We Met in a Cemetery (9/19/09)

We met in a cemetery.

            I was alive, she was dead.

            I saw her name printed on the gravestone in front of me: Hannah Georgia Patterson. Aged 52 when she died, and the words on her headstone, “loving mother and dearest wife,” were the only things I knew about her.

            As with any grave.

            But what drew my attention to this particular gravestone, other than the beautiful, vivid flowers ensconced around the stone, was the weeping boy beside it.

            We met in a cemetery.

            We were both very much alive.

            As I walked down the dirt path through the cemetery that day, I felt a sense of calm and peace that I knew I needed. Life can get that way sometimes—stressful, evoking your blood to its boiling point, pushing you to your limit—and the cemetery counteracts that for me.

            I breathed in the sweet air; some fragrant flower happened to be at its best, and the sun shined just right through the leaves of the trees, as if they were stained glass.

            The green glow of leaves gleamed down upon the boy as I approached.

The first thing I liked about him was the way he didn’t try to hide his tears from me, although I was a complete stranger. The second was the ingenious way he had laid out the flowers. They were patterned blue, lavender, yellow, pink, and stacked so they formed a sort of topless pyramid around the base of the stone.

I don’t know why I sat down by him. Most times, I would leave someone to honor their loved ones in peace. But I sat down, right there in the grass next to him, and that was that.

And, before either of us had said anything, I started to cry, too.

It’s a funny thing, when you cry alongside someone. You both share a feeling of deep sorrow, emotion, compassion. To cry with someone is to let them see into your heart, into your feelings, your mind. Nothing is hidden, you just cry.

After awhile, he told me his name was Nolen Patterson.

It was his mother who was buried there. She had died of cancer two months ago. He missed her very much.

He told me she was a great mother. She always put him and his brothers first. She packed their lunches, told them stories, helped them with homework, watched them grow up. She enjoyed traveling, rain walks, the ocean, wildlife, and painting.

And this is the first connection I felt to her. Painting.

I studied the grave with great consideration, then reached into my bag.

The paints emerged: brown, black, gold, indigo, crimson, emerald. They squeezed onto my palette and expanded at the tip of my wet brush. Onto the paper they washed, the vibrant colors, calmly painting the flowers, the stone, the words…

We all came from different angles of humanity, different times, different planes of existence even. And we met here, turned to the same page, and developed an understanding so simply complex, it was almost surreal.

We met in a cemetery.

           

Boxes (1/11/11)

Humans live in boxes. Tall, wide boring, mathematical boxes. Created for shelter, designed with perfection. Boxes. Towering over us, boxes fall, boxes fail. They aren’t supposed to. Humans think in boxes. Square roots, prime numbers, fact, fact, fact; repeat, repeat, repeat. Boxes are by force. Boxes confine. Humans lock themselves in and hide away the key in a box as well. Only the brightest can overcome the box, unearth the key. Boxes make us smart. Boxes make us money.

But boxes don’t

Let us live.

The Photographer (creative writing class exercise, or an attempt at comedy)

          It’s 2am. I find myself sitting at a table topped with a frilly white table cloth, royal blue napkins, and a plate of some monstrous-looking part of a sea creature drenched in red sauce that I tentatively poke with my fork to make sure it’s not alive.

            “Really, I only need the salad,” I say to the waiter dressed in a white, official-looking uniform.

            He stares at me in disgust. “It only comes with an entrée. This is your entrée,” he spits and walks away.

            I can understand his annoyance. First, I arranged to come in after hours to take photos for the magazine I work for, Bon Appetit.

            Secondly, I feel like I should be wearing a tux. I’m not. I’m wearing my pajamas. You see, I forgot about my assignment until I woke up around midnight from a dream in which a herd of cows surrounded me chanting “meat, meat, meat,” which reminded me of burgers, which reminded me of food, which reminded me of this restaurant, which reminded me that my photos are due tomorrow or I am screwed.

            So, poor Louis, or Jacques or whatever the snobby guy’s name is had to come into work and wait on me at 2am.

            I wonder if the cook purposely made my food look like rats’ guts. I’ll have to get his name and put it in the caption alongside my photos: “Chef Frenchy Français specializes in the French delicacy, roasted rats’ guts. Reviewer’s call: tastes like chicken.”

            I push the delectable dish to the side and wait for my dinner salad. From a table nearby, I see Jacques glaring at me. Tough tuna, man. I am not eating whatever is on the plate.

            To pass the time (and to keep myself from falling asleep), I closely examine the dinosaur pattern on my pajama pants. My mom bought them for me as a joke last Christmas. I wonder what my girlfriend would think if she saw me out in public with these bad boys.

            “Do these make you…more attracted to me?” I try saying suavely. You know, just for practice.

            “Yes. Yes, they do,” I hear a soft reply from across the room. A soft, manly reply.

            I swivel around in my chair to see Jacques, or whatever his name is, has paused with his table cleaning and is staring wistfully at me.

            I force a smile onto my face, wave, then turn around. My palms are sweaty and I can feel my face reddening. I want out. Now. But I am trapped here until my dinner salad comes. I need a picture of it. I need one! Be strong. Here comes Jacques! Pretend to be busy!

            I frantically pick up my napkin and begin to blow my nose excessively.

            “Your dinner salad, sir,” Jacques says, setting my food down in front of me. “Let me get you a new napkin.”

            What came over him? I thought he hated me, now he’s…he’s…practically offering me gifts of love and adoration!

            HE’S HITTING ON ME!

            “You know what? That’s all right,” I say, snapping a quick photo of the salad. “This is all I need, I’ll be leaving now.”

            Jacques suddenly looks scared. “You…you…don’t like the food?” he almost whispers.

            “No, no!” I say hastily. “The food is…great! I just have to get going…”

            “You don’t like the food?!” he asks again, raising his voice.

            “No, no, it’s—”

            “YOU DON’T LIKE THE FOOD!” he yells, racing into the kitchen. “HE DOESN’T LIKE THE FOOD!”

            I stand by the table feeling like I am going to wet myself.

            Suddenly, a large, middle-aged man bursts through the kitchen doors, sobbing. Frenchy. The cook.

            “I quit!” he cries in a thick French accent. “I quit, I quit, I QUIT!”

            I tremble as he approaches me, looming over me with his large meat cleaver.

            “Don’t kill me!” I squeak in a high-pitched voice.

            “I’m not going to kill you,” he roars. “I’m going to kill MYSELF!” He holds the knife to his throat.

            “NO!” I cry, launching myself toward him. We struggle for possession of the knife, and it flies into the air.

            Just as Jacques emerges from the kitchen.

            The knife lands in Jacques’s gut, and he collapses.

            “Jacques!” Frenchy and I shout.

            We race over to him. Frenchy examines the knife wound and I cradle Jacques’ head in my arms.

            “Jacques! Speak to me!” I cry.

            “I’m…I’m sorry I was mean to you,” he struggles to say. “You…you just meant so much…” he tries to finish but the pain is too much.

            As the life fades from his sparkling eyes, I realize what would make him happy. I know the one last wish he would want before he dies.

            I draw in a deep breath, close my eyes, and give him a big, wet, mouth-to-mouth kiss. I can taste the blood on his tongue as well as a bit of sweet something he must have eaten just moments before. Mmm, cinnamon…

            I lift my head, gasping for air, realizing I am crying.

            I look up and scream into the heavens, “WHY?!?!?!”

            “Listen! He speaks again!” says Frenchy, who is kneeling beside me, shocked.

            I lean close to Jacques. “What is it?” I ask.

            “I meant to say…” he whispers, “that you just meant so much…to the restaurant.”

            “What?” I ask, confused.

            “The restaurant,” he repeats. “I was only nice to you because we need a good review.”

            With that, all signs of life leave his body, and he is still.

            Frenchy stands, avoiding eye contact with me. “The bill’s on the table,” he mutters, returning to the kitchen.

            Still sitting on the floor with Jacques in my arms, I look upward once again and cry, “WHY?!?!?!”

Walking At Dusk (written 11/23/10)

It’s on nights like this, when the world is trapped between autumn and winter, that they speak to me. The temperature has dropped to below freezing, and there is a slight dusting of snow on the ground. As I walk, all I hear are our footsteps tapping on the frozen ground. The world is silent.

            The dormant atmosphere then provokes a thought: how many of the earth’s creatures died on this particular day?

            I ponder this. The number must be enormous—humans, dogs, mice, insects by the thousands… yet how much of it do I see? I have not seen anything die today.

            I pass by the house where a woman lives whose husband recently shot himself. He was dying of cancer. There was no way out. She was there when he did it. She heard the shot. She went rushing into the room where he laid; she found his body. Words cannot describe the agony she must have felt.

            She must wonder which world he has retired to.

            I hear a click from the house and I look over, trying to place the sound. I cannot.

My dog slips on the ice as we near the top of the hill. “Walk in the middle,” I say, tugging his leash toward the center of the deserted road. “It’s less icy.”

The light is fading, and as the inside of my nose comes into contact with the cold evening air, I fall under the impression that my insides are freezing.

My other dog begins to growl. I look over to the side of the road, frightened. A

plastic bag caught in the dying brambles flutters in the wind. “It can’t hurt you,” I say to her. “It can’t even move.”

            We turn around at the top.

            I see one house adorned with Christmas lights; another still with Halloween decorations. But most houses are dark and unwelcoming.

“Silent night, holy night,” I sing as we descend the hill. My voice wavers with every step, creating a false vibrato. With every word that departs my lips, a wispy white cloud forms in front of my face. My breath looks like a ghost.

            That’s when I see it. She has closed the curtains of the front window of her house. That’s what made the noise.

            I feel it. He’s here. She’s trying to forget. He died with the summer and is felt most in the winter. He accompanies the loneliness, the lifelessness, the sorrow. Every dead being in this world is present at this moment, and he is among them. She is shutting out death.

            It’s nights like this, when the world is numb, that those who are truly dead remind the world of life. The silent world can acknowledge their presence. They walk the earth in this hour of dusk, and on this night, I walk with them.

The Market: Another Day at Work

His focus is on the till. The money: that’s what he wants. I watch him from inside our berry booth. Michelle, my coworker, and I exchange looks. This is the third time he has returned today. What do we do if he comes over? We have a knife we use to cut berry crates in half for people. It’s dull, but how would he know?

The smell of sautéed garlic and onion wafts through the air, and my mouth waters. If the man is hungry, all he has to do is waltz into the market and pick up a few samples.

He glances down the street, then back at us. He’s scruffy-looking and carrying a Safeway bag. Who knows what it contains?

Inside the market, I don’t worry as much. The atmosphere is pleasant: tall, majestic trees engulf the crowd in a safety shroud of shade. There are people all around: witnesses. Still, something about this man makes me uneasy. He stands behind us, out by the street. When our focus is on customers, our backs are turned on him.

A woman comes up. “I’m coming to return these,” she says, holding out an entire crate of raspberries, priced at $24.90, the cheapest they have been yet this season.

“Ok,” I say hesitantly. “Is something wrong?”

“They just don’t taste like anything,” she says, handing me the box.

“All right…” I dig in the till for money and hand her the refund.

“Thank you.” As she walks away, she grabs a few blueberries and shoves them in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Without another word, she is gone.

I take a raspberry out of the crate and pop it into my mouth: tastes like a raspberry.

The shady character has left again. I hope he won’t return. I realize that part of the reason he makes me so uneasy is because he just stands there. If he is planning on robbing us, he’s being quite obvious about it. A real thief would blend in with the crowd, distract us, and have an accomplice to snatch the till and be done with the whole ordeal.

And then there are those people who wouldn’t be able to steal money if they tried. This man is in a wheel chair, his head tilted back at a seemingly uncomfortable angle. This is how he enters the market. He can’t wheel himself, he can’t speak much, and he can’t purchase anything. But he’s here because there is someone kind enough to help him. I try to imagine what it would be like to perceive so much in this world, but not be able to communicate it. The beauty of the world to this man is trapped inside his mind. Only those with a keen sense of understanding could even begin to translate this man’s thoughts.

And behind him, pushing the wheel chair, is one such human being. A fantastic human being. From the moment he steps into the market, wheeling his friend in front of him, the business of the market seems to stop, and my focus zeros in on him. From underneath my canopy of produce, I watch him.

My attention is diverted as a customer hurriedly shoves a handful of paper at me. “Cherries—how much?” a short Chinese woman demands. Food stamps, four dollars a piece. Unfortunately, the cherries are $2.50.

“I can take a few out of each pint and make it four dollars for you,” I say.

“No, four dollar!” she screeches, mounding up the cherries in two pints.

“I’m sorry, but we can sell both of those for five.” I reach over and take some cherries off the top. Normally, I would be more compassionate; however, I’ve seen this lady before. She has cash on her as well as food stamps, and she doesn’t seem to understand that in Oregon, markets are like stores: no bartering allowed. “Here, that’s four dollars’ worth,” I say calmly.

The woman waves her hand in the air like she’s tired of me. She digs out an extra dollar, heaps up each pint again, throws the money and food stamps at me, and disappears.

Immediately, I look up again, searching for the fantastic human being. There he is, chatting with the goat cheese vendors to my left. They chat like old friends as the man takes samples of cheese cubes on toothpicks for his handicapped friend.

“Oooh, he loves that one!” he laughs, and asks “Don’t you, Andy?”

And, behold, the man in the wheel chair is smiling!

The woman and her daughter selling goat cheese both laugh, and the man begins to tell them about all of his friend’s favorite things: food, places, movies.

How I wish something at our stand interested him. Back when asparagus was in season, they stopped by once for a bundle. The man’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. “Ooh that looks wonderful!”

People can’t help but smile when he talks. People can’t help but laugh. As he chats with the goat cheese vendors, I watch him, grinning. Suddenly, we make eye contact. His face is bright and he is laughing at one of his own jokes. I know he sees me, so I look away. Customers. That’s who I should be focused on.

Every week, he returns at exactly the same time: 1:30. I shouldn’t know this, but I do. Every week, he wears cut-off jeans and an old-fashioned cap. Paired with a few tattoos and a t-shirt, he is the epitome of a Portlander.

            His energy inspires me, and I find myself smiling more at customers, complimenting their hair or clothing, and making small talk. When I look up again, the man is gone, and I know it will be another week before I see him again.

            The clock strikes 2:00, and the market prepares to close down for the day. As I stack crates of leftover peaches, I find my mind wandering again. I feel like I know the man with his handicapped friend. I feel like anyone would love him.

            I hope he meets the man who scrutinized our till. I want this fantastic human being to make him laugh.