Chez Minu
Jonathan
By Minauti Dave
I'm sitting in semi-darkness, ears perked to a thunderstorm brewing outside the screen of a bay window from the third-floor rented space of our Victorian house.
I shouldn't be sitting so close to the tree that's hugging the building, but I must smell the rain and soil and I press my face into the mesh screen to inhale the storm like a junkie on dope.
A giant, brown, alien spaceship cloud is hovering on the sky’s pink-blue hued horizon. The rain hitting the roof sounds like crumpled sheets of cellophane paper – the breeze is cool.
The storm emerges from a tropical monsoon encompassing endless green into autumn heading our way. The thunder is growling at a crescendo; it is unpredictable in its belligerence.
When the heart attack finally ceased and the clouds parted, the capillaries of people and steady stream of cars flowed again.
I remained still at my perch.
Within this small city’s hectic pace I caught the slow motion activity of a hunched over but sprightly senior citizen pulling his weight up the hill to stand in front of the house across the street.
He paid no mind to the frenzied movements around him. Quietly, with a confident grace, he deliberately took out a series of items in a specific order. First to emerge was a rusty metal 3-foot-high stool; a small, black battery-operated radio; an easel; a rusted coffee can; a makeshift palette; and a blank 11x14 canvas.
On the first day, I permitted his intense focus on the house that drew his attention and steadied his wrinkly hands. I would sit for hours watching green and crimson lines of the Tudor home reveal itself on his canvas.
Almost every driver and passerby stopped to peek with wonder at the unexpected sight of a painter accompanied by an easel, palette and paintbrushes.
On the second day, I tentatively walked up to him with a chilled bottle of Poland Spring. It wasn’t my turn to speak as another pair of strangers, two suited teenagers representing the Jehovah Witness, engaged him in a religious debate. I patiently listened as the 88-degree weather caused the condensation on the water bottle drip through my fingers.
“I thought something cool could help stave off this humidity and heat.” He looked at me perplexed as if altruism was outdated in proximity of New York City.
“Thanks, thank you.” He pushed up his coke bottle thick glasses, angling his head high enough to keep them from sliding off his nose. All I could focus on was the white tape that held together the frame in the center.
He placed the water bottle down, next to his watering can. I felt an added embarrassment for imposing, hoping he didn’t see through my piqued curiosity.
His wrecked glasses covered a quarter of his face and blue eyes. He smelled musty in his ceremonial faded blue T-shirt and blue baseball cap that he wore over paint soiled blue jeans. He was weathered.
He started to put his things away upon my arrival. I erred on the side of sympathy.
“May I accompany you?”
He gave me a sidelong glance at my expectant expression. For a moment, I was convinced he would say no, but he nodded – very slowly conceded.
“You can take care of this. It doesn’t work – the batteries are dead.” He handed me the radio and I held out my hand.
“Meera.”
He was holding his cardboard palette in one hand, gesticulating as he said my name three times out loud. There were no questions, no imperfect inflections or mispronunciations of Meera. He felt compelled to say the name at the oddest intervals, making it sound like a verb or adjective more than a noun.
“My hands are soiled with paint Meera,” he said, quickly pocketing his excuse.
“How old are you if you don’t mind my asking?”
“77. It’s not a far walk – about a tenth of a mile to the apartment where I live.”
I couldn’t tell whether he rushed out of anxiety, insecurity or a common phenomenon of old age.
“You don’t look 77.”
“I get that a lot!”
He said the words with alacrity. His laughter bellowed.
“How long have you been painting?”
I turned on a switch.
“Just started painting three years ago. Something made me get out of my stuffy room. It was as if God was pushing me out – to get the heck out of my room. Meera I grew up in Brooklyn and my family is from Italy. When I was young, I remember this huge family gathering because Italians must have huge family gatherings (he raised his arms up in the air in sync with his rolling eyes). And I believe it was either a relative or my father who carved a five–foot wide banner out of some type of stone. I regret leaving it behind between relocating homes. It said “la vida” or “vida” – which I thought meant life, but I always connected it to the desire to create; to keep pushing; keep living.”
There was room for one exhalation to process the painter’s unexpected steady string of words rolling off of his Italian-accented tongue.
“Why do you paint?”
“I do it because the technological advances in art are lost on me and I don’t see basic art practiced the way it used to be. It’s a lost art. Are you married Meera?”
The unexpected inquiry caught me off guard.
“Um, yes, in fact I am, why?”
“All of a sudden I wondered what it is like. I think about it a lot these days,” he said.
He went away for a bit inside of his head. By the extended pause, I thought he was done with speaking.
Old people are like dinosaurs and I studied his face as such, hoping to find a point of reference. I stared at him unabashedly. I discovered his glasses were further battered – the legs were held together behind his ears by pieces of jute. His eyes had a droopy dog hound look to them, garnering my empathy.
“I never wanted to get married. There’s a saying – how does it go? A selfish man – a selfish person should never get married. It’s true Meera.”
I felt obligated to agree with him because of his age. Although I was taught to revere my elders as sagacious, I was disconcerted to find the painter jaded about love.
“My parents divorced when I was a kid. I remember my mother telling me about when she got married to my father in her early 20s. She, a Bavarian girl, had a fantasy – a notion of love when she met my father. He was Rudolph Valentino – straight out of the movies.”
He stopped walking to frame a movie screen with his hands, picturing the Italian icon against the blue sky. He smiled, but his eyes said otherwise.
“I loved my mother – she was a good person.”
The painter’s eyes quickly filled up with tears while he kept walking. I watched him, a man who has lived a life beyond my years crumple in front of me, transforming into an innocent child. I turned away embarrassed.
“Parents need to communicate better with their children. My grandmother never talked to my mother about love, much less sex. My grandmother knew I was gay. I knew I was gay from a young age, Meera.”
The confession was so matter of fact. He looked at me, not for approval, but recognition as if I was going to catch him in a lie.
“I find it an unhealthy relationship. I had thoughts but never carried it out in any way. I find it better – right – to block them out with the grace of God.”
What is Grace of God I wondered? Did God take great interest in mind control? For some reason I wasn’t convinced he believed in his own words.
“I went to an AA meeting because I like to go to those kinds of things – kept a booklet from that meeting and the line from it that struck me: ‘humbly offer all your problems to God.’ Humbly – it is significant. By humbly giving up all your problems to God, you are submitting to God; you are letting go of your pride and anger and rage that holds you back,” he said.
I took a hard look at his wrinkles and aged stoop as if inspecting the rings of a butchered tree, unconvinced of the painter’s propensity for rage more than frustration.
“My short temper makes my painting tension-filled,” he said, twisting his hands together as if to wring a cloth.
“It’s not like decorating or furnishing a room Meera….”
I could only offer a pasted smile at his thoughts on God, tension, and rage.
“I am extremely focused and absorbed (this time he cupped his hands together into a camera lens and narrowed his eyes through it) and you would think that’s a good thing, but it’s a tense action and gets in the way of painting every part of it perfect – and it must be perfect.”
Perhaps it was God or his obsession for perfection that was interrupting creativity.
We made it to the high riser where he lived. In our personal confessions we left behind formality near the green Tudor home where we met.
“I’m not ready to go in just yet,” he said.
He began staring pensively at the 12-story dirty, white brick apartment building.
“I live in a 750-square-foot studio on the topmost floor. I’ve been surrounded by old people all my life. In my youth, I spent more time with adults than kids. I once tried to change that, but God had another plan.”
“How would you have changed your life if divine providence was responsible?” I asked.
“I was getting my teaching degree at NYU and I had started my student teaching internship at a high school in the Upper West Side… then it all went wrong. A couple of professors took me aside and urged me to shelve away this teaching dream of mine. They actually thought I was a danger to the children. Did they ever bother asking me how I felt?”
His words sounded like halted sobs. He picked at a bandage that covered a nasty open blister on his middle finger – he kept flicking and scratching at the acrylic paint that crusted the edges.
“Years later, I read a tragic story about a young New York City teacher, who threw herself out of the window of a school in Harlem. Her mother couldn’t comprehend why her daughter would do such a thing when she only saw her as gentle, calm and a good person. Her daughter jumped because she was those things – she was sweet and gentle and she wasn’t ready to teach in a tough school. Why didn’t she tell her mother? Was it because she was afraid of seeming weak?”
He mourned for death. For the reality he could have lived. And the young teacher who left the world misunderstood. It was a mirror of loss.
“I was too young. I wasn’t emotionally ready to take it on. It wasn’t the time. Why didn’t they ever ask me what I was worried about?”
“What were you worried about?” I said.
He fumbled. I caught him in his own contradiction. I knew the truth. He bowed his head.
“I’m going to paint the New York City skyline for you.” All of a sudden, he sounded like a gregarious salesman.
He took out a small lined memo pad. I caught an array of pencil sketches flicking out a quick animated short of landscapes and streetscapes. I added my address; it looked misplaced following his picture story.
“You’re not going to be writing…” He couldn’t finish the word, but made a fist and repeatedly pounded the air as if to say: EVERY SINGLE DAY!
I smiled at the drama and dismissed his pounding fists as that of an atypical octogenarian.
“Perhaps not everyday.”
“Otherwise, I would feel obligated. I would feel guilty. I would have to write back. I mean no offense, but I have to protect myself, you know?”
I wondered how I could possibly compromise the painter’s life when I craved to hear more of about his life.
“How about I write you a story so that you do not have to write back?”
“No, I would still feel like I have to respond,” he insisted.
“I will write to you only once in a while if that at all. I say I will do these things and never end up doing them.”
I couldn’t let him walk away, hoping he would permit some form of communication.
“Oh no. I always follow through on promises. We have a conscience.” He was staring into space, once again entangled in his rationalization.
She shrugged in defeat; stood up to depart while he remained seated. From where she stood his head was bowed. He had a full head of black and white hair; parts flattened by his cap like crop circles. Then he looked up at me with eyes singing the blues.
“Thank you for listening,” he said. For a moment I thought he wanted me to linger longer, but it was clear he wanted to be left on the bench next to a couple dying trees.
As I walked away, I turned around once, but he was not to be found.
The painter and supply cart went home.
One year after our long walk home I continued to wait for the New York City skyline on canvas. As soon as I released hope, it surprised me in the most unlikely way. The 11x14 painting was not of shiny asymmetrical heights of skyscrapers separated by tiny bright lines of grid locked avenues. It didn’t show the wide expanse of the Hudson with a partial view of the Statue of Liberty or at the other extreme, the classy clean lines of the Upper West Side. The painting wasn’t a landscape.
Instead I stared in awe at the blurred impressionist images of a young woman propping her tilted head on the palm of her hand as her elbow rested on a bench, intently listening to a hunched over figure of a man whose eyes were smiling behind dilapidated glasses. The peeling green bench was unmistakable and the painter’s metal upright cart confirmed the scene that I held so close to my heart.
There was neither a letter nor a note, except for seven revealing words lightly painted behind the canvas.
La Vida – from me to you. Jonathan. If it weren’t for the authoritative knock on her door, I would have gladly spent the day following his brushstrokes as they captured his movements on canvas.
A chivalrous police officer was standing in her doorway. He took off his cap and politely asked if I was Meera Shah.
“We’ve had over 50 complaints of a man bilking local Weehawken residents of thousands of dollars selling phony paintings, and falsely signing off his name on them. His name is Jonathan Vinetti. Does it sound familiar to you?”
I was hoping he would talk a little longer while I quieted my heartbeats.
“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t know anyone by that name.”
I lied instinctively, mired in well-concealed guilt knowing the officer need only walk five steps past the door frame to get a clear view of a suspected criminal in oil paint.
“What else should I know about him in case he attempts to con me?”
“We know he is in his 70s and lived in a high riser about a mile from here. He recently abandoned his home, which is how we found the collection of paint by number kits that matched those he swindled. He left behind everything – his clothes, a shopping cart of fake art supplies, etc.”
Jonathan was an eccentric man; a soulful, kind man so when the officer came knocking on my door to tell me he is a con-man, it was too late. I was already set in my beliefs. I only wished I could vindicate him by telling them he took nothing from me but time. And time as well as my chance meeting was ephemeral – now a memory in brushstrokes.
“Well, I have not heard or seen anyone of that description. I hope you find your man.”
When the interrogation was complete, I sat by the painting hoping in some small way I saved him.
Dear Ms. Dracon
By Minauti Dave
She glides into the shabby, brightly-lit, classroom with the usual stony, stoic expression she dons following Labor Day. It was a new school year.
As custom, her "getting to know you" introductions involve towering above her students in shiny noir Ferragamos, silk plaited skirt, and blouse.
The new batch of eager minds can't help but react.
The quiet buzz caught her attention, but she didn't let on. In slow motion, she floats to her desk and lifts her jumble of keys. She deliberately chooses one from the bunch, walks over to the recently cleaned, green chalkboard and taps the key in a consistent rhythm on the chalkboard for attention.
With her back turned and the slight hint of a smile on her face, she took the same key and dragged it from the top of the chalkboard down to the very bottom of it. It is a piercing sound -- worse than that of long, pointy finger nails -- even worse than the sharp, stainless steel edges of a fork. The terrible screech all but drowns out the class's reaction. Students still cringe looking at the scar on the board that breaks silence.
The shock turned into a quiet hush in the classroom. She deliberately picked on Christian.
"You think your whispering is so awe inspiring, share it with the class." She looked up at everyone and added, "Otherwise, face the consequences." She spoke the words in a chilly, drawled whisper, annunciating every word, emphasizing "you", "so", "awe-inspiring" and "otherwise."
Christian was as frozen as a mime. Christian wouldn't dare share his thoughts. Christian couldn't even swallow.
This was Mary Dracon's final year as an English teacher at what the district gently calls, SUR or "a school under review" or in a jargon-free world, a troubled inner city high school too unsafe for its own good housing too many academically low-performing students.
She gave 30 years of her life to this institution. As a veteran teacher, she has the privilege, which she considers a birth right, to teach honors and advanced placement classes; sufficient justification for her gliding, scratching, and admonishing.
The students of Franklin D. Roosevelt High School have already christened her with a name they deem apropo: Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side. And, oh yes, Ms. Dracon is well aware of this. In fact, there are plenty of things Ms. Dracon knows and refuses to reveal: emotions, age, true opinions about students; teaching practices; long smoking breaks; and eating habits.
If a student dares to call her out on one of these forbidden "secrets," she will quell her with a failing homework grade, arrogantly sneering: "Push off, I'm not a science experiment." For the grown-ups, there are dire political ramifications.
On Monday morning, the literary irony I so often teach became a reality. On Monday, my assistant principal informed me, as per budget cuts, "I have been given the privilege to share a classroom with an exemplary veteran educator."
I was to be forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from The Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side. Oh, really? Why, now, that is the highlight of my day -- I think I'll go ahead and celebrate, but first let me run onto Broadway and hope for the worst.
It took me three cigarettes and the same number of profanity-ridden revolutions around the school building to calm down. To stave off my frustration, I set my expectations rock bottom low.
I have a tumultuous relationship with FDR High School. I sincerely loved my students, I detested the high fructose corn syrup-coated lies the administration told.
Lying gave some teachers a false sense of security. It kept some teachers anchored to their jobs far longer than expected. Our principal was notorious for hyperbolizing school statistics. The graduation rate was not the actual 40%, rather 60%; attendance rate was not 80%, but 50%.
They even lied about the majestic and severely underused auditorium "under construction." The truth was events in that space were strictly forbidden for fear of mass chaos and destruction because "Don't you see? That is what we expect from inner city high school students,' "said principal with a confectionate smile. .
They fooled the students by violating the students privacy. We are ensuring the school's safe environment, they claimed.
Every morning students must experience humiliation by waiting on lines that cross the sidewalk and 85th street as they take turns walking through a giant X-ray and placing their book bags and belongings on a conveyor belt. The students are further humiliated as they take off their belts; are body-scanned by a wand and further frisked.
Finally, to add to their already miserable morning, they are prohibited from bringing any food into the school – they must consume the free lunch the district provides, which is some green-colored array of meats in between stale bread.
Oh, they refused to stay quiet. Their response played out in the classrooms in their apathy for homework to state exams; their impatience with teachers and rules and overall disillusionment of the school system. The teachers became exhausted from babysitting more than teaching.
Yet, somehow, all of the indiscretions surpass every administrator’s radar screen. FDR maintains its spurious steady reputation by winning fancy looking awards like the technology grant that helped the school purchase 200 computers.
Everyone ignores the teachers who cannot maintain order long enough in the classroom for students to obtain an education.
Why did I chose to teach here? Was I secretly masochistic?
It was with these thoughts I walked into Room 305 and faced the Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side.
“How are you Ms. Dracon? I hope we are able to form a friendship over this shared space,” I rehearsed the words out loud, but it was too late to practice cleaner lines as Ms. Dracon already heard me.
"I don't need new friends. I am fine on my own, and I don't share," she said without looking up to face me, continuing to read her New York Times.
She sipped her coffee as she read the morning paper through her half-moon glasses. As I looked around the room, I found most of the bookshelves filled with her classroom texts. Her name was conveniently printed on two massive metal supply cabinets, leaving me one short two-drawer cabinet of space.
The only decoration she offered was on one of the giant metal cabinets. It was a lonely print of Van Gogh's self portrait -- the one with his bandaged ear; he's smoking a pipe. The hospital blue walls of the classroom were left as is. The approximate 35 desks were in five neat rows and the room was lucky to have four windows on the back wall emitting copious sunlight.
At first, I could not help but be livid with her for usurping almost every inch of storage space. I transposed myself into a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character and conjured up the image of fake steam spewing out of my ears. I had my own word for the broad -- draconian.
I vigorously went to work on my day's lesson, sketching out the details of study questions; related classwork, homework, and literary terms that I had to teach. As I observed her from the corner of my eye, I couldn't help but notice she did no lesson planning at all, yet she was poised when delivering her lesson. I dared to ask her the question.
"Would you mind if I learned from your teaching by sitting in on one of your classes?"
"Do what you please," she said.
Her face looked strained, pressured by the types of wrinkles her life manifested. I felt just a dinch of sympathy.
The morning of her lesson, the birds were chirping, warm September sun was shining, and everything was right in the world. Ms. Dracon went to the chalkboard as her students shuffled in, settled in their seats. She scripted the following prompt on the board:
Freewrite: Why is writing important?
What a cop out question, I thought. This was a sophomore honors class and the question was condescending. Was she testing their patience?
Perhaps it was fear; an eagerness to please, whatever the reason, the students fell in line with the prompt. I heard the vigorous sounds of pens and pencils scratching on paper intermingled with the sound of gold bangles hitting the desks. The students were silently and diligently expressing themselves in words. However, what was happening in the very back of the classroom caught my attention. She was tapping her pencil in the air and staring intently at Ms. Dracon.
Her name was Tiffany.
By Minauti Dave
I'm sitting in semi-darkness, ears perked to a thunderstorm brewing outside the screen of a bay window from the third-floor rented space of our Victorian house.
I shouldn't be sitting so close to the tree that's hugging the building, but I must smell the rain and soil and I press my face into the mesh screen to inhale the storm like a junkie on dope.
A giant, brown, alien spaceship cloud is hovering on the sky’s pink-blue hued horizon. The rain hitting the roof sounds like crumpled sheets of cellophane paper – the breeze is cool.
The storm emerges from a tropical monsoon encompassing endless green into autumn heading our way. The thunder is growling at a crescendo; it is unpredictable in its belligerence.
When the heart attack finally ceased and the clouds parted, the capillaries of people and steady stream of cars flowed again.
I remained still at my perch.
Within this small city’s hectic pace I caught the slow motion activity of a hunched over but sprightly senior citizen pulling his weight up the hill to stand in front of the house across the street.
He paid no mind to the frenzied movements around him. Quietly, with a confident grace, he deliberately took out a series of items in a specific order. First to emerge was a rusty metal 3-foot-high stool; a small, black battery-operated radio; an easel; a rusted coffee can; a makeshift palette; and a blank 11x14 canvas.
On the first day, I permitted his intense focus on the house that drew his attention and steadied his wrinkly hands. I would sit for hours watching green and crimson lines of the Tudor home reveal itself on his canvas.
Almost every driver and passerby stopped to peek with wonder at the unexpected sight of a painter accompanied by an easel, palette and paintbrushes.
On the second day, I tentatively walked up to him with a chilled bottle of Poland Spring. It wasn’t my turn to speak as another pair of strangers, two suited teenagers representing the Jehovah Witness, engaged him in a religious debate. I patiently listened as the 88-degree weather caused the condensation on the water bottle drip through my fingers.
“I thought something cool could help stave off this humidity and heat.” He looked at me perplexed as if altruism was outdated in proximity of New York City.
“Thanks, thank you.” He pushed up his coke bottle thick glasses, angling his head high enough to keep them from sliding off his nose. All I could focus on was the white tape that held together the frame in the center.
He placed the water bottle down, next to his watering can. I felt an added embarrassment for imposing, hoping he didn’t see through my piqued curiosity.
His wrecked glasses covered a quarter of his face and blue eyes. He smelled musty in his ceremonial faded blue T-shirt and blue baseball cap that he wore over paint soiled blue jeans. He was weathered.
He started to put his things away upon my arrival. I erred on the side of sympathy.
“May I accompany you?”
He gave me a sidelong glance at my expectant expression. For a moment, I was convinced he would say no, but he nodded – very slowly conceded.
“You can take care of this. It doesn’t work – the batteries are dead.” He handed me the radio and I held out my hand.
“Meera.”
He was holding his cardboard palette in one hand, gesticulating as he said my name three times out loud. There were no questions, no imperfect inflections or mispronunciations of Meera. He felt compelled to say the name at the oddest intervals, making it sound like a verb or adjective more than a noun.
“My hands are soiled with paint Meera,” he said, quickly pocketing his excuse.
“How old are you if you don’t mind my asking?”
“77. It’s not a far walk – about a tenth of a mile to the apartment where I live.”
I couldn’t tell whether he rushed out of anxiety, insecurity or a common phenomenon of old age.
“You don’t look 77.”
“I get that a lot!”
He said the words with alacrity. His laughter bellowed.
“How long have you been painting?”
I turned on a switch.
“Just started painting three years ago. Something made me get out of my stuffy room. It was as if God was pushing me out – to get the heck out of my room. Meera I grew up in Brooklyn and my family is from Italy. When I was young, I remember this huge family gathering because Italians must have huge family gatherings (he raised his arms up in the air in sync with his rolling eyes). And I believe it was either a relative or my father who carved a five–foot wide banner out of some type of stone. I regret leaving it behind between relocating homes. It said “la vida” or “vida” – which I thought meant life, but I always connected it to the desire to create; to keep pushing; keep living.”
There was room for one exhalation to process the painter’s unexpected steady string of words rolling off of his Italian-accented tongue.
“Why do you paint?”
“I do it because the technological advances in art are lost on me and I don’t see basic art practiced the way it used to be. It’s a lost art. Are you married Meera?”
The unexpected inquiry caught me off guard.
“Um, yes, in fact I am, why?”
“All of a sudden I wondered what it is like. I think about it a lot these days,” he said.
He went away for a bit inside of his head. By the extended pause, I thought he was done with speaking.
Old people are like dinosaurs and I studied his face as such, hoping to find a point of reference. I stared at him unabashedly. I discovered his glasses were further battered – the legs were held together behind his ears by pieces of jute. His eyes had a droopy dog hound look to them, garnering my empathy.
“I never wanted to get married. There’s a saying – how does it go? A selfish man – a selfish person should never get married. It’s true Meera.”
I felt obligated to agree with him because of his age. Although I was taught to revere my elders as sagacious, I was disconcerted to find the painter jaded about love.
“My parents divorced when I was a kid. I remember my mother telling me about when she got married to my father in her early 20s. She, a Bavarian girl, had a fantasy – a notion of love when she met my father. He was Rudolph Valentino – straight out of the movies.”
He stopped walking to frame a movie screen with his hands, picturing the Italian icon against the blue sky. He smiled, but his eyes said otherwise.
“I loved my mother – she was a good person.”
The painter’s eyes quickly filled up with tears while he kept walking. I watched him, a man who has lived a life beyond my years crumple in front of me, transforming into an innocent child. I turned away embarrassed.
“Parents need to communicate better with their children. My grandmother never talked to my mother about love, much less sex. My grandmother knew I was gay. I knew I was gay from a young age, Meera.”
The confession was so matter of fact. He looked at me, not for approval, but recognition as if I was going to catch him in a lie.
“I find it an unhealthy relationship. I had thoughts but never carried it out in any way. I find it better – right – to block them out with the grace of God.”
What is Grace of God I wondered? Did God take great interest in mind control? For some reason I wasn’t convinced he believed in his own words.
“I went to an AA meeting because I like to go to those kinds of things – kept a booklet from that meeting and the line from it that struck me: ‘humbly offer all your problems to God.’ Humbly – it is significant. By humbly giving up all your problems to God, you are submitting to God; you are letting go of your pride and anger and rage that holds you back,” he said.
I took a hard look at his wrinkles and aged stoop as if inspecting the rings of a butchered tree, unconvinced of the painter’s propensity for rage more than frustration.
“My short temper makes my painting tension-filled,” he said, twisting his hands together as if to wring a cloth.
“It’s not like decorating or furnishing a room Meera….”
I could only offer a pasted smile at his thoughts on God, tension, and rage.
“I am extremely focused and absorbed (this time he cupped his hands together into a camera lens and narrowed his eyes through it) and you would think that’s a good thing, but it’s a tense action and gets in the way of painting every part of it perfect – and it must be perfect.”
Perhaps it was God or his obsession for perfection that was interrupting creativity.
We made it to the high riser where he lived. In our personal confessions we left behind formality near the green Tudor home where we met.
“I’m not ready to go in just yet,” he said.
He began staring pensively at the 12-story dirty, white brick apartment building.
“I live in a 750-square-foot studio on the topmost floor. I’ve been surrounded by old people all my life. In my youth, I spent more time with adults than kids. I once tried to change that, but God had another plan.”
“How would you have changed your life if divine providence was responsible?” I asked.
“I was getting my teaching degree at NYU and I had started my student teaching internship at a high school in the Upper West Side… then it all went wrong. A couple of professors took me aside and urged me to shelve away this teaching dream of mine. They actually thought I was a danger to the children. Did they ever bother asking me how I felt?”
His words sounded like halted sobs. He picked at a bandage that covered a nasty open blister on his middle finger – he kept flicking and scratching at the acrylic paint that crusted the edges.
“Years later, I read a tragic story about a young New York City teacher, who threw herself out of the window of a school in Harlem. Her mother couldn’t comprehend why her daughter would do such a thing when she only saw her as gentle, calm and a good person. Her daughter jumped because she was those things – she was sweet and gentle and she wasn’t ready to teach in a tough school. Why didn’t she tell her mother? Was it because she was afraid of seeming weak?”
He mourned for death. For the reality he could have lived. And the young teacher who left the world misunderstood. It was a mirror of loss.
“I was too young. I wasn’t emotionally ready to take it on. It wasn’t the time. Why didn’t they ever ask me what I was worried about?”
“What were you worried about?” I said.
He fumbled. I caught him in his own contradiction. I knew the truth. He bowed his head.
“I’m going to paint the New York City skyline for you.” All of a sudden, he sounded like a gregarious salesman.
He took out a small lined memo pad. I caught an array of pencil sketches flicking out a quick animated short of landscapes and streetscapes. I added my address; it looked misplaced following his picture story.
“You’re not going to be writing…” He couldn’t finish the word, but made a fist and repeatedly pounded the air as if to say: EVERY SINGLE DAY!
I smiled at the drama and dismissed his pounding fists as that of an atypical octogenarian.
“Perhaps not everyday.”
“Otherwise, I would feel obligated. I would feel guilty. I would have to write back. I mean no offense, but I have to protect myself, you know?”
I wondered how I could possibly compromise the painter’s life when I craved to hear more of about his life.
“How about I write you a story so that you do not have to write back?”
“No, I would still feel like I have to respond,” he insisted.
“I will write to you only once in a while if that at all. I say I will do these things and never end up doing them.”
I couldn’t let him walk away, hoping he would permit some form of communication.
“Oh no. I always follow through on promises. We have a conscience.” He was staring into space, once again entangled in his rationalization.
She shrugged in defeat; stood up to depart while he remained seated. From where she stood his head was bowed. He had a full head of black and white hair; parts flattened by his cap like crop circles. Then he looked up at me with eyes singing the blues.
“Thank you for listening,” he said. For a moment I thought he wanted me to linger longer, but it was clear he wanted to be left on the bench next to a couple dying trees.
As I walked away, I turned around once, but he was not to be found.
The painter and supply cart went home.
One year after our long walk home I continued to wait for the New York City skyline on canvas. As soon as I released hope, it surprised me in the most unlikely way. The 11x14 painting was not of shiny asymmetrical heights of skyscrapers separated by tiny bright lines of grid locked avenues. It didn’t show the wide expanse of the Hudson with a partial view of the Statue of Liberty or at the other extreme, the classy clean lines of the Upper West Side. The painting wasn’t a landscape.
Instead I stared in awe at the blurred impressionist images of a young woman propping her tilted head on the palm of her hand as her elbow rested on a bench, intently listening to a hunched over figure of a man whose eyes were smiling behind dilapidated glasses. The peeling green bench was unmistakable and the painter’s metal upright cart confirmed the scene that I held so close to my heart.
There was neither a letter nor a note, except for seven revealing words lightly painted behind the canvas.
La Vida – from me to you. Jonathan. If it weren’t for the authoritative knock on her door, I would have gladly spent the day following his brushstrokes as they captured his movements on canvas.
A chivalrous police officer was standing in her doorway. He took off his cap and politely asked if I was Meera Shah.
“We’ve had over 50 complaints of a man bilking local Weehawken residents of thousands of dollars selling phony paintings, and falsely signing off his name on them. His name is Jonathan Vinetti. Does it sound familiar to you?”
I was hoping he would talk a little longer while I quieted my heartbeats.
“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t know anyone by that name.”
I lied instinctively, mired in well-concealed guilt knowing the officer need only walk five steps past the door frame to get a clear view of a suspected criminal in oil paint.
“What else should I know about him in case he attempts to con me?”
“We know he is in his 70s and lived in a high riser about a mile from here. He recently abandoned his home, which is how we found the collection of paint by number kits that matched those he swindled. He left behind everything – his clothes, a shopping cart of fake art supplies, etc.”
Jonathan was an eccentric man; a soulful, kind man so when the officer came knocking on my door to tell me he is a con-man, it was too late. I was already set in my beliefs. I only wished I could vindicate him by telling them he took nothing from me but time. And time as well as my chance meeting was ephemeral – now a memory in brushstrokes.
“Well, I have not heard or seen anyone of that description. I hope you find your man.”
When the interrogation was complete, I sat by the painting hoping in some small way I saved him.
Dear Ms. Dracon
By Minauti Dave
She glides into the shabby, brightly-lit, classroom with the usual stony, stoic expression she dons following Labor Day. It was a new school year.
As custom, her "getting to know you" introductions involve towering above her students in shiny noir Ferragamos, silk plaited skirt, and blouse.
The new batch of eager minds can't help but react.
The quiet buzz caught her attention, but she didn't let on. In slow motion, she floats to her desk and lifts her jumble of keys. She deliberately chooses one from the bunch, walks over to the recently cleaned, green chalkboard and taps the key in a consistent rhythm on the chalkboard for attention.
With her back turned and the slight hint of a smile on her face, she took the same key and dragged it from the top of the chalkboard down to the very bottom of it. It is a piercing sound -- worse than that of long, pointy finger nails -- even worse than the sharp, stainless steel edges of a fork. The terrible screech all but drowns out the class's reaction. Students still cringe looking at the scar on the board that breaks silence.
The shock turned into a quiet hush in the classroom. She deliberately picked on Christian.
"You think your whispering is so awe inspiring, share it with the class." She looked up at everyone and added, "Otherwise, face the consequences." She spoke the words in a chilly, drawled whisper, annunciating every word, emphasizing "you", "so", "awe-inspiring" and "otherwise."
Christian was as frozen as a mime. Christian wouldn't dare share his thoughts. Christian couldn't even swallow.
This was Mary Dracon's final year as an English teacher at what the district gently calls, SUR or "a school under review" or in a jargon-free world, a troubled inner city high school too unsafe for its own good housing too many academically low-performing students.
She gave 30 years of her life to this institution. As a veteran teacher, she has the privilege, which she considers a birth right, to teach honors and advanced placement classes; sufficient justification for her gliding, scratching, and admonishing.
The students of Franklin D. Roosevelt High School have already christened her with a name they deem apropo: Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side. And, oh yes, Ms. Dracon is well aware of this. In fact, there are plenty of things Ms. Dracon knows and refuses to reveal: emotions, age, true opinions about students; teaching practices; long smoking breaks; and eating habits.
If a student dares to call her out on one of these forbidden "secrets," she will quell her with a failing homework grade, arrogantly sneering: "Push off, I'm not a science experiment." For the grown-ups, there are dire political ramifications.
On Monday morning, the literary irony I so often teach became a reality. On Monday, my assistant principal informed me, as per budget cuts, "I have been given the privilege to share a classroom with an exemplary veteran educator."
I was to be forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from The Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side. Oh, really? Why, now, that is the highlight of my day -- I think I'll go ahead and celebrate, but first let me run onto Broadway and hope for the worst.
It took me three cigarettes and the same number of profanity-ridden revolutions around the school building to calm down. To stave off my frustration, I set my expectations rock bottom low.
I have a tumultuous relationship with FDR High School. I sincerely loved my students, I detested the high fructose corn syrup-coated lies the administration told.
Lying gave some teachers a false sense of security. It kept some teachers anchored to their jobs far longer than expected. Our principal was notorious for hyperbolizing school statistics. The graduation rate was not the actual 40%, rather 60%; attendance rate was not 80%, but 50%.
They even lied about the majestic and severely underused auditorium "under construction." The truth was events in that space were strictly forbidden for fear of mass chaos and destruction because "Don't you see? That is what we expect from inner city high school students,' "said principal with a confectionate smile. .
They fooled the students by violating the students privacy. We are ensuring the school's safe environment, they claimed.
Every morning students must experience humiliation by waiting on lines that cross the sidewalk and 85th street as they take turns walking through a giant X-ray and placing their book bags and belongings on a conveyor belt. The students are further humiliated as they take off their belts; are body-scanned by a wand and further frisked.
Finally, to add to their already miserable morning, they are prohibited from bringing any food into the school – they must consume the free lunch the district provides, which is some green-colored array of meats in between stale bread.
Oh, they refused to stay quiet. Their response played out in the classrooms in their apathy for homework to state exams; their impatience with teachers and rules and overall disillusionment of the school system. The teachers became exhausted from babysitting more than teaching.
Yet, somehow, all of the indiscretions surpass every administrator’s radar screen. FDR maintains its spurious steady reputation by winning fancy looking awards like the technology grant that helped the school purchase 200 computers.
Everyone ignores the teachers who cannot maintain order long enough in the classroom for students to obtain an education.
Why did I chose to teach here? Was I secretly masochistic?
It was with these thoughts I walked into Room 305 and faced the Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side.
“How are you Ms. Dracon? I hope we are able to form a friendship over this shared space,” I rehearsed the words out loud, but it was too late to practice cleaner lines as Ms. Dracon already heard me.
"I don't need new friends. I am fine on my own, and I don't share," she said without looking up to face me, continuing to read her New York Times.
She sipped her coffee as she read the morning paper through her half-moon glasses. As I looked around the room, I found most of the bookshelves filled with her classroom texts. Her name was conveniently printed on two massive metal supply cabinets, leaving me one short two-drawer cabinet of space.
The only decoration she offered was on one of the giant metal cabinets. It was a lonely print of Van Gogh's self portrait -- the one with his bandaged ear; he's smoking a pipe. The hospital blue walls of the classroom were left as is. The approximate 35 desks were in five neat rows and the room was lucky to have four windows on the back wall emitting copious sunlight.
At first, I could not help but be livid with her for usurping almost every inch of storage space. I transposed myself into a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character and conjured up the image of fake steam spewing out of my ears. I had my own word for the broad -- draconian.
I vigorously went to work on my day's lesson, sketching out the details of study questions; related classwork, homework, and literary terms that I had to teach. As I observed her from the corner of my eye, I couldn't help but notice she did no lesson planning at all, yet she was poised when delivering her lesson. I dared to ask her the question.
"Would you mind if I learned from your teaching by sitting in on one of your classes?"
"Do what you please," she said.
Her face looked strained, pressured by the types of wrinkles her life manifested. I felt just a dinch of sympathy.
The morning of her lesson, the birds were chirping, warm September sun was shining, and everything was right in the world. Ms. Dracon went to the chalkboard as her students shuffled in, settled in their seats. She scripted the following prompt on the board:
Freewrite: Why is writing important?
What a cop out question, I thought. This was a sophomore honors class and the question was condescending. Was she testing their patience?
Perhaps it was fear; an eagerness to please, whatever the reason, the students fell in line with the prompt. I heard the vigorous sounds of pens and pencils scratching on paper intermingled with the sound of gold bangles hitting the desks. The students were silently and diligently expressing themselves in words. However, what was happening in the very back of the classroom caught my attention. She was tapping her pencil in the air and staring intently at Ms. Dracon.
Her name was Tiffany.
Self Preservation
There is a 30-second window before it’s too late. The mustard seeds soak in oil patiently waiting to crackle until they begin bouncing like popped corn and the remaining ingredients are dropped into place. However, her stirring proceeded at a careless spin causing the tornado of steaming hot curry to bubble over. The pot rocked; it crashed down; it splashed turmeric-scented liquid all over. It was 7 p.m. -- dinnertime.
#
Pieces of the day were in timely order save those shadowed by eye-catching scenery, hiding significant flaws that might have steered his gaze. His senses and thoughts subdued, for the pending submission. Ignorance is smothering bliss, he thought.
The breeze was redolent of grapes and incense delivered sandalwood. The blue-gray castle struck a billowing chord beneath a cerulean sky; it clashed with the red, orange, pink and gold silk dresses that softly brushed back blades of green grass as they floated on.
The wave of brilliant colors muffled all senses, suspending his thoughts and a mantra set on repeat: “everything is as it should be.”
As if to mock him, a swirling funnel swept up everything still – pollen, spring tree bits, newborn branches, and leaves all swirling skyward. The wind turned kurtas and long vests into capes with which men took flight. Ground length saris and skirts twisted, forcing a dance upon women’s bodies. Dresses flew into the faces of a screaming few, exposing their multi-colored petticoats.
In the distance, a noontime chant dictated the auspicious moment for unions and separations. And the gust suddenly ceased.
The saris, skirts and kurtas were now at ease, slotted into rows and sections. Hundreds of pairs of eyes stared at him as he strode down the aisle to the mandap canopied with yellow freesia buds and rust-colored baby calalillies.
For the first quarter of an hour, she was out of his view, ensconced outside the altar. He pictured her tracing the movement with her ears: haphazard bhangra; monotonous ritual songs, yelps in celebration. In the background a cacophonous voice hit undulating pitches as it chanted Sanskrit words to sanctify. 12:30 p.m. stamped it valid.
Their tradition claims self-restraint is the worthiest virtue to ensure happiness. For a moment he thought he saw her suffocate voices yelling anarchy the moment she appeared. She dutifully supported herself onto the shoulders of her two uncles who awkwardly lifted her and took camel strides down the aisle. He caught her focusing on his ghost-like outline behind a white muslin curtain until she was grounded.
The cloth barrier came down; they faced each other and the reality of their contract. Since speaking was prohibited, she attempted communicating with her eyes:
Are you okay?
He didn’t know he looked nervous and quickly relaxed his face into a smile.
I don’t think I have the patience to sit through this without understanding a word, she said.
He shrugged.
It took one hour and 49 minutes including seven rounds around a fire to strengthen, intertwine and seal the union. What was supposed to be a release after the long-winded promises, involved married female family members whispering (within earshot) ingredients of a healthy marriage: Home-cooked meals make a happy marriage; be compliant and meek; produce many children. It was a rapid assembly line of advising women.
This was more than an institution; beyond the bounds of a notarized certificate; far more than sharing a name.
#
Another love took precedence. In the beginning, their naive and embryonic identities dictated a passion for each other while their ideals quietly clashed in the background.
Maya regurgitated expressive love. Amit had a stranglehold on physical intimacy.
It was a botch made in heaven created by zygote brains, manifested by hormones. In their eyes, the relationship was Ashford and Simpson's solid as a rock, not the paper-mache prop seen through more weathered couples.
Their 12-year test of loyalty between heart and mind approached an end. Amit bought time by cementing the love with long-term promises.
To know Amit is to explore his childhood home. The rooms were enveloped in incense. Eyes and verses of a particular God accompanied you at every wall of the house. The dining room was converted into a temple equipped with a giant brass bell hanging from the ceiling tapped for blessings and good faith before entering the sacred space.
Each bedroom nook held a miniature temple containing its own miniature bell, metal cast figurines wearing decorative miniature clothing, a miniature incense holder, ritualistic powders and a miniature copy of holy shloks.
Amit grew up believing in certain dogmas including the subjugation of women and the strict prohibition of onions and garlic, both leading to respective forms of temptation of the heart and mind. Women are a temptation for the saintly men and the spices, temptation of an unstable temperament. Both lead to lack of control, instability, and imbalance.
He grew up believing pleasure was a buried treasure and could not be taken without asking albeit he attempted to evolve beyond the power of ancient rituals and traditions.
“I plan to kiss her in public and when we want a glass of wine with dinner, we’ll have one; we will eat what we please. I believe in trust, honesty, loyalty, but I don’t need to learn an archaic language to understand these beliefs. And regarding religion – we have our own interpretation – we refuse to walk into a temple carrying out rituals by rote; praying in separate quarters. ”
He must have rehearsed these words about 50 times in front of the bathroom mirror, promises he made himself in wedlock as he planned on presenting to his parents before furthering his life with Maya.
He determinately ran downstairs and stepped toward the makeshift temple only to quietly reverse as he found his mother amidst her evening ritual offering of dinner to their deity before they consumed it.
He stood entranced by her 69-year-old hands, slightly trembling, as she suspended a large plate as if feeding an idol, and chanted a prayer. He had witnessed the motions during so many evenings of his life.
When it was complete, she poignantly looked into his eyes as if to read his thoughts. He quickly looked down at his toes digging into the plush, brown carpet hoping she couldn’t hear his thoughts.
“Did you come to pray?” she asked.
“No. I came to announce..."
She abruptly interrupted him.
“There should be no doubt about a right decision.”
It can be so crippling to hear a mother’s intuition. Amit was breaking religious rules and family mores through Maya; he knew his family’s faith held no compromise.
“Do you think it’s the right decision?” he asked.
“Who has ever cared what I think? There are higher forces at work here.”
#
Two beings have little sense of time and place in a kiss provided it is shared with the right amount of tension, grace and longing. Maya knew Alex was bound to another, but she was only playing when they began the rubber band emails, a provocative exchange of words during deadline. At the time, she felt a rush in allowing Times New Roman letters materialize on a computer screen thinking surely they weren’t solid enough to exist in reality.
It was more than tension that buckled her knees; she was lost in blue. She was wont for kisses that cleaved her heart, finding solace somewhere between euphoria and anguish.
Blue-eyed Alex, the epitome of the anti-Hindu was unexplored, undiscovered country, the “promised” land. Their cannibal-like exchange left her with pieces of him.
She clung to his presence in the newsroom, using aura, a reminder of that night, like a drunk desperately hanging onto a buzz. She could feel the blue follow her from photo, editor to copy and back to news.
Real life stories are works in progress; an interview may last hours before you can glean anything remotely valuable. You wait, wait – tolerantly wait – for that moment when you see the story resemble close to complete reality.
Later in the evening, in the sterile environs of her apartment, she was making curry for dinner when the phone call came at 6 p.m.
“Hi.” The woman’s voice did not ask for a name or announce her own. The silence urged Maya to speak first.
“Who is this?”
“I’m…” She took a deep breath. “I’m Amit’s fiancée.”
“Now, how is that possible when Amit and I have been in a relationship for 10 years.” I laughed; listened to my own words and heard myself say, “so what?”
“I’m sorry Maya. He wants to tell you, but I felt guilty and had to speak to you myself.”
“How long have you two been together?”
“Four months.”
Maya wasn’t angry with either of them as much as time. The curry was over boiling and the stirring escaped her attention as she kept thinking about which was worse – ten years or four months of deception. If it weren’t for Amit’s knock at the door, the rocking pot of curry would have burned her entire lower body. Instead, their dinner coated the kitchen floor. She hung up the phone.
She watched and waited for Amit to enjoy a couple bites of ordered food, looking for signs of remorse, but he looked calm.
“Are we on the same page?” she asked, half into the ether.
“With how good take out tastes or something else?”
It was procrastination disguised as humor of the worst kind. She chewed hard and smiled.
“Our lives. Are we moving in the right direction -- together?”
She caught him wincing at one of the words.
“Is it ever going to be the way we exactly expect it…,” he said.
He said it neither as a question or statement.
“And what are your expectations exactly?” I asked.
“To be content with the least amount of confrontation. You?”
So, he thought marriage was a diplomatic bore, she wondered.
“To have passion in love and marriage,” she said.
He started chuckling with an unnoticeable amount of derision, leaning back, waiting, for some explanation as if to doubt she could convince him otherwise.
“What is passion exactly – it eludes me.”
“To give unconditional love without taking one another for granted. I suppose," I said.
She was so far removed from the emotion that she momentarily forgot the meaning of the word. A startlingly clear image of her and Alex in the throes became a reference point.
“Maybe obsessing over it is making you doubt it will all fall into place,” he said.
She couldn’t tell if he was speaking about himself or another.
Maya's mouth, arms, and legs became heavy with strings; she went about the after dinner motions accordingly.
The next day the newsroom was abuzz with reporters furiously typing, editors tearing into every leade and inch, shouting for stories on deadline.
Maya was finishing the last paragraph of an obituary about a painter, who had all the fame and fortune in the world until Alzheimer’s took away every memory of it though his artistic skills remained and he continued to paint until the day he died. She got sidetracked and found herself writing another ending:
The medieval Hindu wedding satisfied people’s expectations. She bowed, smiled, danced and greeted 365 guests. Within a couple months of marrying Amit, Maya discovered intimacy was more like a terrible and fearful secret. Her entire life led to a moment when marriage wasn’t liberation rather, a convenient manipulation of senses. Amit could not wholly submit himself to their new union. Her marriage became a pendulum of extremes. It swung above a sanctified space, tempting her of the in between; however, she couldn't make the jump.
She thought about the hope of karma – to have the “right” things fall into place, but couldn’t envision it with Amit. The ethereal philosophy relies on give and take, not punishment and reward.
It wasn’t hello, but “I’m sorry" when Amit called at 6 a.m. the next morning on a Sunday.
“For what?” She was groggy but knew something was stirring in the long pause before Amit constructed a response.
“Well…for waking you up. Hey, can you meet me for coffee and talk at the Happy Donuts on Roxy Ave.?
He was lying.
“Sure, hmm mmm.”
She longed to remain few minutes more emerged in a dream of 1st grade in a small classroom with cathedral windows that framed a black top, tall Evergreen and Maple trees and the blue sky. It was Autumn. She was learning the words to “America the Beautiful.”
Thirteen 5-year-olds were standing in three neat rows, practicing one more time before they took the stage for the Thanksgiving assembly that afternoon. For spacious skies. She smelled of cinnamon, cardamom and cumin in her silk, green maxi sewn from her mother’s old sari. For amber waves of grain. Her skin was a brown speck among the white wave of students. For purple mountain majesties. She felt more nervous than awkward. America! America! God shed His grace on thee. Her classmates started fidgeting out of their rows. And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!
From sea to shining sea. Manifest Destiny remained a rusted reverie, accompanying her on the one-mile walk to Happy Donuts while another part of her brain was compelled to categorize her lost loves to date: Blue-eyed Robbie, Tommy, David, Nick, and Alex and some shade of blond; all imbued with the same sentiment – the god-given right to stake their claim, using innuendo that easily escaped her attention between kisses and embraces; labeling her exotic, foreign, different, fascinating, unusual.
A sharp vision cut into the backs of her knees sending a painful charley horse, bringing her to a kneel: lids half over blue eyes or was it just the blue sky as she craned her neck in pain. The effort to straighten felt like a 100-pound bench press. She stamped her right foot, bending her head to one side, shaking the image out, hoping it would permanently fall out of her ears. She questioned her weakness for Alex.
The journey to Happy Donuts felt like a mountain-climbing effort. Amit was sitting at a corner table split in half by the sun and shade. She sat in the former.
“How are you?”
“Unexpectedly exhausted.” I wanted to add, heavy with burden.
He looked seriously, almost gravely, into his coffee.
“Does burned coffee taste that bad?”
He started fidgeting and failed to complete a sentence three times when she knew it was coming. She felt compelled to absolve him.
“Do you remember this one day we were drenched in a thunderstorm with absolutely no tree in site to protect us. You were so worried about lightening strikes while I chose to splash through puddles. We walked into the only coffee shop open on a Sunday. We were so thankful for the warmth and paid no mind to everything else falling apart around us.”
It was her fondest memory of sincere innocence -- her fondest memory.
“There’s someone else,” she said.
He didn’t’ say anything but his facial expression went from concern, guilt to relief within two seconds.
“He works with me in the newsroom and he’s married. I don’t want to get past it. I want us to end it here.”
“So, we’re through? It’s final?”
Their actions turned into slow motion in silence. There were no simmering, boiling or overflowing emotions, rather, stillness. With ease, they walked out of that coffee shop and into their new lives, lightly.
Six months later, Amit had the medieval wedding he so desired and a marriage in line with his traditional self.
On a day she was numb to circumstances, she stood in front of a mirror and took her hands down the path of her naked body. She touched the green veins protruding from the length of her neck; cupped her barely uneven breasts; ran her fingers over a black mole on her ribcage; slid them down her curved out thighs and six tiny varicose veins behind the knees. It wasn’t a reflection of beauty, rather a reminder of his acknowledgment of what she desired. Alex had touched reality. She closed her eyes and remembered him and for an impermanent minute felt an unadulterated satisfaction in her gut that scoffed at sexual oppression, family deities and marriage.
© No part of the material protected by this copyright may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, broadcasting or by any other information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author.
