Twice Melvin

by James Pumpelly

  “Some,” she replies, setting a trap inquisitors invariably spring, “…some.”

  “I think it’s all true,” he ventures, taking her bait, “all but the part about Thelma hiding an art gallery in her basement.”

  “Oh? and how’s that?” Dorothy keen for the seamier side of the saga.

  “Because, I was nosing around her cellar a few months after my dad and Thelma married, and I didn’t see anything resembling an anatomical collection. Nothing. Nothing at all. Well…nothing except a couple of sticky mason quarts lying smashed on the earthen floor.”

  “Thelma may have cleaned up her exhibit before she got hitched,” Dorothy cavils - dispute something she holds dear.

  “That’s what I thought, too, at first. Then, I began asking myself, why wouldn’t she clean up everything down there? I mean, why remove the salacious centerfolds and leave the jam spoiling all over the floor?”

  “Dunno…tunnel vision, maybe?” she retorts, looking for a crack in his conjecture.

  “Aaah…same thing Melvin said - except we were talking about his folks when he said it.”

  “His folks?” she shoots back, irritated with his abandonment of a contested point.

  “That’s right. Melvin told me that George, especially, puts no credence in his so-called recollections. And though his mom is less overt, she, too, merely placates him with a sweet silence on the subject, her love prevailing over any wish to tout her disbelief.”

  “Well, he told you the truth,” she laments. “They believe most of what Melvin recollected came from, and I quote, ‘The fertile fields of childhood, a childhood fostered around his grandmother’s hearth, her fireside stories but seeds for his reaping.’”

  “And you?” Simon prods, braking his dilapidated Dodge on a mountain crest, the cascading expanse of crimson and gold a celebration he doesn’t want to miss, the higher elevations ahead of the valleys in their enthusiastic embrace of fall.

  “W-e-l-l,” she stalls, surprised this docile, village bachelor has the aplomb to press her opinion. “There is the theory of the collective unconscious, you know.“

  “Carl Jung? Yes, I know,” Simon answers curtly, as though the name of the great man is agitating. “Your interest in psychology is what prompted me to invite you along,” a heretofore unnoticed urgency in his voice, like a compulsion to go screaming down the side of the mountain. “Jung is my bedside companion; my father confessor; my-“

  “You? a psyche student?” she interrupts, amazed at his unfolding…perhaps his unraveling. “I would’ve never guessed!”

  “Part of my problem,” Simon accelerating through a precarious curve. “Just a part, you understand; but still a part I need to address.”

  “You’ve lost me,” a bewildered Dorothy sensing a direction away from herself, away from the party.

  “What has Little George told you about it?” Simon offering no clues to his bearing.

  “About…about Jung?” she flounders; wishing, suddenly, she were in the woods with Melvin, silence becoming synonymous with safety.

  “No, about the party…about his beliefs, or disbeliefs, in what the tapes put forth as truth.”

  “The-the party?” she screams, Simon careening within inches of the narrow, leaf slick shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles, redirecting his car, and her attention, as though nothing happened. “The reason I ask – about Little George, I mean – is because we’ve been sharing some common concerns; or more accurately, some personal dilemmas; something we each have to face, to work out-“

  “Little George?” Dorothy green-faced, Simon’s discourse as crooked as the twisting road.

  “Yes…well…you know what a bookworm he is…in my store most every day, looking for that-that ‘authority’, as he calls it, on some subject or other that’s caught his expansive fancy.”

  “So…what’s his problem?” Dorothy keeping her eyes on the perilous curve ahead and both hands on the hard metal dash.

  “Let’s just say his parent’s ambivalence over the recent civil union legislation seals his lips at family discussions, keeps his problem a secret; one he’s shared with me.”

  “His problem? shared with you? not George? not Melody?” Dorothy gasping as they skid through the bottom of the curve.

  “The most compelling reason being that his parents refuse to believe the tapes,” Simon says, “and he wanted my opinion as to whether I thought there was anything in the tapes that might allude to his-his condition. He’s aware, you see, of my predilection for Jung; how I’ve struggled to analyze, to understand-”

  “His condition?” Dorothy echoes, “his problem? Simon Farley! enough of your vagaries!” that Simon’s her elder no longer a consideration; both his driving and his conversation in dire need of direction. “Be specific,” she demands. “What problem does Little George have?”

  “None. None whatsoever,” the ever evasive Simon parries, gunning his Dodge in jerky spurts along the stream-bordered road at the mountain’s base. “None, that is, since the civil union bill literally legislated the problem out of existence.”

  “But that’s about gays marrying gays,” Dorothy shouts, confused, impatient, “about their rights as partners; like being the responsible party in medical emergencies; like…hey! what are you saying?” Dorothy abruptly removing one hand from the dash to pass through her raven hair and trail down the side of her neck as though the effort can clear her thoughts. “Are you saying Little George has a medical problem?”

  “Specifically, no. But back to the civil union law, it implies a great deal more than the obvious; more than the rights of a partnership,” a nervous Simon postures, “in fact, it moves the problem of-of…the problem, well…the problem is transferred to the public at large. Out of the closet, you might say, to be carried on the back of society – or at least by those who still regard it as a problem. Their own cross to bear, I suppose; though to be sure, it’s one of their choosing, thanks to the bill.”

  “Then-“

  “Yes?” a shaking Simon prompts, his high voice no more than a squeak, “you were saying?”

  “Then you are gay?” an incredulous Dorothy mouths. Still on the flat stretch of road, her thoughts are free to postulate, to deduce, to think the unthinkable, to accept the unacceptable-

  “And free,” a relieved Simon follows; that she has voiced the difficult word making it easier to express its partner.

  “And Little George?” she mutters, moving gingerly towards the light of the thing as though it holds harm in abeyance; as though at any moment it might reach out to include her, to diffuse her with love and warmth, with acceptance of all things mortal. “…Little George?”

  “Not so little anymore, is he?” Simon whispers, the large thing he has said like the stream running clear and determined beside the road, its purpose as natural, as beneficial, as the rain that gave it birth.

  “No, he isn’t.” A cleansing pride in Little George flowing over her shock, washing away what bias she’s acquired, her empathy with his suffering more than she can hide; his pain, his fear, his love of family all at odds with who he is. The thought of pain bringing her back to Simon. “But you, too,” she says softly; her eyes aglow with resolution. “We’ve got to do something. Make it right for Little George. For you. For all those-“

  “I’m older now,” he interjects, “my habits are deep; self-protecting. And I would just as soon not change anything for myself. But Little George?” the strain in his voice, his actions, all gone; his driving now a thing to be admired. “He needs to feel it’s okay to be himself; to make the most of his talents; to fully enjoy his career as a teacher - a college professor - and to know his family, his friends, his students, will be all the more proud for his honesty.”

  “Yes, and a brave honesty it is, isn’t it?” she adds, searching his face for admission, for any sign he might yet wish to join the realm of the free.

  But his wall is too high, his defense too entr
enched; all the years of secrecy, of pretense, the very bricks in his reclusive tower. “What’s this I hear about your engagement?” he asks, his change of subject as refreshing as the cold mountain air Dorothy introduces, cracking her window with a suddenness and force suggesting suffocation.

  “Change of date, that’s all,” she offers, her terseness exposing the lie.

  “Melvin thinking of joining the firm?” he continues; relief from cracking his closet door leaving him unresponsive to Dorothy’s cues. “Little George told me about it.”

  “Then, you know,” she says, a flip of her lustrous black hair catching the sun - and Simon’s eye.

  “So, where did you get your eyes? your hair?” Simon blind to her resistance, her stubbornness when an issue remains unresolved.

  “Same place Little George got his sexual persuasion,” she answers, flashing a smile that’s more from satisfaction with her ready reply than any change in her curious mood. “Hidden in the family genes, I guess.”

  “Wait till I tell Little George!” Simon wails, laughing wickedly. “’Hidden in the family jeans’, she says!” The Tunbridge general store coming into view as he guffaws; Dorothy suggesting a late morning snack before their trek through the bustling fair - and getting it, too, at Simon’s expense: a couple of horseshoe kielbasas and a block of Cabot habanera cheese funding their drive through the old covered bridge, two explorers ravenous with anticipation as they pull within sight of the barns.

  “Shall we tackle the rides first?” Dorothy wiping the last trace of mustard from her lips as Simon parks.

  “Be my guest,” the generous Simon obliges, taking the unnecessary precaution of locking his battered old Dodge. And striking out across a narrow, wooden-rail bridge - its bird’s-eye view of the Tunbridge stream not unlike what lies ahead - the fair seems a span over the passing world, each year bringing something new.

  Yes, now here are the real colors, Dorothy muses, feeling for the rail as she peers up the hillside ahead, the colors one should drive out to see, a myriad of bright banners beckoning in the Green Mountain breeze. Melvin doesn’t know what he’s missing! The hot pepper yellows, the hard candy purples, the hotdog reds all streaking like Vincent’s life-vibrant oils over a canvas of seawater blue.

  And the characters, too, no less colorful: the Ferris wheel spun by a tale in the making, the operator assuring those waiting to ride that he was once an attorney at law (Simon whispering that if this swaggerer was ever before the bench, it was probably at the arm of the law). All this overlooked by Dorothy, the thrill of the wheel more excitement than caution can stem.

  But when she disembarks, a dizzy survivor of Simon’s “circle of death”, she joins him on the ground, a bit of personal puffery in her friendly taunts and dares:

  “Come on old fellow,” she teases, “if a frail little thing like me can face these frightening machines, a man of your stature can bring them down to their rusted knees!”

  Which is exactly what he fears, Simon’s excitement running more towards the absolute, the certain - the risk of a bee escaping a glass encased hive the apogee of his orbit with danger. His fascination with safety gives him pause before each mechanical amusement, Simon deducing mystic meanings hard taught in the twisted steel.

  “I wager you’re beyond the attraction of that monstrosity,” Simon pointing to a towering platform from which ticket holders are plunging like seals off an iceberg to slide down a roiling trough of water.

  “I am,” Dorothy agrees - after trying not to. “But why do you say so?” she asks, chancing an argument.

  “Because life has taught you better,” Simon giving her shoulder a little pat - half affection, half compliment. “Taught you the value of effort, of time; and of what you should expect in return. Just look at those kids, their arduous climb up the long flights of stairs, the time-wasting line for a turn at the trough - and all for the five-second thrill of sliding down. You would think the unfair exchange would eventually be recognized for what it is,” he laments. “And yet, year after year, I see them climbing, see them panting in line to slide back down to where they worked so hard to escape.”

  “Wow!” Dorothy exclaims with exasperation, “you’re worse than Melvin! Always looking for that deeper meaning, that higher design. What’s wrong with just living it up while we still have a chance?”

  “W-What’s wrong?” he stammers, backing away to take her fully into view, “it’s me that should be asking you that question, my dear! You’re the one who’s had the benefit of a guide, a rare insight into the past, reviewed the lessons it has for the present. Take, for example,” he scolds, and with a sweeping motion of his arm, “…take all these people round us here. Just look at what they’re doing: paying their hard earned cash for a chance – a chance to make some impossible shot, some improbable toss; one that, if successful, only wins them an impractical toy.”

  “Yeah? so what’s your point?” a petulant Dorothy fusses; that her benefactor has become a lecturer – and with the bad timing of doing it at the very feet of Mother Pleasure - more than she’s bargained for; more, even, than the disparity in his little “unfair exchange” illustration; a retaliatory thought finding her impertinent tongue:

  “Maybe you’re not gay at all, Simon Farley. Maybe you’re just so damn unhappy to be stuck on this planet that you can’t handle anything that might make you want to stay,” she declaims, defiantly flipping her shoulder-length hair – Simon ignoring her barb to address her question:

  “My point is this, my scared little girl – for I think you are frightened; afraid that what Melvin recalled about you might actually be true – I think you know life is not a chance. In fact, it’s anything but a chance, what you learned at the party bearing down on your conscience like Damocles’ sword. And unlike these scatty pleasure seekers chancing the toss of a ring peradventure it loops a bottle, you know from experience – remembered experience – that the real challenge is yourself. Grab yourself around the neck, and the prizes will follow - come tumbling down from the skies, if you will - if only you stick out your neck, take a chance on what your heart already knows you should do.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” Dorothy drawing closer to take his arm, “I’m sorry I said that awful thing, that slur about you being-“

  “Honey, I’ve heard worse things said on the subject,” he interposes, easing her contrition with a nervous titter. “But what about you? do you agree with what I said? that what’s really bothering you is Melvin’s recollections?”

  “I need time, Simon,” she replies, after consideration, and after they walk past a crowd - a crowd rooting for favorites in a pig race. “I need time to reflect, time to analyze, time…time to know my own heart, as you said. And to help me do that, I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist,” Dorothy noting the comment seems to please him. “So there,” she adds, “now you know why I was in your store this morning looking for material on Jung.”

  “And thrilled to know it, too,” Simon looking about for anything not billed as a threat; for anything which this troubled young lady and he might share without fear. “And would you look at this!” Simon pointing at a palm reader’s tent, its sign the mere symbol of an open hand. “This is the very thing we need! You see?” he goes on excitedly, “there’s no chance, no so-called luck in our lives. What we need is always there if we’ll but recognize its form! And in this case, it’s a fortune teller!”

  “Since when did palmistry become an essential?” she queries, laughing at Simon’s childish delight, his sudden reversal – the same man, who, decrying the fair’s entertainments as frivolous only moments before, is now eager to partake.

  “Since it occurred to me that this could be your litmus test,” he answers - Dorothy’s laugh subdued to a smile. “We can check out Melvin’s party, see if anything turns up to validate what he said,” he continues, taking her hand and playfully tugging her to the tent, to the flap hanging loose at its entrance.

  “Should we just go in l
ike this?” she asks, as Simon reaches to pull back the flap, “…unannounced? What if someone is in the middle of a-?”

  Dorothy’s objection quashed by the lingering kiss of two lovers - Melvin’s betrayal cutting deeper than forgiveness can heal.

  Man will become better only when you

  make him see what he is like. (Chekhov)

  XXXII

  For a day born to such high flying hopes, the war between my heart and my head is a sudden and crushing blow, the kind of defeat that can only find solace in a cemetery. Collapsed under the yellow moon - my father’s gravestone like a shard of my shattered heart - I recall my sweet Minnie’s whisper, feel her breath on my neck as the blinding shaft of sunlight stabs like an accusing finger through the flap of the tent.

  “No one has ever waited for me under my window,” she whispers, pulling back from my hungry arms, searching my eyes for hope, for promise, for anything to consecrate what she regards as sin - my commitment written in the shine of my tears. Yes, my tears; for I’m overwhelmed by a glimpse through the portals of bliss, my tears spilling forth like a fountain to wash from my mind the stains of a troubled past; the dull, leaden drag on my heart that’s long held me back from such heights, a weight suddenly crashing through the tent to pull me down anew.

  Moments later, Simon departs with Minnie, escorting her to her lodgings in Montpelier. I’m the odd man out; a man with a banshee on his back. For death seems my only escape; and one most welcomed, too, with Dorothy playing the torturing roles of good guy, bad guy, cajoling and cudgeling to compel my carnal confession.

  But what can I say? what can anyone say in such bewilderment? I feel at once guileless and guilty, saintly and sinful; Dorothy’s distress, I tell myself, no more painful than my hurt to have caused it – except, I’m innocent of the charge. After all, there was nothing amiss with my intentions, playing cicerone to an out-of-state guest a kind of charitable deed, the venerable cloak of the Good Samaritan even now to be seen on my back, if Dorothy will but trouble herself to look – the kiss notwithstanding.