2000 Deciduous Trees : Memories of a Zine (9781937316051)

by Jones, Nath

  He flipped channels. Passed the news. Passed the evangelists. Slowed at a cartoon and landed on a special about Siamese twins.

  DRESS UP

  The engineer (and his girlfriend)

  walking head tilted away

  self-conscious and a tube

  of yellow plans in the left hand

  (her glove in his right) rush down

  a paved alley wasting

  youth in a hurried game of

  dress up.

  But just another of the bubbles

  she keeps up and can't wait

  for twenty years of looking

  out a kitchen window,

  hoping the diamond won't

  get washed down a drain.

  But I can't deny

  how happy he seems or that

  she has him this morning

  at 7:37 clenched in her own

  plans with a left gloved

  "Good morning, honey" hand.

  I wish I had someone to watch me get undressed.

  JUST SO

  Sometimes as a child I was left in the library of Saint Joseph's College. I never read much but I wandered through the old, still stacks smelling the paper die. I climbed on the radiators, sometimes burning the insides of skinny legs to sit in a window and watch the trees let go their leaves.

  On brave days I eased myself down a steep flight of stairs and looked at art books in the orange half-light, scared of the studying students. But almost every time, after I had looked up my birth announcement from The Republican on microfilm, I would go find Jodi or Mr. V. and ask to be let into the record room.

  A smile, and the librarian would finish with the stamping or rubber bands around cards or checking out a student or phone call question. Then the slowish figure would move back to a desk or an office in order to find a set of keys that seemed too loud for a library.

  And I followed the swinging skirt or the skinny pants, always watching the tile change in diamonds from black to maroon and back again and again. Until the light swept up an old wooden floor and crossed us over onto gray hard linoleum. And the keys would come. "Maybe this one. No, let's try it with the longer one." Or, "Maybe I grabbed the wrong set."

  When the dark door opened past the groove in the floor a room sat up drearily and welcomed us for a visit. (Even though it would rather not have.) Two windows for light and wall shelves made for display. "Pick anything you would like to listen to, dear. We will find it." Patiently.

  But I always chose the same thing. I never wanted music. And I never wanted too much yesterday laughter. So we found the place where I saw what I needed and used the chair to reach it again.

  Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. I guess, now, I could blame him for his faults as a man or for teaching me that very European empirical morality that determines so much of my worldview. But at the time, the LP sat thin in its bright orange package and always remembered me. Even when I had been out to play every day for the summer or hadn't seen it for a winter of school. The librarian's special walking away after the locked-up door. Trusting me and confident I knew the players well.

  I pulled at an edge of the wooden room and sat down amidst the thick blond lacquer with my chest close enough to the table. The record came out and went spinning away. The headphones were turquoise and plastic and old. They fell sometimes. Too big for me, but they could usually be conned into place.

  And the voice began always the same with, "On the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel."

  That voice. Deep and buoyed by the daddies of the world stretching strong arms between each rhyme. Laughing, almost, all the time. And keeping you caught in that almost-fallen-asleep-but-still-have-to-listen place. My legs gone swinging under the table, and my elbows turning red from the weight of my head in my growing up hands, leaning with the headphones toward the voice. Pressing him closer into my world. Always divided from the needle scratching on the record, around, and around, and around.

  The stories spun on. And the voice followed suit. And I lay my head on the cool table—just to look out the window for a while. “And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat and his knife and a cooking-stove of the kind that you must particularly never touch." The tree shadows reached down and whispered their hushes to me from the ceiling, then the walls, then the floor, and out again leaving behind their indigo gossip. "The suspenders were left behind, you see, to tie the grating with; and that is the end of that tale." My legs cold in the dark blue evening curled against the hard arms of the chair looking for somebody's lap.

  "Once upon a most early time was a Neolithic man. He was not a Jute or an Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved, but never mind why. He was a Primitive, and he lived cavily in a Cave, and he wore very few clothes, and he couldn't read and he couldn't write and he didn't want to, and except when he was hungry he was quite happy. His name was Tegumai Bobsulai, and that means, ‘Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry;’ but we, O Best Beloved, will call him Tegumai for short."

  And then the sleep came until Mom was finished with her music or Dad had cleaned up the lab.

  NEW ORLEANS SIDEWALK

  I took the dog and walked down the street toward Bob Dylan's house in order to see his flowers. I took my camera I suppose as an afterthought, but nonetheless I did take my camera. Standing there among the old oak roots, where the dog seemed eager to stop, in front of the fence of security cameras defining a great man’s perimeter, I wondered at the huge banks of white azaleas. Six feet tall and more wide than that. Sun on each but cool stone still on the porch. And I wondered what Bob Dylan looks like or what songs he sings and could not fill my mind with acceptable answers. The place was for sale apparently and my friends couldn't be sure that Bob Dylan really ever lived there.

  The pictures aren't very good. If the azaleas look good you can't see the house. If the house is included it seems to converge at its roof. And none of these images show the beauty of that endless green lawn, so rare in a city of that size. And the quality of the photos was not improved by the simultaneous facts that I was standing on broken slabs of the sidewalk, being yanked by a dog leash, and wedging my camera through the cast iron fence.

  After that, I was glad not to worry with the bother of Bob Dylan's house anymore. I walked on down to the cemetery and let the dog jump at spiders in the tall grass. I walked down to the river staging this or that version of Mark Twain, Jeff Buckley, and the slow tankers' working men still.

  I liked the lady in a bright white shirt walking too fast with a piece of pizza smothered in grease.

  HE PROPOSED AND THEN

  Him: Just tell me. I’m always supposed to know what to do when you don’t tell me shit.

  Her: Like you don’t know.

  Him: I don’t.

  Her: Then you’re blind.

  Him: Don’t be condescending to me.

  Her: Don’t be a martyr.

  Him: Whatever.

  Her: Do you know what women are?

  Him: What? What kind of question is that? You think I’m going to answer that?

  Her: Do you know what women are?

  Him: They’re people.

  Her: But do you know what they are?

  Him: Are you going to get all fucked up and philosophical on me again? Because I’m sick of it. I don’t want to hear all this bullshit.

  Her: Exactly.

  Him: Fuck you.

  Her: Don’t you walk away from me.

  Him: Fine.

  Her: Fine.

  Him: Tell me about women. Who are they? Get on your feminist high horse. Shit, tell me you’re a lesbian. I really don’t care at this point. I don’t give a fuck anymore because this isn’t love. I don’t know what you do to me but it isn’t love. It’s degener
ate. You’re a fucking infection.

  Her: Nice.

  Him: No. No, I don’t care. I’m sick of being nice just because I’m supposed to be. You can say whatever you want and I’m just supposed to take it. But I am done. So go ahead. Tell me all about what women are, because it’s as good a way to waste my time with chaos.

  She looks at him. He is red and shaking, helpless with misunderstanding. She flinches and takes a deep breath in spite of his pain.

  Her: Chaos?

  He looks at her and waits.

  Her: Chaos is okay. It’s more natural than any of your world. It is the only natural irretrievable progression. It’s okay. And we aren’t wasting our time. Or at least I’m not wasting mine. This is just what Wall Street uses to control the world and it is TV and it is classes and work. It is not rocks, Babe. It’s not mountains or clouds.

  He is laughing and sits down on a cement bench. She kneels in front of him and holds his hands. He protects her with his knees around her shoulders.

  Him: So tell me about women. They’re mountains and clouds?

  Her: Are you sure you want to hear this?

  Him: Yeah.

  Her: Well, I’m not a feminist or a lesbian, and I’ll tell you why those ideas are too simplistic. Good for somebody. Sure. They run counter to society. Yes, there is a male patriarchy, but fuck that. Women are subject to men, but they aren’t just women either. They are half from woman and half from man.

  Him: So are men.

  Her: No. Not really. Each man starts new. Each man is additive. He is his father and his mother: XY. But women are their mother and their father’s mother: XX.

  Him: When was the last time you took biology?

  Her: Just listen. In men, XY each is from the identity of his own parents. The chromosomes came from their ancestors and yes, they’re mutating and all that but the identity a man receives is as alive as his mother and father at the time of conception. That was his dad’s Y. And that X was his mom’s.

  Him: Barr bodies? Have you—

  Her: Don’t push me. Men are additive. They are always approaching infinity. But women are pulled back from the present. They are removed from infinity because they are the consummation of the mother and the identity the father’s mother gave to her son, which was then sacrificed for his own identity.

  Him: It’s part of his identity.

  Her: I’m not done. So as man is built, man upon man, as if every one is an extension of Adam and each based in God—or if you don’t want to use God, then each benefits from the ability to plant his identity in an unbroken line of men. But women. Women are built on a fault line. Women are founded on what men can live without. Adam was fine missing a rib and yet it was Eve’s creation. Or again getting God stuff out, women are made from the half of identity men choose not to pursue.

  Him: Nobody chooses anything.

  Her: In a way. Yet isn’t it true they do?

  He tries to respond but is tired. And confused. And just hoping she could be happier. It is hard for him to process everything. She goes on.

  Her: So you—you’re a man. You are your mom and dad fucking. Maybe it wasn’t love, but it could have been and even if it wasn’t it is based in the present. It is action. It is passion. Men are created in that heat. They are forged in orgasm.

  Him: Have you been reading poetry again? Or did your sister send you another one of those tapes? This is ridiculous. Women are the same as guys.

  Her: Just listen. Women are very similar, it’s true. So similar in fact that virtually no one sees the implications of the nuances and so they account their pain to inferiority, insecurity, or whatever. But don’t you see? A woman is made from her mom fucking her father’s mom. It’s sick. It’s an impossibility. It’s based in decay.

  Him: This is fucking crazy.

  Her: Two more minutes. If the man has X and Y but suppresses X all those years and lives in Y then when a girl is conceived that X is only his mother lying on her back however many years before. That X is what the father mounted. That X was last thought of when those grandparents fucked that father into being. That X is another rejection, because the father goes on being a man. If a boy is conceived that is the love and passion a man has for a woman.

  Him: Can you be a little more abstract?

  Her: But if a girl is conceived that is the hatred between the mother and the mother-in-law. That is the tension of like forces in proximity. Like magnets. That’s her. And those Xs have been passed down for however many hundred years in that disjunct fashion. All Xs eventually having that poison about them. Not like the Ys, which hold that solid background.

  So women grow up with this at the core of their being. So it comes to nights like this between you and me. It comes down to these fights. It comes down to house payments and colors for cars and children's schools and names for the dog. It comes into every decision. That blackness of all those Xs. And the man—each with his Y from God—always wins.

  So he is able to be silent and proud, unforgiving, focused, and feels no understanding for the chaotic world. Woman is different. She stands shadowed by her mundane life. Hoping her children are good enough for the fucked-up world. Hoping to catch some sun on her face from a deep damned canyon wedged between two monstrous obsidian cliffs. But never really believing in herself and her beliefs. Never content and constantly questioning her limits. Not expanding them but assuring herself as to where they are because they are constants. They are her means of support.

  She’s tired and frail and she knows better than to divest herself of the limits the way a submarine knows not to crack its walls. So here I am tonight with you asking me to marry you. And all I can think of is your mother.

  All I can think is that you should be happy and that the world should go on as it has always gone on. What right have I to go off alone? I have no right. My duty is to you and your love for me. My duty is to that diamond—right?—and to the three-year-old in a grocery cart that comes with it. Why is that my duty? Not because of you. Not even because of society. Because you don’t care. And they don’t care. No matter what I do—whether I hold up a feminist label or wave a rainbow flag—they’ll see the diamond ring and the grocery cart. So that’s not it.

  But I have this duty to my mother.

  I’m supposed to endure what she endured to show I’m not too good for her. To show that I appreciate all she’s done for me and believe that all her pain, which she has stuck down in that dark cavern, was not for no reason. That’s why she calls and asks if I have a boyfriend. That’s why she’s always pressuring me to get married. That’s why she’ll think I’ve failed no matter what else I do, if I don’t have kids. And even if I was with you, Babe. Even with you. I love you. I know it would work. I know I would love our kids. I know I could spend the rest of my life with your voice and your arms and your eyes. I know that. But why? Why? Because no matter how liberal or equal or nontraditional a relationship we create, I will still disappear. I will still become that thing that is caught between my duty to my mother and my love for you.

  That’s what marriage is and the rest gets squeezed out. The rest is a hobby. The rest is a part-time job at the deli. Or it’s the doctor’s nurse. Whatever. Look at it. The feminists cut off one side of the canyon—their duty to their mother. And lesbians cut off the other—their love for a man.

  But what is that?

  Steeped so long in what all I’ve just said, without replacing those barriers with another of the same magnitude—like social isolation, hatred, contempt, or artistry—that woman is bound to dribble away. And if she is not taken for insane, she is only a thin film with her cohesive force, her memories of self from childhood.

  Even so. It is time that is the enemy. If a woman can remove one side of the canyon, love for a man or duty to the mother, and stop time simultaneously, then she is preserved. She would be tall and stand like a sculpture formed from the mold of her mind. The beauty of her vision of the future—the part of her that would correspond to the pressure o
f her love for one man—on one side. And on the other, the side that affronted her duty for her mother, would be her integrity, responsibility, and perception of the past. It would be her. Frozen there and beautiful.

  He wants to kiss her. And he wants to run. He tilts his head back toward the sky and wishes she could relax or trust him or see what he sees. Tears flood his eyes and the stars swim past and away so as not to be intrusive. He blinks several times and stands up. She fidgets and wants him to talk. She doesn’t want him to be hurt. She just wants him to understand.

  Him: I love you. And that’s not going to change. I knew you needed more from me and I thought that meant marriage.

  He looks at her. Her face is blank and her body inert.

  Him: But if more is realizing I’m a mold or a barrier or Y or whatever and I’ve got to go—I don’t know. Shit. I—

  She laughs.

  Her: Don’t get all deep on me, Babe. You want to make me cry?

  He laughs and shakes his head. But yes. He wants her to cry. Other girls would cry. He wants her to wear the stupid ring and be happy. He wants her to have everything. He wants her to understand.

  Him: God damn it. All I want to know is do you want this fucking ring? Because if you don’t, I can take it back and buy a motorcycle.

  Her: Oh. Yeah. Please buy a motorcycle. I love all those songs about motorcycles. Would you take me for rides, Babe?

  He closes the little black velvet box around the ring and shoves it in his pocket. He picks her up and throws her over his shoulder.

  Him: Fuck the motorcycle. I’ll take you for a ride right now.

  She stops him, puts her hands on his chest, and looks him in the eye. Her: I just don't want to have kids. I'm worried I'll fuck it up. That they'll fuck me up.

  Him: Okay. Why didn't you just say that?

  Her: I didn't know how. It doesn't seem like something you're supposed to say.

  Him: Supposed to say to who? Fuck it. It's just me.