by Gary Soto
I don’t know where I rank among her favorite writers, but how can I say no? We pair up and take a phone on her cell phone. Then Larry from Indonesia remarks that my name sounds familiar. Can he take one too?
The others look on, inquisitive. Not about to be left out, they line up for photos with me as well. They can check on my literary status later. And if they find out I’m not a fraudulent old man, they’ll Facebook it. I worry that Chili-Cheese Fritos are staining my front teeth.
We work for another hour, and are grateful when two bulky clouds park themselves over the sun. I’m proud of the volunteers — and happy for them. These Cal students now grasp the science of rakes and brooms, the theory of where leaves and debris should be piled. They also have learned to haul a leaf-filled tarp: the young man in front walked backward up the stairs, his footwork carefully finding their rhythm up the steps. The young man bringing up the rear — and carrying the bulk of the weight — trod even slower.
We end the workday in the yard. The students want another photo of what they’ve done: three pyramid-shaped piles of leaves. They kneel, smile, and throw out hand signs. Then three of the young women decide to collapse into the piles. They’ve seen movies or TV programs where kids frolic in piles of autumn leaves, and want to recreate that happy mood. As the three drop with big smiles on their faces, I only have time to wince. The piled oak leaves are pronged with needlelike points.
They all yelp on contact. With their palms pressing on the leaves (more pain), they push themselves back to standing position.
“That was no fun,” one remarks, plucking a leaf from her knee — and two more from her hair.
I ferry them back to Cal in two groups. During my second trip, the implausible occurs. (Bury me naked in oak leaves if this is a fib.) By chance, I spot my wife in her truck, idling at a red light. When I wave, she alertly toots her horn and waves in return.
“My wife,” I say, rolling through the intersection, the light going orange behind me.
“Your wife drives a truck?” a student asks.
I look in the rearview mirror: the passengers in the back are all amazed. One of the Taiwanese women cranes her neck toward the intersection, filling her eyes with the image of my wife. I know she wants to ask, “Is your wife Chinese?” But the answer would be no. (My wife is Japanese American.) The student remains silent, turning her gaze forward once again. In the rearview mirror, I see all three passengers in the back holding their cell phones.
I drop the students off, sorry that they must go — they are so sweet and full of hope. I had seen them earlier scribbling on a note card, and one young woman hands me an envelope after closing the door.
Later, at home, I open the unsealed envelope. On the stationery is a single, unidentifiable flower, resembling a cyclamen. When I open the card, I’m greeted by comments, all sweet, written in a flurry of cursive and block letters. What am I to do but smile? These students know so much; they will commit themselves to our country or to their birth countries — a benefit either way. Larry, the young man from Indonesia, writes, “Thank you for teaching me to rake.”
I knew I was good at something.
THE PALMIST
She uncurls my fist and peels a crystal from my sticky palm. But there remains a piece of debris in the palm’s center. As she picks at it, she makes a face. Is this the substance of disease? The fuzz of madness? My hands are always being shoveled in and out of my pockets. I deduce what it is: lint. Still, I’m all ears when she tells me that two streams of money will flow my way, one larger and wider than the other but both strong gushes that will solve my immediate worries. The place on my palm where the lint lay begins to tickle. I scratch its pink surface, imagining the two streams splashing forward and converging into one before hitting the bulwark called me. The river of money splays and departs, with a bounce, in another direction.
HOW DOES A POET ANSWER THIS?
A high school student in the audience asked, “Are you a celebrity?” I responded by promising him an answer in a few minutes. “Let me continue,” I told the group of thirty, seated in plastic chairs in a stuffy library. I was nearing the climactic part of a story about a dirt clod that had ricocheted off the top of my skull during a game of war with a neighborhood chum. Because I’d lowered my head (to keep it from striking my face), the scar tissue remained conspicuous — even after fifty years — a reminder of my boyhood antics. When I smiled, the students gazed everywhere but at me. And yet I couldn’t let it go — not even after a yawn from the girl in the front row. I told them that circumstances — such as a dirt clod like a speeding meteor — often determined a major outcome in life. For example, the dirt clod could have nicked my face, rendering me handsome in a scary way.
A kid seated near the globe was spinning it, not swiftly, but fast enough to catch my attention. Desperate to segue to a new topic, I asked, “If you didn’t live in Napa, where would you like to live?”
A surplus of sweat flooded my armpits. Shiny with embarrassment, I had failed to reach these tenth graders. I was floundering, captaining the tugboat of my own irrelevance. I figured that I could tell a few more lame stories, then exit by the back door. Byron had died on his way to battle in Greece, Lorca against a bloody wall in Spain, Malcolm Lowry from delirium in South America, and Sylvia Plath with her head in an oven — all noble and commendable deaths. But me? I died somewhere between 2:35 and 2:44 on a Thursday afternoon, in a library that contained not one of my books.
Why had I agreed to come to this school and pollute the air with uninteresting stories? For the paltry speaking fee? If I’d yapped like a Chihuahua, at least my presentation might have woken them up. Or maybe if I’d stood on a chair and recited poetry, then I would’ve come off as an oddball worth mentioning to friends while snacking on a bag of Cheetos. I should have done better, I lamented. Stupid old man! Still, I was thankful that not one student had pulled their phone out to catch my performance. My image could’ve been sickening the East Coast within minutes — isn’t that what they meant by viral?
A bell buzzed. My suffering, and theirs, had come to an end. The smiling librarian pressed an envelope into my hand. School was dismissed, but life for this damaged poet would continue.
“That was so delightful,” the librarian chimed. Her eyes were triangle-shaped and filled with sincerity. “I wish I could feel it.”
Feel it? I provided a confused expression that probably pleated my face with age lines.
“The scar tissue.” She stood on tiptoes, trying to peek at the top of my head.
I smiled, then remarked, “It’s hardly anything.” I was worried that she was about to probe the top of my head — or worse, touch one of her own scars and tell me how it had come about. The librarian was a free spirit with red streaks in her grayish hair. Apparently, she hadn’t been troubled by my anemic performance.
I bid her farewell, exited the library, and winced at the photocopy of me, the famous poet, crookedly taped near the entrance. Students were leaving campus, among them three girls from my presentation with lollipops in their mouths. They were happy, they were slender, and they were multicultural — Asian, White, and dark Hispanic. Good for them, I thought, delighted that the world was melting together in racial harmony.
Then I recalled that I had forgotten to answer the question of whether I was a celebrity or just a typical citizen, as I was now, sauntering down a leaf-strewn street. My car keys were in my hand and my mind was wondering if I had a bottle of water in the car. All I cared about was the traffic and getting home. If those students could’ve seen my 1998 Buick Century, if they could’ve popped open the glove compartment and rifled through my log of oil changes, if they could’ve viewed my selection of CDs — You still use CDs? Who are the Bee Gees? — the answer would’ve been clear.
SOMEONE YOU LOATHE
To my eternal relief I’m not pestered to join literary groups or judge contests, and I can’t recall the last time an educational foundation invited me to offer an opinion about,
say, the Common Core. Still, I have tale to share. I venture back a few years, but recollect the following memory in present tense because the day is still with me.
I am the guest of a very large insurance company, which owns a massive Craftsman-style house sited on a hundred gorgeous acres in Northern California. The pond is home to ducks, with troves of fish lurking beneath the surface. It is like a hand mirror that reflects sky, birds dark as commas, and an occasional gnat-whining plane. Frogs make their presence known among the reeds, and raccoons stand on their hind legs to size you up.
The house is as expansive as a supermarket, and its high ceilings produce echoes if you speak slightly louder than normal. There are plenty of stained-glass windows and every room is paneled in clear heart redwood. The bedrooms (four) each have Tiffany-inspired lamps on end tables and a bright southwestern blanket at the foot of the bed. The art is original. The designer kitchen is bright, like the light you get from an open refrigerator. Because the very large insurance company holds small conferences at this house, a twelve-burner stove is necessary, as well as two refrigerators. On off days, the company lends it to the local community college to house visitors.
Here’s where I enter, carrying a single bag. I’m in the area to give a poetry reading and my wife and I need a place to bunk down.
My wife is going gaga over these digs. Already grateful for the invitation, I open one of the refrigerators and view two tubby bottles of champagne! Granted, they are California varietals — but on the high end. These bottles are flanked by juices and sparkling water, with a six-pack behind them. I bring out a platter of grapes and chocolate-dipped strawberries and set them on the counter. Like a crow, I’ll pick from them later. For now, I am drawn to my wife, who has called, “Look.”
“Look” could mean about anything: art on the wall, a Navajo rug, an antique table worth tapping with a knuckle, or possibly my muddy shoe prints. But I remember wiping my feet before entering — I’d even looked back to see if I was leaving earthy crumbs on the floor.
My wife stands at a console table, holding open a large book. Within three strides, I recognize the object as a guest book. I hover over her as she whispers, “I can’t believe it’s him.”
I scan the names from the top to the bottom of the page, names written with swagger from real fountain pens. There have been many guests, though none, I believe, are poets. No, the previous guests are executives of major companies, salaried people who are paid even when they sleep. All praise the house and their time there. But here’s where I swallow weakly, where I want to pick up our one bag and go home. At the bottom — the last guest before me — is the name of an academic from the University of California whom my wife and I loathe. My wife isn’t prone to loathing, but this one name turns her stomach. The wrinkle on her brow disturbs her good looks. Suddenly, the grapes and strawberries have lost their appeal and the bubbly in the fridge has flattened to Kool-Aid. The hallway where we stand has the ambience of a morgue: cold.
We look at each other, downcast, then move into a pool of reddish sunlight that is pouring through a stained-glass window. But the light offers no warmth or illumination. Why should we feel this way?
“How did he get invited?” my wife asks.
“Scholarship,” I say, ironically, and under my breath. The academic is a dean who earned his cheese by ratty ways.
That evening, I do my reading. I am wry and serious, shaking hands with fourth graders who have traveled twenty miles on a school bus to hear me and see what I look like. Ancient, they conclude, disappointed that I don’t resemble the photograph in their textbook. I don’t know how to respond when one fan says, “You’re my favorite author,” then expounds on Hatchet, which was written by another Gary — Gary Paulsen.
Afterward, we invite a few college instructors to the house. They are more than happy to open champagne and beer and devour grapes and strawberries, along with a large wedge of Brie we find in the fridge and the crackers and cookies from a cupboard. My wife and I pour nuts into a handcrafted bowl. We drink from iridescent Craftsman flutes. It’s a party in the middle of the week, but I’m not in a festive mood. My thoughts keep returning to the loathsome guest who drank what there was to drink, washed his paws at the sink, lay on the couch with one leg crossed over the other, used the toilet — and a dirty finger to flush. I gag at this image, while the peanuts inside me rumble in stomach acid.
Also, I’m irritated that his signature in the guestbook is artful — not like mine, which looks as if I’m writing with the wrong hand.
I laugh falsely along with the hearty laughs of the others when one of the women discovers that the toilet seat is heated. I had discovered this fact earlier, at first figuring that it was a seat for an invalid. But then I’d discovered the switch near the toilet paper — if any user plans to stay awhile he or she can flick the switch and get comfy. Literature about the insurance company conveniently sits in a small wicker basket nearby.
The noisy mirth about the toilet dies, replaced by the munching of snacks and the uncorking of the second bottle of champagne. I like these people, all composition instructors, good people who daily bring out their red pens to mark student papers. Having done that for four years, I am well aware of the nature of this unheralded work. With glazed eyes roving for grammatical mistakes and yawns that could push the Golden Hind across the Atlantic, the work feels so tiring, so fruitless, so disheartening. The red pen: a composition instructor’s blood spilled to make the world a better place.
The instructors leave before eleven, the commotion of their cars on the gravel path awakening the ducks. My wife and I debate whether to tackle the dishes. Since I’m woozy from champagne, I figure that I should rid the alcohol from my system by keeping busy before hitting the sack. I look under the sink: dish soap, sponge, and paper towels — with Windex for the ambitious. While my wife goes to inspect the plants on the porch (the light comes on automatically as she exits the sliding door), I clean up.
I stuff the apple cores down the disposal; its iron gears eat them with hardly a complaint. The nutshells and grape stems I deposit in the garbage bin under the sink. As I finish, I find my wife has already come back in. She is in the living room wiping down the coffee table with a napkin.
Together we recheck the guest book. There he is, the unproductive academic we loathe, and here we are ready to crawl into the same bed where he slept, his ratty eyes pitching left and right behind his translucent lids. The three other bedrooms are off limits, yellow ribbons across their doorways, like crime scenes.
“Why did they invite him?” my wife asks in a whisper, as if the hallway is bugged.
“For his slime-ball depth,” I answer viciously. For a moment, I picture the scoundrel sitting on the electrically heated toilet. When the circuits go haywire, a shock lifts him off the seat and his head hits the ceiling. Cartoonish, I realize, but one must dream beyond the possible.
My wife sighs, then adds our names right below this person’s name.
In the end, my wife hauls two of the southwestern blankets to the couch. I open a novel, read a few pages, then reread them again. I can’t concentrate. I begin to wonder what could have brought us to the same bed, though on different days. Was it a conference of educational bigwigs? And how does he know this insurance company? I turn off the lamp and blink in the near dark, surprised by the glow of a hidden night-light. I revel in the thought that a night-light might have more soul than the dean.
I’m unhappy with myself, but I can’t let it go. Why do I feel this way? What does this say about me — or me and my wife? I visit my own defects and am embarrassed by the more obvious ones. Am I much different from this phony guy? I swallow a lozenge of shame, then set the dean back on the toilet, where the horseshoe-shaped seat fries him. I fix a smile on my face, pouting inwardly. I realize that I’m only an inch shorter than this person we loathe. He and I are from the same town of Fresno. Like me, he drives an American car. We’re both Mexican American, the first in our families t
o attend college. His use of Spanish is better than mine, but not so much better as to chat at length with a professor from Madrid. I shudder at these vague similarities, bring the blanket to my throat, then over my head. I don’t mean to hide. No, I mean to sleep. My reading was good, I tell myself, and so what if that kid thought I was the other Gary. That other Gary is an OK guy.
We all have people we dislike or keep away from. But beyond dislike, loathing is enough to spurt adrenaline into my arteries and transform me into a hateful person. That natural drug — adrenaline — keeps me turning fitfully through the night. I try to picture nice things, like snow in an alpine forest, or a waterfall of majestic height. But hate inspires me to imagine this dean trudging through a blizzard to cast his vote against me for tenure — just before he rolls screaming over the waterfall’s edge. How in the world could my name appear just below his in a guest book?
On the pond, the ducks are laughing at something not so funny.
NAPS
I asked my wife, “Are you leaving soon?” She was off to a midweek meeting at church, and I wanted her out of the house, for I had the glorious ambition to roll onto the couch, kick off my slippers, wrap a small blanket around my lower extremities, and nap. My wife was putting on lipstick and poking at her hair in the hallway mirror.
“Now,” she answered, then licked her lips to smear the lipstick around. “Why? What are you doing?”
