|
By chris Date: 2006 Dec 16 Comment on this Work [[2006.12.16.02.21.13547]] |
|
I. I spoke with Sylvia on the last day of September that year on the side of a hill overlooking an empty valley. It was, as near as we could tell, totally empty of any human form except ours. We talked for several hours before noticing that it was evening and that the moon was sitting on the skyline, half-concealed by mountains and forest. The towns that we lived in could not be seen. There was no sound but that of the breeze blowing through the waist-high grass around us which had been much stronger earlier in the day. But we knew that the towns were still be there, that they would be there for us when it was time to go back to them. The woman I knew of as Sylvia was a quiet, gentle person whose fires burned slower and hotter than mine. She had a habit (for all of her twenty-seven years, I gathered) of constantly brushing up against things that she had no right to brush up against--that nobody had a right to brush up against. Her long blonde hair, pulled back from her face, framed an expression that rarely showed real joy. I don't think she had ever known anything resembling contentedness. She always looked tired--the kind of tired you see not in one who has done too much but in one who just realizes all they have left to do. I thought often then that maybe we--the content--live in total ignorance of what is really a tremendous creative energy--an energy that, once we were made aware of it, would never let us rest. College--where I first met her--was over for two years, and I had not seen her for almost six months prior to that day. We had made our way uneasily that afternoon through all of the trivialities, all of the latest news about mutual friends, and now we were at the end of it. "So what's next for you?" I asked because it was all that was left to ask. She sighed, terminally exhausted. "I don't know, if the poems get published, I guess I'll take it from there." She was pursuing at the time the publication of a small collection of Petrarchan sonnets that she had written in her last year at school, which she referred to as "the poems." She gave me a copy of them shortly after, and once I read them I never thought of her in the same way again. She was somehow able, despite the stiffness and antiquity and constraints of the form, to convey a real universality and warmth in her lines. I admired that. I told her so back then--in those very words--and she laughed, remarking that I would never understand the sonnet. I considered myself a poet at the time--or at least a writer of poems. And Sylvia was the first real poet I ever knew. She saw pain as a thing, as something she could use in the same way that her joy and exultation--rare as they seemed to be--could be translated into words. There was no difference. The thought of this absolutely terrified me. Still, for her demons were a simple diversion, and by thirty I knew she would have learned to love them. Finally I spoke. "Do you still know that guy out in San Francisco, the one who said that you could stay with him for a while if you ever decided to settle out there?" "Oh yes; we've kept in touch, believe it or not," she laughed. I didn't understand. She went on: "And a part of me would really love to do that--go out there and give it a try--but I just can't get that damn earthquake thing out of my mind." Sylvia looked suddenly frustrated, as though something she'd been battling herself over had just been brought to mind. "When you make your living as a professional romantic," she said, "you become quite adept at nurturing fantasy." She was referring to the poems again. "That's actually not an reasonable fear," I offered. "In fact, it's probably practical of you to think about it," I lied. Sylvia knew. There was a long silence. "I'm guarded," she said softly, looking down. "I'm too guarded." "What do you mean?" I asked, knowing what she meant. She seemed shocked that, after everything, I would have to ask her this. "I'm guarded with everybody, even guys I go out with. Especially guys I go out with." There was a fragility to her just then as she sat there in her frayed and faded cut-offs and white t-shirt. She actually looked in pain. "With you too," he voice rose, "and we've known each other for five years, for Christ's sake." She looked me in the eyes, and I felt uncomfortable because she never did that. I looked away and looked up, pretending to be surprised at how cobalt the sky still was, at the height of the clouds. The river, broad and shallow at that point in its course, seemed to flow right at our feet. But this was because of the gradual sloping of the land and absence of obstructions; it was really about a mile to the west. "Look at them out there." Sylvia pointed to two small wooden boats tending their nets on the shallow water flats. They were too far away to make out much detail, but we could see two men working in each. I wondered how in the world she noticed them. "They work, they are happy. What I would do to be there," she said. I didn't really know what she meant but I said nothing. Looking down at her hands, I noticed that she was digging into the dirt, embedding particles of the clay-rich soil beneath her fingernails. Something in her voice made me feel uneasy, and I was struggling without any success for a way to tell her so. But then, almost at once, her demeanor changed and she was calm again. She spoke with great certainty. "I think I've finally beat it." We could see clouds of gulls gather around the boats, aware of the struggling fish just beneath the water. "Really?" I asked. "Yes." That was what she said--that simple wonderful word. I looked at her, holding her there for a moment. She smiled and lay back, opening her arms. II. Erik and I were walking along Route 14, somewhere between his house and Orange Valley, when he told me about Gloomy Dick. It was not yet dark. "You know," he said to me as though he were stating the obvious, "he's just layin' low right now, playin' the guitar, growin' a beard." Erik's sentences always had a subtle yet distinct rhythm to them, a certain syncopation. It was like he was hearing someone play jazz piano in his head while she spoke. I think he knew this because he had actually gotten better at it during the time I'd known him. He was tall and thin and took long strides when he walked. And we had done and would do plenty of that. But concerning Gloomy Dick, I'd always suspected--mainly because I never even saw this fellow--that they were really one in the same person. I never told Erik this. His companionship and his humor were two things that I valued greatly and would risk for nothing. He claimed, on advice from Gloomy himself, that nothing could match a good full beard to improve a man's bongo playing. And Erik knew this to be true because he played the bongoes and had grown beards in the past. I was naturally fascinated but could not get him to elaborate. Our plan, which had arisen from our enthusiasm earlier in the day, was simple: We would walk to Sylvia's house, hitching a ride if we could, and sleep in her barn that night. She lived over in Orange Valley. It was across the river and about fifteen miles south of our starting-out point. We went over all of this early in the morning, early enough so that we could not see the fallacy of it. Before leaving we ate an entire apple pie each, so we were not hungry. We felt good. Of course, the only problem was that we seriously miscalculated how long it would take to walk such a distance when tired and with sneakers whose soles were separating from the shoe with every step. And it was cold. As Erik would remind me that night to the point of tedium, It's always the small details... Cars went by at great speeds--small sedans with one working headlight, motorcycles and their faceless drivers, smug Cadillacs that would slow down for nothing--and none stopped. The acres of apple orchards along both sides of the road grew still more ghost-like. They were all silhouette, all shadow. Erik offered me a cigarette but I didn't think I had the dexterity at that moment to light one. So at some point we said to hell with this hitching and put our hands in our pockets, looked down at the asphalt, and walked. It was clear that there would be no further conversation. I noticed then how my mood had changed so drastically since that morning and afternoon. It had to be the melancholy that seeps out of the hills and woods when one is caught in the grip of that which is wild, that which has no compassion that we can recognize or understand. This is what I told myself. Erik smoked his Camels and occasionally hummed a Dylan lyric. Later, as we neared Sylvia's house, which was old and large and quite a distance in from the road, I could see lights on in the upstairs rooms. I immediately felt warmer. Meeting us at the door, she seemed exhausted but happy to see us. She didn't ask why it took us so long to get there and Erik and I said nothing about it. I always assumed that Erik was about as close to her as I was, but upon seeing him she hugged him. I felt vaguely out of touch and remembered an alienation that I was certain had gone. Sylvia then made a reference to a previous conversation of theirs and they both laughed. She took us out to the barn. She had brought with her several blankets, which she handed me and asked if we wanted anything else. "No," I said and, looking directly at her, "but we really appreciate all this. Hey, thanks anyway." Even I didn't know why I said that after it was done. I'd just spoken to her as though we hardly knew each other, like she was someone at the front desk in a hotel. She looked confused and embarrassed and I felt a momentary flash of power because she was vulnerable and because I had the power to make her feel this way. But then this left me and I felt a little sick over it. It meant nothing. "Well, I'll see you two tomorrow. I have an appointment with a soft bed. I learned a long time ago," she added with mock- seriousness, "to be warm and comfortable as often as I can. You never know when it'll no longer be an option." I noticed that Erik was snoring quietly. She was speaking to me. "Oh yeah," I managed to say before she left, "any news about your poems?" "No," she replied. "But it doesn't matter. You know, I don't think I need them anymore." She smiled broadly. Lying in the dark sometime later, I realized not the answer to the whole open-ended question, but that there might never be one, that there probably would never be one. I pictured Sylvia in my head, acknowledging all that was and would remain unrealized. There would be no resolutions--to anything. And I was not terrified. Tired, I fell asleep to dream of geologic time and the granite silence of earthquakes. |