Old

by Stan Charnofsky

  As we left the bookstore, I perused the shelves and counters, aware of the tasteful displays, impressed by the child-centered ambience. Genieve, or whomever she employed, knew much about the enormous body of children’s literature, and how to present it. There was a circular rug in one area, with child-sized chairs set up for group presentations. Favorite characters from literature were watching over the setting, images from Alcott’s Little Women to scenes from The Wizard of Oz. It all was designed to appeal to young tastes and interests.

  Kacey actually took my hand and pulled me out of the store.

  FOUR

  Coffee was not a passion of mine, but that day the coffee shop’s brand, from wherever it originated, was the most memorable I had ever tasted. More accurately, it was a companion treat to the nectar I was getting from Kacey Cloud. I learned so much more than I expected in that twenty-minute interlude. When it was over, I was on my own mountaintop.

  “There’s an old saying,” she told me, “that Beethoven’s music sends you to heaven, but Mozart’s music comes from heaven. His treatment of melodic formations had the most ingenious feel for timing, spacing, tone, color and rhythm. Others could create lovely melodies, but fell short when it came to their treatment. He was in a rare altitude, never before and never again matched.”

  I was amazed at her musical acumen. My favorite classical composers were the romantics: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn and Dvorak. I knew that Beethoven and Mozart were considered by critics to be greater composers, and I’m self-critical when it comes to my knowledge of aesthetic things, so I kept quiet. I guess I just like soaring melodies that stir my juices, whether they are perfect technically or not.

  “What if there is no heaven?” I asked.

  She giggled. “Nirvana, Valhalla, Elysium, Eden, Olympus, Zion…call it what you will. The music of the masters seems to come from a non-earthly source. It’s as if the compositions were given to these geniuses full-blown, where they could grind them out in a remarkably short time,”

  Here I was, young and naïve, sitting joyfully in the company of a true aesthete, who knew not only about great literature but brilliant music as well. As I write these words, it is the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of Mozart’s birth, and I heard a music critic say that Beethoven’s manuscripts were filled with cross-outs and erasures, while Mozart’s were virtually pristine. Their composition styles were profoundly different, yet both ended up with ‘heavenly’ creations. I feel so small when I think of giants whose genius never ceases to enrich the world’s cultural landscape.

  I wondered if Kacey were also an expert on theatre, but held back from jumping into that arena, figuring I’d find out soon enough.

  I took a risk. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  She broke into laughter that turned heads in the café. When she stopped, she placed her hand on my arm (it felt magical, as if I had been brushed by the Good Witch’s wand), massaged my skin lightly and said, “You would like to date me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well…”

  “Oh, I’m not being critical. I’m simply commenting on what I see as a fact. You’re probably too shy to own up to it, but it seems apparent to me.”

  “Well…”

  “Tell you what. Let’s give it a try. No, I’m not involved with anyone, though I date off and on when I can find someone who will tolerate my chatter. I do chatter, you notice, and sometimes the other person has a hard time getting in.”

  I wanted to dispel that notion quickly. Her chatter, as she called it, was glorious music to my heathen ears. “I love your repartee. It doesn’t put me off. It pulls me in. See? I’m in. And I love it here.”

  “Okay. You asked for it. Tell you what, let’s start with this.” She leaned across the round table and kissed me softly on the lips.

  I could have died right there, in that moment, and my life would have been complete. “Wow,” was all I could say.

  She stood, smiled, massaged my arm again, and said, “Back to work. Call me tomorrow. Maybe we can go to the theatre or something.”

  “Where? At the bookstore? Can I get your home phone?”

  “Of course, but don’t rush things. As long as you know how to reach me, we can move things along.”

  “What time do you get to work?”

  She laughed once more. “You are an eager little beaver. I get the sense that you’re starved for intimacy. Am I right?”

  I didn’t want to appear too needy. At least I knew that: appearing too needy puts a woman off; makes her think she will have to be a caretaker.

  “I’m not starved,” I said, a bit too testily. I smiled at her, my best, most ingratiating smile, and added. “Hungry, but not starved.”

  “Okay,” she said as she moved toward the door. “Hunger requires nutrition. Starvation demands emergency care. No emergency here. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “I like you!” I cried after her.

  She turned her head slightly and I could see she was amused.

  FIVE

  Everybody knows that a new love affair is heady stuff. I suppose one could say it’s all downhill from then on, but that would be simplistic. True, the initial towering passion lessens, and also true, as one gets more involved, the desperate feeling of needing to secure the other person fades away. Victory is sweet, and when the object of one’s affection begins to respond in kind, there is the clear sense of kicking back and savoring the win. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t wonderful moments in the second stage of a relationship as well. And the third, when you are married, settled in, and maybe begin to have kids.

  With Kacey, the first stage, the profoundly-in-love stage—the stage where I couldn’t get enough of her—lasted for about four months. Then, subtly at first, but with incremental episodes, the proverbial bloom began to come off the rose. I’m sure it wasn’t only her doing; she obviously began to be put off by me as well, though I can only speak with authority about my own perceptions.

  What I learned about Kacey, I am convinced, would have alienated any man. Then, twenty years after our brief and sometimes stormy contact, I found out, from Genieve Wolfe, who was elderly by then but hanging on, that Kacey was still not married, had indeed published her novella, had written a companion piece, and was honored by an outfit called Medallion, with their Silver Award as a notable author.

  What went on between us was good at first: interesting coffee-house readings by her poetic friends, nouveau theatre off the main row, on Melrose and Beverly Boulevards, Thai and Korean food which she “adored,” and brief weekend outings to Big Sur to the north and Coronado Island to the south. No question, she knew how to enjoy the good things in life.

  She also had intolerable habits which I thought were isolated oversights, but later discovered were imbedded patterns. How people cultivate such patterns is beyond me. Maybe childhood hurts, maybe young adult disappointments.

  Anyway, she had a lot of them, which translated into actions I labeled as lack of awareness.

  When she stayed with me (during the summer, she lived with me for four weeks), I would arrive home ahead of her to find the sliding back door open, lights on and, on occasion, the water in the kitchen sink running. In the morning, when I’d come downstairs, I would regularly find a coffee cup, half filled with black liquid, sitting on the carpet in front of the TV.

  Those are events which annoy but might be corrected. Most irritating, though, would be her feigned interest in what I was doing or studying. I say feigned because she would even ask me, “How were your classes?” and when I would begin to respond, I could see her eyes wander to the book shelves or out the window. Even then I would never be sure if she caught what I said, until about twenty minutes later, when she would ask me a direct question about something I had just told her.

  A couple of times, in the car, we would pass a sign that read Reeds, and she would ask, “Is that a furniture store?” I would reply, “Well that one is an appliance store.” Next evening we’d pass the same sign and she wou
ld ask, “Is that a furniture store?” Now, I knew she wasn’t stupid, but somehow, in some twisted way, she would fail to register information, even when she requested it.

  It might be seen that, by themselves, each of these incidents could be considered trivial, but altogether, as a pattern, they began to grate at me. Then, the coup de grace.

  That same summer, I had been at a meeting up the coast for two days and returned to find Kacey not at home and my answer-machine light indicating three messages. I began to play them, as I often did, while putting away some of my travel things, when the message became so acerbic I had to stop everything to listen.

  “I want to talk to Kacey, asshole. Put her on. Don’t tell me she isn’t there. I know what you’ve been doing. Okay, I’ll call back in a few minutes.”

  The second message kicked in: “You mother fucker, if you are abusing her, you’ll pay. I won’t tolerate you hurting her. Do you hear me? Now put her on. Right now!”

  The third message was so loud it hurt my ears: “Fucking asshole! I told you to put Kacey on! You’ve had it, dick-head. You’re going to pay for this. Where are you, Kacey? Is that prick abusing you? Talk to me.”

  It was a female voice, the words slurred as if she were drunk or stoned, but it was no one I knew or even knew about. That was all I needed, some sick babe accusing me of doing something terrible to Kacey, who was a stronger person than I, and who would never come close to tolerating abuse, even if anybody tried it on her.

  She came in about fifteen minutes later, smiling happily, bustled about for a minute, then kissed me on the cheek.

  “You have to listen to something,” I said, and turned on the tape.

  When the three messages had finished, she plopped down in a chair and said, “I am so sorry. That is Selena. She’s a lesbian who has a thing for me. She’s an alcoholic. I guess she is jealous or something.”

  “What in hell did you tell her I did to you?”

  “Nothing. I told her nothing. She dreams things up.”

  “Dreams up that I abuse you?”

  “Anything. If she wants something and can’t get it, she imagines the worst.”

  “What do I do about all this? I don’t know the gal and I don’t have a clue how to react. She seems sick to me. Is she dangerous?”

  “No. She’s never hurt anyone. I’ll call her, ask her to apologize.”

  She went to the phone, dialed in a number and waited. In a moment, she said, “Selena, you can’t do this! You insulted my friend. I want you to apologize…. Well, I can put him on. He can’t read your mind. You have to say the words.” After a long pause, she said, “Don’t ever do this again. You’ll never see me if you do things like this.”

  When she hung up, she looked defeated, contrite. “She wouldn’t talk with you. My guess is she hardly remembers the event. She drinks and gets sullen. Teddy, I apologize.”

  I was trying to be magnanimous, but my insides were roiling, and her use of the diminutive, calling me Teddy, felt like a toadying gesture to deter my ire. To top it off, a voice in my head was saying, “Kacey must be involved with this woman. She has to be bi-sexual. Why hadn’t she ever told me? Do I want to be caught up in all this?”

  Aloud, I said, “I can’t do this. It isn’t working,” concluding that this was the proverbial straw that made it easier for me to close something out that I half-wished would go away anyway.

  She looked shocked at first, but my guess is something like it may have happened in the past with some other man, because in a moment she said, “Life is contaminated by sound and fury, a tale told by an idiot.” She hesitated only briefly, and said, with venom, “I’ll pack my stuff.”

  She was out of my place in an hour, and I have to say two things. I missed her energy and unpredictability, but I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted. As the days passed, the second insight began to prevail. Not until she was gone did I begin, more completely, to realize how burdened I had been feeling.

  I learned a truism about that whole experience: in the midst of a relationship, it is painfully difficult to see the thorny points clearly. Perspective comes from distance.

  SIX

  I once got into trouble for not responding to a woman.

  Kacey was history, and I had finished my studies a week before Christmas, eager and, in fact, desperate for a vacation in some new place.

  My psychology organization planned a brief conference in the Yucatan in January, encouraging attendees to take advantage of the glorious Mexican Riviera’s ambience by coming early and staying late. I made reservations at the Maya Tankah resort, allowing five nights and six days for both work and play.

  Oddly, the best flight I could get from Los Angeles to Cancun was on Alaska Airlines. We were to be in the air for four hours and forty minutes, much of the flight over the arid prairies of old Mexico, the last quarter over water.

  It was at the start of the flight and on the aircraft, that the trouble erupted.

  I was in line, about to board, when a woman came up to me and asked, in broken English, what rows had been called. When I responded, she stood next to me as the long queue inched along.

  She was slim and tall, with dark hair and eyes, and thick black eyebrows. One could not call her pretty, her nose large and sharp, her skin marked by some childhood affliction.

  Through our conversation, I gathered she was from a middle-eastern country, but I didn’t ask which one.

  The aircraft was not full, and the woman, whose seat was two rows forward from mine, had an empty seat beside hers. When she realized that, she walked back to me and invited me to join her.

  Kacey had once spoken to me about chattering, but this woman was noisy as an irritated parrot, and I had no interest in spending over four hours attending to her verbiage.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m just going to stay where I am.”

  I saw her eyes widen, as if she had just heard tragic news, and she stuck her middle finger in my face as she moved back to her spot.

  Not more than twenty minutes later, I saw her stand, sidle down near my seat, lean over to talk to some friends or family in the row behind and across from mine, and wiggle her jeans-clad rear end a few inches from my head.

  I looked away until I heard her squeal like an injured pup, turn toward me, point with agitation, and yell, “You grabbed my ass! He grabbed my ass!”

  Two of her male friends rose up and reached for me, one gripping my shirt collar, the other my arm, yanking me upward.

  “I did no such thing!” I shouted.

  One of the men put his hand on my face and pushed, and I was about to punch at him when the flight attendant, who was a man, arrived.

  The passenger directly across from me said at once, “I didn’t see anything,” but the woman’s pals ignored her.

  To his credit, the attendant took in the situation quickly—the woman, all this time, was smirking with self-satisfaction, hardly the look of an offended sex-object—and said, “Federal regulations do not permit scuffling on the aircraft. You will all need to take your seats and cool down.”

  He turned to me after the others had obeyed, and said quietly, “Sir, you might want to move your seat. We have an opening in first class which I’ll be glad to offer you, no charge.”

  I thanked him, grabbed my shoulder-bag from under the seat bottom in front, and moved out of harm’s way—at least for the time.

  In the Cancun airport, after customs, I felt the threat again, and was rescued again by a sign with my name on it, held by a travel agent, who whisked me into a waiting van for the journey down the coast. As we drove away, I saw my insulted woman-acquaintance and her protectors meandering about the parking area, in my threatened view, searching for me.

  I believe that experience profoundly compromised my already fragile energy to approach women.

  At Maya Tankah, my room was comfortable, clean, and a sliding glass door away from the sand and the Caribbean.

  I learned that “tankah” meant place of free soul
s, and I took trips to Xcaret, a square mile of historic and entertainment treasures, with evening shows that featured dancers from the several provinces of Mexico, and Tulum, site of an ancient Mayan commercial hub, replete with stone ruins and rugged shoreline vistas.

  It was not hard to muse over the idyllic scenes those early Caribbean inhabitants enjoyed, today worth millions for the real estate alone. I could imagine ultra wealthy movie stars seeing that locale and oozing with desire to build escape-mansions on those paradise-like bluffs. Of course, the anthropological value could never be measured in dollars. Location, location, location.

  Though our sparse meetings were informative, and my cultural jaunts intriguing, I’m afraid my Yucatan vacation would be most remembered for the man-woman friction that launched it.

  It must be clear by now that I have always been something of a wimp when it comes to romance. Yet, I did marry, had a child, and here I am, still alive, old, and healthy enough to recount my several tales.

  Like this next one.

  SEVEN

  A lot of people will identify with this. I became scared of women, became somewhat of a pessimist. Now, after living for three score and ten years, I am aware of the fragility of human—indeed all forms of—life on our little planet. I read recently about some barren planets orbiting a dead star, some seven-hundred light years from earth, that had run out of hydrogen, swelled to enormous proportions, and likely burned its surrounding satellites to crisps or swallowed them altogether. Five billion years from now, according to the scientists, such an event will be the fate of our own solar system. I’m trying to say that pessimism, in the long run, is justifiable, but in the short run, must be confronted. I know now that life has an abundance of bounties.

  Three years skidded by and I focused on my studies, became a psychologist, started teaching as a lecturer at the State University, and developed a pretty good professional practice. But romance? Forget it.

  A few times women would hit on me, at a party or someplace, and I’d be okay with talking to them for ten minutes or so. But then I’d feel shaky and put out some excuse about having to be somewhere, or some other made-up obligation. It made for a lot of evenings alone.