In Springdale Town (10 page)

“Fine,” I said. “It’s yours. But how about buying me a cup of coffee to make up for my loss?”

She took the rooster and held it against her breasts. Her body relaxed. “Okay, sure. We can do that. I was going to Frisell’s next anyway. I have to teach class in an hour.”

Her name (she told me–I knew from the show, too) was Regina Lightner. I told her mine. The place she took me, Frisell’s, was back on Main Street, on the side where I had parked. Before joining her, I returned to my car to put lamp, books, and other purchases in the trunk. At the café, she was still waiting for a cappuccino. I ordered one too. Music played. I recognized the singer but was unfamiliar with the album. I asked the woman who took my order. She said that she thought the owner had picked it. Regina and I sat at a square table, her back to the window, me facing. Across the room, a loud-voiced group had put two tables together. Regina waved to them. An older woman sang part of a show-tune. A man walked past, and the singing woman invited him to join them. An old man told a corny joke and everyone laughed.

Springdale seemed a friendly place, friendly to those who were already part of it. Not to strangers passing through, but what place is? I might return, spend a night and explore further, go to a bar or two, restaurants. Perhaps I could have a companion.

We talked. I told Regina about my writing, my frustrations with finding publishers for my stories. I explained how my writing didn’t fit in with magazines that publish fantasy and science fiction
or
literary journals. At that time, I had only had two publications, in very small literary journals, and my bread story (“Tales of the Golden Legend”) was forthcoming in
Back Brain Recluse
(except the magazine went under before they could publish my story, which finally appeared years later in
The Third Alternative
). I didn’t know that my day’s adventures would become my first book.

~

This feels stupid and clumsy-worded; it’s hard to stain the page with my own dialogue. Also, I could tell that I had lost her interest. It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe. Eyes don’t really glaze over, for example. But if you have any kind of sensitivity (if you’re not someone who talks and talks regardless of whether the receiver of your words cares to hear them), you can tell when someone isn’t interested. Words become harder to launch into the space between you and the other person. I often feel like my voice is failing, fading.

Hoping that I wouldn’t sound desperate, I said I would like to see her studio. I should add, here, that part of my reason for leaving New York involved the end of a relationship, an end that hurt a good bit less at this point than it had six months previously but still hampered my ability to speak to women I might be attracted to.

Regina said, sure, sometime, yeah, but she had to go to her class now. Did that mean I should ask for her phone number, try to set up a time I could see her work...see her again...but did I want to? She was a person, not a character in a television show. Muddled, I looked down at my coffee cup, and when I glanced up, she had vanished.

I flung my chair back and stood. Visible through the window no longer blocked by her body, the opposite side of the street...buildings gone...now all I saw were fields and trees. The loud group had also disappeared. The rooster remained. I picked it up. Walked to the door. Which stuck, then popped like the release of a pressurized container.

The outside air prickled my throat. No one else was on the sidewalk. I ducked in and out of empty shops, working my way down the street. Sunlight was fading from that winter-grey haze of sky that defined New England–I never got used to the winter sky there. In comparison, Ohio feels like the south. But...my car! It was the other way. I turned around. I didn’t hurry, but I wanted to be closer to it.

When I was maybe a block from where I had parked, I sensed movement behind me. I eased toward the building. Turned to look. Two people. One tall and heavy, one smaller. Blue uniforms. I didn’t think they had seen me. Walking, getting closer. I held myself still. The larger one was male, the other female. They glanced into each shop they passed but didn’t go in. I needed them to go in. How else could I move, reach my car? But what was wrong with letting them see me? I hadn’t broken any laws. The rooster was still in my hand. True, it hadn’t been mine to take; grabbing it had been a reflex, retaining it an act of...desperation? I moved, not quickly. I didn’t look at them.

No more than three steps later, voices called out for me to stop. I took another step, looking back as I moved...a beefsteak hand gripped my elbow. How did they reach me so quickly? The man-cop was immense; his companion wasn’t, but she blocked my path. She looked up into my eyes. Her gaze stopped me as much as the man’s grip.

~

Long ago, I had an unpleasant experience at school. In my arithmetic class, fifth grade, I think. There were three fifth grade classrooms. Each class spent most of its time in its main classroom, but split into mixed groups for English and arithmetic, based on skill level. These classes might be in your own room or in one of the other rooms with that room’s teacher.

This particular day, we were supposed to be doing long division. I couldn’t find my pencil. I accused the person next to me of taking it. I think it was a girl. She might have been teasing me earlier. I remember a girl who stabbed my finger with a pencil. Maybe it was that girl. The teacher wanted to know what I was doing, wanted me to get to work on the assignment. I said I couldn’t, because I couldn’t find my pencil. She said:
I have a pencil
. That
has
to be what she said. But I heard it as:
I have
your
pencil
. How did the teacher get my pencil? My child-mind couldn’t process. She wanted me to come to her desk and get the (my!) pencil. I refused. I didn’t trust her–how could I?

I don’t remember what she did. I suppose I must have sat at my desk doing nothing until the class ended. Later, I went with my classmates to the cafeteria for lunch. After lunch, while we were lined up to return to class, the principal approached. He told me to go to his office. I refused. Later, after we had been back in class for a short time...the principal came in. Again, he tried to make me go to his office. I grabbed my desk’s metal post. He pulled my arm but couldn’t dislodge me. He left.

I didn’t understand why I was being harassed for losing a pencil, or for the teacher having taken it. My impulse was to pull in, turtle-like, and wait for the threat to pass.

Toward the end of that day, my class went to the school library (a place I was pretty fond of). As the class was leaving, the principal entered, carrying a wooden paddle. They kept me from leaving. Once the other kids were gone, the principal made me bend over to be paddled. I gave up. He paddled me.

No one ever talked to me about it. I don’t remember the principal saying anything. No one ever asked why I had refused the teacher’s offer of a pencil. That’s public education, at least in Texas, at that time. Maybe it’s different now. I don’t want my daughter to be treated like that.

~

The way I was feeling...my confusion at the situation...the sudden appearance of authority ready to blame me for...what?...brought this memory back. I wasn’t going to go with them. I’m not violent. I didn’t want the big cop’s beefsteak touching me. I haven’t been in a fight since I was fourteen. I slammed the rooster’s base onto his hand. He howled and let go. I ran. The woman jumped on me. Blindly, I swung the rooster, connected. She dropped. As I ran, I turned to look. Distance increased. Not from my running. Pavement stretched. Their bodies distorted...giant hands reached toward me then snapped back, as if I had reversed a telescope to the wrong end. The buildings near me dissolved, increasing the distance between me and the cops. Now they had their backs to me, big guy on my right, woman-cop...changed, taller, nearly his height, and...between them, they dragged a limp form.

Know that disorientation you get when you see a photograph of yourself from behind, especially if you hadn’t known you were being photographed? Imagine a video instead, and you get closer to what I experienced.

More buildings faded, separating us. I reached my car and got in, finding immediate comfort in the metal enclosure. I started the engine. As I eased into the roadway, the sidewalk transformed into a grassy roadside. The car was pointed away from where the cops had gone; that was the direction from which I had entered the town, but I wasn’t going to turn around. I drove. Trees replaced the town, trees and river. I crossed a bridge. The sun was behind me. I drove, waiting to cross a larger road, a road I recognized.

~

I reached my apartment around six. Parked. I lived on the bottom floor of a two-story house that was a short walk from the center of town. The owner lived upstairs. Her son and his girlfriend lived in an apartment in the back. I opened the car door. The rooster was on the front passenger seat. I reached for it, got out, and pulled my overnight bag from the trunk, leaving the books and other things for later. I left the bag and rooster near the door and sat on the futon-sofa, looking around at bookcases, front door, windows, rooster. How long did I sit there? Isolation, smothering isolation, filled the room. I wanted to hear something, the owner, moving around above me or coming down the stairs with her dog, a beagle whose name I’ve long-forgotten. Her son or his girlfriend, their dogs...hounds...I got up. In darkness, I walked downtown. Finding myself at the movie theater, I went in. I didn’t care what was showing. But no one was in the ticket booth, or concession, no one else in the lobby. I sat, unable to leave, hoping another person would soon appear. I took out my notebook and began a story of a man lost in Springdale.