to “da club.”
“I had people make room for me. They’d just stand back and watch me move!” says Shelley with the pride of a Soul Train diva.
But Shelley no longer goes to the club. Instead, she stands in front of her house mirror and plays ’70s radio. She turns, moves her arms and feels sexy in front of the mirror.
“I got to keep circulatin’, keep it movin,’ ” she tells herself on a Saturday night.
Shelley has to wait. Last year her hip was removed and replaced. The funny thing is that one ever notices her limp.
Rather, we think of the fast-moving sun that we can’t fully see but still feel its rays.
Ask anyone, the lady can dress.
Regardless of the day she wears fuschia blazers on gray dirt roads and desert heats. She commands her linen to defy wrinkles while on bus seats. Leopards gladly give their spots to her.
And when a pair of shoes doesn’t color match, then a quick trip to the corner store to find the dye to match. The same pair of shoes transforms to fuschia then lavender and finally to a lime-green in one summer alone.
“I always wore heels, even on unpaved roads!” she gloats about her ability to master the art of high-heel walking. “I went to the delivery room in platform shoes.”
Yes, the lady speaks little English but understands Coco, Yves and, of course, Oscar. She understands them so well, that she’s on intimate first name basis. As far as she’s concerned: The great ones live in eternity.
“Es clásico!” she dictates when one of her daughters begrudgingly tries on a navy vintage Ralph Lauren blazer with shoulder pads that would make 5-Star general jealous.
“Mom, this is an 80s blazer!” her daughter complains. “It’s no longer in style.”
But her daughter is wrong. The ’80s fad comes back again and even H&M makes a fortune. The Hispters have met their match in this motherly tastemaker. (Her daughter now refuses to toss the blazer.)
But crossing the USA street sometimes changes your suit. For over two decades now, the lady wears a Maitre d’ uniform. She had to trade the teal mini skirts for black slacks.
However, the fashion guardian angels strike and awake you like lightning. Her white blouse now has lace along the edges, the black vest is adorned with well-chosen teal pins. Her nails are always in lacquer. The hair is pressed so evenly that tar workers stand back in wonder.
Her lips look better in corals but she won’t stay away from shiny browns.
“Your face is your presentation card,” she says as she puts on her makeup. “It’s part of the uniform.”
But on days when she’s not working. She walks in her closet. With her eyes close she imagines herself in the Champs-Élysées. The Lady picks out a hat and wears shades. Finally after 58 years, the grand dame will cross the Atlantic.
“The lady prepares for the Mecca,” her daughter thinks as she sits on the bed. She holds happy tears and watches the fashion show.
And the lady still wears herself as always, our accessible fashion icon. Her catwalk is everywhere.
jumahchaguan 