Conversation With A Finch

Long before there was such a thing as a blog, I kept a journal. Not every day, not even every month or every year, but I’ve been doing it now and then, off and on since junior high school.

Recently, I found this entry.

July 6, 1988.
Last weekend I relaxed, doing so with a tense determination that is so characteristic of my attempts at relaxation. The few moments I was able to loosen up were attributable to a finch. Or a sparrow, some kind of common little bird. He forced me to relax. I think it is impossible not to relax when having a conversation with a little bird.

I had slipped out to the patio early Sunday morning, while Greg was watching wrestling and Bijou was doing the Times crossword. The sun was beginning to burn the moisture from the gray morning overcast. By noon there would be just enough smog to filter the color from the sky.

I was getting some time on the new patio chairs — we bought the ones from France, $1,000 worth of plastic, but stylish plastic, and I had to admit, comfortable plastic — at least when I had the chance, as now, to steal a few moments to sit on one of them. I had adjusted it to one of its four hundred and twelve positions, settled in and put the coffee mug on a napkin on the plastic table when I noticed the sparrows or finches or whatever they were. I’ll call them finches because it types faster.

They were flittering about the yard, about six of them as near as I could count as they swooped and perched, darted from tree to roof to fence. I also noticed a mockingbird back there and a crow that thrashed clumsily in the top of the palm in Al’s yard next door.

There were no airplanes, no helicopters yet. We were near the flightpaths of most of the airports in L.A. County, a feature of the property that the realtor had neglected to emphasize, but the winds must have been wrong because this morning the windows did not rattle even once.

I was sitting, thinking about the cost of the patio furniture, looking out at the yard, estimating the next expense, fixing the coping of the pool, musing how the new wooden back fence already needed another coat of waterproofing and stain, when the finch hopped over and perched on the wrought iron fence that enclosed the patio.

It was a male, I guessed from his fluffy little red breast. He was about ten feet from me and I kept very still. He stared at me a moment, cocking his head in that jerky way birds have. I could see he was nervous about my presence, but he was gamely hanging in there. He whistled, and soon another finch, a brown-gray one, hopped over to the patio just outside the fence. She — I assumed this was a female because she was so drab — looked up at the male and chirped. He didn’t look back, but he responded with a few whistles, and he hopped up to the spider plant.

The spider plant was on a a ledge within the patio area, a few feet closer to me, but a bit higher than the top of the fence. From there, he looked at me again, then at the baker’s rack that held twenty or so potted cactus and succulents. That’s when I realized what was happening. Last Spring a mockingbird couple had built a nest in a bush near the breakfast room. At the same time, a dove couple had squatted in on of my onion plants on the ledge on the wall opposite the spider plant.

We had watched the progress of the two nurturing families. Each had hatched their offspring: three noisy yellow beaked mockingbabies, and one very quiet, well-behaved dovebaby. A vagrant white tomcat had murdered the mockingbabies in their beds one night just for kicks. I had found their ravaged little bodies in various parts of the yard one morning. The dovebaby had matured and flew away, leaving me with a massive clean-up for my onion plant.

The drama had been traumatic for Bijou. She had first seen the saga as a “learning experience” for Greg. She had read books about the mating and nesting habits, from which she had recited each morning at breakfast. Greg, of course, was underenthused; it was too much like first grade. When the tragedy occurred, Bijou was quite shaken. She grieved for weeks. Greg was riveted by the gruesome details.

When I noticed the twigs this Spring in the wandering Jew on the baker’s rack, I immediately dumped them and moved the plant to a low shelf. Recently, I had moved it back to the top, where there was more sunlight. I now realized that the new nest had been the finches’ project. They had returned now to try to rebuild their property.

The little fellow was perched on the spider plant, spurred by his nagging mate, peering at the purple wandering Jew, at me, back to the inviting plant-home. He was as close to me as he dared come. The plant was a few feet from the $200 chair I was using as a foot rest. The wife chirped at him. He chirped back, telling her that he dared not come closer while I was there. She insisted. He implored me, cocking his head and whistling.

Bijou appeared at the patio door and both birds flew away.

Later, when she had gone, the fellow returned, alone this time. He sat on the wrought iron fence and whistled to me. I knew what was happening. He was apologizing, man to man, for invading my privacy and for being so pushy. I knew what I had to do. I puckered my lips and whistled, sucking in air, trying to imitate his song. At first, he seemed startled by this, but he held his ground and whistled back. That’‘s when we talked.

“Look,” I said. “I sympathize with you. I’m married too.”
“Yeah, he said, blinking. “I saw. I like her red hair.”
“Me too,” I said. “Your wife’s nice, too.”
“She’s okay.”
“But I can’t let you nest in my plant.”
“It’s cool,” he said.
“It was too traumatic, the last time. I won’t go into a long story, but ...”
“Hey, you don’t have to explain. It’s your plant.”
“And there’s the bugs that come along, these tiny flies.”
“I know.”
“And the mess. And it doesn’t do the plant much good.”
“I guess,” he seemed to shrug. “I hadn’t thought about it.” He whistled for emphasis. “Well, I just thought I’d ask. You know, she was pretty set on it.”
“I could tell.” My guilt feelings were obvious.
“Well, forget it,” he said. “It’s not like this is the only tree in the forest. So to speak.”

There was an awkward moment and Greg stormed out to tell me he had nothing to do because mom told him he couldn’t watch wrestling. “She says its too violent, but I told her its not real. Tell her, daddy, its not real and its okay to watch.”

Of course, the finch was gone by then.

I haven’t seen him since and it is pretty late in the Summer I imagine for nesting. But maybe next Spring....

Becoming My Father

It seems that

No matter how much a man tries

to avoid it ...

It is almost impossible ....

to avoid

becoming his father...

"JAWALI'S DREAM"

ONE ...

TWO ...

THREE ....

FOUR ....





















FIVE ....






















SIX ...


















SEVEN ,,,























EIGHT ...






















NINE ...

TEN ...



















ELEVEN ...




















TWELVE ...


















THIRTEEN ...


































.... THE END

© 2009

© 200

9 M.P.Borenstein

Bombay aka Mumbai

Between August, 1974 and July, 1975, Bijou and I travelled around the world. We spent about a month in India. From the daily journal I kept at the time, these are our experiences in Bombay, now Mumbai.

5 September Thursday New Delhi to Bombay
The contrasts of India are very evident here— what is beautiful good and pleasant, and what is ugly, evil and unpleasant.

We checked out early and tried to get a taxi, several of which were near our hotel, to take us the few blocks to the Indian Airlines office where our airport bus was waiting. In every city in Asia, the taxi customs differ. In Delhi there are meters but the drivers try to set flat rates. Many refuse to go by the meter at all, especially on short trips. We have haggled and by and large, have gotten our way. But now we were over a barrel with our bags to shlep and bus to catch. We paid through the nose and it started our day on a sour note.

We carried the bags off the taxi, painfully dragged them to our waiting area and later dragged them again in the stifling heat to our bus. A porter picked them up and put them in the luggage compartment a few feet away. After we got in, he came round and demanded 50p for each bag for everyone on the bus. One Indian became indignant, seeing in the practice all that is wrong with India: "People expecting pay for doing little or nothing."

Another passenger was an absurd looking Westerner: he wore a white sun hat over his shaved head, a red shirt and sarong, sandals. He was hefty and hairy-armed but had the manner of a sad "faigele." Later we chatted with him. He was on his way to an ashram to study yoga. He showed us the mosquito net he’d gotten and offered us a Dunhill. He was an Australian and called the porters "Johnnie." As he paraded through the terminal, he got stares from Indians and Westerners— he was a very unlikely person.

The flight was routine, hampered only by the worry of going into a city without hotel reservations. In Delhi we had spent the good part of an afternoon trying to get Pan Am, Indian Air, or a travel agent to help us. Pan Am referred us to India Air, who shrugged, a travel agent would only help if we wanted a 4 or 5 star hotel. India government office was polite but no help.

On our arrival, Bea went to fetch the bags and I found a hotel reservation desk but the phone was out of order, not unusual in India. But he was pleasant and we amiably chatted away and hour. Eventually, we found a room at the Y. The usual scruffy little guy tried to porter our bags, hail us a taxi—of which there were dozens in line. We gave our directions to the driver with the usual uncertainty about whether he understood and was using the meter, refused to tip the scruffy guy for the aid he had offered which we had declined, and were off.

After a 45 minute ride through and around the "suburbs" and the city—which has several peninsulas and harbors— we were in the vicinity of our Y. This I knew from following the landmarks on our map. But the driver couldn’t find it. He would stop for directions, each time a cabbie, doorman or cop would chatter in Hindi and point and he would drive and fail to find the street—which is a major thoroughfare in the heart of town. After 3 or 4 of these stops, I got out and stopped a passerby and by prodding and urging we finally found it.

The cost was $3.00 which I angrily paid, though trying to be philosophical—ever try to get a cab in the rain in NY? The Y room was a delight: clean, airy modern and with continental breakfast which cost the same as the dive in Delhi. We relaxed, then consulted our guidebook: the Taj Hotel, nearby, had a buffet lunch for $2.50, it said. Also in that hotel was a Pan Am office and government tour office.

We set out. Architecture was English, the streets crowded with auto traffic implying affluence, shops of all kinds were enticing, there were the usual calls to change money or to help, some begging children and some raggedy men sleeping in doorways. But nothing like Calcutta or even parts of Delhi. It was only mildly annoying. We found the Taj Hotel easily—we could hardly miss it—a tall Miami type luxury hotel on the harbor near Gateway to India Arch. We strolled through the terrazzo floored lobby and took the lift up to the ballroom. By its elegance and quiet we could see we were in financial trouble.

We took a menu from the captain’s desk. The fare was expensive Indian and Continental. At the front we could see the large columned room. The price was not enticing: 28 rupees, with tax the total for the buffet was about $9 for two. We moaned and so did our stomachs; our stomachs won.

Buffets are always intimidating. You want to get your money’s worth and there are so many good looking things set out—you want a little of everything and you end up stuffing yourself and enjoying it less—maybe a metaphor for world travel. Of course the pastries were a fabulous special treat for both of us—we were tempted to stuff a few in Bea’s huge purse. The knowledge that the leftovers from the diners here could feed half the city was a bit disconcerting and the vapid string orchestra playing benign waltzes and reels added to the aura of unreality.

Bea became furious with me when I complained about the experience and resorted to her well-worn hyperbole: "You always struggle over making a decision, then always regret it and never enjoy the experience you chose!" I became angrier because ... it always hurts when it strikes the mark, and too deeply, especially from her, someone— the only one I care anything about what she feels about me. Which of course I didn’t say—didn’t even get at the time. We let the moment pass, but it was on our chests as much as the pastry.

Now stuffed and logy, we went to Pan Am and had to leave our precious air tickets so they could see about our desire to go to Kabul—there was doubt about whether it could be done without extra cost, and we would have to wait until 4. It was now 2 p.m. and we decided to nap. We had spent a restless night. We both still suffer coughs from our lingering colds and the past days have caused increasing tensions between us.

Bea fell asleep and I read until 4. I dressed and let her sleep. I went out to do our chores. I went the same way to the hotel, being accosted only a few times, seeing a man in rags compete with a pigeon for nuts fallen from a vendor’s roaster, and another whose wracking cough brought phlegm to a hole in his throat. At Pan Am after another bout with the dim-witted worker I got the tickets for Kabul. It meant a 7 A.m. flight on IA back to Delhi and then a 1330 Afghan Air flight to Kabul. Monday would be dreadful, but ... The clerk was annoyed but agreed to try to reserve a hotel room for us there.

I then changed money at Cooks—I could get a better rate on the black market but I am paranoid about that. I have never been "smart" about money. I bought some Indian cigarettes and inquired at the tourist desk for the Elephanta Caves tour. The caves are sculpted Hindu Gods on an island across the harbor. Boats leave every morning from Gateway Arch—except during monsoon season—when they often don’t go at all—May to mid September.

So again our timing is awful. It has become clear what we suspected before we came to Asia—this was the absolute worst time of year to travel. The intense heat and humidity are draining, the rains depressing (as in Kathmandu), difficult. It is off season for tourism, which is a plus in some ways: easier to get hotel room, rates are lower. But empty restaurants are often dreary, and waiters with no one else to wait on are annoyingly attentive. Transport and activities are curtailed. Add that to the usual difficulties of any travel and especially in the East— strikes, like the one of Air India; and international politics—which prevented our visits to Taiwan and Korea. We still worry about Turkey / Greece / Egypt / Israel on that score.

Plus the rigors of suitcase life, the close quarters and being together constantly, with the ever present money worries, and our different personalities, all these have added to the tensions between Bea and I. It has opened old salved over wounds caused by our differences, now sore and bleeding.

It is of course a test and we are today at a low ebb, but we can muddle through and survive and are determined to do it.

After my jaunt I fell into a coma-like sleep and was only dimly aware of Bea’s insistent call for food. I put her off—"in an hour, Okay?" ... "another ten minutes" ... Then I finally admitted that I would rather sleep than get up and traipse about looking for another cheap meal in a dingy restaurant. Bea demurred, but after a while—during which I immediately fell asleep—she insisted on eating.

I grudgingly stirred, whining all the way. This annoyed her. She dressed in a huff and stormed out alone. At first, I was angry enough to let her go, if that’s the way she felt. But soon my conscience woke me up and I went out after her. The streets were dark and filled with strange faces. I became frantic with concern for her safety ... and my loneliness ... after what must have been only a few minutes but seemed to me to be much, much longer. Bea with her white pink skin, light hair and long thin body has been an attraction everywhere in Asia, especially here in India, with children, other curious women and particularly the men who already have a fascination with Western women as proved by the many advertisements pointedly using them to sell everything.

I found her at a greasy spoon open air restaurant nibbling at a yellow sandwich and sucking on a lime. I sat with her and groggily chatted. She was sore as hell, but I think a little relieved that I had come. I ate some salty fried fish—they had a big menu but only fish and coffee were available.

We got into a conversation with a man from Ceylon who was stuck in Bombay trying to get to Teheran. We had the same problem—prevented from doing it by the Asian Games there, which made accommodations scarce. He was going to Europe to stay with friends in Berlin. He worked in the tea business and had lived for some time in East Africa. We talked about food. They eat locusts, grasshoppers, roaches in Africa which he had tried. He seemed somewhat shocked that the French eat snails and frogs legs. In a Masai village he stopped short of drinking the local thirst quencher: milk and cow blood. It turned out he was also staying at the Y. We all strolled back together.

Bea fell asleep before we could resolve our spat and I stayed up to finish Maugham’s "The Razor’s Edge" which has always had something to say to me in an unreal, romantic way.

A note on Hinduism: I have been studying as much as I can about it and talking about it with as many people as I can. It is a remarkable religion—in its complexity it is all things: a faith, a world view, a philosophy, a psychology, an ethos, a mythology. It allows for intellectuality, mysticism, spirituality. It is dark, joyous, witty and somber. It is ascetic and sexual. It is strongly symbolic but provides concrete idols to worship. It contains a panoply of Gods, each with traditional functions and personalities, yet at its heart is monotheistic or in some modes, pantheistic. It is distinctively Indian, but has survived by absorbing the beliefs of many other sects and other major religions. To the pious it provides a faith in eternal peace and a satisfactory if tortuous means of attaining it. To the casual or even agnostic Hindu it provides a sense of community with holidays and festivals, an identity in its rituals, and justification of a way of life.
In my examination it seems to be a perfectly fine religious system.

Then why is the country in which it is practiced so fucked up?
Does the religion which defines the value system hold responsibility for the society it serves and influences? Or maybe there is nothing "wrong" with India fundamentally. Maybe it is merely "backward" because by accident of history, climate, or geography, it joined the "modern" world too late. Am I putting too much stock in my own ideas of "The Good Life"? If Hinduism is right, then life on earth is the hell and will always be so even with our comforts and "progress" which are only superficial and transitory and obstacles to the search for true "Goodness" and Peace of Mind.

6 September Friday Bombay
A few words about food. When traveling to different countries a major interest for us is eating the local foods. In the States we were used to some Asian foods: Chinese of course, Japanese, and even Indian "style" cuisine. But eating is always an adventure, a sample of local customs which reflect to some extent the personality, degree of wealth, the eccentricities of each place.

Some friends who had preceded us on similar trips advised that Asia is for buying, Europe is for eating. I am sure this is true; as Bea insists that nothing compares to French cooking, even in the commonest of kitchens. Of course, Italian food we know and love. Perhaps these foods will not be as strange, exotic or adventurous as the foods we have eaten in Asia, just as Europe itself is less alien to our experience.

Tonight we strolled along a broad cool avenue to a restaurant where we ate a meal in a style which was new to us, even here in India. We were brought various vegetarian dishes served in metal bowls on a silver metal tray, a "tali." (Phonetic spelling, to my ear.) There are light breads and rolls called "puris". You tear a piece and dip into a bowl with your fingers and eat. You must only use the right hand (awkward for me) since by custom this is the clean one. The waiter hovers and refills your bowls. He leaves a pitcher of water because the dishes are spicy. At the end he dumps rice on your tray if you wish and you pour the leftovers in the rice, mix it together and eat with your fingers. So now we have eaten with chopsticks, spoons, spoon and fork, and hand.

I have also noticed a definite difference in the rice served in the countries we have visited; though it is the staple of all— the grains somehow all seem a little different, whether from the type, or the preparation, I don’t know. I remember reading that sushi chefs in Japan study for rice for a year as part of their education. The rice here seems particularly hardy, rich and fluffy when at its best.

We must rest now because we are stuffed like little pigs.

7 September Saturday Bombay
It is funny how days that begin inauspiciously have often ended with our best experiences. This day we began listless, without much ambition. We have been at low tide for a few days now; our energies seemingly drained. We have slept away huge chunks of days and lain in bed reading and dozing for hours. It is partly our colds which linger annoyingly, the ever present heat which causes malaise and the let down of spending our last days in India.

We decided quickly that Bombay had not much to offer—it is a bit prettier, its architecture a bit more exotic, new skyscrapers, art deco apartments, cathedral like public buildings. It has a harbor, the usual hectic smelling bazaar, a great deal of traffic on its wide avenues; but not much of the tension of the other cities. Of maybe it is there but we have simply gotten used to it. Even the child beggars here seem better fed, their hearts not really into their pleas.

We supped continental dinner, lobster thermidor, and strolled back ready to read—I bought and began "War and Peace" of all things to read on holiday! Then we got into a 2½ hour discussion about Hinduism, Sikhs, prejudice, travel, etc., with two young Indians: the guy who is the night clerk and a young woman who is an engineer. It was friendly, funny and informative. They were intelligent, witty, tolerant, worldly, fine people.
It reinforced my notion that there is nothing particularly mystical or threatening about India. The people are different only in custom and superficial mannerisms; but they want the same things, have the same frustrations, prejudice and ignorance about the way things are and ought to be. It gave me a much warmer feeling for the country and people than our first impression.

I guess that is why India is so "difficult" to figure out. You have to "get past" the first and most vivid negative impressions in order to see more deeply into the vast complexity and discover—not The truth—but other truths.

8 September Sunday Bombay
We have spent our last full day in India in an enjoyable and worthwhile way, visiting Elephanta Caves on an island 6 miles from Bombay. They contain sculptures of Hindu Gods which are chiseled from the solid basaltic rock of a mountain in the 6th or 7th centuries. As a monument it is in the category of the Taj Mahal, the Gold Buddha of Bangkok and the Great Buddha in Nara (which was created around the same era) in awesomeness and achievement.

All four are interesting to me because of the effect they have—and were meant to have—on the viewer: respect, for the skill of the artisans, sure, but more, respect for the power and wealth of the patron religion or ruler which ordered its creation. Imagine the impact over the Ages of the visitors to the shrine of the Gold Buddha, 52 tons of gold, in a society which is poor beyond our conception. The huge statue in Nara in the solemn shrine must have inspired enormous awe at the power of such a symbol.

Ironically, the Taj Mahal is the most awesome because of its intrinsic "artistic" beauty, but also because it is a tomb, a shrine to one dead person in a world in which millions live in anonymity. As a romantic symbol by a man of enormous wealth, power and arrogance created as a monument to a woman he loved, a miraculous extravagance.

9 September Monday Bombay to Delhi to Kabul
Today we believed that our flying luck had finally run out, after so many flights, including those on exotic airlines like Indonesian, Royal Nepal, and now Indian Air.

Our jet taxied to the runway at Bombay airport and sat there in stifling heat for what seemed like an eternity. The cabin temp felt like it pushed way over 110 as we sat, without cabin air conditioning, either because of a malfunction or in prep for take-off. Peering from my seat in the second row through the open cockpit door, I could see no planes ahead of us in a cue which might cause such a long delay and for a long time there was no explanation.

The Indian businessman across the aisle sat in his business suit trying to look business like reading his wilting newspaper while stains of sweat darkened the collar of his shirt.

The stewardess finally opened the door, which allowed the temp to lower a few degrees as new air drifted into the cabin. Bea, who always nears the boiling point as the thermometer rises, had been getting redder around the nose and ears. I fanned her with a magazine while I was not craning to see if the pilots were still alive.

Suddenly the pilot announced that there was a "slight mechanical problem" and that it was nothing to be alarmed about and that it would be repaired shortly. A ramp appeared at the doorway and a workman climbed the steps and entered the cabin. He wore Indian Air overalls and carried a toolbox. I watched as he entered the cockpit and kneeled on the floor behind the pilot. He unscrewed a plate, and began to probe what looked like wires and cables.

After another long period, during which I watched Bea closely for signs of faint, my attention was jerked toward the cockpit by a loud "clank, clank" sound. The workman was on his knees pounding with a hammer at the works under the plate. My eyes became huge.

After a short time, he rose and left. The stewardess closed the door behind him. I expected her to tip him. The engines whirred and we began to move.

I held Bea’s hand tightly and kissed her fingers. I told her I was glad we had this brief time together and that I hoped we would spend eternity in a cool place.

We grasped our hands until we landed in New Delhi.

Now we only had to survive our next flight on Afghan Air to Kabul.

We found that our flight was canceled, and we had to wait for hours in the airport for a seat on the next one.

Haunted Heart

In the night, though we're apart
There's a ghost of you within my haunted heart.

Ghost of you, my lost romance,
Lips that laugh, eyes that dance.
Haunted heart won't let me be,
Dreams repeat a sweet but lonely song to me.

Dreams are dust; it's you who must belong to me
And thrill my haunted heart,
Be still, my haunted heart.

Music by Arthur Schwartz with lyrics by Howard Dietz, 1948.

Suicide: A Love Story [1st Draft]

In a mental hospital, a patient sat in a chair in front of a therapist’s desk. He was very calm, amused and curious about the decor, the photos and things that told him about the therapist.

The patient was Mark Abel, 53, an apparently successful and contented man who made enough money to retire earlier than most. He had a wife and two children. His wife left him after the children left the home in their mid-20's. She remarried and has raised her second husband's child. Mark had several relationships since then, but none lasted very long. His daughters have their own lives. One is close to her mother, the other is detached from both of her parents. She married an Orthodox Jew and moved to Israel.

Mark had been hospitalized because he attempted suicide by ingesting pills. He was discovered by a housekeeper in the morning. He was rushed to the hospital and was in a coma for three days. Eventually, he recovered. The hospital psych recommended transfer to the psych unit after Mark casually stated that he would “do it better next time.” Mark had willingly committed himself after being assured that the commitment was for no longer than 14 days.

Mark began to think about dying because he lost interest in life. His mother died a year ago of cancer after suffering from Alzheimer’s for 5 years. His father had killed himself 3 days later.

But those facts were only the spark of his decision to end his life. He had not disclosed the true reason. Maybe he didn’t really know, himself, what it was. But he had made up his mind.

The shrink was Marilyn Asher. She was 47, twice divorced. Childless. She had married in college to a medical doctor, and settled into a suburban existence, considered herself a trophy wife. Bored, she had affairs and divorced after a minor scandal. She returned to college, earned a degree in medicine to prove to her ex-husband and his friends that she could surpass him. She gravitated to psychiatry after her second husband, also a doctor, left her for a younger version of herself. She became depressed, self-medicated and became addicted to anti-depressants. She had suicidal thoughts and one weak attempt. She underwent therapy and when “cured” returned to do her psychiatric residency.

The first therapy session went something like this:

Marilyn
Why did you try to kill yourself?

Mark
Why do you want to know?

Marilyn
So I can understand you.

Mark
What if you do?

Marilyn
To help you.

Mark
To help me kill myself? No, of course not. Sorry.

Marilyn
You still want to.

Mark
No comment.

Marilyn
You were heard to say, 'I’ll do it better next time.'

Mark
You think that means I’m going to try again to kill myself?

Marilyn
Doesn’t it?

Mark
Maybe I meant that I’ll do better in my next life.

Marilyn
Okay, is that what you meant?

Mark
What do you believe?

Marilyn
I’m afraid you mean to end your life. The question is why.

Mark
Either way you pose a danger to me.

Marilyn
How so?

Mark
For one thing, if I say my life sucks,you’ll diagnose me as depressed, and prescribe anti-depressants. If I say that I am tired of life and expect to do better in the next life, you’ll find another category which amounts to being insane and you’ll have me involuntarily committed. But if I just don’t say why, then you can’t do a damn thing.

Marilyn
I see.

Mark
Okay. Now you’ve got me pegged
as hostile, and that goes against me.

Marilyn
Not at all.

Mark
Bullshit. I am hostile, at least
to the way you see your job."

Marilyn
How do you know how I see my job?

Mark
Now, who’s hostile?
Anyway, you’re trying to save a life.
That’s noble, I suppose.
Taking your Hippocratic Oath seriously.

Marilyn
Shouldn’t I?

Mark
Well, I don’t care to get into a philosophical debate about quality of life or dignity.

Marilyn
Isn’t it about those issues?

Mark
Not interested in issues.
I don’t want to be an issue or a cause.

Marilyn
Neither am I, really.
I’m not here for a cause.

Mark
Are you pro-choice or right to life?

Marilyn
Do you mean as regards abortion?

Mark
What’s the difference whether we’re talking about the start of living or the ending of it? It’s still about choice - except the sperm or foetus doesn’t get the choice. Should I have the same choice as a foetus?

Marilyn
I suppose. But it's not the same, is it?

Mark
Well, I think I have a good enough reason to want to end my life. I always hated those movie biographies about famous people. You know, complete lives don’t make great drama. Ray Charles became repetitive and irrelevant. He just got old, so they wisely ended the movie half way through it. Same with Johnny Cash. Imagine what the bio of Brando or Orson Welles is going to look like.

Marilyn
You think the rest of your life is irrelevant?
Or that you’ve become grotesque?

Mark
Maybe I’m just bored.

Marilyn
Okay, so its about love, then?

Mark
I’ve had all the love I want or need.

Marilyn
Have you? What if you meet someone tomorrow?

Mark
I don’t want to. Don’t have the energy to go through it again. No snappy comeback for that one? Could it be you’re kind of feeling the same?

Marilyn
We go through periods of feeling that way.
It doesn’t mean I want to end it all.

Mark
Fair enough. That’s okay for you.
If I were you, I’d probably feel the same.

Marilyn
Why?

Mark
I just have the sense that you’re going to find someone or some thing to keep you interested. But if you dont in say 10 years, you may tire of the game, too.

Marilyn
Maybe

Mark
Okay so there I am.

By the end of the session, Marilyn knew that she was desperately in love with Mark but didn't know how to tell him.

In the middle of the second session the next day, the answer came to her. She told him that if he dies, she will die, too.
When Mark was late for his session on the third day, Marilyn went to his room. She found him there. He had swallowed half of the pills in a bottle. Marilyn took the rest.

They were both found and taken to the hospital and he was revived. He discovered that she was also alive. He went to her room, sat beside her bed. She awakened, drowsily saw his face.

Their conversation went like this:

Marilyn
Where are we?

Mark
Not heaven.

Marilyn
I was hoping.

Mark
It's okay. You win.

Marilyn
Win What?

Mark
Me. For whatever that’s worth.

Marilyn
How did I win?

Mark
I tested you and you passed.

Marilyn
That's nice. How?

Mark
Suicide attempts are a cry for help, aren't they?
That's what you said?

Marilyn
Yes.

Mark
So I called for help -- before you came.

Marilyn
You knew that I would find you.
But how did you know what I would do?

Mark
I didn’t. But I had to find out.
You had 3 choices. You could have done nothing,
respecting my choice to die.
Or you could have tried to revive me.
Or you could have done what you did.

Marilyn
You bastard.

Mark
I know. It was a risk.
But some risks are worth it.

Soulmates - A Dialogue

AIDAN
Do you believe in ... uhm, whatchcallit?
When you die and come back?

Evie
Reincarnation?

Aidan
Reincarnation, yeah.

Evie
I’m not into Eastern stuff.
Not really. Do you?

Aidan
Well, not the hindu thing,
where you keep going up and down
the ladder based on performance
-– worm to dog to human
and back again if you screw up.
I mean, what did the worm do to
get to be a dog?

Evie
You’re right, that’s hard to swallow.
You really think about these things?

Aidan
Well, not all that much, you know.
I’m really a live for today kind of guy.

Evie
Yeah, me too, I guess.
I mean, it would be nice to
believe in some kind of future.

Aidan
Sure.
But how can souls keep recycling?
There’s billions more people
living than ever before.
So where did all the new souls come from?

Evie
Exactly.

Aidan
But there is this theory.

Evie
Who’s theory?

Aidan
I don’t know.
I heard about it somewhere.
What really happened is that
when the first people died,
they had huge souls see,
and when they died,
their souls split apart into pieces.
And the next generation got only a piece of a soul.

Evie
Oh, that’s a funny thought.
So, when you meet someone
and you fall in love ...

Aidan
It’s really because you each
have a small piece ...

Evie
Of the same soul?
And something inside of you,
what, senses that?

Aidan
Yeah, that’s why it’s hard to see, sometimes.

Evie
But wouldn’t there be a lot of people
living who have a piece of the same soul?

Aidan
Well, sure, but they might be
spread all over the world.
Maybe one is in Tibet,
and another in Africa or Iceland.
You’d probably never meet them.

Evie
But some people fall in love
more than once.
It doesn’t seem likely that
you’d run across more than one part
of your soul during your life.

Aidan
That’s what I think.
So, I guess you can fall in love
with somebody who doesn’t share your soul.

Evie
Maybe that’s why it fades so fast.

Aidan
But if you do find someone who does,
you don’t throw that away
cause its as perfect as its ever going to be.

Evie
I didn’t know you were such a romantic.

Aidan
I’m not. I’m only saying.

Evie
But you are. More than I am.

Aidan
That’s okay.

Evie
But what if you have to leave
your soulmate ‘cause, I don’t know,
say you’re not ready.

Aidan
Well, that’s what’s so great about this idea.
There’s another chance out there somewhere.
More soulmates.

Evie
Pretty risky, though.

Aidan
Life is risk.

Evie
I don’t know.

Aidan
Look, let’s say we’re soulmates.

Evie
What? You and me?

Aidan
Yeah. Just what if.

Evie
Ok. What if.

Aidan
And we don’t connect.
We fly by and zoom off like ...

Evie
Planets?

Aidan
Comets, yeah.

Evie
Okay. In separate ...

Aidan
Directions, yeah.

Evie
That would be ...

Aidan
Sad?

Evie
Sad.

Aidan
But not really a disaster.
If there is a you,
then there must be another you out there.

Evie
And a you?

Aidan
Sure. I don’t think I’m all that unique.

Evie
I never met anyone like you.


Fin

"CHIMERA" - Chapter 3

[Artie has managed to "date" the fabulous Penny Miller, and actually screwed up enough courage to kiss her - several times - on the lips - on the bench - a "soul kiss" or "French kiss" as we used to call it. This is where I lose Artie, because I knew a girl at our school who could have been the girl he calls "Penny Miller" and there is no way Artie could have gotten within a mile of her, much less touched her knee. Well, he says he had a "date." Yeah, right. So what. Anyway, Artie's "memoir" is about to get raunchy, so beware ... mpb]


We never formally dated again.

That year, we were both active at school in separate crowds. Penny Miller wrote short stories and poems for the school magazine and I was still involved with sports. My group of friends were mostly jocks and the girls who hung around them. Penny played flute in the orchestra. She worked on the staff of the “Sophomore Sing,” an annual musical show put on by the class. She wrote the “book,” a “Twilight Zone” take-off in which Ulysses finds himself transported to our school and runs into clever parodies of teachers and students there. It was a big success, and she won a prize at the year-end assembly.

Penny found the first excuse for us to get together without actually “dating,” at her house after school, supposedly to do homework and watch Dick Clark.

We opened the books, turned on the T.V., danced a little, and at one point, she looked at me with a peculiarly intense gaze, which I sensed to be a silent question — wanting something from me.

I was a novice in the arcane art of interpreting signals from females. That kind of look from a girl was like the mysterious look a cat gives you that may seem to be inviting a tender touch, but could just as easily be prelude to a nasty scratch.

My previous attempts with other girls had usually been faltering and often misfired. But somehow, despite the fact that Penny’s aura should have made her impossible to approach, I acted with almost complete assurance - as on our one and only “date.”

I pecked her on the cheek and she kissed me on the lips so hard our front teeth tapped painfully. I made a teasing joke about it and we kissed again. We continued to kiss and hug until her mother came home.

That day, while we did some homework and flirted out of the hearing of her mother, Penny began to tell me about what she called her “Life Script.”

I’d never thought farther than the next ballgame or summer job and was shocked at how thoroughly she had planned out the rest of her life.

She would go to an Ivy League college and teach English Lit. while she wrote intense poems and satiric short stories and tried to be published in avant garde journals. She wouldn’t get married until she had established herself as a writer, and that only after she had “really experienced life,” which is what “good writing” required. But once she had lived “fully” and written about it, she would have to marry because she knew it would be difficult to support herself and she wanted not just career, but home and family, too.

She expected to marry a wealthy guy from a good family who would support her dream and allow her to write novels in their home. They would live in the country and he would commute to The City and she would raise their children, educating them herself in art, music, and literature. She would write “realistic” novels and achieve a sort of limited fame in literary circles as an eccentric artist with a mysterious, tragic aura.

I didn’t know how to respond to Penny’s elaborate plan, but from the ardent seriousness of her description of it, I decided not to poke holes in the defects, or to criticize it in any way, but rather to support her ideas, which seemed to be very important to her, and which she seemed to want me to understand.

I viewed this development as an important breakthrough, though I didn’t really appreciate the significance of Penny’s sharing these thoughts with me, which in fact elevated us to another level of intimacy in her mind.

After that day, we began to weave a pattern without planning it. It sort of just happened by itself. We kept our separate group of friends and involvements apart from our friendship with each other, but we found time for what Penny called “a rendezvous” two or three afternoons every week. We made concentrated efforts to be alone, either at her house, or outside on park benches. We both felt the drama of what quickly became an addiction to the risk of our secret “affair.”

The next few times we found excuses to get together, our kisses advanced in intensity, grew longer, deeper, our tongues more adventurous, our hands wandering further each time. Later, when the weather warmed up, we rode our bikes to Prospect Park and made out on a blanket on the grass under a huge maple tree.

Once, we took the Coney Island Avenue bus to Brighton Beach, kissed on a bench on the boardwalk, walked on the beach near the shore. I dared her to follow me out onto the breakers, the huge slimy boulders that separated the beaches. We sat under turbulent clouds, with waves crashing, smelling the oily, fishy ocean, kissing and talking about Greek myths.

Over those months, this adventure evolved into an exciting secret life. None of our friends knew about us, and we didn’t talk to one another about what we did with our friends. We eventually stumbled onto a vaguely defined pact. We would each teach the other what we learned from other partners about “sex stuff.”

Because I had few real opportunities for other partners, I used some of the stuff in books my brother kept under his bed, like “A Stone For Danny Fisher,” which had some well worn dog-eared pages that I could use as a manual for borrowed experience.

Later, when I tried something new, Penny laughed, said, “Wait a minute, I read about that - I think it was in 'The Group.'"

I admitted using vicarious literary sources for inspiration and, to my great surprise and relief, Penny thought it was a terrific idea and admitted doing the same.

We then shared our reading material and openly discussed new discoveries. Penny and I would try these things out with each other. Remarkably, whatever I imagined and tried with her seemed completely natural and inevitable, not to say incredibly arousing.

Invariably, when a certain point was reached, we both sensed it had to stop, either because her mother might come home and find us, thereby ending any future for this pleasure, or because I was going to embarrass myself by spouting all over my pants.

At one point, Penny exuberantly referred to us as “Lovers,” no doubt influenced to hyperbole by her reading. I didn’t correct her, or scold for exaggeration or pretense, but the fact is that we were not lovers, in either the romantic or literal sense.

That is, we neither professed nor pretended love for each other; nor did we complete the circle with an act, whether it be defined in romantic terms as lovemaking, or clinically as intercourse. In the words of our parents, we didn’t go all the way. In the competitive terminology of my crowd, I never scored. Penny was not the kind of girl who put out and, horny as I was, I didn’t want to think of her as one.

I never bragged or even mentioned anything that happened between us to anyone, least of all my friends, who were accustomed to pre- and post-mortem descriptions of all sexual encounters, real or imagined. In fact, after our one and only date, we never appeared together in the company of any of our acquaintances.

Our mutually understood joint status was as trusting close friends, intellectual equals, who happened to be privately and innocently experimenting with each other’s bodies as a sort of a science homework assignment.

Truthfully, it didn’t seem like that much of a big deal at the time, at least in the beginning. I mean, it just seemed natural, not dangerous or anything like that.

Because we liked each other, and not more than like, there was nothing at stake, no chance of rejection or the heartache associated with such activities. It seemed that we had solved the adolescent problem of exploring the mysteries of the opposite sex without being burned severely in the process.

I accepted the arrangement willingly and gratefully because I never really expected more than a stolen temporary and superficial relationship with any girl like Penny Miller. From the moment she’d accepted me as an amusing school friend, I’d achieved more than I had a right to expect. When she then evinced interest in me for sexual purposes — even if it was in order to find a safe object for experimentation, which she would later put to use in the far more serious business of finding a boyfriend, lover, husband, or material for “realistic” novels — I was ecstatic.

Because we were not “in love” with each other, there was an informal comfort level to our involvement that made it delicious fun, in an almost childish, playful way. Because our playing was hidden from our friends and parents, it was almost unbearably exciting.

One warm Spring afternoon while we were cuddling on her bed - avoiding some stuffed rabbits and elephants that viewed the event with silent amusement - my hand on Penny’s breast under her blouse and bra while she rubbed my crotch and kissed my cheek, she croaked two magical words: “Let’s undress.”


Copyright © 2006 by Mort Borenstein

"CHIMERA" - Chapter 2

[In Part 1 Artie rambled on about his supposed freshman year in a Brooklyn high school in the late 1950's. He claimed that his mind was fixated on girls and he described the smorgasbord of Jewish & Italian girls that he was hungry for - I apologize for his sexist views. Then he claimed to notice a different sort of girl, "Penny Miller," who he seemed to be completely goofy over. All year he watched this goddess'in a poodle skirt from afar - with no guts to do more than smile at her. MPB]

I was well into my sophomore year before I’d mustered the courage to entertain the absurd notion that it might be within the realm of slim possibilities to ask Penny Miller for something like a “date.”

We were in the same English class again. We sat only a row apart this time because Mr. Fohr did not seat alphabetically or by height. For weeks I watched Penelope Miller closely as she bent over her desk, unaware in her deep concentration of my spying, writing in her loose leaf binder in a meticulous hand with all the letters of equal height in a round style that gave me a hard-on every time I looked at her hand wrapped around her pen and her tongue peeking from a corner of her lip.

Penny Miller was even more stunningly beautiful than she had been when I first saw her way back when we were mere freshmen. The summer had reduced the few remaining childish angles in her body, refined the curve of her calves and breasts and rear, but had not affected the arch of her high cheekbones or the slim grace of her arms and hands or the complete picture that was even greater than the perfect parts they were made of.

Over the first few months of the term, we small-talked occasionally in class and I made her laugh a few times, enough so that it gave me a faint hope she might at least tolerate my presence, if not actually go so far as to like me. She had a funny wheezy, barky laugh to go with her voice, which was husky, as if always close to laryngitis, forcing me to suppress the desire to clear my throat. Her voice and laugh were so sexy I could barely sit in my seat in class. I found myself crossing my legs to hide the goings on inside my lap, though it was painful wearing jockey shorts.

I knew little about Penny Miller’s social life outside of that classroom; I was sure she must have a boyfriend, though I’d never seen her with one at school. I imagined that he might attend a different school, be a senior, or maybe even be in college. Although she was only fifteen, that gap seemed in my depressed moments to be infinitesimally smaller than the gulf between us.

Until The Fates appeared and showed a way to bridge the chasm. The Fates were much on my mind that year because we were studying Greek Mythology. Mr. Fohr, our Zeus, pointed his capricious thunderbolt and ordained that groups be formed for a class project. Some time after Thanksgiving but before Christmas vacation, we were grouped in threes to team together to write a report on “The Iliad” and present it in class.

I don’t remember the third person on our team, a sign of my focus on Penny Miller. We talked about the project in class and two times after school in the library. Penny was an enthusiastic savant on the subject, able to expound in dizzyingly alluring detail about Ajax, Achilles, and Agamemnon as if she had met them at summer camp. We each did our research and Penny volunteered to write the final draft for the presentation we were to make the next day.

That morning while my sister and I fought for sink time to prepare for school, our phone rang. It was Penny’ mother. She had gotten our number from the phone book. No one had unlisted numbers in those days.

Penny was sick and was not going to school but she had finished the report last night. I agreed to pick it up from her house on the way to school. The Millers lived on Ocean Parkway, near Kings Highway; my house was about five long blocks away. I had to run to make it to her house and then race again to catch the school bus.

She lived in one of the upscale apartment houses in the neighborhood. It had a doorman and a desk like a hotel and a marble lobby and two Art Deco wood paneled elevators. By the time I got to her apartment door I was sweating despite the cold December air, my shirt tail was out of my pants and one of my shoe laces was untied.

I cleaned up as well as I could before ringing the bell, hoping to see Penny wearing a baby doll or maybe a robe which would open up revealingly, like one worn by a woman I’d delivered clothes to when I worked for the dry cleaners last summer.

Her mother answered the door, wearing what my mother would have called a “going-to-The-City” dress. She did not invite me inside, but asked me to wait and closed the door. I thought she’d gone to get Penny but she hadn’t. She returned with the report which was in a manila envelope, thanked me and closed the door while I was stammering my concern for Penny’s health.

During English class I decided to stop at Penny’s house after school and talk to her. I rehearsed all day what I would say and imagined many scenarios about how it would go: she would have the sniffles and be looking very pale and she would offer me tea, and she would be feeling miserable and I would make her laugh, and we would share a look, and she would fall in love with me. Or she would not really be sick, but I would catch her making out with a boy, a neighbor, that college student who she had been having a hot affair with, and she would coldly thank me like the women who I delivered clothes to, and maybe tip me a quarter.

Either scenario seemed far-fetched but I’d already developed a penchant for pre-experiencing moments like that. The goal was to prepare me for any eventuality; it would cushion the disappointment when it came; and in the less likely occasion of a positive experience, I would be able, I hoped, to function rather than freezing up completely — like I usually did with men on base and the game on the line.

Penny answered the door, wearing a bathrobe that revealed nothing to me. She looked merely beautiful, with her nose red and her eyes watery and puffy; she held a box of tissues. I managed to relate that the report went very well and that we all probably got A’s. She was pleased about it and apologized for not being able to read her part. I told her that I read it for her and the teacher said it was the best of the three. That was a lie, but not much of one. He had praised our work, most of which she had done.

We stood in her foyer a little awkwardly after that because I’d forgotten to rehearse a transition from this part into the asking her out part, and since she was sick and I didn’t know how long she was going to be sick, it didn’t seem like the timing was right. So I said I hoped she felt better and she thanked me with a weak smile and I left.

All the way home I felt really stupid for not saying more to her, and I thought of lots of things I should have said. “You look very pretty like this, vulnerable and pale, like Camille. It makes me want to take care of you.” Or “I hope I get sick so that we can share our germs and a box of Kleenex.” That might have choked a giggle out of her, if not the admission of love I was hoping for.

When she didn’t show for school the next day, I decided to call her that night and find out how she felt. I would tell her all about class, the work she missed and discuss the reading due the next day. I would offer to come over and read to her if her eyes were too puffy to read. I would say that as soon as she got well, I wanted to take her to see a movie to cheer her up.

I found her number in the phone book and after dinner I waited for a private moment when my parents and sister were watching television and I could use the phone without notice. With my heart pounding, I mis-dialed twice, my fingers slipping from the holes before the disk fully rotated.

I paused, dispatching bad thoughts. “Mis-dialing is an omen; I should forget the whole thing and see her in class.” “No, shmuck, it’s only a phone call.”

The third time I dialed carefully. Her mother answered it on the fourth ring, just before my nerve gave out. I’d forgotten that she would probably answer. I almost hung up, but managed to stutter my name and that I was calling to see how Penny was. Her mother was politely formal, saying that I was “sweet” to call and that Penny was feeling better and would be at school tomorrow.

I thought she would hang up on me so I blurted, “Well, its very urgent that I talk to her, Mrs. Miller, because the teacher gave us some special assignment for tomorrow and she should be prepared for it if she’s coming.”

To my surprise, her mother again said I was “sweet” and that of course Penny needed to know that, and for me to wait a moment. I heard her call to Penny and say, “It’s that boy, the one who picked up the report. He has a message from your teacher.”

Penny came to the phone. Her voice was even huskier than usual, though not as scratchy as it had been the day before. To my surprise I was able to coherently relate the ostensible reason for the call and she was very grateful and said I was “very sweet” to call.

I had such a boner that I kept thinking that I should have whacked off before calling her so that I could be thinking more clearly and not be talking so fast. The next line was going to be my big transition where I said that when she got better, I would take her to the movies to cheer her up, but I hesitated because I hadn’t planned for her to be better already and going to school the next day.

During another sickening silence while my mind raced for a way to say it, she said, “Well, I better get to reading. Enid called earlier with my math homework too and I have a ton of it. So, thanks again, Artie, and I’ll see you tomorrow in class, okay?”

I said, “Sure, bye.”

Well, that was really depressing, I thought, as I jerked off later in the dark and replayed the call in my memory.

The sound of Penny Miller’s voice on the phone was unbearably sexy as it reverberated in the hollows of my mind while I stroked away and recalled every word she spoke. Her voice on the phone was like velvet mixed with sandpaper, thick as hot fudge when it’s not runny and hot but after it comes out of the fridge rich and gritty. It was perfect for her: mysterious and dangerous, but at the same time teasing and girlish. Her phone voice matched my image of Penelope Miller, which I’d etched in my mind with the permanence of a Greek statue, but one with arms.

The next day in English class I was dreamily staring at the board when she came in almost late. I felt a note slip under my left hand. I caught a glimpse of Penny’s hand pulling away before the teacher noticed. Penny’s cheeks were tinged in red. She rubbed her nose with her Kleenex, and a little smile escaped as she blew gently.

The note was in her perfect round letters:

“Artie,
Thanks again for everything. I think you’re very sweet.
Do you want to go after school for a lime rickey?
Pen.”


I didn’t breathe as I read the note over and over, analyzing each word like a World War II cryptographer. "Thanks" was pretty neutral, but "everything" was pregnant with possibilities.

"I think you’re very sweet" was the best of all. I had to suppress my boner, just reading that phrase for the tenth and eleventh time.

The "lime rickey" was a soft drink specialty of the candy store on Kings Highway near her house. It was a place and invitation that encoded a breath of a hint — taken with the "very sweet" part — that she might actually like me, though it was also possible that she simply may have been trying to be polite.

She could have been one of those girls that sent thank you notes to everyone for everything.

"Thank you for the very sweet birthday present.” “Thank you for not spitting on me in the school bus today.”

But I had a soccer game that afternoon, which was a Friday, and it was a dilemma. There was still a slim chance I might get to play for a few minutes — unless it snowed and the game was canceled, I thought hopefully. A quick glance out of the classroom window told me that a blizzard was not going to happen, no matter how much I willed it.

Near the end of the period, I bit my lip and turned her note over to the other side, held my breath, and scrawled:

“PEN,
Can’t do it — big soccer game. But how about a movie tonight?? I think you are sweet too. Art.”

I folded it up and put it on her desk just as the bell rang. Penny Miller looked at the note and frowned, then smiled at me and allowed a few fog-shrouded words to escape. “Okay, sure. Why not.”

I finally breathed. Breathing was wonderful.

The saxophone voice continued. “Pick me up after supper about seven-thirty? Gotta run. See ya.”

That night I picked her up at her house at exactly seven-thirty, figuring that punctuality would count. I had to run most of the way due to delays necessitated by my painstaking preparations: carefully choosing clothes, especially pants that wouldn’t strangle me while I sat in a movie theater with a hard-on; re-combing my hair thirty two times with enough Brylcream to lubricate an engine; covering as many zits as I could without requiring bandages or surgery; and finally, destroying thousands of breath germs with my father’s mouthwash that tasted like battery acid.

Penny’s parents treated me in a way that surprised me at first: that is, with complete indifference. Her father read his newspaper, watched the TV, did not even deign to give me a once over. Her mom stood nervously smoking while listening intently to someone more important on the telephone. After initial relief that I would not be scrutinized and found unacceptable, I began to feel queasiness of another sort. They must be so used to guys coming to date their daughter that it had become routine. They treated me so casually that I felt I should have taken a number.

Worse, I began to think that the comfort level they evinced at my presence was insulting, because it suggested that they saw me as posing very little danger for their daughter. Well, there are advantages to being the non-threatening type. Maybe I would show them, I dared to imagine.

Penny had washed her hair and it was very blond and fluffy, forming a sort of golden halo around her face. She wore a turtle neck ribbed blue sweater, plaid skirt, and black leg tights under her pea coat. I mentioned that it was very cold outside that night. Her mother wanted Penny to wear a hat; Penny refused, insisting that her hair was dry, and that she would not catch a “chill,” but yielded to a muffler and gloves. Her mother wanted her father to drive us to the movie house and luckily he shot that down with a grunt.

While I walked with Penny to the elevator, I kept up a stream of banter that I hoped was clever and funny but sounded to me like inane chatter. Penny giggled in her squeaky laugh in the elevator as I made a face at an elderly couple, and their nasty tiny dog yapped at me.

Outside, the air was biting and our breaths were smoky as we walked on Ocean Parkway toward Kings Highway. The street lights cast black shadows and the tree branches were bare and stark. The sky was black and thick smoke came from the exhausts of cars waiting for the light as we trotted across the long intersection toward the lights of the theater district.

We saw “The Left-handed Gun” with Paul Newman, a western about Billy The Kid. I remember that I held her hand during the show, paid for Jujubes and Bon Bons and a Mary Jane bar, teased her about her voice, and made whispered jokes about the people in the theater.

After the movie, we took a booth in the candy store and Penny had tea with a cinnamon stick and honey and I had a hot fudge sundae. I gave her the cherry and I dared a teasing sex innuendo about that and luckily she laughed a sincere laugh.

There were other school kids there and I was very proud to be seen with Penny because by then everyone knew she was one of the Beauties at the school, and that us being together on a date was a shock. We talked to a few people; one guy who had flirted with her now tried to horn into our table, but it was late and Penny accepted my urging to leave with no sign of coquetry.

I held her gloved hand all the way back. I kept talking, thinking about whether and how to try to kiss her. Ocean Parkway was a very wide avenue with four lanes of traffic in each direction. On one side, there was a bridal path lined with trees that paralleled the traffic lanes and separated it from another street with parked cars and another wide sidewalk. The paved walkway on the other side had benches under the trees and then another two driving lanes and parking near the curb.

I steered toward a bench on the walkway near the front of her apartment building and we sat down on it. She did not, as I dreaded, say “It’s late,” or “It’s too cold, we better go in.” Either would have been understandable and true.

I looked at Penny Miller, my mind a blank. She looked ahead to the cars going by and sniffled. Her hands were stuffed into her coat pocket. Her breath was smoky.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her with real concern.

“Okay,” she said, glancing at me a bit furtively I thought.

She was fingering the Kleenex she had drawn from her coat pocket. I kept looking at her with what must have been a dumb smile on my face.

“What?” she asked.

“Huh?”

She barked a giggle and made a more serious, though not a severe, face. “You’re kind of staring at me.”

I heard my voice, as if coming from somewhere far from my mouth, say something truthful and unrehearsed to a girl for the first time in my adolescence. “I like to look at you. I do it a lot when you don’t know it in school.”

Penny Miller squirmed in her seat. “I’ve felt you looking at me.”

I was thinking, "lots of guys like to look at you. You better get used to it if you’re going to be as beautiful as you are at this moment." But I didn’t say that. I said, “I hope it doesn’t annoy you, Pen.” That was true, too.

She looked as if she was thinking about how to answer. Maybe she wanted to say, "all the guys look at me; I like it." But she didn’t. Finally, she said, “No, it doesn’t annoy me, not really,” and she shook her hair. “It makes me a little self-conscious but.”

I heard my voice say, “I’m sorry, its just that — I like you a lot.”

Penny Miller then said, “I like you, too, Artie. Just as much, I think.”

That should have stopped me cold, but it didn’t. For some reason which I’ve analyzed in odd moments for the rest of my life, at a crucial turning point in history, chutzpah emerged at just the perfect moment. I felt relaxed and in control of myself, with a calm self-assurance that I’d never felt this far from second base, and certainly not with any girl, and Penny was not just any girl to me.

My voice was strong and clear, saying, “I’m dying to kiss you.”

Penny Miller looked at me. She didn’t smile exactly; it was more of a puzzled look, indecisive maybe, a look which I interpreted as seeking a polite way to let me down.

So I turned to wisecrack humor. “Hey, I don’t care if I get sick. At least then we’ll have something else to share, like germs?” I was proud that I finally fit in a version of that joke I’d rehearsed.

She did laugh a little. “I don’t think I’m contagious anymore.”

“So its okay then?”

“Yeah, its okay.”

I leaned closer and she quickly wiped her nose with the Kleenex, sniffled and turned her face up to me. Her eyes sparkled watery blue in the light of the street lamp.

I kissed her gently, barely brushing her lips, stole a look as she closed her eyes, and I pressed my lips to hers. I held her shoulder with my hand on the back of the bench and held her gloved hand with my other hand. Her cheeks were pink and her nose was chafed. I took the Kleenex from her hand and daubed her eyes and her nose.

She chuckled again, a foghorn of a laugh. I leaned over and kissed her again, felt her tongue touch mine and could barely stand it.

She whispered in a croaking voice, “That was nice, Artie.”

I told her I hated my name, Artie, because it was so dorky and I always got my cheeks pinched when one of my relatives called me Artie.

She said she would call me Arthur from then on because it was “more elegant, like King Arthur.”

I reminded her that the most famous Arthur was Arthur Godfrey, the corny TV host. “Besides,” I said, “King Arthur in the story kind of loses Guenevere to Lancelot, doesn’t he?”

She laughed about it and from then on called me Arthur or Arturo when she wanted to tease me, and Artie when she wanted to retaliate for my teasing.

We kissed again, and it is that kiss that I still can taste. It was a kiss that was subtly different from the experiments I had been used to. I felt something I could not then define, but later knew was some sort of feeling that had moved beyond titillation or curiosity. I didn’t know whether it was because of something I was feeling or something she had done.

It didn’t occur to me that it could be because of something that she was feeling. I had no way of comprehending how that could be possible. Yet today, almost a half century later, the sensation and the meaning of that kiss still lingers with me, as a shadow of a dream.

Somewhere deep within, I must have dimly sensed what Penny Miller was trying to convey by that kiss: that it was a message — an offer, a plea; but the substance was something I could not decipher.

It was clear that after each kiss, we each became more comfortable, more trusting, permitted more entry to levels of — and I never would have then used or thought of the word — intimacy.

She told me that she was tired of being called Penny and Pen. I asked her if she minded that people made fun of her when we read “The Odyssey” in class and the teacher mentioned Odysseus’ wife, Penelope.

She was very serious when she said she liked Penelope as a name because in the story, Penelope had turned away all other men, steadfastly believing Odysseus would return to her.

“But of course, my mom screams my name, ‘Penelope!’ when she gets really mad at me.”

I laughed because Penny had said it in a funny way, with a squeaky mock scream, something like Imogene Coca on Sid Ceasar’s show. I said something like, “I swear I’ll never call you ‘Penelope’ in anger, but only when I want to remind you to wait for me.”

She seemed to like that a lot, and asked me to kiss her again, which I did, thinking that it was even more exciting having her ask me to kiss her, resulting in my boner almost causing me to double up.

When I could breathe, I told her I wanted to give her another name, one that only I would call her. After some unacceptable tries I no longer recall, I settled on “Kid,” telling her that it was because our first movie was about Billy The Kid.

I was really thinking about a movie I’d seen on television with Humphrey Bogart called “Casablanca,” where he called the younger Ingrid Bergman, “Kid.” It didn’t exactly fit us because Penny and I were the same age, but it made me feel more “mature.” I really felt the way toward Penny that Bogie felt about Ingrid, somehow protective and responsible, though I couldn’t have explained it at the time.

Penny seemed to understand the idea, as she was to “get” most of my screwy notions, and she seemed to like it. At least, she didn’t stop me from calling her “Kid.” Or from putting my hand on her leg when we kissed again.

She told me that “Miller” had been changed by her grandfather from “Millstein” and I told her that “Brewster” had been “Brownstein,” so that was another thing we had in common.

I kissed her again in the elevator and once more, secretly, at her door, daringly, excitedly, knowing her parents were just on the other side, smugly sure that I was a safe one.

When I went to bed alone that night to review every detail in the dark, I realized that there were few moments I would have changed. It had been perfect. It was the best sex I’d ever had up to that point.

[Part 3 will come soon. I will give you a teaser, the first line -MPB]:


We never formally dated again.


Copyright © 2006 by Mort Borenstein