fifteen- Children gone, their fathers too

Friday May 28, 2010

Frank sits on a cold planter in front of Audrey’s building.  Though he shouldn’t be, since she can’t deny that he’s her father, he’s still amazed that she agreed to meet him for dinner.  He’s even more awed that she invited him to pick her up from work.  She had never, and he had been convinced would never, told him where she worked, who for, and if she liked it.  She never told him where she was living and how cozy but really her it was; how her walls were just thin enough that she could hear her neighbors talking, screaming, and having fervent sex, in this strict order.  How she used to listen, ashamed and unashamedly, and feel horribly left out.  How she liked having Henry over so she could join in on the revelry.  These small details that families with grown children need to survive, to stay connected in a world of quick e-mails, quickly thought up and quickly forgotten, and wireless telephone wires, had all but floated away in the wake of their mutual ignorance.

But now he’s sitting on a cold planter in front of his daughter’s building, difficultly waiting for her to walk out of the glass double doors, or the glass revolving doors—or she could run out, straight to him with excitement.  He would like that.  He would like to go back a decade and be himself years younger, a few procedures older, sitting anxiously in his old blue Mustang with the top down so he could look cool in front of the other parents.  Parked in front of the school steps and the radio playing purposefully loud, classic rock or those Beastie Boys he could never understand; waiting for his fair little Audrey to come bounding down the stone steps towards the car smiling greatly like a weary desert wanderer come across something bright and blue; a Fata-Morgana that proved actual.

But the coldness of the planter on his seat keeps him from wandering too far.  He knows he can’t go back, that they can’t go back no matter the outcome of this date.  He has lost his little girl, though with his second shot at maturity he has begun to realize that he sent that little girl away—to a cheap clinic.  There is no going back, or getting back.  Everything is new and has to be.  He has to meet her again, now as a woman.  What he’s lost is time and that time was spent; formative and forgone.  He doesn’t know Audrey, not now.

Not this striking woman walking towards him, out through the revolving doors.  She isn’t wearing work clothes—what he’d imagined she would be wearing coming out of work.  She’s wearing jeans, designer, a white blouse he’d seen before, maybe in a department store, and black pumps.  She’s gorgeous with her face barely made up and her hair, long wavy tones of brown.  And then the belt.  It’s the last, ironically, that he notices.  “Damn, that’s a big buckle!” he thinks aloud.  He stands up and stretches his arms wide…

On dark and long Morrison Bridge, Henry walks home alone.  Though he has cars, a motorcycle, and a bike, he’s the kind who takes advantage of friendly weather.  He walks home often.  It’s not a long walk and he’s in fantastic shape.  And though he won’t admit it, not even to Audrey, he’s a heavy thinker.

It’s right here, exactly one year from now that he’ll be.  A year from now, he won’t be alone.  He’ll be encircled by a crowd of people and bright lights.  He’ll be surrounded by blue uniforms, blue and red turret lights washing over his Old-Spiced cheeks.  It’s here on long and dark Morrison Bridge.  Henry will be lying on his back, in his own pool.  A year from now, Henry will die.

Saturday May 28, 2011

“Here’s his license.  Hurt, Henry.  No witnesses, just the girl who found him.”  A portly Portland Police Officer hands the license to a colleague in a black J.C. Penny suit.

“The girl tripped over the kid?”  He’s on the husky side himself, but a detective.  He points to a girl sitting in the open rear of an ambulance.

“No sir, she was on her bike, going pretty fast, didn’t see the body till it was too late and squeezed the brakes.  The bike threw her over and she sprained her wrist, some bruises too.”  The subordinate pats on his light blue uniform, identifying the locations of the girl’s injuries.

“Uh-huh.  Henry Hurt.  Alright, thanks.”  The detective walks away from him and towards Henry.

Hours later, 10 cigarettes later, four cups of coffee later, Detective Michelle (pronounced Mee-ke-ly to sound more masculine) stares at a Post-It with a name and a number.  He has just finished his second phone call, a long one with Henry’s parents, and readies himself for the third.  He anticipates this one to be the hardest.

While educating himself with everything Henry Hurt, one important fact he learned was that Henry knew a lot of women.  He had a girlfriend, another girlfriend the first didn’t know about, and a woman named Mrs. Pearce who Michelle was told Henry had met with recently, for the first time in several months.  Her name was mentioned in the first phone call with Henry’s live-in girlfriend.  She was a sweet girl with a sweet voice and through fits of tears she felt obliged to tell him about Henry’s involvement with Mrs. Pearce. 

Months ago, Henry had been seeing both this girlfriend and Mrs. Pearce.  He had gotten the latter pregnant and they decided on termination.  Inevitably, they stopped seeing each other.  Just days ago Mrs. Pearce called Henry and the two met for lunch.  Just days ago Mrs. Pearce revealed to him that she didn’t go through with it, was still pregnant, and due very soon.  She had planned to keep it a secret, it seems only her husband knew, but she was compelled to confess to Henry.  It was his child, after all; his unborn son.

One of the top five sources of stress among police officers is cases that involve children.  This is true in most departments, even the Portland Police Bureau.  Though this child was yet to be born, Michelle still felt sorry for him.  His father died tonight.

Michelle picks up the phone and dials.  It’s early morning, so after several rings:

“Hello?”  A woman answers, groggily.

“Good morning—Mrs. Pearce?”

“Yes? It’s late!”

“I’m sorry, Mam.  I’m with the PPB.  Detective Tom Michelle.  Uh—“

“I’m listening, Tom.  I’m sitting down too, so just out with it.”  Mrs. Pearce has an aggressive voice, aggressive but still charmingly feminine.  It matches her short black bob.

“I’m calling about Mr. Henry Hurt.  I know about your relationship with him and—“

“Tom, I don’t mean to be frank, but I don’t have any relationship with him anymore, aside from what’s growing in my belly, which I’m pretty sure you know about.  Other than that, I don’t know anything about Henry anymore.”  She sits back and massages the massive bump.  The bump responds with playful pounding.  Mrs. Pearce giggles.

“Mam, Mr. Hurt is dead…”  Michelle is silent, and listens vigilantly for noise in the earpiece.  “Mam?  Mrs. Pearce?”

“I’m sorry, Detective.  Please call me back tomorrow.”  She hangs up.

In the living room of the three story condo, Mrs. Pearce calls for her husband.  It takes minutes for him to wake up and find her in the dark house.  When he does, the look she gives him fades his sleepy resentment.

“What is it?”  He speaks too loud in the quiet room.  He’s unaware of himself.  He only sees his wife’s face dripping tears, her hand firm on her belly and the baby inside.

“I want to name him Henry,” she forces weakly through her crying.

It takes almost an hour for her to calm enough to tell him: that Henry is dead.  Though he doesn’t agree, he understands her choice.  This is his wife, but it his not his child; it’s not his child to name.  But he will love him.  Henry Pearce, like his father, will be loved by many.  He will be the evidence of his father’s contact with this world; what he took, what he left behind.

Friday May 28, 2010

Audrey pushes through the revolving doors.  She’s excited.  Not to see Frank, but for Frank to see her.  In front of the panoramic bathroom mirror, she guessed what he would think and say.  She wondered aloud, mimicking his very Oregonian accent, “Damn, that’s a big buckle! Where’d you get that, Princess?!  Have you been riding bulls?”

She changed especially for Frank.  It was obvious that Frank thought he still knew her; that she was the same girl who used to run down the prep-school steps towards his big blue car, the same girl who used to love driving off with her dad making faces at the kids boarding the boxy school bus.  She changed to let Frank know.  She changed.

But it’s her that’s surprised when she sees the old man outside her building.  She still remembers Lloyd Center.  The man was a designer mid-life crisis, plastic and off-putting.  His can tan made her itch.  This is not the same man.

Frank stands up as she approaches.  Audrey winces as he stretches his arms out.  He’s in jeans, but they look like Levi’s and clearly untouched by an iron.  His chest and arms push subtly through a ¾ sleeve t-shirt, a baseball tee, white with blue arms. 

“He’s wearing flip-flops!”  Audrey exclaims.

“And he brought me flowers…” Audrey acknowledges the small bouquet in one of his hands.  Four or five white gardenias with light pink rims, mellow halos.  She reaches out for the flowers and ignores the hug.  Frank is apparently unaffected.

“So where to Frank?”  Audrey says casually, awkwardly.

“I’m sorry.”  The old man looks her squarely, reverently.  “I was no good as a dad when you needed one terribly.  A good one, no less.”

Audrey is stunned.  She tries to reply.

“You don’t need to say anything yet, Princess.  We have a lot of time to talk.  Just know that you set me straight the last time we saw each other.  Just try to call me dad and we’ll go from there.”  Frank steps to the side of Audrey and offers her his arm.

Audrey, still surprised but wrapped in a warm kind of numbness, takes his arm without hesitation.

“So where to, Dad?”  She says softly.

photo1:http://farm1.static.flickr.com/143/383381010_2773268906.jpg

photo2:http://farm1.static.flickr.com/5/9874543_65a473cb94.jpg

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photo4:http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3041/3038130721_a5fc891fa5.jpg

fourteen- This is gravity

“Around 8,” he replies to the phone held between his hard shoulder and smooth Old-Spiced cheek.

“It’s 7:30 now, so I should be there in twenty minutes.”

Pearl District under the layered sunset is a confused convergence of daytime warriors and nighthawks.  The long vibrant strips of parallel north-south streets, intersected by east-west streets named in order alphabetical, in the tumult of twilight hour never know whether it should come alive or go to sleep.  If New York is like a Christmas tree, Portland is like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree with the Pearl District as one of its slender branches, spotted unevenly with lights and decorations.

Still there is excitement in fluctuations as you move through it end to end.  The many restaurants, varied, advertise with the scented air aggressively occupying the sidewalks in front, invisible fog.  The warring eateries engage in biological warfare for each passing olfactory.

The storefronts are lit up lively with a sense of self-love.  The small businesses each hip and interesting, demand to be taken seriously or taken for whatever it is.  The name brand, chained and incorporated, beg to be taken less seriously, trying to appeal to the massive young Portland demographic more interested in Mom and Pop’s, Thrifts, and outdoor hookah joints that serve fantastic crepes.  (Look up: The Pied Cow on Belmont and 33^rd, really fantastic crepes.)

The apartment buildings, different makes and models, are peppered along the streets: formal erections of marble and iron, wooden houses seemingly painted by children born with a flare for the flamboyant, and modern marriages of steel and glass.  Henry is standing on NW 10^th in front of one such construction, The Modern Pearl.

Looking down the street, semi-bustling and erratically bright, Henry decides, “I think I’ll walk instead.”  He ends the call and starts for the other end.

The first intersection is Lovejoy.  Henry often thinks about his parents, still living in the same house, perpetually in a state of renovation, in his hometown of Evelyn, Washington.  They had been married for most of their adult lives, almost 80 years between them, and have gone through two separations and an eventual and inevitable renewal of vows that cost staggeringly more than their typically rich “white” wedding in their early twenties.  Each had an affair with a much younger lover and each decided it was safer to brave the daily battles inherent in a cracked marriage than to suffer the irreversible consequences of a long war in divorce court. 

Locard’s Theory or Principle of Exchange explains that in any and every contact—when two objects meet there is an exchange of evidence: each takes something and each leaves something behind.  If the two separate, you can always trace one to the other.  Locard was a criminologist, but he may as well been Dr. Ruth. 

Mr. and Mrs. Hurt first met in high school, they met millions of times thereafter, each time they lost a little and gained a little, took a piece of the other and gave a piece to the other.  The definition of a relationship is that it’s a perpetual swapping of selves.  It’s two people square dancing ad infinitum, mixing and mangling, losing and finding, spinning, stirring till they are individuals no longer.  They are mutants, changelings, two deformed jigsaw puzzle pieces, out of 500, that perfectly fit together.  Henry’s parents knew that if they set foot on that courtroom floor they would leave loveless and limbless, not knowing themselves from each other.  The bodies and body parts of themselves would be scattered, dead and everlastingly disconnected. 

It’s not that they weren’t willing to leave each other and it’s not that anyone isn’t willing to leave their other of diminishing significance; it is that no one caught in the centrifuge of love is hopeless enough to risk losing their self.  For their self currently lives in their other; swimming in their blood, whispering in their voice, grasping in their touch; two lovers live vicariously in each other.  This is truth immense.  This is gravity.

The next intersection is Kearney, the north side of Jamison Square Park.  Henry has been drawn to parks since he was a boy.  He didn’t like playgrounds, they were too developed, too much pavement and too many structures.  He liked the freedom in grass, verdant and vast, and the protection of the trees, strong solitary towers. 

The worst mistake, the most wrong of misconceptions is that a fortified island of a man is guarding, in his core, all tender emotions and affectations most vulnerable.  That he must have been hurt to hide so skillfully.  This is what many have thought of Henry.  This is the scapegoat, the reason most consoling and illuminating to those girls and women who discovered they could not be loved by Henry Hurt.  This is what others convinced themselves when they would not be loved by him any longer.  It is a careless lie.

Henry is not a consequence.  He is an incident.  There is no deep meaning behind his proclivity to self-preserve.  There was no crime committed against his heart.  There was no actor of that crime.  Henry is because he is.  He is a relic of human design.  The last of a dying breed; a beast most civilized.  Henry is man in its perfect form.  He is unadulterated.  He is unyielding.  A nocturnal flower under eternal sunlight.  He will survive everything, but all who love him will not.  Audrey will not change him.  He does not need to be saved.  She will die in his wake.  At least, this is most likely to happen.

Henry passes Irving and then Hoyt.  With each crossing he gets closer to Audrey, waiting for him at the Chinese restaurant they walked to when they first met.  Every step towards her is admittance, a confession.  But he is not a romantic, he is a lover.  He’s commitment-phobic.  He’s a flirt-oholic.  Henry is man in its purest form and men are acquisitive.  But before he can acquire, a man often has to chase.  Henry is a chase-oholic.  He’s settle down-phobic.  He often wonders if he will ever become domesticated, if he’ll ever want that land-locked life.  Before he can think it through, he usually meets someone new.  Another chase, another starting line, he’s as competitive as he is fast.  And he does fall in love.  But he does fall out of it.  He’s forever-phobic.  He’s a lust-oholic.  He smiles at every woman he passes, whatever her age or attractiveness.  He smiles to announce his presence, to maintain his prevalence.  He smiles as he crosses Glisan, an eager explorer excited to know what he might find on the next block of the enchanted Pearl District…

What he finds on the corner of Flanders and 10^th is a phenomenon: someone he met only a couple of times, and determined was not of his kind, holding the hand and the enamored glazed gaze of an abounding beauty he used to fuck frequently.  Standing on the corner seeing Nick and Chloe for the first time in weeks, a quote from a book comes to mind, “Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; if you can bounce high, bounce high for her too, till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!”  He remembers later that it was from This Side of Paradise, a book on a summer reading list he had to read for high school.  He imagines Nick in a gold hat, bouncing high above the ground as Chloe cheers him on.  He feels defeated watching them walk into a place called Vino Paradiso, arm around waist and ever more enamored. 

But that feeling changes to shame and the shame quickly into anxiety.  He recovers his phone from his pocket and finds Chloe Clarimonde.  Another chase begins.  He readies himself at the starting line.

The text is short, three words “black lace slip”.  He laughs as he presses send, whirling around like a boy freed onto a verdant park.  He grins up at the sky salted with low-flying stars.  He shoves his hands in his pocket smugly then feels a hand on his shoulder.

Still smiling he returns to the sidewalk to find Nick standing expressionless in front of him.

“I was just thinking about you.”  Henry nods his finger at Nick’s chest.

“We saw you, before we went inside.  How’s Audrey?”  Nick reveals no emotions.

“That’s nice of you to ask.  I was worried you were still mad at her.  How’s my girl?”  Henry returns his hands to his pockets.

“What do you want, Henry?”  Nick shakes his head slightly.

“I don’t want anything from you, Nick.”

“Don’t text her again.  Don’t.  If you see us, keep walking.”  Nick is tense now, his face stiff and his left hand almost clenched.

“I respect you Nick.  I respect you now more than I used too.  But in all honesty, No.  To everything you just said,” Henry replies with a sneer.

“I know you, Henry.  I know who you are, the kind of guy you are.  You get off on this.  Standing toe to toe, making whatever’s in front of you move out of your way.”  Nick steps forward.

“I’m not moving, asshole.”  Nick tightens his jaw, his eyes focus on Henry’s.

“You don’t have to, Nick.  I’ll—“

“Fuck you,” Nick interrupts.  “You’re losing.  You know it.  You couldn’t hold on to Chloe.  I bet Audrey’s slipping from you too.  You’re not right for her.  You don’t fit her.  I knew that.  She’ll realize it soon, and then you’ll lose her too.  I can’t wait.”  Nick grins into Henry’s smug glare.

“It’s funny, Nick, how you think it’s still a secret.  We all know you’re in love with her!  I’m sure Chloe knows too.  She’s an idiot sometimes, but she wises up.  Good luck with that.  And Audrey?  Audrey knows, Nick!  She’d just rather be with me!  You’re a funny guy, Nick.  We should be friends.”  The sarcasm falls heavy.

“Just go, Henry.  This is pointless—“

“You know who you remind me of, Nick?  Jay Gatsby.  You’re so funny.  God, I haven’t read that book in years.  One of my favorite endings.  Do you remember?  Remember how Daisy stayed with Tom?  And Gatsby ended up floating dead in his own pool of blood—in his own swimming pool!  That was a real funny ending, Nick.”

“Get out of here Henry!”  Nick’s hand is clenched tight.

“Oh and you’re right, Nick.  I don’t fit Audrey.”  Henry leans in close, his mouth right next to Nick’s ear.

“That’s why I push it in—hard.”  The whisper is sinister. 

In a flash Nick’s closed left fist drives into Henry’s face, into his smugness, his condescending grin.  He feels Henry’s nose break against his knuckles, his blood wetting the taut skin.  He steps back, ready to take any retaliation.  He drops his fist realizing there would be none.

Henry chuckles defiantly, straightening himself on his feet, his hand covering his wound.  He looks at Nick, and smiles.

“I don’t think I want to be your friend anymore, Nick.”  The smirk returns.  “I hope you’re prepared to see this through.  I’ll try to play fair.”

Nick is speechless.  He knows what he’s done but is unsure of what comes next.

“I’ll see you around, old sport.”  Henry smears some blood off his nose.  He tastes it then points to Nick.  “Tell Chloe I said hello.”  He brings the finger back to his nose and with a sniff, “or maybe I’ll tell her myself.”

Before Nick can reply, Henry turns and walks off.  Left there on the corner of Flanders and NW 10^th, it is all still unclear.  What is clear is that Henry was right, Nick will see him around.  They are bound now, to each other by their common goal.  Whether it is Audrey or Chloe, Nick no longer knows.  But he does know this: their contact was momentous.  They each lost something.  And they know owned a piece of each other.  How it will end, neither man knows.  Different they are.  They must both see it through.

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photo4http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3034/2427132868_5f95180ed0.jpg

thirteen- The Long Fall

They decided to meet on neutral ground: Lloyd Center Mall.  The hot Pacific sun coaxed most of Portland’s population out of their dry hiding places to the commercial forum in the rural northeast of City Center.  Each Max train carried a full load, unsurprisingly enough.  Audrey decided to pass on public transportation and ride her light blue racer across Broadway Bridge.

Flying along the red steel railing of the bike path, suspended high above the Willamette, she couldn’t help but look over the side.  She wondered what it would feel like to fall off into the aquatic translucence, its color caught between aquamarine and Aqua Velva.

‘It would be a great fall...,’ she prophesied.  ‘And a long one…’

Pondering the profoundness of her diluted desire, she straightened her wheels center on the bike lane and spun the pedals faster.  The bridge seemed too long.  She needed to reach the other side.

She was a sight, eye-catching and fleeting, to the pedestrians walking around Memorial Coliseum; the bright-colored sundress, yellow cotton waves, and her hair, brown locks gleaming gold at full mast.  She was a daydream cycling through mesmerized minds; a wish forgotten before it can be whispered by lips too slow.  She left them all in the past, blazing fast down NE Weidler.  The hands bound in ceaseless revolution on her thin white-gold wristwatch would not wait.  She was late for her date.

Frank sat on a wooden bench at the end of one of the mall’s emptier wings.  Spotting Audrey a football field away, he shot up on his brown loafers and wiped croissant crumbs off his unnecessarily pressed jeans.  Standing in his tan sports-coat, the pure white pocket square peeking out of his breast pocket perfectly matching his white Oxford shirt, Frank didn’t look as old as Audrey remembered.  He looked like a young man with a confusing head of pepper-gray hair.  His face was tanned smooth, a leathery oak.  His too fresh features confessed professional augmentation and she imagined the depth of his bank account, and how much his superimposed youthfulness cost him.  She failed to suppress a giggle as she crossed the glossy sea of stone between them.

The first thing Audrey noticed when she was close enough was that he was in the best shape of his life.  The second thing was that he still smiled with his eyes squinting, as if happiness blurred his vision.  When he stepped in to hug her, she stepped back forcing them to meet in an awkward arms-only embrace.  Stung by her rejection, Frank sat back down on the bench.  He clung far to one side, leaving the rest for her to sit on; a peace offering.  She accepted and sat down on the opposite end.

“I forgive you for being late.”  Frank looked disappointingly at her wristwatch, displacing the blame.  He recognizes the timepiece.  He sent it to her when she graduated from college.  He thought about the engraving on the inside of the thin band.

“I didn’t know I was late, Frank.  Do you have somewhere to go?  We can do this another time.”

“Come on Audrey!”  Frank checked his voice as best possible.  Audrey noticed his eyes still opened wide when he was upset.

“You came! Don’t pretend you don’t want to be here.  Because you are!”

“Are you dying?”  Audrey crossed her arms and stared impatiently.

“Of course I am, Princess.  We’re all on our way out.  I’m just closer to the exit nowadays.”  Frank spoke softly, forcing the words to sound meaningful.  Audrey crossed her arms tighter.

“Don’t play that card Frank!  It doesn’t suit your facelift!  Can you answer my question?”

“I’m not lying.  I’m dying.  Not of any disease, but old age.  Hey, I may not be dying tomorrow, but fifteen to twenty years is soon enough!”

“You’re incredible Frank!  I’m in awe!”  Audrey laid her arms flat against the wooden back, shaking her head tiredly.

“I needed you to talk to me.  It worked and you’re here, so just talk to me, Princess.”  Frank placed his palm on her shoulder, pleadingly.  Audrey let it stay.

“I surrender… let’s talk.”  Audrey turned her body towards her father and nodded for him to start.

“Audrey, I can’t understand why you refuse to let the past be the past.  We had a problem and I took care of it.  I’m your father! And I’m getting older every minute.  Now’s the best time to grow up, little girl.”  Frank squeezed her shoulder as he spoke.  He didn’t notice the increasing tension, the pulsing of her jaw.

“We didn’t have a problem.  I had two problems: my boyfriend and my father.  Tell me Frank, were you worried it would dent your account?  Did your lawyer tell you to ‘buy me out’?”  Each word made Audrey’s lips shudder.  Her face was reddened, but dry.

“What are you­—you’re right!  It was your problem!  And I solved it!  You were ill and I took care of you!  Dammit Audrey!”  Frank looked to the ground.  His hands wiped sweat off his face.

“You were too young, you were in college.  I didn’t want anything to stand in your way, Princess!  I love you, little girl!  That’s why I paid that little shit to stay away and that’s why I paid for your preservation.”

“I was pregnant, dad!  I wasn’t fucking sick!”  Audrey no longer cared where she was.  She no longer cared about her composure.  The anger, for years trapped deep in her belly, was on its way out.

“He was a little shit, but you defended him!  I was young, but I wasn’t…  I had something inside me—something I swear I felt!  It was mine dad!  Not yours! Not his!”  She held her hands in the air, closed tightly.  Her voice echoed dull throughout the cavernous wing.

“Look, I made those choices as a father.  I acted with you in mind.  He wasn’t even going to stay with you!  I didn’t want you to feel like a whore!  A whore, abandoned to raise a bastard on her own!”

“I didn’t feel… a bastard?  No dad, you don’t understand.  It was you—and the envelope of money you left on my bed.  So I could go to the clinic alone.  You abandoned me. You made me feel like a whore…” 

Audrey stood up and straightened her sundress.  She didn’t look at Frank.  She didn’t see him staring at her with his hand over his open mouth.  He couldn’t close it, pried open by guilt and trying to respond.  He thought again of the sentence he had engraved on the inside of her watch.  She stepped to walk away and he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry, Audrey.”  He stood up and grabbed her hand in both of his.  “I’m sorry…”

Audrey turned back to him and pulled her hand free.  She looked down at her watch then up at Frank.  Her hands grasped one of his, gently.

“I stopped looking at the calendar.  The days wouldn’t go any faster.  I thought I would be numb after the abortion.  I couldn’t imagine feeling—after that little piece of me died.  But I still felt…  Every minute, every goddamn hour!  Three months, dad!  Why didn’t you call?”  She gripped his hand hard, pulling at it, demanding an answer.

“I waited for you… to come hold me.  I didn’t even expect you to apologize.  I was so young.  I didn’t have to be alone!”  She let go of his hand and stepped back from him, standing with his shoulders dropped and head down.

“Princess—“

“No, dad.  I’m sorry… but I stopped waiting by the end of that long Fall.”  She turned from him and walked away.

Frank looked up in time to see her walk out the closest exit.  He knew he could not follow her.  She had been merciful.  She had left him there alone, but in his hand she left a piece of her.  He looked down at the thin white-gold wristwatch cradled in his palm.  He saw the words in script engraved along the inside of the shining band.  He wished he could scratch them off.  He wished they were never written.  The three words screamed inside his head:‘I forgive you.’

photo1:http://www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
photo2:http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaster725/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

twelve- Bed Sheets

It was a long weekend.  Nick left her alone to contemplate.  Her mistakes, her choice, and the sins visited upon her by her father.  Tuesday night, another empty day at work.  She wanted all day for Henry to provide what she lacked: satisfaction, contentment, maybe a little hope.

But lying next to the proud man on her four poster bed, Audrey wonders if he will ever do what’s necessary to truly be present in their relationship.  She doubts he knows that to get inside her deep enough to fix her, he needs to let her into the gaping hole buried in his chest.  She needs to see the cracks and what’s still holding him together.  It would help her believe that he can hold her together.

Audrey knows that there is never a forever.  Everything human must eventually fall apart.  Neither the feeling of love nor the ability to love can move a man to surrender who he is to the woman that he has.

But she could be wrong.  This she acknowledges.  Not all men are so closed, so unbending.  There are those who let themselves be seen.  But not this one, not Henry.  Not the man who she knows so much of now, who she wants to matter more than her self.

So it all comes down to what she has: a strong man, with a mind that chooses with conviction, a heart guarded but immense, and powerful hands that can give as much as they take.  And they can give, when he allows them.

What she has is a man who tells her that he loves her.  He doesn’t whisper the words like a secret important only to two lone listeners.  Henry regards their union as a fact, worthy of print and demanding to be read out loud.

Lying on her back, still weak from after-work-pre-dinner sex, she does not feel contentment, but she does feel satisfied.  She does feel a little lucky.  Not the same lucky as holding the winning ticket at the raffle; the lucky of winning the big prize.  She feels the lucky of being chosen; as if Henry won so many tickets at the arcade but he ignored the big prizes on the shelves and pointed to her instead, one of many trapped in a plastic basket beneath the glass counter.

‘Who needs contentment? Who needs hope?  Portland’s Most Eligible Bachelor of 2009 chose me!’  Audrey turns on her side to look at Henry sleeping face down on her lavender sheets.

‘And that’s hope enough!  He chose me… and he’ll keep choosing me, tomorrow and the day after.’  Her thoughts quiet down.  She kisses Henry’s shoulder and rolls off the bed.

In the living room, she goes back to thinking.  No longer about her choice to stay with Henry or how long till Nick speaks to her again.  It is a man that’s occupying her mind, but that man is her father, Frank Carlisle.  The formerly estranged patriarch has returned to the City of Roses to reclaim his little girl’s love, lost to him the day she turned eighteen and eight days.

It was an oppressively humid August 30^th, the weekend before her sophomore year began.  Soaked with sweat and tears, she looked up from her bedroom floor just in time to watch her father walk out, leaving her alone with an envelope of money thrown angrily on her floral patterned blanket.  The memory hurts.  She shakes it away and returns to her living room.

On the coffee table in front of her is an open envelope, addressed to her from her father.  She had read the letter inside countless times over the weekend, folding it up whenever Henry came over.  At night she quietly left him sleeping, and read the letter in the dim moonlight glowing through her wide living room window.  The letter was unexpected and after years of mutual indifference between them, any kind of contact was unwelcome.

‘He is my father’ Audrey tells herself.

‘But I don’t have to forgive him.  We’re not going to end up going on dinner dates and watching movies.  We’re not going to have father-daughter re-bonding activities.  I don’t have to forgive him…  I just have to talk to him.’  Audrey breathes a deep sigh.

‘He wouldn’t lie about dying…’  Audrey shivers slightly and quickly.

Suddenly she’s afraid.  She doesn’t know why—she does but she denies it.

‘He wants to talk, so we’ll talk.  I’ll call him tomorrow, no meeting up.  I’ll tell him I don’t have time for any catching-up bullshit.  Whatever he wants or wants to say, needs to be the first out of his mouth.  And no “I miss you” or “I know I’ve been gone long, but I’m back now for good”.  He wouldn’t say that if he was really dying…’  Audrey feels confused.

‘What does he want!’  She almost opens her mouth to scream, but shakes her head instead.  She calms herself then pulls the folded letter out of the envelope.  Tilting her body towards the un-curtained window, she sees the words clearly in the blue light.  She reads:

My fair little Audrey,

   

            Do you remember me?  I haven’t got an apology for you.  I haven’t got anything for you except the news that I’m back in Portland.  I won’t tell you where I’m living yet, just know that I’m close to downtown.  I would stay at the house in Beaverton, but I wanted to be closer to you.  You see, princess, I’m dying.  Don’t believe me?  Well then you’ll have to talk to me to find out.

            Here comes the part where I tell you how my life’s been since we started ignoring each other.  The company was bought out, I received an obscene amount of money, I traveled for a couple years, bought some houses, married and divorced, gave her an offensive amount of money (barely a dent in my account), found God, toured the third-world countries for places to “make a difference”, became jaded, lost god, started a couple of my own foundations (two sizeable dents), missed my daughter, and bought a ticket to PDX.

            But that’s just one side of the story.  I can’t wait to hear the B-side, the Audrey side.  I’m not going anywhere, princess.  I got money for three lifetimes, good men running my foundations, and a newfound love for this city.  Call my cell- 971-555-0829.  I’ll keep it on me.  Love ya’ Princess Audrey.

Dad

p.s. when you call me, please don’t call me Frank.

Audrey looks up from the letter in her hand.  She can’t help but smile.  She daydreams in the moonlit living room.  Of dinner dates and movie nights, Frank meeting Henry, picnics in Laurelhurst Park, and maybe she would call him dad...

Her smile fades quickly.  She’s back in her living room.  She folds the letter and returns it to the envelope.  With a long deep breath and her eyes closed tight, she picks her phone up off the coffee table and dials from memory.  A couple rings and he answers.  Audrey opens her eyes.

“Hey Frank…”

photo1:http://www.flickr.com/photos/eqqman/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
photo2:http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-jedi/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

eleven- Nothingness (part two)

Riding on the TriMet, if you’re not from Portland, is like attending a course in etiquette and ‘loving other people’.  The steel and fiberglass walls of the bus house a utopian microcosm of peace-loving passives who properly greet the driver, upon entering, and naturally thank him or her while exiting.  Inside, the laws written high above the seats: no eating, no drinking, no loud music playing, are petty compared to those unwritten: make room for other passengers, give up your seat to those who need it more, do not disrespect the driver.  This morning, Nick could care less.

He steps on the bus, flashes his monthly pass, then sits down close to the driver.  He takes up the whole of two seats, sitting by the window with his meticulously sticker-ed messenger bag guarding the seat next to him.  Not once did he look at anyone else on the bus as he boarded.  He stares out the window at the two-storey houses, the green and gray sidewalks, and the tree-lined commercial-under-residential building streets the bus passes on the way downtown.

It’s a short ride across the Morrison Bridge.  He barely has time to digest his dilemma before he meets Chloe for lunch at Rock Bottom.  Soon, a choice needs to be made.  To tell her or not to?  To be with her or not to?

He slept a few hours after he left Audrey’s apartment last night.  There were no appointments booked, so he didn’t open the tattoo shop.  He spent the rare sunny morning in his backyard emptying a couple coffee pots.

As the bus turns sharp off the bridge onto SW 2^nd, Nick braces himself and readies to exit.  The stop is a couple blocks from the restaurant and he needs to make the most of every step.

He gets off the bus, turns towards the restaurant and begins to think.

“I need to tell you something. But first I need you to know that I’m not leaving Henry.”  Audrey placed both hands on Nick’s shoulders.  The two were seated on her couch, their knees pointed forward, their torsos faced each other.

“I don’t understand.  What did he do?”  Nick asked, forcing the words to sound more surprised than he felt.  He imagined what she would confess.  ‘He hit her!  No, he cheated on her…’

“I didn’t instigate this.  He just wanted to tell me—for the sake of our partnership.  He said he made a mistake and that he wanted us to be honest going forward.”  Audrey bit her lower lip.  Nick tried to keep himself from laughing, imagining Henry speaking to Audrey as if she were a client.  He stiffened his face and nodded for her to continue.

“He cheated on me weeks ago, when we just started dating.”

“I’m not surprised.  I mean…”  Nick winced at his own words.

“Look Nick, you don’t understand.  It was with his ex.  She came over crying and begging for him to let her in.  And while he was getting her something to drink she snuck up to his bedroom and waited in his bed naked.”  Nick scoffed.  Audrey frowned at him.

“He found her there on his bed and asked her to leave, but then she started crying and telling him how alone she felt.  Dammit!  I don’t want to go over the whole thing again.  I just know that he made a mistake and that he’s sorry and that all he wants is to be with me! And sleep with me!  Fuck Her!  I belong to him now!”  Audrey pulled away from Nick and slumped over her lap, holding her reddened face in her hands.

“Audrey… I don’t think you should stay with him!  He cheated on you already, and you haven’t been together for more than a month!”

“Nick, I’ve already decided.  I didn’t ask you over her because I wanted your fucking opinion about MY boyfriend!”

“Jesus, Audrey!  I’m not the guy who cheated on you!”  Nick raised his arms, palms forward in surrender.  Audrey shook her head, her eyes apologetic.

“I know, I’m sorry.  I just—you don’t know anything.  You don’t see how he is with me, when no one else is around.  I really think it’s love, Nick…  I just wanted you to know because you’re my best friend.”  Audrey paused.

“I also wanted you to know, to make you feel better, that it was Chloe Clarimonde.  She’s a bigger bitch than I thought.  Henry told me she’s a huge slut!  I’m beyond happy that nothing happened between you two!”  Audrey smiled big, relaxing her shoulders as if she just dropped a heavy backpack she’d been carrying all day.

“Chloe… really?  I’m glad.”  Nick stared open-mouthed past Audrey still smiling.

“I’m glad… you’re happy with Henry.”  Nick spoke as if he were breathing through an oxygen mask.  Afraid she’d notice his wound, he gripped the couch and looked away.

“I still don’t like it, Audrey.  And I don’t like how you said that you belong to him.”

“Fine Nick.  We belong to each other.”  Audrey sighed, noticeably.

“I need to go.  I have an early appointment coming in tomorrow.”  Nick got up forcefully, noticeably.

“Nick!”  Audrey jumped from the couch and followed Nick to the door.

“Nick… I’m sorry, please just support me.  I need my best friend…”

“You have me.”  Nick opened the door and stepped out to the stairs.

“Nick?”

“Yeah Audrey?”  Nick turned to look back at her, one hand on the railing, the other on his hip.

“Am I pretty?”  Audrey asked, pretending Henry was standing in Nick’s place.

“Audrey, you’re beautiful… and I love you…”  Nick paused deliberately.

“But I don’t think I like you anymore.”

The two blocks are short.  Nick stands across the street from Rock Bottom, waiting for the light to change.  A few feet from him, a sidewalk musician sings a deeper slower John Mayer to people waiting for the Max, Portland’s rarely-late light rail.

“It’s not a silly little moment, it’s not the storm before the calm.  This is the deep and dying breath of this love that we’ve been working on…”

Nick drops a five in his guitar case and crosses the street.  As he walks across he thinks about the options: tell Chloe he knows about her and Henry, tell her he can’t see her anymore because his best friend, the girl he really loves but can’t have, hates her.  Or he can pretend he never found out.

“Can’t seem to hold you like I want to, so I can feel you in my arms…”

Inside the restaurant, Chloe is already sitting at a table waiting for Nick.  Through her window she can see him walking from across the street.  She feels anxious, both excited and nervous.  She needs to make a decision as well.  Since last night she’s been determined to tell Nick that she read the text, that she knew Henry, intimately, continuing to sleep with him after he started dating Audrey.  She would tell him she was sorry for what she did to his best friend, but she didn’t know Audrey—she didn’t know Nick like she does now, feel the way that she does now.  She would tell him that she would understand if he couldn’t see her anymore.

“Nobody’s gonna come and save you.  We pulled too many false alarms…”

Nick sees Chloe through the window and walks towards it, away from the front door.  He waves at her, stopping in front of the window and grinning through his Baloramas.  Surrounded by the hum of the light rail and the Portlanders and tourists passing behind him, the warming rays of the Pacific Northwest sun glaring against the glass of the window make it easy for him to believe that nothing exists on the other side of the glass.  But he can see and can only see Chloe sitting there, waving back at him.

“We’re going down… and you can see it too…”

From her side, the anxiety has gone.  She feels at ease.  Surrounded by loud Top 20 music, suits and dress-suits loosening-up on their one hour lunch break, the dim lighting and the dark tint on the windows inside the restaurant make it easy for her to believe that nothing exists on the other side of the glass.  But she can see Nick standing there on his side, existing.

“We’re going down… And you know that we’re doomed…”

It’s at this moment that they really see each other for the first time, forgetting everyone around them.  They each decide not to tell the other what they recently learned, not to risk whatever they are now to whatever happened before.  Together and separately they choose each other.  If nothing else, of the past or the future, they both know one thing to be most true.  In the wide-open nothingness, all they have is each other.

“My dear, we’re slow dancing in a burning room…”

photo1:http://www.flickr.com/photos/46511058@N00/ / CC BY 2.0
photo2:http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcoetzee/ / CC BY 2.0

ten- Nothingness (part one)

“One flight down, there’s a song on low…”

Chloe sits on her balcony, sipping warm green tea.  The clean air of downtown Portland carries, from the floor below, Norah Jones playing on a small stereo near an open bedroom window.  She can barely make out voices.  Two men live beneath her.  She always thought they were roommates.  The flirty lightness in their sing-along and the small shallow giggling implies intimacy in isolation.  The lights off, the doors closed, surrounded by slow jazzy serenading; it’s easy to imagine nothing exists on the other side of your open window.

With every sip her tea loses its warmth; a peevish phenomenon that would normally send her flying to the microwave.  She sits back on her wrought-iron chair.  She swallows the rest of the cold tea and trades it for a cell phone sleeping atop the wrought-iron table.  She thumbs it awake and reads, again, the telling text message that had her grasping for air on the balcony minutes earlier.

“and your mind just picked up on the sound… now you know, you’re wrong…”

Inside her apartment she hears the intercom buzzing.  Chloe knows who it is.  She walks to the screen on her wall and sees Nick’s head, distorted and disproportioned by the fishbowl view of the surveillance camera.  She sighs that he still looks cute, charmingly and interestingly.  She holds down the button and watches him smile as he enters.

“because it drifts like smoke…”

“I left my phone on your bed.”  Nick grins from the other side of Chloe’s front door.  Chloe reaches out to him, the phone flat on her shaking palm.  The look she gives is akin to the one she gave when he left: underhanded, proud, ‘I knew you’d come back’.  Nick doesn’t notice the limpness of her upper lip, her trembling hand, the tear tracks freshly laid on her high cheekbones.  He takes the phone, running his thumb along the length of her hand, wrist to nail.

“Thanks.”  He turns away towards the elevator then stops and looks back.

“Lunch tomorrow?  How ‘bout The Original?”  Chloe shakes her head, feigning a playful sour face.  She remembers weeks earlier with Henry.

“Ok.  How ‘bout Rock Bottom on Morrison?”  She nods approvingly.  Nick, content, steps into the elevator.  Chloe closes the door before he can turn around.

“and it’s been there, playing all along…”

Her back against the tall matte-black door, she slides down to the shining hardwood.  Her knees holding up her elbows, her elbows holding up her hands, her hands holding up her heavy head, she can’t stop thinking about the text.  She can’t help but feel confused, injured, and afraid.

“now you know…”

When she closes her eyes she can see the small square screen illuminated white.  It was a text from a girl named Audrey.

“Nick I need to speak 2 U about Henry.  Meet me @ my aprtmnt.”

“now you know…”

photo1:http://www.flickr.com/photos/congaman/ / CC BY 2.0
photo2:http://www.flickr.com/photos/benny_lin/ / CC BY 2.0