"Oh dear." The older woman leaned against the railing, feeling light-headed, light-bodied. As part of the Dianic tradition, the initiating witch was required to relate the story of her own introduction to Wicca to the acolyte. Selene had heard Moll Herrick's Tale, Moll had heard Bensozia's, and so on, back to the dawn of Wicca. And even if in this instance the telling might prove somewhat awkward—Selene's introduction to Wicca had featured Martha's birth mother in a story of seduction, attempted rape, and revenge—still the thread could not be broken. Not even after a healthy dollop of truth serum to the Teller's tizzent.
CHAPTER 2
« ^ »
"In a way it's like a fairy tale, dearie, only bass-ackwards." Selene and Martha were lying side by side on padded redwood chaises, Selene in the shade with her watch and tart on the arm of her chaise, and Martha in the pale autumn sun. "Brave witch rescues maiden in distress from evil knight. The maiden in question—that's me. Helen Weiss. Fresh out of Ludman, Ohio, in my third week of classes at Barnard—oh my dear, I was a miserably unhappy child…"
* * *
Unhappy was an understatement. Homesick for Ludman. Lonely—Helen Weiss's roommate hadn't spoken to her since Helen told her that if she played that Leslie Gore song one more time on her little pink record player, she would be strangled in her sleep. And as for the academic side of things, Helen was already desperately disillusioned. She wanted to be a poet, but Barnard wanted her to become a lady first—etiquette and tea pouring were still required courses for all incoming women in 1963. And it didn't take long for Helen to learn that the closest she was likely to get to a famous professor at Barnard was if one of the Columbia boys invited her to a lecture—they thought of it as a cheap date—and as for the nearest real poet, why, they were all living and working and reading in Greenwich Village anyway.
It took her a little while to work up her courage—finally one Saturday afternoon a few weeks into the term she copied three of her shorter poems onto one piece of paper, dressed in her notion of a Village outfit—black Danskins leotard under a ribbed black sweater, tight black capris, bare ankles, and Fred Braun sandals—stuffed everything she might conceivably need, including a toothbrush and a change of underwear, into an enormous purse, and took the subway down to the Village.
It was Helen's first time underground—the signs seemed so exotic—el via del tren subterraneo es muy peligroso. And as for the Village, it soon had her goggling like Dorothy opening the door onto Munchkinland. An outdoor art show was set up in Washington Square Park, spilling out onto the side streets—more paintings than she'd ever seen in one place, and more people than they had in the whole town of Ludman, filling the park, parading around the fountain, beatniks, bums, tourists, chess players, moms with strollers, little kids, high school students trying to look like they were in college, college students trying to look like they weren't. Music in every corner, folksingers, conga drummers, black jazz men in shades and porkpie hats.
Paris, she thought, gawking up at the Great Arch. This must be what Paris is like. She wandered the crooked streets for hours with her purse tucked under her arm and her mouth wide open, past bars, sidewalk cafes, tiny shops with handmade jewelry and secondhand clothing in the windows, spiry churches, private parks behind spiked wrought-iron gates, crooked old houses with high stoops, art galleries, little theaters.
And poetry everywhere, in the bookstores, the coffeehouses, the streets, the parks. One old man sat on a folding chair on the sidewalk outside Judson Church selling poems taped to the church fence. Ten cents apiece, three for a quarter. And there were fliers and handbills advertising readings posted from one end of the Village to the other. One spot, the Cafe LePetomane, looked especially promising, if only because the address on the flyer was Second Avenue and Ninth Street, and since she was standing on the corner of Third and Seventh reading the flier on a light pole, she decided she could find her way there without getting hopelessly lost.
The Pet was a dark joint with brick walls, tiny tables, and mismatched chairs. There were price tags on the chairs, which puzzled her at first—she later learned that if they pretended to sell the furniture they could get around needing a cabaret license. The place was about half full, but even though it was going on suppertime, the denizens were huddled over their coffee as if they'd all just awakened. She found an empty table in the back, under a bunch of charcoal portraits Scotch-taped to the wall, and sat down, hoping alternately that no one would notice her, and that someone would talk to her.
Someone did—a tall, handsome waitress in a scoop-neck burgundy leotard, black tights, and purple wool leg warmers (exactly the look Selene had been going for), who informed her that coffee cost fifteen cents and espresso a quarter. Helen ordered the espresso, paid with a dollar bill, dropped the change into her coin purse, and was about to drop that back into her shoulder bag when she was overtaken by the strangest sensation. It was like the roaring sound a seashell makes when you hold it to your ear, only it wasn't a sound—more like a feeling. But if it had been a sound, there would have been a voice behind it, a tiny voice like a Who from Whoville shouting over a hurricane. And at its wordless bidding Helen found herself removing a dime from her coin purse and placing it carefully on the table, next to her saucer. The waitress scooped it into her apron and moved on to the next table before Helen had quite grasped what had just happened. She started to call the waitress back, but just then a poet climbed up on the stage, which was only a wooden platform raised about a foot above the floor at the far end of the room, and began to read.
And he stunk. As did the second, third, and fourth poets, in the considered opinion of the Poet Laureate of Ludman High, class of '63, as well as that of the majority of the audience, which chattered noisily through the readings. But when a wild-haired man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a wrinkled white long-sleeved shirt with sweat stains under the arms and a pair of khaki pants held up by a fraying canvas belt, more or less wandered up on stage holding a fistful of lined loose-leaf paper, the room grew quiet…
" 'Lincoln sat still as a stone,' was how his first poem began," Selene told Martha.
"I know that one," the girl interrupted. "We had to read it in sophomore English. 'Martin's Dream.' "
"By Stanley Kovic. Everyone knows it by now—it's in all the anthologies. But that night was the first public reading ever…"
* * *
It was scarcely a month since the March on Washington—the now famous poem didn't even have a title yet. When Kovic was done, instead of applauding, the crowd at the Pet signaled for him to read it again by rattling their cups. After he finished the second time and left the stage to another cup-and-saucer ovation, Helen got up to visit the ladies' room, which was behind the stage. When she returned there was a fresh cup of espresso at her place, and the poet was sitting halfway between her table and the next one over. She started to get out her change purse but the waitress shook her head. "It's on Wordsworth, there." Indicating Kovic with a contemptuous toss of her head.
He turned to Helen. "Well, what did you think?"
And there she was, exactly where she'd once dreamed of being—in a coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, talking poetry with a real poet. Unfortunately she was so intimidated that she couldn't think of a single intelligent thing to say. She mumbled something; he turned away to talk to some people who'd come up to congratulate him. When he turned back, Helen had finally gotten some thoughts together.
"See, I'm a poet, too," she told him. He looked disgusted. Blushing, she stumbled on. "But something that's always bothered me—I've been trying to figure it out since I was a freshman in high school—is whether the emperor really has any clothes on."
He looked down his long curved nose at her. "Oh? And who's the emperor?"
"No, not like that. Not an individual poet. Just poetry in general. I mean, in school they give you this book that they say has 'Great Poems' in it, but I always wondered what would happen if there weren't any anthologies, or critics, or
English teachers. Would there really be any such a thing as a 'Great Poem'? And now I know the answer."
He scraped his chair a little closer and leaned his elbow on her table. "Do tell."
"It's yes. There is such a thing as a Great Poem. I just heard one, and nobody had to tell me it was great, or what it meant, or who the poet was, or the scansion, or any academic booshwa like that."
He looked deeply into her eyes. "That was the most meaningful compliment anyone has ever paid me. Only around here, when we mean bullshit, we say bullshit." He stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Stan Kovic. Helen told him she was Helene Weiss—she'd decided Helene sounded more sophisticated. Never could have gotten away with it in Ludman—or perhaps even uptown—but this was the Village, and a girl could be anyone she wanted to be.
He asked her if she had any of her poems with her. "Yes," she replied—Helene replied. "But I couldn't, not now, not after your poem."
"Don't be such a child, you're among poets here."
So she brought the envelope out of her purse—he tucked it into his shirt pocket and said it was too noisy to concentrate, and why didn't they go upstairs so he could give her stuff the attention it deserved…
* * *
Martha sat up and tied her T-shirt into a makeshift halter to get some autumn sun on her flat belly. "Don't tell me you didn't know what 'stuff' he was talking about," she said with a snort.
Selene shrugged; she was sweating more in the shade than Martha was in the sun. "Different times, dearie. I was practically a virgin—my high school boyfriend and I had done it exactly once, and got caught by my parents to boot, which was why I had to go to a women's college in the first place. I wasn't a complete ninny, mind you. I pretty much knew when one of the boys was coming on to me—their idea of seduction was telling you how beautiful you were over and over while they tried to get their hand under your bra—second base, they called it—"
"Still do," Martha informed her.
"—but grown men were still a mystery to me… Now where were we again? It's getting harder to concentrate."
"You were going upstairs with him."
"Oh yes—upstairs." Selene closed her eyes, seeing it all again…
Village walk-up. Bathtub in the kitchen doubles as a dining room table. Living room through a curtain to the left of the kitchen; a double bed took up most of the bedroom to the right of the kitchen. Tiny bathroom off the bedroom—when you sit on the toilet your chin is pretty much resting on the sink.
This last detail Helene discovered almost immediately, because the first thing she had to do was pee again—nerves and coffee. It was obvious from the clothes lying around the bedroom that a woman lived in the apartment as well—Helene was young and naive enough to find this reassuring.
Kovic was in the living room; he looked up from her sheet of poems. "You wrote these?"
She nodded dumbly and plopped into the other chair, steeling herself for scathing criticism, and was astounded when he dropped to his knees. "Then you're a real poet, and I salute you." He kissed her hand. "Not a great poet yet—I'm not saying that—but a real one." Turned her hand over and kissed her palm. "And in my humble et cetera, you've got a better chance of maybe someday writing something worthwhile than all those other clowns down there put together."
She had the steel of a poet, he went on to say, but it needed to be tempered by experience and adventure; she had to learn to say yes to life. And what could she say in return—that she wanted to say no to life? That she had to be back in the dorm by eleven? That she didn't really want to be a poet if it meant doing anything?
Then, once she had agreed in principle to saying yes to life, he reached under the armchair, pulled out a shoe box, twisted up the very first marijuana cigarette Helene had ever seen, stuffed a towel into the crack under the front door, and fired it up, as if that was what he was really talking about all along, that was the life she was to say yes to.
She did know what pot was, vaguely—she'd read the Beats—they were part of the reason she'd chosen Barnard, which was the sister school to Columbia, from which the best poets were always being expelled. So she tried to look casual—she'd smoked a few cigarettes in her time—took a big drag, coughed it out. He pretended not to notice, got up to put on a Miles Davis record. By the third or fourth toke she'd figured out how to take in small sips of smoke and mix them with air. Not bad. She closed her eyes, and after a few minutes was seeing the music dancing on the back of her eyelids—Fantasia had nothing on Selene, her first time on pot—and feeling it, too. Then she felt something else—his hands sliding under her sweater, his thumbs brushing her nipples through the leotard until they were hard as pebbles. He began tugging her capris down past her hips; soon his lips were kissing her sex through the wet nylon of the leotard…
* * *
"Oh my." Selene interrupted herself—she'd forgotten to whom she was telling the Tale. "Pardon me, dearie. I must be higher than I thought."
"No, I love it, I want to hear all the good stuff."
"The good stuff? Unfortunately, dearie, that was about as good as it got. A few minutes later we're in the bedroom, he's lying on top of me. My leotard is dangling off one ankle; his pants are around his knees but his shirt is still buttoned—even the cuffs. I can feel his pelvis grinding against me—he's pushing, pushing—I close my eyes—I keep expecting his penis, but nothing happens.
"After a few minutes he climbs off me—I can't tell what he's doing—then he's sitting on me—he's sitting on my stomach and his hands are squeezing my breasts together so hard it hurts—I open my eyes and look down—he's trying to shove his penis in between them—I don't know what the hell is going on, what he was trying to do—"
"He was trying to—" began Martha.
"Yes, dearie," replied Selene tolerantly. "I'm well aware of what he was trying to do now. But it came as a complete surprise to me at the time." She glanced down at the towel covering her chest, and laughed. "I wasn't exactly endowed for it, either. So the next thing I know, he's scooting farther up, sitting on my chest, waving his dingus in my face—"
Martha started to interrupt; Selene stopped her with an upraised palm. "Yes, dearie, this time I knew what he wanted. But I'd never done it before, and wasn't all that eager to try it. I started crying, turning my head away, but I couldn't make him stop, couldn't get him off me. By now I was scared to death—he was swearing at me, calling me a witch—'It's your fault, you fucking witch. You and your fucking curse."
"And when he hit me I didn't even know what had happened at first. I heard the slap, and my head jerked left to right before I felt the pain. So now he's sitting on my chest, I can't breathe, I think this is it, he's going to kill me now, he's going to smother me for sure. But when I open my mouth for a gulp of air he raises up on his knees to put his penis in. I accept it—at least his weight is off me—I can breathe through my nose.
"Then I hear—feel—that roaring noise again, the one that's not a noise, the one with the little voice I can't quite make out. I try to concentrate, but there's this thing in my mouth, distracting me. Finally I understand, though not quite in words—more like a sudden, almost irresistible urge to clamp my jaws together.
"I could bite it off, couldn't I? is what I'm thinking—I open my eyes—I'm looking up at the beautiful waitress from the Cafe LePetomane. She's winking down at me. 'You surely could, honey,' she says—out loud this time. He jumps about a mile. 'Right in half. And it would serve him fucking right, too.' "
Selene's voice trailed off; her eyes had closed. A minute went by, then another. Martha, who'd been basking both in the sun and in the warmth of her godmother's attention, began to grow alarmed. Finally she propped herself up on her elbow again. "You okay, Selene?"
The older woman shook her head sharply, trying to clear away the pinkish haze. "Fine, dearie. But it's getting awfully hard to concentrate—where was I?"
"The waitress. That was my mom, right?"
"It was indeed. Moll Herrick in
all her glory." Selene blinked again. "Listen, dearie, I'm definitely starting to lose it here—I think the only way for me to get through this is to go to trance."
"Okay. What do you need me to do?"
"Just give me a few minutes to drop through, and then when I start talking again, don't interrupt me, no matter what. That's the most important thing. Some of the stuff I'm going to be telling you might be a little shocking even by modern standards, but it's absolutely critical that I not be interrupted. It's hard enough on the psyche to be jerked out of a trance—I don't know what the effects would be when you're on belladonna on top of all that."
"You can count on me," said Martha.
"I already do," replied Selene. "More than you'll ever know." She closed her eyes again, and began to slow her breathing.
CHAPTER 3
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As she dressed hurriedly in the living room, Helene could hear Kovic's voice from the bedroom:
"I knew this was your doing, you fucking witch!"
She was a little afraid for the waitress—he had looked so frightening when she scrambled off the bed and raced out of the room, his face gone gargoyle—all bumps and bulges—from anger. But he'd also looked slightly ridiculous, with his wild hair frizzed up around his head and his skinny legs sticking out from under the shirttails, and the waitress's voice didn't sound frightened in the least: "I told you what would happen if you ever cheated on me again. And to do it in my bed, you miserable limp-dick motherfucker!"
The man's voice: "Take the curse off, or I'll kill you right here and now."
And the woman's: "Stalemate. If you kill me before I remove the curse, you'll never have another hard-on. Now get the fuck out of my apartment."
SHADOWS Page 2
