WHATSIZNAME

 Whatsizname

What Ever Happened to Ol' Whatsizname?

        I would like to be famous among long-ago friends and acquaintances, not necessarily among the faceless masses.  I would like the girl that I adored in high school to note that the whole world has discovered me, and to say, “Oh, My God, we grew up together, and look where he is now.”

 

What if there were no strangers?  What if the world’s population was small enough that everybody knew everybody by name?  How might that impact morality, crime, the arts, sexuality?  Would humanity be allowed more liberty, or would it be more oppressed?

        Assuming that the human species multiplied from a factor of one, then two, and so forth, it is interesting to speculate at what point the number became too big to maintain universal familiarity.

         

THE FIRST DRESS CODE

 The First Dress Code

Eve ate half of the apples on the Tree of Life and I gobbled down the other half.  Eve was feeling fine when she rushed out of The Garden a little while ago, but I'm stuck here at home under the tree because I've got a terrible belly ache.

The thing is, God says that from now on Eve and I can't go walking around The Garden in the buff.  So Eve said she was going to get herself a wardrobe. Skirts, blouses, stockings, fancy shoes, all that nonsense.

Well I don't know where in Hell she thinks she can get those things.  On the other hand, maybe Hell is exactly where.

And God says I've got to do the same.  He commanded me to get a fancy gentleman's suit, and to put on a tightly binding shirt, and to choke off my air supply by knotting a silly decorated rag around my neck.

So it looks like my happy, carefree days in Paradise are coming to an end.

Here comes Eve now, and she's pushing a wheelbarrow that's piled high with dresses and skirts, and blouses, and even some trousers and shirts for me.

"Where did you get all this stuff, Eve?" I demand angrily.

Eve smiles smugly.  "Where else?  From Lucifer."

"From Lucifer!" I scream.  "From Lucifer!  You know God's not going to like this at all, don't you?"

"Well what else could I do?" she whines.  "God says we have to wear clothes.  So where else can I get clothes?  There's only you, and me, and Lucifer.  And besides, God has already damned us because we ate those apples."

"Yeah, right.  And who cajoled us into eating the apples? It was your pal Lucifer."

Eve giggles.

And now I notice a strange mark on her neck.  "Hey, what's that blue squiggly thing?" I ask.  "It looks like the Serpent."

"It is The Serpent."  She smiles, pleased that I have noticed.  "Lucifer put it there.  It's a tattoo.  And I'm the first woman on the planet ever to have one."

 "Well of course you are.  You're the only woman on the planet."

"For now I am, my dear," Eve replies, smiling coyly and patting her belly.  "But maybe I won't be for much longer."

Oh My God!!!

  

 

 

THE DOWNSTAIRS APARTMENT

                                       

THE DOWNSTAIRS APARTMENT

             “He wears funny shoes,” Rebecca’s mother offered as a sufficient reason for her daughter not to marry Dan Chase.  The elderly mother was terrified that her daughter would go away and leave her on her own.

        “It’s too bad you don’t like him, Ma.  Because I love him,” Rebecca retorted, “Dan and I are going to be married.  We’ve gotten an apartment, and bought furniture.”

        “You’re going to live with him now?”

        “No, of course not.  Not until we are married.  And that will be soon.”

        Later that morning, while Dan was at their one-bedroom apartment, overseeing the installation of a new stove, Rebecca phoned him from her office.

“Something’s come up,Danny,” she announced excitedly. “Can you meet me for lunch?”

An hour later they were eating cheeseburgers at MacDonald’s.

“I don’t like that idea at all,” Dan protested.

“But it’s such a nice roomy apartment,” Rebecca pleaded.  “Oh, Danny, Ma was sobbing when she told me that the Baxter sisters said they were going to move out because they intend to buy a house.”

“Those two old crows have lived there for more than ten years.  And all of a sudden they want to buy a house?”

“My mother is seventy-one,  and she’s not in great health.  She’s scared to death of being in that big house all alone.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t know.”

“And think of all the money we could save,” Rebecca persisted.  “And there’s a second bedroom, and a dining room, and a huge back yard.”

“But what about our privacy?”

        “Oh, Danny, it’s not like we’d all be in the same apartment.  She’s upstairs.  We’re downstairs.”  Rebecca smiled mischievously.  “And Ma assured me that she’ll never hear the bed squeak.”

        That very afternoon, Dan arranged to have their furniture transferred to the roomy apartment in Rebecca’s mother’s house as soon as the Baxters moved out.

        Two days later Dan and Rebecca got married.

        Two years later they got divorced.        

Now, in the Folsom Funeral Home, Rebecca sat near the bier and accepted the condolences of friends and neighbors.  She was tearless and seemed detached from the event and unconcerned about the dead woman in the casket on the bier.

She did not love her mother anymore.  Ma had never shown anything but disdain for her husband.  She had treated Dan as though he were an interloping villain who had come between her and her daughter.

Even still, Rebecca understood that it was her own fault that the marriage had failed.  If only she had not talked Dan into taking that apartment.  If only she had never allowed her mother to have so much presence in her and Dan’s world.

“Seems like she’s always in our kitchen,” Dan had complained.  “Does she have to wander down here six or ten times a day.  I mean it kind of wipes out any chance of an afternoon delight, doesn’t it?”

Rebecca wished that she had spoken up to her mother and had expressed her irritation about how often her mother complained that Danny was not doing enough to help with maintenance of the property.  He should do a better job of mowing the lawn.  He should rake the leaves.  He should do this.  He should do that. 

“I swear to god I’m on the edge,” Dan had warned Rebecca many times.  “I try to keep it in check, but your mother is too much in our faces.”

“Just let it go, Danny,” she would say.  “Ignore her.  We’ll never have a better home than this.  And anything else would cost a fortune.”

But, inevitably, Danny went over the edge.  He’d had enough, he told his wife.  “Becky, I’m done with this.  I’m done with your mother, and I’m done with this apartment.  We’re moving out of here.”

“No, we’re not.  That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m not staying here for another day.”

“Well I am.”

“Then you may be staying, but I’m going.”

And so he went alone.

Oh, my god, Rebecca mourned, as she stared at the flower-laden bier.  Why did I not go with him?

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Martha Baxter said gently, and sat down next to Rebecca.

Rebecca nodded at the woman who had vacated the downstairs apartment to buy her own house.  “We all die,” she said coldly.

“Forgive me for saying this, dear,” said Martha Baxter.  “But at first I resented your mother for making us give up that apartment.  But I got over it.  I realized that she had to do for her daughter.  Family comes first.”

“What do you mean she made you give up the apartment?”

“My sister Abigail never forgave her.  That’s why she’s not here.  After all, we were her tenants for more than ten years. And then to be pushed out like that.  Well.”

“What are you talking about?  My mother said you left because you wanted to buy your own house?”

“I’m sure she only claimed that was so because she knew that you would never have wanted to take the apartment if you had known we were being forced to leave.”

“My mother forced you to leave?”

“Oh, yes.  Of course she did.  Abigail and I could never have afforded to buy our own house.  We loved our apartment.  We would never have left if we’d had a choice.”

Rebecca wanted to scream.  The affection she’d once had for her mother had been diminishing ever since Dan left her, and now she felt only a red-hot hatred for the woman whose controlling “love” had cost her a husband and the hope of ever having a family of her own. 

THE KISS

  The Kiss

Elton Chase was taking his evening walk in the park and was halfway around the loop when a woman's lyrical voice halted him in front of the bench on which she was sitting.

"Excuse me, sir.  Do you remember rock and roll?" asked the elderly woman who sat alone.  "And Elvis Presley?"

"Oh, yes," he replied, and smiled wistfully.  "Don't we all remember Elvis?"

"Remember all the protest our parents made over him?  They said he was destroying the youth.  And his music was sinful and evil."

The poor lady is a bit addled, Elton thought.  His mother had been like that in the months before she died.  He was surprised and grateful that he still had all of his faculties.  He was, after all, eighty-one years old.

"Oh, I'm sorry for imposing on you, sir.  It must be very annoying to have a perfect stranger get on your ear uninvited.  But I'm old you see, and the only friends that I usually would talk to are already in their graves.  Sometimes I even talk just to myself."

"I'm old too," Elton said, "and I often talk to myself."

He took the liberty of sitting next to her on the bench, and got a better look at the woman.  And after a startling instant of sudden recognition, he proclaimed, "My gosh, imagine this!  Why I know you.  You're Ann Craig.  And do you know that I've thought of you almost every day of my life for the last sixty years?"

A brief look of fear crossed the woman's pretty face, but fear quickly turned to curiosity, and then to recognition.  "Oh, my.  Can this be true?  Elton Chase?  After all these years.  And I can still see the boy in you."

"I think not.  It's been a very long time since I've been a boy."

"Oh, it has, hasn't it?  It's been a long time for everything.  Imagine us meeting like this in our old age.  Such a coincidence."

"Maybe not such," he said.  "I walk here in the park every night.  I live right across the street in the Rosedale Seniors House."

"Why so do I.  For a month I've lived there."

They both looked across the park at the four-story red-brick building on the other side of the avenue.

"Then it's not such a coincidence, is it?" Elton said.  "I took an apartment there because I thought it would be some kind of comfort to live in a building that had once been our high school.  Is that maybe why you live there?"

"Not exactly,"  Ann smiled at him affectionately.  "It was my daughter Margaret's doing," she explained.  "I was living with her until she started her second marriage.  Her first marriage had ended very badly, and I did not want to be an impediment her second time around.  Margaret knew that Rosedale High School had been converted to apartments for seniors, and she thought I would like the idea.  And I do."

"Well I'm very glad you're here.  It's a joy to see you again."

"And you too, Elton."

"Ann, do you remember that party at Betsy MacFarlane's house?  We were just kids.  And we played that silly game."

"Oh, yes, I certainly remember that.  It was called 'We Dare You'".

"Right. And the other kids voted that you and I should do a joint dare.  I was ordered to kiss you in front of all of them.  Remember?"

Ann nodded.

"Well, it may seem bizarre, but I think about that challenge just about every day.  And I regret very much that I did not kiss you when I had the chance.  Everything might have turned out differently if I had."

"But you did kiss me, Elton."

"That was no kiss.  That was just a quick peck on the cheek.  I mean I should have really kissed you.  Like a man kisses a woman."

"Elton, we were only sixteen."

"We were old enough."

        "Perhaps."

"I didn't dare kiss you.  Because I was afraid you might resist me, or even scream."

"Now you know that wasn't the reason," she replied gently.  "It was just that you were too shy.  And I certainly wouldn't have gotten upset.  Actually I was disappointed that you didn't kiss me like a man kisses a woman.  It would have been my first time too."

"If I had only known that," he lamented.

"Kiss me now, Elton.  Kiss me like a man kisses a woman."

What?  Why that would be so ridiculous.  I'm an old man and she's an old woman.

And yet!  He suddenly felt those long-inactive juices tingling in his body.

"Close your eyes," Ann said.  "Please.  Just for a moment."

Elton closed his eyes.

"Now open them, dear Elton.  And you will see me as the girl I once was, just as I now see you as the handsome boy you were."

Elton opened his eyes and gazed at the beautiful teenager girl with long sandy hair and the wonderful brown eyes that could pull a guy's heart out of his chest.

"Kiss me now, Elton.  Kiss me like a man kisses a woman."

The jogger arrived at dawn, just as the light of day was  seeping into the park.  He had only begun his trot along the rotary pavement when he saw the couple on a bench far down the path.  They appeared to be locked in a passionate embrace.

When the jogger reached the bench, he gasped at its occupants, and immediately pulled out his cell phone.

The police arrived quickly.

"I don't understand it," the sergeant said to the other officer. "This boy can't be more than seventeen. And the girl about the same.  For a couple of kids to die just like that.  And no signs of violence.  And look at the way they're dressed.  The boy's wearing mouse-trap shoes for god's sake."

"Well, what do you think of this, sergeant?"  The other officer handed him the driver's license that he had removed from the boy's sport jacket.

"Date of birth is March 11,1940," the sergeant said as he studied the license and noted that the photo was of an elderly man. "This kid had no ID of his own, but I can see a strong resemblance to the old man.  Guess he must have snatched his grandfather's license, don't you think?"

 

MAGGIE'S CHILDREN

 

Maggie’s Children

                                                      
            Maggie Charlton propped two pillows behind her back and sat up in the bed.  She clutched the blankets in her fists and pulled them up around her neck.  

Soon the police would come.  She waited resignedly in the dark of the bedroom and looked out the window at the blackness of night that would soon be illuminated by the inevitable flashing blue dome.

Out in the front room, her drunken husband and his three drunken pals were cursing and screaming at each other.

Maggie had endured this madness before. 

And each time, there had been a warning by the authorities.

          “Something has to be done.”  “This situation is deplorable.”  “We may have to take the children away from you.”
          But he can’t help it, she had pleaded for her husband.  It was the war.  My god!  Don’t you understand what he went through?  He has already lost so much.  And now you want to take our children!
          Certainly they understood, the authorities told her.  And of course it was very sad.  But the well-being of the children must come first.
           One pompous lady, a social worker, had said very nasty things about Maggie.  “The mother should  be examined for mental competency,” she had insisted.  “The woman may not be insane or committable, but she is lazy and shiftless.  All you have to do is see what a pig pen her house is.  And she seems somewhat muddled.  I don’t think she’s capable of taking care of her children.”
          Sooner or later, Maggie had known, they would come for her children.
          And now the dazzling blue dome whirled across the bedroom window. Sooner had come.
          There was a vicious pounding at the apartment entrance.  Maggie could not get out of the bed quickly enough to open the door, and the men in the front room were too drunk to care, so the door was forced open.  

When Maggie had managed to wobble out to the foyer, she was looking at two huge police officers and a stocky woman in civilian clothes.

          One of the police officers pushed open the door to the front room and herded the four suddenly docile drunks out of the apartment and into the police wagon which was behind the cruiser.
          The officer who remained in the apartment noted Maggie’s bloated stomach.  “You’re Mrs. Charlton?”  he asked rhetorically.
          Maggie nodded.
          The officer turned to the stocky woman.  “This is Mrs. Beatty.  She’s with the Child Welfare Department.”
          Mrs. Beatty spoke softly and smiled gently.  “You must get the children ready now.  I’m very sorry, but they’ll have to come with us.”
          It was then that Bobby, age eight, came drifting sleepy-eyed into the living room.  “Is Daddy arrested again,” he whined.
          The twin girls, age seven, and a boy, age three, were taken out of the one small room where they had all been sleeping in the same bed.  Mrs. Beatty grimaced as she watched Maggie dress her children in shabby, smelly clothing.
          “We’ll all have to go now,” Mrs. Beatty said.
          Maggie walked silently past Mrs. Beatty, and went into the front room where she collapsed onto the couch.  She groaned and then screeched sharply, and Mrs. Beatty thought that she was distraught because the children were being taken away.
          “No, that’s not it,” the police officer snapped.  “It’s time!  Is it time, Mrs. Charlton?”
          Maggie Charlton winced and nodded.

          Two mornings later, Maggie Charlton and her fifth child were settled in a bed in the State Hospital, and she was gazing at the sunshine beyond the barred windows.  The room was filled with natural light and, as her newborn slept beside her, Maggie felt an unwarranted serenity.
          Her only visitor that morning was her unmarried sister, Eleanor, who was very rich and very influential in the city government.
          “They’re going to keep the children,” Eleanor announced coldly.
          Maggie did not speak, or show any response.
          “They will want to find foster homes for them,” the sister went on.
          “What about the baby?” Maggie said flatly.
          “Do you want the baby to stay with you?”   
          Maggie nodded.
          “Charlie won’t be coming home for a long, long time,” Eleanor said. “They took him back to the Veterans Hospital.  He’ll be having shock treatments, and he’ll be kept there indefinitely.  He’s become completely disconnected again.”
          “What about my new baby?”
          “Do you really think you can take care of the baby, Margaret?”
          “Yes.”
          “Well, maybe you can, with only one child to look out for.  You do understand you may never get custody of the other four children again?”
          “I know.”
          Eleanor stood up, and moved away from the bed.  “I’ve applied to be appointed guardian for all the children,” she said. “In time, when Bobby is old enough to be responsible for himself, I may ask to have him placed with me.  But I can’t take all of them.
          “The baby can stay with you, as long as there’s no more trouble.  And if Charlie does come home, he’ll have to be watched like a hawk.  We’ll talk more about it later.”
          Eleanor turned abruptly and went out of the hospital room.
          Maggie gazed at her sleeping baby, and suddenly felt a deep and painful anxiety.  She would have liked to cry, but could not make any tears.  She could never make tears, no matter how much the inner pain required them.

 

 

 

 

LAST DATE

- EXCERPTED FROM MY  NOVEL:

3

Last Date

May, 1966

 

Gaby was already waiting out on the walkway when Earl pulled up in front of the dormitory building the next evening.  She waved excitedly and clattered down the path.  Earl winced as her flouncy rose-print dress billowed out like a parachute, and he pronounced himself an asshole for having kept his word and showed up for this date.  But that’s what he did, so maybe he wasn’t such a total shit after all.

“What movie will we see?” Gaby gaily asked as she popped into the car.

“You choose.”

   She chose “Love With The Proper Stranger”, a Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood flick about a guy who knocks up a broad, then tries to get her to abort the kid, then ends up falling in love with her.  It was a broad’s flick, and Earl fidgeted and squirmed all the way through it.  When the movie ended, he was quickly out of his seat and hurrying Gaby out of the theater.  He was anxious to get her back to the dorm and out of his life.

“Can we go someplace for ice cream or something?” she said as they came out onto the street.

He took her to a little coffee shop a couple of blocks away, a place where he was not likely to run into any of the guys from the base.  They seated themselves in a booth near the entrance.  When a thin, dreary waitress showed up, Earl ordered pie and coffee for both of them.

“Did you like the movie?” Gaby asked.

“Not really my kind of a movie.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal.”

The dreary waitress returned and put apple pies and coffees in front of them and then sloped away.

Gaby gazed steadily at Earl, and he stared away from her.  He hoped that she didn’t expect that something more was going to happen tonight.  Did she think that he would drive her someplace and have at her again?  Well there was no chance that he  was going to do that.  He just wanted to be done with her.  He ate his pie quickly, drained his coffee cup and pushed it away.

“I guess we better get you back to the dorm, huh?”

Gaby looked at the tiny gold watch squished around her wrist.  “It’s not even eleven o’clock.  And I don’t have a curfew or anything.

 “The thing is, I got to get up real early.  I’m going to be on a work detail.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yeah, that’s how they happen,” he said.  He stood up and put some money on the table.  “Sometimes they come in bunches.”

 

When they pulled up in front of the dormitory, Earl shut the engine and waited for Gaby to get out of the car.  She did not move.  She sat very still, staring unhappily into the night.

“What’s the matter?” he said with forced patience.

“I wish we could have been in a hotel room.”

“What?”

“Last night.  I wish we could have been in a nice hotel room.  It would have seemed more like we were making love.  And we would not have had to rush and be so shabby.  You would have held me in the dark, and I would have slept in your arms.  And then in the morning the room would be all filled with sunshine through a big picture window.  And we’d call room service and have breakfast in bed.”

Earl burst out of the driver’s seat and pelted around the car to open Gaby’s door.

          “Life is not like a movie.” he fumed as they stepped onto the walkway.

“Will you come up to my floor with me?” she asked.

“Is that allowed?”

“You’re not supposed to.  But we don’t have guards or anything like that.”

“Maybe I better not.”

“Please.  Just up to the hall.  Just to say goodnight.”

Gaby caught his hand and guided him through the entranceway.  There was no elevator, so they had to walk up two flights of stairs.  The building was old and shabbily maintained.  The gray walls were peeling and chips of paint littered the bare steps.  The stairwells smelled musty and were poorly lighted.

On the top floor, Gaby led him into a foyer and she stopped in front of one of the stark gray doors.  The foyer was minimally illuminated by a bare bulb in the center of the ceiling, and there was no carpeting and no furniture.  Earl thought the place looked more like a prison cell block than a college dorm.

“This is it, huh?” he said.

Gaby smiled forlornly.  She hugged him and put her head on his chest.

“Are the other girls all in bed?” he asked awkwardly.  “Or are they out partying someplace?”

“They probably are.  They have lives.”

  “Do you have a room to yourself?”

  “There’s two girls to a room. Remember I told you my roomie went home for the weekend?”

  “Oh, yeah.  So you did?”  Earl stepped back, glancing down the stairwell.  “I better go,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “So I’ll see you later.”

  “You’re not saying when.  Is there a when?”

  “I can’t say yet.  There’s a lot of stuff going on at the base.  I’ll be giving you a buzz.”

  “And what will we do?”

  “We’ll find a motel and shack up, and make love, and have coffee in bed.”

  Gaby frowned.  Then  she nodded.

  “You have no problem with that?” he said.

  “Whatever you want, Charlie.”

  “I got to go now.”

  “Without kissing me goodnight?”

  Earl had already turned away and was hurrying down the stairs.

  Gaby shrieked.  “Charlie!  Wait!”

  Earl stopped at the bottom of the landing and looked up the stairwell.  Gaby was leaning over the banister.

  “Just say the truth, Charlie,” she demanded, her eyes flashing with anger and frustration.  “Just say goodbye right now.  Because you won’t ever come back.  Not even just for sex.  And that’s too bad for both of us.  I would have given you a wonderful love that you’ll never be able to find again.  Because you don’t even know how to see it when it’s there.  You threw away our moment, Charlie.”