Daily Meanderings

A tropical storm  passed Panama City by. There is a humid feel in the air nonetheless. Last night driving, the sky's lighting was off hue, as if certain frequencies were missing from the spectrum, and the wet roads were empty.  A still oddness was evident—with a sense of instability, as if electrically charged. I assume it was the atmosphere and not a neurological problem on my part.

My pitcher plant, a fly eating monocat, is the home for a juvenile chameleon, or rather, since chameleon is a misnomer--the real chameleon being indigenous to Africa--home for a juvenile Anolis Carolinensis. I think this is the correct species for this lizard, which is about the size of a pinkie joint,.

In high school, I raised Anolis Crassulus, a related species, with varying luck. I had brought them back from Guatemala The eggs hatched but appropriately small food was difficult and meal worms too large, crusty and ulcer forming. Attempts to keep a fruit fly colony in the science classroom drew ire from faculty and students. No one understood how difficult it was to get anoles to lay eggs in captivity. Instead they complained. My interest did get me an invite from a college museum, where I remember, through a fog of time, handling a jar of true chameleons from Africa. I wondered how long that bottle of chameleons had been sitting on that shelf, or what famed donor had provided it to the museum.

Today, the anole enjoys the insects drawn by a plant's aroma. A bottle of fermented grape juice sits nearby.  The plant is thriving and putting out many new pitchers, enticing insects to their final drink.

When I approach, the anole darts into the middle of the pitcher plant. It freezes, head slanted to the side. Evolution has not given you movable eyes. Some rhythmic heavings on the chest suggest a dewlap may soon arise.

The anole hasn't been named yet. Not sure of its gender, I assume a gender neutral name will be best. Its eye continues to fix me, its long beak forward like a baseball cap.

Speaking of baseball,  it seems sad to have fallen in popularity to rougher, more aggressive sports. Baseball has a genteel quality, and additionally the likelihood of concussion is small. The skull has a nice way of neutralizing frontal  blows, like a horsehide between the eyes. It is the skewing's to the side, more common in other sports, that create the major brain injuries.

Summer Daze

Nearly perfect periods of my life were summers off as a kid. There was a notable absence of obligations or things needed to be done.  Summers were a long expanse of  nothing but lazy relaxation.

Mornings would begin with a startle, as I realized, head against a warm pillow since our house did not have air conditioning, that there was no school. Then downstairs two steps at a time for a desultory breakfast with Carnation Instant Breakfast, the envelope torn open and emitting an acrid chocolaty dust floating up and stinging the nostril, and a peach or two. Our house was profligate with fruit. And yogurt—my mother was ahead of the times with yogurt, which then was just becoming popular, with Dannon cups having the removable cardboard lid that could be pried off and scaled. Coffee flavor, Blueberry, or Boysenberry, which I called Poisonberry. Finally, taking a shower in the upright stall with all the nozzles—six of them, the top of them aimed just about my forehead, and dressing in clothes already laid out. Bermuda shorts were worn daily, along with white elastic socks and either Keds or  Converse sneakers or, for one unpleasant summer, off brand hand- me-down black sneakers. But the best shoes were cordovan penny loafers, with which I used a shoe horn, and had a real penny in the fold. A shirt with stripes or some type of anchor or giraffe design on the pocket was also de-rigeur.

Next phase of the day was walking to the pool at a local club we belonged to. There was the trek down the block over the manhole stamped 1964 on it, and which sometimes prompted fearful fantasies of sewar dwellers, a hand reaching up......  Then walking further along the prickly hedge with millions of ladybugs, if only you turned over the leaves and scraped them into your hand—to toss them off into the air for good luck. And finally past the Yokels who always had cats aplenty in their driveway, boxes of kittens, the cats having a proprietary air over this musky smelling place.  And--lest I repress the memory, a big dark English Tudor with a metal witch on broom weathervane on top which I hurried past.

Next, crossing Demott avenue, named for the Demott family, whose scion, a professor at Amherst and writer for New Yorker, interviewed me years later for my college application.  It was a busy tree shaded street aside the golf course. Then along a dirt path with roots--and dog droppings, for it was one of the few places where real dirt and wild grass grew. The path was along the sixth hole of the club, and men walked amongst the green hills in groups. I eyed them warily—someone they did not seem the type of men in my family, but big, muscular, boasting and loud businessmen who seemed very at ease in the world, wearing pants so loud they could probably be seen on Jupiter, and women with big wide shorts and wide legs that were very white and veiny.  Occassionally a ball would lie on the dirt path, a white sphere nestled among the roots, having somehow penetrated the metal mesh fence dividing the path from the course, and once in a while a ball actually whizzed past, hitting a tree with a loud whack and caroming into traffic or a lawn.

Across the street from the past were rows of large pillored houses, big brick behemoths that seemed must have been built for royalty, yet nonetheless seemed to house regular folk, and kids I knew from school who were just regular guys, not particularly unusual distinguished or even well dressed. It was a paradox I didn't understand.  The men inside, the fathers, also seemed a prosaic breed.  One would see them occasionally watering the lawn or mowing--thin and ordinary looking, and probably having to ride that train to New York ever day to whatever dry soulless task awaited them.

Finally, I would get to the gate of the pool, the metal mesh curtains drawn apart.  I would walk past sting ray bicycles scattered on the entrance way to the wooden swing gate. The wooden bicycle stands, rows of slats angling up at 45 degree, were painted scoreboard green. Later they became metal. No locks were needed, though eventually I had a bike stolen there. You walked past, or sometimes through, since some would be on the walk, to a wooden gate about head height, on a sideways hinge. Beside the gate, from a window  a man, the same man for years, Ray, I think gate, would flip hinged panels of keys to find mine and hand me a key. He also operated the lost and found, a pile of pink and blue towels, goggles, and bikini parts. When he left and a series of  teenage girls and boys replaced him, it was not the same.. Number 42 was the locker, and I would proceed to the locker room, getting a hit of chlorine as I entered. 

The men's locker room had some kind of Spanish man doll dancing on the outer entrance—the woman's locker room, where I dressed with my mom until I was about five had a Spanish woman dancer with castanets. Into the locker room, one would turn through various angled doors, concrete floor until h itting the wet, blue floor that often was mopped by a white panted man with a slippery Clorox solution. I remember he was  not particularly friendly, and wearing white deck shoes and a whistle hanging out his pocket. He also made hamburgers at the grill--or that may have been a similar man of shorter stature.

There were several ways to the locker. One involved walking past the toiletries—a shelf with a big glass jar with blue water full of black combs, plastic Johnson and Johnson talcum powder and other stuff. The other route  involved a more prosaic labyrinth of locker aisles, involving more stepping on the slippery unidentifiable wetness on the floor.

 Finally, arriving at locker 42, bottom row, way in the back, the key would fit in, the lock turn, and various pieces of clothes would be placed strategically inside. Sneakers on the bottom, shorts on top of that, other sartorial accouterments on the hook either side of the locker. The bench was brown, smooth, lacquered wood, with little drops of water on it, and would have to be toweled off. Hopefully some full grown man was not dressing nearby. Occasionally, an undisciplined glance in that direction would fill me with a sort of horrid disgust of what adulthood meant. 

Then to the pool. It was long and L shaped. Around the pool was a concrete shelf upon which higher waves splashed. Benches around the pool were brown panels on stone supports and on each end of the bench was a big urn, full of sand, for cigarette butts, Lifeguards, strong and mostly male, would sit high on their perches, hairy legs curled colorfully beneath them, with whistles to signal bad behavior, and white oily stuff on their noses--greasy stuff that I imagined came off in the water when they swam.

One had to stake out a place for a blanket, or a chaiselongue. The problem with a blanket was ants and uncomfortably thick grass beneath. The problem with a chaise longue was the sort of uncomfortable angle it put one at, and, occasionally, an errant plastic fiber that would stick into the skin. When younger, I would hang around my mother and her friends near the baby pool. But as I got older, I ventured to the farther area, other side of the pool, which seemed, at that age, a land as distant and strange as Africa. The teenage, or probably tween girls, hung out there, with bikinis, and one dark haired sprite seemed always to catch my attention, though never acknowledging me.  In retrospect, remembering their anime like bodies, they were probably only 12 or 13 rather than real tweens but at that time they held all the dark secrets of junior high school. They mostly ignored me.

Swimming in the pool involved lots of diving, splashing, inept flips of the low board and jack knifes and cannonballs in the water. Occasionally we would rock the pool, zipping up the diving board ladder and jumping off, one after another so as to make the pool as wavy as possible.  Contests to hold breath were also common, and my brother Joe was so good at it that after a couple of minutes a concerned life guard came over to look, then called the pool manager who also stood by worriedly. With a shake of his head to disperse the water Joe arose, and seeing the crowd, said, in a stage whisper, "that's the way you hold your breath it,." by way of explantion. By the end of the day our eyes were pure red and the more fried our skin, the better.

After the pool it was back home. More fruit, and time to sit in front of the TV and take in a Mets game. One anticipated 9 whole innings of lazy tevision watching as if that completeness was a virtue. Maybe Tom Seaver would be pitching or Don Cardwell, who never in my watching days ever seemed to win a game. But it did not matter. With a Mountain Dew and a Wingding, one sat and watched the Mets, often losing in those days,  go through nine  innings, the familiar names like Swaboda and Kranepool and Grote supplying even, pleasant entertainement, and then watching Kiner's Corner, where old timer Ralph Kiner, apparently a great player and still a great kidder, would interview the prominent players from the game, who probably did not know who he was, either. The players always seemed so horribly inarticulate--even by second grade they seemed to be inept interviewees.

Dinner might be a barbecue. My father used sticks and newspaper, sometimes without lighter fluid and results varied from smoky but quick to what seemed like geologic time spans gathering sticks and even newspapers to light the fire. Occassionally he would shoot a stream of lighter fluid onto the fire, telling us before hand to stand back.  Corn on the cob, fresh farm string beans which my mother would drive afar to get but whose importance escaped me, and hamburgers or steak or meatloaf—and margarine, much admired in those days as a better substitute for butter.

And then an evening of TV—maybe Ed Sullivan, maybe Get Smart, and then bedtime, playing Light My Fire on a portable record player in my brothers room, whose bed I liked better than my own, until ejected when he came back from  his nocturnal prowlings and I had to return to my own warm pillow.

Times New Roman

 by Damon LaBarbera

My name is Melissa. I have a blog. Its my therapy. But I can't think of anything to write today.

I type while Derrick stomps heavily around the house. Heavy steps are his form of communication. He comes over here to confront me. Better keep typing away.  Eyes down, hands on keyboard. “Great timing. Just when you think I am acting jealous and possessive you decide to have wine with Lamar."   Derrik's lips are drawn in a fine line.

"We just had a glass of wine. Nothing more happened. All we did was talk a few minutes." I say,  typing in Courier font then changing to Times New Roman, which looks a little classier.  I don't want to look up.   "All we did was talk."

  “Lamar is a pothead and a methhead and who knows what else. Why would you talk with him”. I type it all out.  I think: "Lamar may be a meth-head, but you are a meathead, Derrick." But instead I  say, "We had a glass of wine. Maybe forty-five minutes. It was nothing." Actually Lamar has a hard time keeping his hands to himself.

“Why can't you see that you set me up. If you didn't want to make me jealous, why didn't you tell me about your tete-a- tete with Lamar. Why did I have to discover it?” I type his words as he speaks. He found a receipt for the wine in my purse.

“I didn't tell you, Derrick, because of the way you treat me, I say. You do not encourage honesty. Your miserable jealousy makes me have to lie. Truthfulness is punished because you will read too much into things. You twist everything.” How can I convince him. Maybe show anger. But you are too dense to see that.”   I am mean. But the blog is writing itself.  “In any case, Derrick, nothing of a romantic nature occurred, I assure you. I need to get out once in a while.  I am not going to sit in this house watching you play world of witchcraft.” 

“Warcraft”, he says. “I suppose Lamar is what passes for a sophisticated guy around here..”

The sans serif letters have  a nice look. You are nice friend, netbook. I am glad I bought you.

"Listen to me, Melissa! Derrick continues to eye me, his face sullen and angry, and—and are his eyes swollen?   It pains him. He keeps his arms folded protectively in front of him. I can see his sweat. "What did you talk about!" I hate hurting you Derrick. I hate it, but Derrick, you just ask for it. I feel like the scorpion in the Aesop's fable, carried across the river by the frog. Yes, I bit you, says the scorpion to the frog. Its is my nature

Answer me, he says (and I type). “What did you talk about with Lamar?”

I type as I talk. I am a very fast typer. “Derrick, I mostly  evaded his personal questions about me. He is nosey. . I would much rather talk to you. He is a nuisance but a clever nuisance and I don't wish to be rude.  I can't limit my social life to men who do n't make you jealous. I will go crazy sitting in this dark house. You don't have a single friend."

“Don't you care if you hurt me,” he asks.

“Well, frankly Derrick, I don't give a damn. I rally don't. Rally, rally, rally.” In actuality I say nothing, just keep typing.

"Is that your diary. I want to see. Your undefended thoughts...'.

“Undefended thoughts”. Once when he had looked at my Facebook  messages, I complained it was unfair of him to view my undefended thoughts. Even politicians, I had said, can say things off the record. Now I say nothing. My eyes are fixed on the screen. I can see Derrick's face dimly in the screen behind my own.

"No, just my blog....'

From the yard comes the sound of the door slamming, and one of the two overrefined male roommates yelling as if burlesque show homosexuals from the thirties. “You are an absolute tyrant with your money. I will spend you to death. That'd teach you. Filthy lucre! .

Derrick turns, walks away. Where has he gone?  I hear no sound. He is probably in the bedroom, sitting on the bed. Hurt. Sobbing. Drowning his pain. Has he no idea why jealousy and control are not attractive traits? Why does he have to be such a good sufferer? And does Courier  look better than sans serif. 

'Melissa!"  He is back again from the bedroom. He can't stand to be ignored. There is alarm in his voice.  He must know about Lamar. Tomorrow it will be somebody else. Maybe I should turn on the cam to record our blissful exchange. The corners of my mouth lift almost in a smile.

He has a strange look. A strange, insulted look. He says You look like you are about to laugh. His voice brightens. Maybe he thinks the fight will be over. All will be resolved. Maybe he thinks we will sometimes get passionate as we sometimes do to end an argument. Well, feller, I have no interest in that at the moment, I continue to type. His face falls. I see it in the netbook. His cheerful attitude was, after all, experimental.

"Melissa! Please! Stop and talk to me! Are you seeing Lamar, or someone else. You seem different." Derrick looks over my shoulder at what I am writing. "You are so obnoxious," he says. when he sees I am typing our conversation.  I keep typing.

I say, you need help. He pushes me roughly on the shoulder. I keep typing. He slapped my fingers on the keyboard and I continued to type. I don't want to deal with him.  Some way I will have to tell him. Some way I will have to sneak away. But for now, I just want to finish my blog


 Several minutes have passed when I couldn't type. Derrick actually grabbed my netbook and it fell onto the floor.  I am feverishly catching up. Now he is on the cell.  My fingers hurt from where he grabbed me.

 "Please let go of my fingers, " I had said.

Derrick let go of them.  Derrick is actually averse to violence of any type.  Months ago I made a motion as if to kick him,  and he ran into the bathroom. I was momentarily afraid that he would, as the saying goes, do something foolish.  Down a bottle of  xanax, or since we don't have xanax, antibiotics.

Now Derrick is on his cell.  Although I can't hear the phone conversation -- or else I would type that too -- I can hear him use the words "hell" and "fuck" as she talks. This is unusual for him. The person at the other probably doesn't know what has come over Derrick. Or maybe the   person on the other end can  tell we are fighting? Anyway, the bad language is directed at me, realistically. As articulate as his heavy stamping round the apartment. Slightly better than semaphore. The call ends. he goes into another room. Now Derrick is back again, arms folded, big from working out.

 "You make me feel jealous. You develop these little talky relationships with people and  then fantasize about them."

 "How would you know except from reading my Facebook messages?"

 "Oh, I don't need Facebook.. You don't hide it. All I've been hearing about the last three weeks is Lamar. Lamar this, Lamar that. Plus you just friended him last week.

 I start to write again.

"Melissa!" The fear returns to Derrick's voice.

The charade goes on and on, two boats, not beating against the tide as in Fitzgerald's novel, but against ourselves, never quite connecting, never quite veering away into freedom. 

Derrick is back.  "You make me feel jealous. You develop these little crushes on people and then fantasize about them."

"How would you know except reading my journal."

Derrick came  into the room and told me it was my father on the line, long diastance from Los Angeles. When I returned to the room he was looking out the window at the six street stories below, feigning absorbtion in a blinking Dewars sign. He is still there.

"Why don't you think I am enough for you. Whey do you need to have all these other flirtations."

"What?" I say in a surprised voice, as if I had been so deeply absorbed in my typing as to be oblivious to his presence.

"I said why don't you treat me like you want to be with me.?"

I say nothing.

"Why don't you answer."

"I don't know what to say."

This is so uncomfortable. I've lived on the ground floor I could pretend I saw a pickpocket, and then give chase down Bleeker Street. "Stop thief!" But this is the sixth floor...

"Well it's a legitimate question."

I say nothing.

"Melissa!"

"What."

"Why don't you answer me?"

"I don't know what to say."

"Well, think about it."

"I have thought about it all I want to think about it. I don't understand why you are getting so upset about my seeing Lamr, whom I see once every couple of months and have no other connection with.

"Did you tell Laamar how your jealous boyfriend is driving you crazy?"

"We talked about... This strikes me as absurd. I'm sorry, but I really can't go on."

 In fact, we had talked about movies--Paranormal Activity, The Ring. But I won't explain. Not under compulsion.

"What did you talk about?"

"Give me five minutes to collect my thoughts. Can't you see I'm trying to write?"

...now she is standing before my desk. His face is torn, wounded.

"What did you talk about?"

I continue to type. Derrick watches. The police are doing something below down the street. I hear the wail of the siren, a voice arguing. he continues to stare at me. The cell rings. I answer it. . It is Lucy, a shy benevolent woman, Lamar's girlfriend.

I turn on the speakerphone so Derrick can hear.  Lucy asks if Derrick and I wanted to get wine with her and Lamar.  had mentioned to Lamar all of us getting together sometime.

"Do you think that if I were romantically involved with Lamar, his girlfriend would ask to go out with them?"

Derrick looks somewhat contrite.

"I just don't like the idea of your being interested in other men. I may selfish, but you can't blame me for it. I'm not the kind of person who could stand to have you having affairs.

"Even if the affairs are nothing more than having a couple of beers?"

"I thought it was wine?"

Silence. I begin to type.

"Will you stop that?"

"One more sentence."

I continue to type. He is staring at me, suffering. I can't bear it. I ask Derrick: "Can't you live with that?"

"Yes, of course, but why don't you show any interest in me?"

"Let me tell you something. There is something I know that you do not. It's about long relationships. They are hard. They take work. A lot don't last. And jealousy makes it harder.  It takes the dull, ongoing work, the constant compromises even harder. I resent it. I hate being misunderstood, and I hate being made to feel I am doing bad things.  Of course, you have the right to leave me. You are very good to me and probably for me, but you are lonely hermit and I am not and I need to socialize with people. And  I am still young. If my sexual appetite leads me away from our bed, so be it. It hasnt yet, but it might. And now let me say this. Having declared my independence, I have no intention of exercising it. There are no other men I am interested in. Yet, let me remind you once again. Control and dependence are not aphrodisiacs.  They are  turn-offs.

"They don't have to be that way. What can I do to make the relationship less stressful?"

"You are doing fine."

"I am not. You are just saying that so you can get rid of me. So you can get back to your precious work. I think you are really quite cruel."

"I know I am. I will not try to be in the future. I will probably fail."

"Do you want this relationship to go on?"

"Probably." I do not look at Derrick as I am saying this. My netbook keys are flailing. Derrick  ignores the sarcasm.  Tears are on his cheeks. H is face is crushed. I am cruel.  The only image that comes to me is a crushed tomato.

I sigh. "Derrick, what can I do to reassure you?"

But now I feel angry for asking this. I say:  "Tell me what to do, because frankly,  you look like you are about to have a nervous breakdown."

"Well stop typing, pay more attention to me. Take me seriously. Let's do things together.  "

"We cook together all the time."

"That's because you're always hungr," he says.

"We go out to dinners and clubs sometimes."

"Yeah, you work before we leave, talk to everybody but me, and then you retreat into your study to work when we return."

Derrick, you clam up when we are out. You are good listener, but frankly you don't stay on conversation.

"Can't you stop writing on your netbook when we talk?"

"Sorry."

"You don't make any concessions."

"I think I make many concessions."

"Like?"

"Like living with someone who is so possessive.  Like putting up with these inane cross examinations. Or that phone you gave me and constantly called."

"You just can't just talk to people without bonding with them. That's your problem. You have no boundaries."

"What I meant is that it is hard to change from a normal woman to a computer geek girlfriend."

I am trying to sund very logical now. Even if I am not, I want to seem reasonable, logical, and the one that seems to be thinking clearly.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

Derrick is talking about my typing.

"Because I don't see much good coming out of this conversation, only a lot of greif."

He turns around, confused, as if not knowing what to do. he throws his hands up in desperation.

Now Derrick says,"I am going out. I am not leaving you, I am just going out."

Panic hits me. He is going back to his family

"Please don't go out."

He walks away.

"I just need to get out."

"I am asking you not to go out."

I hear  Derrick rustiling in the hallway closet to get his coat. Then there is silence. I do not know if she has left or not. Has she slipped out? I become nervous. Good God, I think, don't leave me.

...I had to leave my netbook for a moment, but now I am back. I went to see if she was in the apartment. he was not in the bedroom. he was not in the bathroom. The kitchen was empty. And then, in the living room, I saw a hunched, pained figure by the dark curtain, his face bowed in sorrow. I stepped across the room and rested my head on his shoulder, rubbing his arms with my hands.

"It would be very difficult for me if you went away."

Derrick did not say anything fr a few momnets. Then she said, "I feel that I have to get away."

"Lets just talk about things. Let's not make decisions while we are both under stress."

He walked into the bedroom. I could hear him sobbing, deep heavy heaves.  I am back at my netbook now. It is difficult to type. God. What a biatch I can be.

Memo from 10,000 ft

Memo from 10,000 ft

At 10,000 feet, air pressure is bad for the brain.  Mountain climbers who ascend this or more altitudinous heights will show, some investigators say, structural brain changes. This plane is pressurized to about 8500 ft, meaning that the pressure is only marginally harmful to the human brain. Still, there will be more cardiac events and strokes among travelers at this height than the normal population.  Because jet fuel is expensive, planes are flying even higher than before to take advantage of less drag, so the problem will probably get worse--a new type of head injury to take the focus off football.

Yet, flying is the only and best way to get back to Panama City from a sojourn on Long Island for a few days, minus a few brain cells.  As I look out the window, I think about the fliers from world war two, not only enduring 25000 feet or more with poorly pressurised cabins, but freezing cold, cramped surroundings as well as enemy fire. Maybe its a Memorial Day hangover, but the sacrifice of that generation in the forties remains astonishing. 

At a gym in New York a man, his name is Mike, described being captured at the Battle of the Bulge. He is about ninety now, was 20 at the time, and a sergeant after his commanding officer was killed by a sniper. He said the first day there were 2000 American losses. He feels great compassion and concern for the soldiers now in Afghanistan--"they are taking a beating."

Mike said the Germans were coming like madmen from the forest. "We had no air cover," he said, with the same plaintive voice he might have used at the time, throwing his arms out in exasperation..  His voice sounded like he was back in 1943 as he shook his head and hung up a towel.

The Memorial Day parade in Rockville Centre was a bit toned down from the days of my youth. Then, each little league team would walk as a group, to end up at Hickey Field.Back there were about 25 teams, and every one of us had a flannel uniform,hand sewn  lettered jackets, and thelong elastic split stockings of old time uniforms. Today's parade, a few dozen, at most, players, marched along in what looked like budget nylon uniforms. Perhaps a sign of the times, perhaps a sign of baseballs waning in popularity, perhaps a less spirited or ambitious local government. The fire department shone, though—local heroes in a town that lost more individuals in 9-11 than any other in New York.

I read, while waiting at the terminal, that a newsman or commentator has gotten into hot water for saying that not all fallen soldiers are heroes. Apparently this goes against the grain of popular sentimentalizing, particularly on Memorial day. Shouldn't any American who is injured while serving his country be considered a hero?. Yes but even amongst solders there is, or maybe is ( since I have never been in the military), a differentiation between those who are the actual fighters versus those who are in supply, or on the field but decline to take part in the actual firestorm, My own feeling is that it is brave to fight for ones country, but calling every soldier a hero can be a ploy for older men and women to bamboozle teens to enlist and risk their tails for whatever adventure politicians, and generals, and business people cook up. 

Missive from terminal A11

Missive from Terminal A11

Much of today has been spent in idle but attentive sitting and reflecting. BWI terminal A11 offers little else to do. A flight delay has kept us here three hours. Having no wireless, except Boingo for which there is a charge and involves sign up procedures, it is nice to simply think and watch. These moments of apparently useless time, I am convinced, offer special opportunity to register usually unappreciated aspects of our world, seen through the eyes of leisure than those of the usual frenetic workday. Best not to protest these random intrusions into ones schedule. Being irritated at the delay just ruins what might be nicely spent down time. I am waiting for the down time to seem nicely spent.

A plane part has to be fixed or obtained. Not much is really explained by the over head announcements, and no one seeks a better explanation. The other passengers? They are a mellow and polite group, only voicing their discontent when talking on cell phones. One will chat now and then. There are careful rules for airport conversation that make talk almost a form of work. One must keep boundaries and not venture any comment that might reveal or offend, or even attract the attention of nearby listeners by being too
 excited. These are truly conversations that will blow away with the wind, given that you are unlikely to ever see that person again.

You can take brief walks away from the terminal to explore, with a niggling feeling that even though the flight is delayed for at least two more hours, it will leave as you are browsing magazines.  Or you can float slowly along the motorized walkway, looking around, registering the passengers, strangers to you and mostly to each other-- people viewed without context, without any idea of their personality, past, home city,role, job or family. Pure visuals, without the benefit that familiarity gives to those we know—that softening of of physical and sartorial peculiarities with which we generously gift to longer known acquaintances. Humans devoid of self in a mechanized settings.

Going for coffee at the nearby Starbucks is an option, but as the option becomes repeated as the hours wear on the growing feeling is of caffeinosis and that the extra stimulation, two or three cups plus whatever they gave you on the first flight will spiral ones mild flying anxiety into a full blown panic attack.

How might a painter handle this airport? How might the painter Bruegel, famous for, say, his panorama of dancing townsfolk at a wedding, render terminal A11. Maybe there would be a myriad of plump figures in Bermuda shorts, t-shirts, sandals, and sunglasses, sitting, talking, complaining, fooling with IPADS. Some might be stumbling while chasing children, or eating pretzels. And in the corner, very small, one small bespectacled figure typing on a small pink Hewlett Packard netbook. Or Rembrandt? Maybe a dark figure in a Yankees blouse, clutching a boarding pass, turning into the dark chiarascuro of an oversold fligh

Most travelers are quiet--eye contact shows a measured friendliness.   Exceptions are a youngish man having trouble locating his son arriving on a flight, and exchanging words with the ticketeer, the latter finally shouting, “Act like a father,” a strangely presumptuous comment from an airport employee. A much older man who was so tall he looked microcephalic seemed to blaming his wife for the plane's delay, eliciting many “tsks tsks” from those nearby. And finally, one woman, perhaps seventy and from Europe, chastised a Southwest employee ticketeer for being stuck in the sad town of Baltimore, and he, in turn carefully defended his home tow

Final note. It seems that all directions given overhead (and on flights) now has to be peppered with witty or irreverent remarks. Is this company policy meant to illustra te just how maverick and unconventional an airline Southwest is. Some Southwest employees struggle with the humor,. And after a number of these class clown type comedy routines about seat belts or airbags, it was pleasant to hear the firm, old fashioned authoritative captains voice during touchdown giving instructions in straightforward English. But he succumbed at the end, finally telling passengers that now that the trip was over to “Get out.” 

\

Mr. Diestler

First published in slightly different form in 1984
Earlier form of story critiqued/discussed by Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury who provided input at UND writers conference

Mr. Diestler by Damon LaBarbera

Mr Diestler, a horse-faced man of seventy six sat stiffly on the chaise longue looking longingly at his own house next door. He was getting rather bored with this visit. Curiosity had prompted him to come in the first place. There was something exciting about human oddities, and this Hollis woman  who had returned just last week  from a psychiatric hospital was an excellent specimen. She would make a unique addition to his collection. Someday he'd incorporate them all into a book.  One day...  Meanwhile, though,  the specimen opposite him was getting tiresome; the oddity was exhausting its sole justification for being.


"Please listen one more time," said Lucy Hollis. "I can show you the papers."

"Go ahead." Mr. Diestler would not listen. He would watch the waves just visible above the dunes in Lucy's yard. The crazy talk wore on. But it was better than  home. For, actually, it was not just curiosity that had drawn him here. It was avoidance of the unpleasant task of dealing with a distasteful matter. Why was he the executor of his late wife's estate? Why did Rose foist this grim task on him. Why hadn't she hired a  law partners.


Maybe he should randomly pick one relative and give them the inheritance and be done with it. But his kids? Didn't they deserve his part when he p assed. Those pleasant but essentially narcissistic children now ensconced in a faraway city,  dismissive of him and the work values that had allowed him to educate and for a time, finance their early adulthood in relative comfort.


Mr. Diestler examined more carefully the small woman opposite him. Lucy Hollis' face was lined prematurely, for she was only twenty-nine; and she had poor skin that turned red around the nostrils. Human oddities, mused Mr. Diestler, were like pointillistic paintings, best viewed from a distance. He remembered the Monet hung on the wall of his house. Only in college when it was on his dormitory wall and conferred some status did he ever really like the mess of colors.

 “Please help me. I have all the papers. I do own the boat. They tricked me out of it”  Ms. Hollis had inheritance problems as well.



The gyst, as far as Mr. Diestler could tell, was that Lucy and her husband had worked on a research boat. A grant had been given by a local but moderately prestigious college, and the boat was for their use—they were both assistant professors of Oceanography at the time.. It was her big chance


Lucy said that she had always believed that she was destined to do something really big. What exactly it was that she would do was hard to specify, but she knew it would be big. There was even a story in the Newport Lifestyle magazine about the boat and its exploratory mission. But a year later after a heavy storm the boat was damaged, and John, her husband was dead.\\

Something in the insurance, Lucy said, entitled her to a large amount of money. It didn't really make much sense to Mr. Diestler. Lucy could not think in a straight line. Really, he wasn't listening, just thinking of having to call Catherine, his wife's sister. Mr. Diestler just looked at the fields behind Lucy as the younger woman talked

(mid part of story Harlan Ellis made fun of and Ray Bradbury said "its not THAT bad"  and needs writing, skip to end)

Then he felt a sort of pain. Not in his shoulder, not a heart attack pain, that was on the other side, wasn't it. It was just random pain.. Age. It had its benefits, but the body was a nuisance, a sort of unmodern inconvenience.   During panic attacks, he always thought he was dying or going crazy, and about to lose bladder control.  But lately, these old psychiatric problems seemed like old friends. At least they weren't age related. He hardly even took his Elavil or Valium anymore.

Then he felt a presence pas sing through him, a coolness. His face was hot, feet and hands tingled. He could smell the perfume of his late wife. He suddenly felt joined to something or someone larger than himself. “Not feeling well?”, asked Lucy? She suddenly looked a little different.

“Please come in. In the house she opened the refrigerator and gave Diestler a beer. He drank it and felt better. She was steering him to a staircase. Lucy dear, I can't look at these papers. I am not your attorney. You can hire one who do the job correctly. I would need to be at my desk. I cant focus here.

Then, in the same way he used to acquiesce to Rose, he said,  “Okay, I will look at them” With the bemused smile one gives to a foolish child, Mr. Diestler extended his elbow as if to be escorted, and she led him slowly up a staircase.

. As they climbed the stairway, he saw more and more of the upstairs hallway: the ceiling, a smoke detector, the top of a doorway. .The spacious house was air-conditioned but needed airing. Each visual increment seemed to correspond to an olfactory one, so that Mr Diestler, wobbly on his feet, stopped on the last step and forced himself to btreath through his mouth. Mr. Diestler tried to retain his smile but his face muscles would not oblige.   The two threaded their way around a large bin of laundry, some kitty litter near the top of the stairs, and some cleaning supplies. * She brought him to her desk and withdrew some papers.

 

Mr. Diestler looked, first with disinterest, then with focus, and finally with intention. She might be right, he mused. She might have been entitled to a substantial settlement. Then, again, Mr. Diestler had felt his mouth dry and underarms wet. And he could relate only scattered impressions of what happened afterward. He found himself in a hospital bed. An array of tubes surrounded him. Something shifted near him. A nurse was adjusting his bed.. At eye level was Lucy's face. Her head seemed, at this angle, perched neckless on the side of the bed. Then his life seemed to become permanently groggy, alternations of sleep and barely more alert wakefulness. He seemed to know that Lucy was always there, and eventually began to suspect that she was some manifestation of his late wife, Rose.   "I am not deluded," he said to a doctor.  This is not some grief related craziness.  Nonetheless, Haldol was prescribed. Lucy was there frequently, sometimes lucid, sometimes now

He never called Catherine, his sister in law, but did arrange she inherit half the money. Lucy brought potted plants to the hospital and sat as he watched television—reruns of Happy Days and World War II footage.  Eventually he began callin her Rose. It didn't matter. In his delirium he had the vague realization that he missed his late wife more than ever his carapice of cynacism would have allowed him to admit. He arranged that his children get small, rather token, sums, and tow of three showed up at his funeral, wondering if Lucy had been his, so to speak, his concubine, because he had left half his estate to her, and she gave half to Catherine.

Jimi Hendrix by Damon LaBarbera

Originally published in Panama City News Herald 2006

Claude Duncan wrote: Yes, check your facts and whatever, then let's go with it. Change the lead, though. I'd rather see a general lead than the obscure reference to something in the paper some time back.


Jimi Hendrix
Damon LaBarbera

Thirty five years after his death--is it that long--Jimi Hendrix still incites interest from original fans and from many born in later decades.

Talk of Hendrix easily drifts towards the hagiographic: the enthusiasm of his fans may seem excessive or naive, or perhaps, more poetically, an echo of the fiery emotions stirred by his music. The guitar seemed directly cabled not to a stack of Marshall Amps but with our solar plexus, or so it seemed in those days when his music was so new and strange. Some classically trained guitarists may lift their noses at a pop idol, but he probably is, so the critics say, the best guitarist in any idiom at any time. In any case he was very good.

 Only 27 when he died, he left a legacy of mature work undone, a tragedy of the unhealthy lives of artists and musicians. One might even realistically compare him to Mozart in the intensity of his energy. His talents were prodigious. . He could not have been anything but Hendrix. There was a certain single mindedness in the direction of his talent. He seemed to have some connection, like Mozart is said to have had, with the divine--or at least the divine within himself. There are guitarists and there are Hendrix. Like the Three Stooges, you either get Hendrix or you don't. Maybe you have to like art a little dissonant and anti-authoritarian and emotive, with a touch of the dissonant augmented fourth in our music and our lives to appreciate him.

His death gives a similar push to our love of him. He was not particularly tidy or systematic in his music and some of his best concert music was played with a popped string or while sheepishly tuning his guitar. He became better know first in England--having gone as a journeyman through a series of bands in the United States, and he was the white suburban boy's idea of hipdom. Why he was not so popular with blacks seems curious. But he had an adolescent machismo to mild manner white youth--a non threatening black when blacks were raising fists at Cornell and the Olympics. He did not fit the Motown style and was not politicized beyond the popular sentiments of peace and love at the time. Though Black Panthers did solicit funds from him after concerts. He made a big hit at Isle of Wite, recommended by another Southpaw, Paul McCartney. Hendrix was dressed fopishly, or British mod, with a hat looking like that of SNLs Father Guido Sarducci. A salad of racial genes, his experiences on a reservation was formative. He was after all, part Cherokee, and in his clothes displayed that allegiance. Exposed early on to the Cherokee tonal language, his singing could seem more like tonal talking, and he covered artists like Bob Dylan having a similar style of melodious chant. Naturally imagery abounded in his work--wind, castles in sand, the sea.

The Cherokee tonal language may have been nurtured his perfect pitch, the ability to produce and recognize any note, without referring to any other note. This skill, present in about 1 in 10,000 tends to develop in those raised with tonal languages like Mandarin Chinese or Vietnamese. Nowadays, Julliard is filled with Chinese pianists. He could produce environmental sounds with uncanny accuracy. A train approaching a track, its horn blaring in alternating augmented fourths, the rails rattling, and then--whoosh--the sound of the Doppler effect as it passes: he could accurately mimic this sound with only ten fingers.

 And hence he could create what musicologists call "tonal paintings", injecting environmental sounds into his music, creating musical equivalents of metaphor and metonymy. The actual scales he used, the underlying structure of the music was not particularly difficult--typical blues scales and do-re-me scales his backups tended to be and his backups were typically a bass player who pounded on the root note and a drummer who kept beat. Indeed, this is a feature of perfect pitch--enormous musical sensitivity but organized according to typical rules and patterns.


The everyday kid listening to his radio discerned the underlying structure, against which Hendrix played the music of the spheres. Like Mozart he had some pipeline to the divine. Like Cobain (another lefty), DH Lawrence, and Mozart, his death was relatively premature. There ought to be a Society for the Prevention of Artistic Self-Destruction. The corpus of works he left still interests us, and indeed, everyone, so to speak, plays Hendrix nowadays. What lesson can we learn from Hendrix? Hard to say, really, except perhaps the pedestrian warning against drug use. His talent seemed from another planet, and, as cautionary tale, his life transposes poorly to ours, mere earthlings.