Snippet: Starlight Lounge

There she was.  I’d seen her there every Tuesday for months standing on the corner in front of the Starlight Lounge.  She never looked like she was waiting for a bus or anything but she was waiting.  It was easy to see she was not a street person or a hooker.  She wore little white gloves like my grandmother used to wear. But this woman was not old.  She must have been in her mid twenties.

Today I had decided I would be late for work and I would wait and watch to see if she did meet someone.  There was no place really convenient for me to park and no place to sit on the street without being too obvious.  I pulled up into a driveway that went to nothing but an empty lot.  From there I could sit in my car and watch.

Today she had on a pale blue dress and white pumps.  She stood demurely looking down at the sidewalk straightening the folds of her skirt.  When she looked up and out across the street I saw that she wore glasses, some of those cat eyed ones that are in style again.  Maybe she was just a girl who liked vintage clothing or an actress going to a audition.  After all, this is Burbank.

The Starlight Lounge is one of those mysterious little bars from another time.  I never see anyone go in or out.  There is never anyone even walking by it.  But I like it because it’s quaint and clean and looks just like it probably did in 1950.  The neon is perfect and the outside is freshly painted.

I once saw a movie called Groundhog Day where the main character keeps living the same day over and over again.  I wonder if this white gloved woman is caught up in something like that and has been coming out in her white gloves every day for fifty years.

But, of course, that isn’t possible.  I turn to see if the patrol car coming through the intersection is going to stop and make me move but he just goes by.  When I turn back to my lady with the gloves, she is gone.  I like to think that she has gone to get married in Vegas, and that she is going to do it again tomorrow, and again and again.  I imagine that she doesn’t know she’s been doing this same thing for fifty years and that every day she is happy and expectant about all the years to come.

Aug. 2002

Rubye Drummond

My name is Rubye Drummond. I left three younguns and a husband back in Alabama on a hot sweaty night right after the prayer meeting. I don’t know what came over me. I sat in the hard folding chairs at the back of the little church and prayed to my precious Jesus to deliver me from the thoughts I was having. He saw fit not to deliver me so at 9 o’clock after the children and Wayne were asleep I left.

I had been planning it .. well, you couldn’t call it planning actually. It was that frame of mind kind of like daydreaming where you think of things that could be or what you would do “if”. Anyway, it was March when I first got the idea. It started with a kind of desperate feeling I got one day taking care of little Joe. Little Joe has something wrong with him. He couldn’t talk and he couldn’t walk and his little hands are curled up on his chest. He could eat but it’s hard for him. I have to feed him every bite. It makes me so sad just thinking about his big brown eyes looking at me. He is pitiful. Why does Jesus let things like that happen? I couldn’t answer that and Brother Walker from church just said, “God has his ways that we don’t always understand.” I guessed it was something I did wrong to mark him. But I don’t know why Jesus would punish someone else for what I did. Why didn’t he cripple me?

Anyway, it was then, right then, that I started to think that maybe Jesus wants me to leave. He wants me to go far away and start a new life. I got more and more sure of it. At least sometimes I did. I looked for signs. I prayed for signs.

I decided that I would save a little bit of money every week out of Wayne’s pay and if no real need for it came up, I’d know Jesus wanted me to go catch a bus and find a new life.

That night after the preacher waved me good night, I just walked on past our house out of town and down the road that lead to Birmingham and to the bus station. I could have walked all night. I was in a trance. It felt so good to think of spending the night alone with no kids and no husband. Wayne wasn’t a bad man and the kids were just kids but I was losing my mind. I’d heard of it happening to women later during the change but I never heard of a young woman having a nervous breakdown. I think you have to call it that. What else would explain what I did?

The Greyhound was there ready to take off. I knew it would be. I’d checked the time-tables so often I had them by heart. I told the woman at the ticket counter I wanted to go to Long Beach, California. She smiled and asked if my husband was on getting off on a leave there. I just nodded. It was 1944 and the bus was full of men in uniform going somewhere. There was a woman with two small children in the second row. It made me think of the kids. I pushed the thought out of my mind and told myself that Jesus gave me the sign. It’s okay to leave.

I did leave a note on the kitchen table. I told Wayne and the kids I loved them but just couldn’t stay. I said I might come back but not to count on it and to just go about their lives. Then I said I’d made a lemon meringue pie and it was in the icebox so they could have dessert tonight without me. What an ignorant thing to do. It was like I thought that would make it okay.

I hardly had any money to eat so I had to be careful. At one place where we stopped.. I think it was just over the Mississippi line ..there was a little grocery store. I went in and bought a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. That would keep me from starving and would leave me money for California.

I’d heard about Long Beach from pictures I saw on the news reels at the picture show. They mostly showed sailors and things like that but it looked pretty. There were palm trees and flowers and people seemed like there were enjoying themselves. I thought about what that would be like and it never went out of my mind. That’s how I decided on Long Beach, just that simply.

I kept visualizing it. I had to so I could keep the thoughts of the kids and what my Mother would say out of my mind. She’d be so mad at me. She’d never understand. Her life had been hard.. 10 kids and a man that would hit her when he came home. I’d heard the stories over and over and I’d seen it for myself. She’d say, “Rubye, what are you doing? Even if you want to leave Wayne, what are those babies gonna do without a Mother. A man can’t raise children. And poor little Joe he ain’t got nobody. He’ll have to go into a home. You are a sorry excuse for a woman and worse for a mother!”

I think she may have been right. I see it better now than I did then. I’m sixty-seven years old and I think I’ve spent every day living with what I thought I’d left behind. It’s not that my life has been bad. It’s just those babies and Wayne. In my mind’s eye I saw them every day. I even named my new kids after the ones I’d left there in Alabama. I know it sounds kind of crazy to do something like that but it seemed like I was paying them an honor.

I had three more babies with the man I met in Long Beach. One by one I named them.. Joe, Charles and Betty Sue. They didn’t look anything like the curly-headed blond babies I’d left in Alabama. They looked like their Daddy. All except Betty Sue and she looked like my Mama.

Bill was standing on the corner by the bus station waiting for a taxi just as I got off the bus. His black hair and dark skin was shining in the hot midday sun. He looked right at me but I looked down at the ground. It seemed like he could know everything about me just by looking. I felt like hiding and walked away down the street.

It wasn’t until a month or more later that I actually met him. I’d found a job at the post office and a little room within three blocks of the beach. I wasn’t exactly happy but I did the same things every day and that kept me from thinking too much about what I’d done. I was in the habit of taking my bag lunch to the beach and sitting on a little wall to watch the waves go in and out. I’ll never forget the day Bill came walking by and stopped right in front of me. There was no going back after that. We talked for a long time but I never told him about Wayne and the kids. I said I was an orphan. I said I had no one back in Alabama. I lied over and over for a whole lifetime. I lied to Bill and to neighbors and even to the kids later when they asked about my childhood. I didn’t want them to know about the awful thing I’d done.

I started out writing this so someone would know my story. I needed to tell it. I could hide this story or letter and it would be found after I died when they went through my belongings.

Bill and I got married in Long Beach while he was still in the service. I got to live in my Long Beach heaven with palm trees and a beach until the war was over. But, you know, I never really left Alabama or those kids. Most people probably can’t imagine how awful and shameful it feels to leave your kids. It’s unnatural and seems like it’s worse than if I’d killed somebody. If it hadn’t been for that sign from Jesus, I’d have thought I’d been possessed by the devil.

I went to church every Sunday and asked our precious Lord to deliver me from the thoughts. I told him if he’d said it was okay to leave then why was I worried all the time. I didn’t expect no answer. I’d been brought up to know that you can sin and you can be delivered. I’d heard the preacher say a million times that thing about Him working in mysterious ways. I was just going to have to wait and see what he was doing here with my life.

Now I think there wasn’t a plan. Whoever reads this can maybe find those kids I left and see if something good happened to them because I left. I’m praying that there was a plan and that I didn’t ruin their lives. I’m praying that Charles grew up big and strong and smart and that Little Joe got better or the Lord took him to Heaven and made him whole. And Betty Sue.. she was such a sweet child.. please let her have kids of her own and be a nurse or something good. Don’t let her do what I did.
Nov 2002

Snippet: Garden View

Yesterday I went to see Miss Emily.  She looked as though she knew.  You could see it in her posture, the way she moved her hands as she made the tea.  Each motion was made as though it were precious.  Each moment so important and yet so ephemeral, that you had to make yourself notice everything about it, burn it into your mind.

We sat at the little round table that looked out onto her garden.  Someone at some time had put in a picture window at just the right spot so that you could look out at the rhododendrons, and the shady grove of ferns that lined the narrow path through to this jungle of beauty to the garage.  On the window sill was a collection of small stones and an empty vase.  A garden glove had fallen to the floor and lay there so beautifully it looked like a set waiting to be painted.

The smoky scent of the tea reminded me of all the times I’d visited her before.  It had been a long time but all the miles and years since then had not dimmed those memories.

She looked at me across the table set with chunky hand crafted pottery.  It was the pottery she’d collected over the years.  I think every potter within  a hundred miles was represented.

Her smile assured me she did, indeed, know and that she was ready.  You would never have known that in two minutes or an hour or two days she would not recall I’d even been there.

Thirty years ago at the age of 18, I’d found myself alone and adrift.  I was working at the used bookstore on Lighthouse.  I didn’t really read that much but I found the old books so interesting as objects that I would spend hours handling and dusting them, and making sure they were on the proper shelves.  Miss Jamison came in regularly, always looking for books on the lives of artists or fiction about artists.  We would hold them back for her when they came in.

Slowly she came to find out my story and saw the way I looked at the books and cared for them.  I guess it was that care that made her ask me if I’d like to come work for her in exchange for a room in her home.  She wanted me to help keep the house tidy and watch after it when she went on trips.  It sounded wonderful to me because it sounded like a “home”.  I took the job.

Oct 2002

Memories of My Father

I remember sitting on the front porch swing, quietly rocking, with the sweet smell of honeysuckle hanging heavily in the humid Southern air. Lightening bugs flickered just outside the porch railing and the sliver of a moon peaked through the chinaberry tree.

That was one of my first real memories of Daddy on that warm Alabama evening when we lived in Number 8.

The sound of Mother pouring iced tea came through the open kitchen window.   All three of us sat in the swing, enjoying cooling, sweet taste

Daddy would have me touch my stomach and feel the cold of the tea inside.   He smiled.

Later on when we lived in Birmingham in the projects, I happily recall, not him exactly, but letters he wrote to Mother while he was looking for work in Michigan.   Taped to the bottom of the letters was 5 or 10 cents so each of us kids could buy Popsicles.   We’d run out with the coins and come back on a hot summer day with Popsicle sweetness running down our arms.

Then he came back to move us to Michigan.   He and Mother danced in the living room imagining their new life.   They were both excited and happy.   It filled me with joy  just looking at them.   They were full of dreams.

I remember an old radio we had.   In Michigan on cold winter nights, Daddy would tune in some show (when there were still “shows” on the radio) and we’d all gather around and listen as he found something that he knew we would like.   It felt safe and warm and cozy.

Later on as I got older I listened as he made up little nicknames for my kids just like he did for me.   And I watched him make a horsy and bounce them on his leg.

And this last February on another cold and snowy night, Dennis, Dan and I played dominoes with him.   He was so good, so quick and took such pleasure in it that I basked in what felt like a glow.   I just had to smile and still do every time I think of it.

There were so many little moments… the kind that make up life and that you don’t think about too much when they are happening.   When you stop and think about it, that is what you are left with when a person is gone.   I cherish every one of those memories I’ve mentioned and thousands of others that I had with Dad.

Spots on the Ceiling

There are exactly 78 places on my ceiling where some accident has occurred. Maybe some were not accidents, but intentional murders of various insects by someone who lived here before me. I know it wasn’t me because I capture and return to natural habitat. Most people think I’m nuts about this but I believe in karma and think one should be cautious about what he doles out in any given lifetime. I’d hate to come back as a bug, … shades of Kafka, with a frightening huge insect body.

Resting on my sofa, waiting for the phone to ring and knowing I wouldn’t answer it, I counted the blemishes again thinking of moving along to the walls. In my apartment there are only three walls, not the usual four. The reason for that and the reason I rented the place is that it has one one large almost circular wall on what would be two sides of the room. Along the top of this wall are windows, numbering 14. Yes, I’ve counted them too. On sunny days, which are almost every day in Los Angeles, the light moves across the sky casting shadows and sending millions of dust particle into view. My sofa, a very long and sleek retro thing is upholstered in a scratchy pale, almost chartreuse fabric. I like how it looks and it makes me feel like a monk doing penance when my bare back touches it. Today I have on my favorite tee shirt. It used to be my lucky shirt, or I should say one of them. This one is tattered and faded but treasured because I inherited it from my Dad who personally screen printed it for an art class in 1967.

Luck? I don’t know if I really believe in luck or not. I’m thinking I don’t, but as I’ve said, I do believe in karma. It’s been two weeks since she left and three days since I sent the letter giving her my new phone numbers, both the cell and home. The new cell number was needed because she’d taken my phone with her. She just grabbed her purse, the cell, car keys and was out the door before I could even ask why or explain, if there was anything she thought I needed to explain. She walked out just like that and my mind melted down. I couldn’t function, couldn’t stop her, couldn’t talk. She is pregnant. She stood there with her jeans unzipped, her arm across the belly perhaps to hold them up, but more likely unconsciously protecting her child. Her eyes were sad but her stance told me it was the end.

I’d sent the letter to her parent’s home because I thought she would at least check in there, even if she didn’t go back to stay. They would make sure she got anything addressed to her. I’d seen them bring over all manner of junk mail, carefully placing it in our mailbox with a short note if we were not home. When she’d tell them they didn’t need to do that, they said, they worried that something important would come and she’d miss it. I think they really just wanted an excuse to stay close, to come by the house, to talk to her in person.

As I looked at the curve in the living room wall, I was reminded of an egg and felt comforted. She and I had chosen this place together, talking the landlord into a reduction in the rent by telling him we were expecting a baby. That night we slept in sleeping bags on the floor in front of that curved wall and woke with warm sunlight raking across us. That was five months ago and it seemed like life could not get any better. I sang sappy songs to her and she snuggled up to my back as I shaved before heading off to work. I would turn and kiss her on the head and she would lay her head on my chest.
I was happy. I don’t know what happened. (to be continued)

Appearances

Oh!  How I wish I could be there. I can just imagine Fergi coming into the front room and seeing Edgar tied to that ugly green chair. It was worth it. Whatever happens to me, it was worth it. I didn’t hurt him. In fact I gave him pleasure. He thought it was a cute little sex game and never suspected I would simply leave him there, clad only in his tee shirt and socks. My god, what a loser!

I made my way down the boulevard, away from the Valley. I couldn’t wait to go up over the hill and home. As I turned onto Beverly Glen, relief poured over me and I started to laugh. How could I have ever gotten involved with such a despicable scumbag. Just a week ago I had been defending him to my girlfriend. Erica had been after me for months to dump him. Her latest rant was that she had seen him at lunch with some dumb looking blond and it very obviously, hadn’t been a business meeting. I’d said, “My God, Erica, he’s got to do that kind of thing! You know that!”

“Yeah, I sure do and so do you! Get rid of him!”

I made a face at her. She dropped the subject but made it clear by her expression that she had “told me so”.

Erica is an actor. She prefers to be called that, not “actress”. I think it’s kind of silly but it does in some way give the job more stature and seriousness. She is damned serious about it too. I’ve never known anyone who worked so hard to get her career off the ground. We met in an acting class. The first night she had done a scene from “IN THE BEDROOM”. I think she saw herself as a young version of Diane Keaton spliced with Susan Sarandon.. a sort of intelligent, brassy but complex and overtly sexual woman. She spoke with a low slow voice that came out of but did not identify her Southern background. I liked her and she was spectacular in the scene.

We met, went for a drink, talked on the phone, compared notes on our dreams and despairs. It was a bit like Sex in the City without quite so much sex and no real city, unless you consider L.A. a city.

I pulled into the parking garage under my condo, ran upstairs, unlocked and opened my door, punched the security code and headed for the kitchen. It didn’t take long. It’s not a big condo, just two bedrooms , one and a half baths. The kitchen was small but efficient and cool looking. It was my favorite part of the place with it’s black granite counters and sleek stainless appliances. It’s not that I cook. I don’t. But I like for it to look like I could at any moment. Everyone who comes here wants to cook in it and I let them, like it’s some honor. They assume I get to cook here all the time. Funny how people make assumptions like that. It’s all about appearances, just like everything else in this town.

Speaking of which, you are probably wondering what I look like. Well, I guess I’m okay looking. I do have a small scar on my forehead from when I was three and fell down some stairs. I’m tall for a woman, slim and sort of angular. I never liked that about myself but it’s worked for me. I am able to do some modeling to support my other ‘real’ life.

That’s how I met ‘scumbag’. He happened to be in the same building where I was doing a catalog shoot. I had gone to a little room they’d set aside for the “talent” and there he was chatting up some Amazonian blond with huge tits. She couldn’t be here for this shoot. It was not that kind of shoot and all the females and males had a distinctly all-American, Mid-western look. In other words, what passes as a duplicate for the average person looking at a Sears or JCPenny catalog.

I proceeded to get into some clothing laid out for me. It’s not much of a big deal to undress and dress in front of dozens of people when you are on a shoot. You often see males and females running around almost nude, screaming for someone to fix some button or hem. Scum, as I will call him here, followed my movements as he continued to chat with the big busted woman. After a bit it became clear that she was here to do make-up. Usually I can tell those girls right away. They are thin, have their hair dyed weird colors, chew gum, and have a somewhat desheveled look. I never understood that except as some kind of a uniform.

When she came to do my make-up, the big “S” came with her. he introduced himself as the art director. I should have known even then that he could not be trusted. An art director who isn’t in there talking to the photographer and his assistants isn’t interested in the photos. But then, maybe he thought it didn’t matter since a catalog shoot of this kind is pretty standard stuff. All the lighting is even, the poses are simple and straightforward. No need to give fancy art direction.

Anyway, he stayed next to me talking, getting in my way as I slid into the first outfit. He even helped the fitter pin it up so it hung right on my body and giving a nod of approval and a little pat to my hip as I left the dressing room for the studio. That night after the shoot, he asked if I’d like to go to dinner with him. He was interesting looking and probably not a complete loser if he had a good job, so I went. Turned out we had a great time, laughing, talking, comparing notes on various photographers and models. Wine wasn’t on my diet so I was certain it wasn’t alcohol that persuaded me to invite him over the next evening.

(to be continued)

Snippet: Letter

I decided to write to him again.  I wanted to watch him open the letter and see how he reacted to it.  For six months I have known about the girl.  I knew it the night he came home late and told me he’d had to stay and work on a proposal.  We, the girl and I, had met on several occasions over the last few years.  There she was at every party looking, well, “available”.   I’ve seen it lots of times and I’ve even done it myself.  So I know it when I see it.  Men can be stupid about things like that because they seem to lose the ability to be rational around a woman who is offering sex.

The letters were a brilliant solution to the torturous moments I spent at home wondering if he was really working or not.  I’d never confronted him.  I’d never even hinted that I knew.  I kept quiet.  He would just  deny it and become angry and put his fist through a wall or set his cup down hard and spill his drink or some other thing to divert attention.  It’s what he always did.

But  the letters, that was different.  They were my own ingenious form of torture.  There was no way to ignore them and no way to actually do anything about them.

Scream

Scream, scream again,

Feels like being hit by a medicine ball

Feels like wind being knocked out.

Confront and carry on.

He keeps saying “create”.

And I keep thinking

I can barely stand

Don’t tell me to “create”!

You were the one,

The one we all trusted

The one we thought knew best.

Turns out you thought you knew.

But you didn’t know.

And now, I wonder

about everything.

Snippet: Front row

I sat in the front row. I always do.  The professor walked back and forth explaining the reason why photography had become an art form.  Blah, blah, Steiglitz, blah blah, Manet, blah, blah, blah.

He never noticed anyone.  He never looked at anyone. He just kept talking to the class, not to me or even the attractive girl next to me.  I turned to see if anyone was really interested.  You couldn’t tell.  Note takers . . . they were all taking notes.

The silence was interrupted by the mechanical swish of a film winder.  I turned to see who it was and there, in the corner of the room was Steiglitz.  He had obviously come to prove that you can make art by capturing light as it plays off a man talking about photography and it’s relationship to art.

The Music

We skittered across the floor, dancing to the music as it echoed up through the floorboards to the third story and back down again around each of the rooms and stairwells. It was a strange music but seemed to fit the hour and our feet.

Tired and happy, I rested in a pool of light near the middle of the room. Outside I could hear thunder and the rain pounding down onto the sills forgetfully left open. There was a scent, a lightly flavored scent of wet concrete mixed with grass and jasmine. We rested, eyes closed taking in the sweet smell and listening as the music continued. It’s blue and then it’s pale lavender. Sometimes a spike comes out, screaming bright red or gold.

The music is from the first floor, the place with the wooden box of sound. The box doesn’t always release it’s music. It is quiet until the man comes. he comes late at night and sits in front of it.

We used to watch from tiny crevices and from under the chairs. He would come, sit, close his eyes and touch the black and white parts, gently at first. The sound would start and it would build and swirl and twirl and go up and down and soft and quiet and the swirls more and more until you felt like you were no longer in your body.

Then it began. The dancing began. At first it was cautiously in small paths near the chair or sofa. Then we became brave and moved all around the room and on the ceilings and walls. The sounds we made with our dance fit into the music and made it more than it was. We could tell that he heard us. He liked it. When a bird, or passing car or any other noises entered, he would make it part of the music. We became part of the music.

It would go on for hours. Some of us would rest and some would not. Up at the top of the house, up in the very top, the sound of feet would echo down the front stairs and then down the back and all around the water outside and the thunder and the scents of wetness. They were all part of some grand and wonderful world that we were lucky enough to live in.

Tonight, I fell to the floor in exhaustion as the music melted all of the physical world away. The crash of thunder, bright flashes of lightening and scents of wetness all became one with me and the music.