2000 Deciduous Trees : Memories of a Zine (9781937316051) (3 page)

With some instruction I had no trouble
seeing any of them.

We talked every few weeks after that and
wrote as often. She realized I couldn't very well lock the doors to
my little shop and go to New Zealand just for a personal visit. But
in due time she found a friend who was willing to take care of the
farm for a few weeks in exchange for what seemed to me to be an
excessive demand of mutton and fleece. I was horrified to think of
three baby lambs being slaughtered for my benefit, however
indirect. But Mary seemed happy with the trade and informed me she
would be coming in October.

I made arrangements for her as best I could.
The carpet cleaners came, and I enlisted the high school boy from
across the hall to fix my shower. I bought a few clothes. At first
I had chosen four new shirts, but realizing that she would
immediately see my efforts to impress her I limited my purchases to
one white shirt with double button sleeves and one without. I spoke
with a sales representative in the necktie department but could not
quite find something I liked, assuming she was opposed to yellow
dots which I expected she was since I was so surprised to find that
I myself had liked them.

For three weeks before she was to come all I
did was sit very cautiously in my apartment trying very carefully
not to get anything dirty. And I suppose just to shock me with some
superstitious meaning, only days before her arrival the Earth fell
from its silver strand. It landed where the dog could find it and I
heard him from the other room rasping and choking with intermittent
whines. He solicited my pity and I stroked him gently as he coughed
against whatever it was he had found. But when I finally looked
into his mouth I found it was full of wool.

I ran into the next room and found the Earth
on the floor, wet and drawn. “Shit. And she's coming so soon."
After the thing dried I sat with glue and rearranged a bit of the
South American continent, mimicking its geography to the best of my
recollection. It was certainly not the same, and there was no doubt
in my mind she would notice but I hung the Earth again with several
pieces of fishing line and hurried off to meet her plane.

FOR THE MAN WHO BOUGHT ME COFFEE AND WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD
SOON AFTER

I have seen your

smile often tonight

lying on the freezer floor.

Did you know it would

happen when you pulled

up a chair and called me

beautiful?

Did you put a prayer

in my little white cup?

Were you talking to strangers

(funny to think me strange)

to avoid your thoughts?

You knew they were

coming, didn't you?

But you didn't know when.

So much like the rest of us

but sooner.

Was I safe to you

or did I look naive and happy?

Were you just glad someone would

go on?

And the thought of you—

who flattered me with no reserve,

wanted absolutely nothing,

and felt so good—

kneeling down with a couple of

friends in the freezer

(one on either side, I'll bet)

hands tied behind your back

looking at the door.

Hoping someone would come for you.

Wishing they hadn't.

And why did they come?

I suppose it's rude to ask.

Scared. Were you scared?

How long did you kneel there

with their words over you?

I'm glad it was cold.

I hope you were numb for your

execution.

I certainly hope you were.

I don't know why I didn't hear you

cry out. Voice submerged

by always-on-top-flattery,

beautiful faces, French,

and laughing cigarettes.

But I do remember your leaning

closer than I might have expected.

and I do remember your looking into

my eyes, hiding something

precious in me.

Anyway,

Thank you for the coffee

and for stabbing your smile

deep enough.

HOLLACE AND SOME
GIRL

Black shoes need shining at the airport and
grab a newspaper too. Hollace Dupree sat behind his paper not so
much reading it as thanking it for dividing him from the throngs of
travelers and from the shoeshiner. At page fourteen, he thought
slowly whether he should have a glass of orange juice or a nice cup
of coffee before his flight. Both would cost way too much, but he
was above taking a thermos to the airport and actually hadn't
thought of that until just now. He hated flying coach. The
complimentary beverages on the plane could not be trusted unless
carbonated. Airplane coffee was mealy and the orange juice often
had a metallic taste or worse, had to be consumed from a miniscule
plastic tub.

After nodding, smiling, and tipping the
burly shoeshiner in a grand act of escape, Mr. Dupree strode across
the wide corridor breaking through streams of early-morning
travelers without much notice to family integrity, shopping bags
bearing the visages of cartoon characters, or the momentum of
gaggles of flight attendants with their wheeled carry-ons. All the
various looks of disgust were lost on Hollace Dupree who moved
through life from one destination to another head down and
inattentive to others. Coffee. Small. Black. Thank you.

Once seated on the plane after a suitable
wait at the gate and the usual boarding of the vessel by rows
starting from the rear, Hollace Dupree watched the airport staff
from his window without interest. He kept an eye on the conveyor
belt half hoping to catch sight of his own bags being loaded onto
the plane. He was uneasy and thought that if his bags were on the
plane then he was certainly going to the right place.

As interesting as the search for his luggage
was, it was the men who were working under the plane that
eventually held his attention. The gloves and the uniforms and the
grease were all such glorious accessories to the fuel lines,
baggage carts, meal trucks, and so on which were teeming around the
huge jet. A man holding fluorescent flashlights stood back from the
crowd adjusting his knee pads. His brown curls set themselves free
of a cap and then disappeared again, sweating. As the jet engines
began to roar several of the workers, pulling off gloves and
turning their faces toward the cold morning sun, laughed together
over something easily understood while wearing ear protection.

Upon witnessing their laughter Hollace felt
himself the intruder. He looked away quickly not having meant any
harm. He concentrated instead on the crease in his pants, pinching
it together at various points and assuring its crisp
respectability. Then he turned to the safety card for a minute and
focused thoughts about a water landing. It seemed an impossibility
that his seat could in any way become a flotation device. Some
child had left a drawing in the seat pocket. It was a bawdy array
of ogres and what might have passed for either a princess or a
rather sick-making pile of fruit. Hollace reviewed the sheet from
several perspectives and replaced it gingerly behind the onboard
catalog. He ran his finger across the bendable wire that would
close the bag which Mr. Dupree had always thought suited popcorn
more than human emesis. His eyes avoided the window. But he decided
that once the plane was on the runway it would be okay to watch
during takeoff. For now he just waited.

It was a business flight in 1999. Virtually
every passenger had some combination of the following items: power
suit, laptop computer, Wall Street Journal, important-looking data
sheets, stapled piles of something or other to review, and coffee.
Hollace Dupree was not an exception. Hollace Dupree was never an
exception. He wore a gray suit and a white shirt. His tie was
interesting but conservative and most likely was purchased in a
department store. He had not traveled beyond what his business
required, and this morning he was returning home from somewhere
else. He did not have gifts to take home for anyone and would not
consider finding anyone for whom to take gifts home. Hollace
unknowingly defined himself through his career. He attended charity
functions with clients, played golf and tennis with clients, went
to an Episcopal church to meet new clients, and sent sympathy cards
when his clients passed away. He was an accountant.

Without another thing to look at in order to
pass the time, Hollace wondered whether it were worth soliciting
some amenity from the airline woman who was near enough to be
asked. But as he tried to decide between creamer which he didn't
need for the coffee or a pillow which would take up too much of his
tiny allotment of space, the flight attendant’s attention was drawn
toward the front of the plane.

Hollace looked to see what could possibly
have preempted his needs.

Never had he witnessed such an abomination.
There, on the rubber mat outside the cockpit, stood a girl. Not so
unremarkable even on a 6:07 a.m. business flight, but this girl was
wearing a hot pink gown with hoop skirts.

The skirt must have been made with at least
fifteen yards of material and there was bulk and fluff added by
several layers of crinolines and other undergarments. The skirt was
accompanied by an extremely tight bodice. There were times when
women had ribs removed to fit themselves into such bodices, and one
wondered whether this girl had required such an operation. Several
vertical shafts seemed to run through the bodice. And a panel of
white muslin was brought together in an even more restraining
manner by a network of ribbons. The supposed concept of this
invention was that it allowed her bosom to sit so precariously that
it might at any time happen to fall into plain view.

She boarded the plane at 6:05 a.m. in a fit
of rage. Her arms were flying around her, at one moment wiping away
tears, at another tugging at the skirt that would not fit into the
aisle. And those same arms seemed to reflect utter despair which
required much attention. She snapped at the flight attendant.
"What—? Do you have a problem? You could help me, you know, you and
your polyester-perfect polka dot bow tie. What is up with that bow
tie? How do you get that ridiculous ribbon so tangled around your
neck and make it look intentional? Huh? And that manicure too. Red.
You have all those same red nails. Do you think I want to stare at
your red nails and your gold rings and your hair-sprayed French
twists when I'm flying to Toronto? Do you?"

This was long enough before 9/11 that
members of the flight crew had not fully relinquished their servile
roles in favor of a more enforceable intimidation. And too bad,
really; much might have been different. But as it was, the flight
attendant ran her tongue over her teeth and swallowed twice before
she replied in a pleasant but firmly kind voice, "I'm afraid we are
not destined for Toronto this morning, ma'am. Do you require
assistance finding another gate? We would like to push back as soon
as possible."

The girl dropped her arms to her sides and
stared into the flight attendant with black eyes. "There are a
thousand small trolls like you rushing into life this morning in
high heels. And do you know what? Color contacts are made with the
rotting placentas of rabbits."

The flight attendant receded somehow,
coughing back tears with her hand unconsciously patting her upswept
hair.

The woman in the pink dress succumbed to the
rage and began a public fit of sobbing tears. 

"My lord." Hollace whispered to himself with
incredulity, awe, and embarrassment.

The girl was a disgrace. Her hair was
disheveled but looked a recent bouncing mane of banana curls. She
wore gloves and lace and ribbons and bows. Gaudy pewter and glass
jewelry seemed an awful burden but sporadically flashed rainbows
around the cabin as she thrashed against the lavatory door. On top
of all this she was wearing a dark green backpack covered with
embroidery, strange patches, and small activist pins. But the
ensign of her absolute displacement from the nineteenth century was
that she had a tattoo of small roses that wrapped around her
biceps. She kept sobbing with such overt pain that women found
themselves disgusted by the trails of her mascara, and men watched
her heaving chest with high hopes.

Several minutes passed. No one wanted to
take control of the situation. The flight attendants certainly
would not and the pilots did their best to busy themselves with
knobs and gauges. The other passengers furtively looked past their
papers hoping to catch a quip or anecdote from the girl. Each was
planning a witty icebreaker to explain his or her late arrival. An
apple-cheeked maniac escaping the throes of antebellum society and
flinging obscenities is certainly a better story than the usual
broken fuel lines and fog delays.

Finally realizing that the aisle could not
possibly be negotiated in all her finery, the girl began to tug
wildly at the skirts. And she left behind her a pile of crinoline,
hot pink taffeta, and at least three bone hoops which the flight
attendant nearest to her heaped into a storage bin generally
reserved for strollers.

The girl stood in bloomers looking for a
seat. She scratched her leg with the opposite foot. She was wearing
black stockings and black boots with laces that crisscrossed
themselves halfway up to her knee. There were uncomfortable laughs,
shakes of voyeurs’ papers, and the tsks and gasps which are
generally heard at such times.

Hollace, choosing the lesser of two evils,
allowed his eyes to go back to the men outside. He took his chances
that they might notice his vicariously enjoying their fun.

The girl, still crying uncontrollably, flung
herself toward the empty seat in the 14th row. As if to assure the
other passengers that she had a right to be there, she sat down
next to Hollace Dupree with a deliberate flounce, settled herself,
and after kicking him more than once she was established there and
cried freely. She leaned against the seat in front of her sobbing
breathlessly.