One of the Lucky Ones

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

He walked along the wet gutter, a stocky boy of thirteen, oblivious of the wet-intensified nuances of green reflected in the ornamental and shade trees, the well-kept lawns of his neighbourhood. Kicking angrily through someone's neat leaf-pile, scattering bits of colour along the boulevard. Feet squelching in running shoes. Hadn't felt like putting socks on that morning, unaware of discomfort.

A raucous cry overhead - he lifted his head to see the long graceful swoops of a gull, wafting on the wind, riding it like a surfer. The birds were a familiar sight in the area, brought so far inland by the attraction of a nearby garbage dump.

Thrusting hands deep into jacket pockets, he bent forward, turned off Delaney to Anderson to the Mac's Milk, for a pack of cigarettes. In the store he argued with the proprietor, an Hungarian immigrant, about the change, finally understood through the heavily accented speech there had been a provincial tax increase. Turned away, fingering the change, not really caring about the money.

"Commie, dirty commie", he spoke softly, yet sufficiently emphatically that his voice could reach the cash register as he swung out the glass door. Turned his head slightly to catch a glimpse of the man's reaction. Like his mother was always saying, you got to assert yourself or those immigrants'll try to take over, rip you off.

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Last year when the Paki kid thought he could push him around. Wasn't room on the school path for two guys; not for him and this Paki anyway. The kid thought he would shove back; well he showed him and it wasn't long before the guy was holding himself in a huddle not even trying to stop him. And he didn't want to stop, not with all the guys standing around watching. Like when they're standing around you know you owe them a good show. You can't stop.

Then this old dame comes by who works part time in the school library. Her kid with her, a skinny kid in his home room, Debby. He didn't even know they were there, just the guys moved aside and he felt someone grabbing the back of his shirt. Turned around surprised, and there was this big angry face, red lips screaming at him, calling him names. And the Paki kid lying on the ground all wrapped around himself.

He told the lady to let go but she wouldn't, she kept screaming and pointing at the Paki. Then he pulled, hard, and his shirt tore and she let go and he said, "Hey, lady, you tore my shirt. You'll have to pay for a new one." Then he took off with some of his friends and all the way home they were saying how he really took that Paki.

Next day his mother giving him shit, her hair shaking, screaming at him that she was an important executive, had better things to do than keep appointments with the principal of his school. Then sitting in front of Mr. Collins, old man Seguin's heavy, telling him the Paki kid was asthmatic and he'd provoked an attack and the kid was in hospital. Didn't help much to tell the vice-principal the kid was asking for it, pushing him around....

"Can the crap Teddy-boy, your reputation preceded you from your last school." Warned if he ever did anything like that again he'd be suspended. Wouldn't you know it, his old man got in the act and grounded him for a month, locked up his moped.

Anyway, a few days later he put a frog in Debby's locker and all the girls screamed bloody murder, him as surprised as anyone else when they came leaping out after it. Next day he'd hung a dead garter snake over the hook for her coat and the kid got hysterical. Her mother had her transferred to another home room. What could they prove?

That was about when Mr. Stevens had taken special notice of him; Brad Stevens, his physical education teacher. Both him and Barney Kelsey had been picked by Mr. Stevens to be special aides, but after awhile Barney bogged off and then it was only him. Everyone liked Mr. Stevens, all the girls went out of their way for him, the boys copied him in the gym. But it was him that was picked, although he was nowhere near the most athletic kid in his class. He began staying after school the odd time and Mr. Stevens talked to him about all kinds of things, asked him about his special interests. First time anyone asked.

"How about trying out next spring for the hundred-yard dash?" So every second morning he'd get to school early and both of them would jog around the school block twice, to start getting in shape.

"You're too young to smoke", Mr. Stevens told him when he saw a packet in his pocket.

"That's the trouble. Everyone says I'm too young for things I want to do, but when it's something I don't want to do that everyone wants me to do, they say I'm old enough. Balls with that!"

Mr. Stevens explained how smoking wasn't compatible with training for the run, wasn't good for his lungs, would spoil his sense of smell, his taste, stunt his growth. "C'mon, what do you need to smoke for anyway? Be Cool? What does it prove? Ever see me smoke? How about if we make a bet? I'll owe you five bucks the end of the week if you can't stop, okay?"

So he stopped carrying weeds around and bummed smokes off his friends, away from school.
Even his father wanted to know what was going on, him spending all his spare time with Mr. Stevens. Not saying he didn't like it but asking "the guy's okay, eh? I mean, he's no poof of anything is he?"

"Oh yeah, Dad, he wears pink garters and flips his wrist when he talks." When his father's face turned dark Ted made an effort and told him that Mr. Stevens played semi-pro hockey for the Kingston Gliders and was a white-water canoeist.

"Okay, but that doesn't mean too much. I've known men who seemed all right but you just knew they're not all there. I don't want you to get mixed up with any creeps like that, eh?"

******************************************************************

He knew Mr. Stevens was married because sometimes he talked about his wife, saying he had to get home early to start dinner, or something like that.

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He decided to take a short cut through the park, the burdened trees drooping rain-sodden leaves, sprinkling his uncovered head. He ripped cellophane off the cigarette pack, crumpled it and dropped the paper, watched as it floated gently to waft over and cover a glistening dog turd. He thought with satisfaction that someone, not aware of what lay under the crinkled paper, someone would be in for a surprise.

And that reminded him he was supposed to walk his mother's poodle after school and so he slowed down. Shook a cigarette out of the pack, lit it, inhaled, threw the cigarette on the ground and walked on.

********************************************************************

One weekend when his wife went back to Toronto for a week to visit with her parents, Brad invited Ted to go to the Gatineau Hills for the day. They drove up to Luskville in Mr. Stevens's red Volkswagen bug. It was early spring, the ground still hard underfoot, the trees yet bare of leaves and the early spring runoff sent water cascading over the falls in a solid silver sheet. They climbed the path leading to the fire tower, their boots gripping the granite rocks, other boulders towering over them, spring sun glinting off the quartz in the granite. Here and there holdouts of dirty ice marking the passing of winter, melting under the sun's glare.

At the stream bed they clambered as far as they could up the rocky terrain and Brad explained how ancient the rocks were. They climbed until they were stopped by another fall of icy melt-off. There they sat on a flat rock eating summer sausage on onion rolls and big red delicious apples, spray from the falls lightly sprinkling over them.

"I'll bring you up in a month or so if you'd like to come back", Brad promised. "Just before the blackflies. Then the run-off will be over and we'll be able to climb all the way up and cut over to the fire tower. From there we can hike to Lake Charette and do some fishing.

"Oh yeah, I'd like that."

The rest of the day was spent sitting on the rocks, climbing the damp wooded hillsides, talking. Talking about Brad's canoe, his fascination with white-water canoeing, how he had been canoeing with a group of men around Kingston for years; sometimes taking long, lazy trips through Algonquin Park.

"Why'd you call the canoe "Beagle"?

"Oh", Mr. Stevens shrugged and laughed, "all my canoes are named that. After Charles Darwin's boat during his voyage to the Galapagos." And Ted learned who Charles Darwin was, his absorption with nature and his evolutionary premise, his grandfather Erasmus who really started things going - and one thing leading to another, he learned about a man by the name of Scopes who taught biology in Tennessee in 1925 and the trial that followed his contravention of a state statute.

"How'd you learn all that?" Ted asked and Brad explained he had an older brother and their father taught them both the fundamentals of biology, nature studies. "My brother's working toward his doctorate in environmental studies. He's a born naturalist. We had great times together when we were young on my father's farm. Not much of a farm, the ground's not very arable around Kingston; mostly my father kept sheep."

"Must be great to have a brother. Must be really great to have a brother for a friend. Nice to have your father teach you stuff like that."

"Yes it was. I'm one of the lucky ones. Darwin's grandfather stimulated his interest. Leonardo da Vinci's uncle taught him, made him look really close at nature. Most people don't realize, they take things for granted.

"Yeah", Ted mumbled, throwing pebbles into the stream, watching the spreading patterns. "Yeah, I wish I had a brother. I'd be friends with him. My old man is busy, my old lady is busy. Sometimes when she'd mad at me she says I'm her only big mistake."

"Well, sometimes it's hard to show people how you care for them", Brad fumbled. "Like my wife. It's hard for her to demonstrate her love for me because when she was young no one ever showed her how to. People hide their feelings, they don't realize how important it is to communicate. I'm not embarrassing you, am I?"

******************************************************************

And they did go back to the Gatineau Hills. The next time Brad showed Ted how to grasp a snake just behind the head with one hand, the tail with the other. He held the snake, watching it thrash and hiss, admiring its patterned back, amazed at its cool, dry exterior, its tensile strength. The next snake he lunged for, he caught firmly behind the head and as he was lifting it, it ejected a milky liquid that slimed over his hand and trousers. He dropped the snake and it slithered into the underbrush. Brad laughed, said the snake had evacuated in fear.

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On succeeding hikes Ted learned to distinguish bird calls; the harsh call of the blackbird, the imperious one of the blue jay, the teasing call of the chickadee. He saw hummingbirds for the first time, and learned to identify butterflies with names like White Admiral, Mourning Cloak, Fritallery, and question Mark. Brad taught him the difference between a simple and a compound leaf and how to identify trees by their bark; their shape and their leaves.

Once, they came across a long wire-like worm and watched as it jerked spasmodically, like a mechanical contrivance, unlike anything else they'd ever seen. "It's a Gordian worm", Brad said, although he admitted he'd never seen one before. "It's a parasite, lives inside grasshoppers. Every grasshopper hosts one. When the grasshopper dies, the worm craws out, to die itself.

********************************************************************

Ted represented his school in the hundred yard dash at a family-of-schools meet and came a close third; another boy with longer legs and slighter build won first. During the graduation exercises a week before the end of school, athletic awards were distributed and Ted was awarded an overall athletic achievement recognition, along with a handful of other boys.

His parents had been unable to attend. His father was in Calgary on business, his mother had a bridge game. Ted sewed the badge on his jacket, sticking his thumbs more often than the fabric.

**********************************************************************

Then school was over for the summer, and Brad went to Kingston to teach at a hockey school and his wife went to stay with her parents for a holiday. Near the end of the summer Ted received a post card from Brad who'd gone up to Tuktoyaktuk for a few weeks to be with his brother who was studying the environmental effects of oil spillage in the North.

By the time summer was over Ted was anxious to get back to school, the first time he'd ever felt that way. He'd spent a good part of the summer on insect hunting expeditions. Using a butterfly net he'd amassed a good collection of beetles and butterflies. He'd put them in a killing jar, carefully pinned each specimen to a drying board and finally set them up, preserved in death as they had been in life, identified and meticulously labeled. He was eager to show Brad his collection.

***********************************************************

They were glad to see each other again, but Brad seemed somehow distracted, and his mobile face didn't seem to crease into a smile as readily as before. He suggested a week-end camping trip in September, said he would speak to Ted's parents about it.

Not long after, Ted came upon Brad sitting on a bench in the gym, after school. His mentor sat hunched over in a corner, hands around his head, rocking back and forth, moaning. Ted was frightened, ran to his side, asked what was the matter.

Brad lifted hollow eyes to the boy, not seeming to recognize him at first, then made a visible effort to appear normal. "It's okay,Ted. I'm all right. I can't see anyone just now, do you mind? I'll be all right tomorrow. Tell you what, I'll explain everything to you tomorrow. Meet me here after school, all right?"

****************************************************************

That was yesterday and today was today and today Brad's wasn't there to tell him anything.

Ted reached the side door of his house, pulled a key out of his pocket and let himself in. Fifi danced crazily around him, jumping in excitement, wanting to be let out. He held the door open and let her out, knowing his mother would be angry; he was supposed to walk with the dog, not let it out on its own. He hoped it would be run over.

****************************************************************

Earlier, coming home for lunch, he'd found Chinese food in paper cups left over from yesterday's dinner, and he found himself looking for more in the refrigerator, stomach growling. The refrigerator was almost empty. He picked up a hard piece of cheese, bit into it and felt revolted. He pulled the jug of milk out and lifted it to his lips, letting the milk dribble down either side of his mouth.

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He walked to the front of the house, into the living room, stood there looking out the big bow window, thinking of the announcement over the school's sound system, before dismissal; felt freshly nauseated.

"Mr. Stevens, our physical education instructor has died." Mr. Seguin announced it as though it were an ordinary happening, just like he made ordinary announcements every afternoon before dismissal. "Let us all have a moment of silent respect for the man who did so much to make our school's physical education program a very special one."

White faces, everyone looking at everyone else. Someone giggled. Some of the girls began wailing in long ululations. Ted's spine crept in a melting horror. Ted's home room teacher explained to the class that Mr. Stevens had been shot to death that morning in a trailer park several miles distant to the school. He had been visiting with his estranged wife. Living, he continued evenly and quietly, with another man. He felt they were old enough to know what happened. Brad Stevens, he said, was one of the most decent men he had ever known.

Later, they'd all filed out, some of the girls still weeping, the boys not saying anything. In the corridors, standing in silent clumps, teachers watched the students leave. Ted felt as though his face was frozen in an attitude of blank astonishment; his head seemed to be buzzing and he wondered why.

Outside, he overheard two boys he knew. "What a sucker! I heard about it on the news but I didn't know it was him. What a sucker! Getting killed for some broad - Jeeze!"

Where, where did he get shot? In the head. through that brain that knew about Darwin and the Beagle? Through the chest mangling the heart that loved his wife and his brother and his father?

**************************************************************

Ignoring the scratching appeals of the dog to be let back in, Ted moved draggily upstairs to his bedroom. He pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, threw it in the waste basket. Tugged the insect collection off his bookshelf where the exploded plastic had been carefully cut to fit, and began pulling insect pins out of his specimens, dropping insects and pins bit by bit onto the shag rug, grinding them with his wet shoes.

c. 1987 Rita Rosenfeld

Yankee Doodle

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

One thing I've noticed already about downtown Washington is the omnipresence of the Washington monument. Oppressive, the needle strikes me again as I head west on Constitution Avenue crossing the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.

Coming up on the Iwo Jima shrine on the Arlington side of the Potomac I squint trying to pick out which of the Marines raising the flags is the American Indian. All I can remember is that he died derelict, choked to death on his gorge; alcoholic.

Wall-to-wall traffic down Washington Boulevard at the height of the early-morning rush hour, I head south on 95 towards Fredericksburg, searching my memory.

Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Appomattox, (Burnsides' Slaughter-pen, Joe Hooker - Stonewall Jackson mistakenly shot by his own men at dusk (Lee's right hand gone). Crazybugger Americans. And I think of the many thousands lying dead here, not much more than a century past.

Nine-thirty and I'm just cruising through Georgian red-bricked Fredericksburg and turn onto 17 south, then head toward Tidewater country. What a pain in the arse the fifty-five mile speed limit is. Down to two lanes, traffic slacks right off and I speed up to arrive on time.

The trees are just turning here and obviously will never match the colours of the Gatineau Hills at home. But the sycamores, large and white, are impressive and very, very, English.

I pull in to gas up at Tappahannock on the Rappahannock River and switching off the ignition the car is flooded with a week-day Revivalist broadcast blaring out Jesus Saves! and a voice asks 'fill er up sir?'.

Coming up over a rise I pull over a few minutes later and read 'General Andrew Jackson's headquarters during the War of 1812'. A fine house down a long fenced lane looks back as I take off.

"Good morning", I smile very businesslike at the balding man placing a painting in a showcase display. "Is Mr. Francis in? He's expecting me."

"You must be Mr. Miller from Canada? This way, please." Past the showrooms crammed with familiar paintings, up a few stairs; I smell a good cigar.

"Good morning, Mr. Francis". And we shake hands across the cluttered desk, measuring one another.

"How 'bout coffee, Mr. Miller?" he asks, fondling an English market selection cigar, chewing another. "Have a nice drive?"

"Yes. Lovely country, the Tidewater area. I've always been interested in American history and this part of the country reeks with it. Living in the national capital area of Canada, on the Ottawa River, merely reeks from the pulp mills."

We talk business. He is wary, knowing that the less information he gives me, the less likely he'll be to suffer economically in his Canadian operations. As the morning progresses I realize that I like this wily, cigar-smoking entrepreneur sitting casually across from me in this tidewater-backwater controlling a schlock-art empire.

"I guess you were wondering about the portrait of the Nixons behind me? It's one of two I commissioned and I sent one to the White House. Let me show you the letter of thanks the president sent me", he beamed.

As I'm reading, I hear him say: "What a shame...that man was sadly wronged".

"I guess you're wondering why I chose to run this business from here - which you mentioned seems out-of-the-way. Well, I enjoy cruising and have an eighteenth-Century house right on the Bay. I thought we could have lunch out at the club and go for a short cruise. I have this thirty-five-foot cruiser", he proudly hands me a colour photo.

"Excuse me, Mr. Francis", his secretary interrupts. "It's Joan. Will you take the call?" He apologizes, reaches for the telephone and at the same time holds up a small painted plaque of a cigar-smoking frog, for my obvious amusement, winking at me.

Hanging up, he says "that was Joan Coles. She painted that for me. You can see he's sitting on a pile of ashes. She says it reminds her of me; always puffing away, sitting on my ashes. She's just about the most versatile artist I have working for me. You probably noticed those Tidewater landscapes with the ducks and these cute little frog numbers she makes; they're very popular for children's bedrooms."

I take my leave, passing up the invitation. It's one-thirty. I point the car north and pull in behind a green Ford, a mile out of town. A large man in a knitted suit with too-short trousers and cowboy boots greets me on the boulevard. "Mr. Miller? I'm agent Carl Sands." We sit in my car and talk. I ask if we can finish over a drink - I'll buy. We drive through the main intersection, up and down, and there's nowhere to go. We pull into the school driveway. "Better not park here", he says. "It's against state law." I pull up behind his car again. He tells me to keep in touch, and thanks.

It's getting on, I have a long way to go, but he wants to pass the time of day. We part at last and I go like hell. The local yokels I speed past on this two-lane highway, glare.

Across the Potomac heading north on the Maryland Expressway I reach into my vest pocket for my Budget Rent-a-Car contract wondering how many miles I've done since coming to Washington. I'm incredulous. Eight hundred and fifty. I curse, knowing the mileage recorded on the contract is incorrect and there's no way I'm going to pay $.16 a mile for that mileage; realizing as well I'm going to have an unpleasant scene when I return the damn thing. God, what an ass not to have checked before. As if losing my best camera this trip wasn't enough.

Bumper-to-bumper on the Capital Beltway heading back to Arlington. I can't understand why traffic should be so heavy, so congested late in the day - and wonder where they're all going. I now know Montreal has been replaced by Washington as the lousiest city I've ever driven in, or around.

Washington at night. White, Georgian, cold, and there's that needle.

I make it back with just one stop. A painter, sitting on a concrete hump in a small church parking lot in overalls, hair and face covered in white tells me in surprise, putting down his coffee, how to get across the Freeway without ending up in Richmond.

I park under the hotel tower, and it's grubby, like all underground parking lots. I have just enough time to shower, change and meet someone who's waiting. I wonder what the hell I'm doing here.

c. 1978 Rita Rosenfeld

Generations

A young girl
infused with the freshness of life
burdened with questions
seeking responses
curiosity boundless
mind bounces
from one profundity
to yet another.

Her grandmother
bemused and amused
concerned and concentrated
hauls out memory
to spar and to parry
each thrust of her
granddaughter's passion
for life. Treasuring
each opportunity to expound.

c.2009 Rita Rosenfeld

Canoeing

Our paddles sluice
the dusk-dark water
as night draws
the evening sky
close overhead.

Cedars and spruce
hang tipsily
over the bank
leaning dark reflections
over lichen-clad granite.

A fish lunges
the taut skin
of the lake and
overhead a kingfisher soars
beaking his lunatic call.

We drift the lazy water
clap echoes
off the tree line
watch dragonflies
etch the cooling air.

Mist rises from
the edge of this day
and the humped hills
finally swallow the sun.

c.1980 Rita Rosenfeld

Overnight

Last night's bluster
wakened sleeping plants
to the possibilities of
spring emergence.

In the woods ferns
newly-freed from
snow and ice shout
their glowing presence.

The night's rain has
burnished the trunks of trees
they gleam with renewal
though leafage scant.
Crimson florets wink
on maple branches.

Wind chuffs still-clinging
fall-transparent beech leaves
flinging them through
the still, chill air.
Moss glows translucent emerald.

Tentative fingers of
green shoots clear the surface
of the drenched forest floor.
Trout lilies marching to bloom.
Trilliums, overnight fully formed.

Wild strawberry and
woodland violet prowl
the hillsides. Fuzz appears on
sumac branches. Overnight,
the woodland renewed.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld

Spring Rites

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

The brilliant cardinal
trilled our breakfast concert;
chickadees, red squirrels
took orderly turn
at offerings sprinkled
on the deck beyond our breakfast room.

A robin doused at the birdbath
and our resident chipmunk
rounded out the morning's
guest list of entertainment
become a rite of spring.

Our morning walk in the woods
loaned us the sweet
trill of a white throat,
chickadees mimicking beyond.
Mourning Cloaks seeking
partners in spring's
mating twist the air.

No wind this warm spring day.
Above the trees crows mob
proprietorially, their raucous
calls racketing the woods.
From the moist, dark soil
emerges the shy first thrusts
of strawberry and violets.

A sharp-shinned hawk
coasts large and rufus-hued
returned to nest and hunt our
woodland creatures, should many remain
with the departure of the
great grey owls flown elsewhere.

The creek's headlong rush
undulates the landscape.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld

Early Harvest, Gusto Press

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

Canoeing

Our paddles sluice
the dusk-dark water
as night draws
the evening sky
close overhead.

Cedars and spruce
hang tipsily over the banks
leaning their dark reflections
over the lichen-clad granite.

A fish lunges
the taut skin of the lake
and overhead a kingfisher soars
beaking his lunatic call.

We drift the lazy water
clap echoes off
the tree line
watch dragonflies etch the air.

Mist rises from
the edge of this day
and the humped hills
finally swallow the sun.

c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld