Metro Pulse/Cover/Southern Literature Festival

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Introduction

Author Bios

Fiction

They Come to Me

From Gideon Jones' Journal
by Allen Wier

Poetry

Sunsphere Shots
by Daniel Roop

Flamboyans
by Marilyn Kallet

Drunk in the Orchard
by Steve Sparks

'now is the drinking'
by Patricia Waters

by Pamela Schoenewaldt

Words of an old song drift through Owen's mind like milkweed:

She goes to see the baker if she wants some cake, Goes to see the butcher if she wants some steak, But if she wants good loving, my baby comes to me

Came to me, Owen thinks, once they came to me, all the women filled with longing, always wanting more, sometimes with reason and bitterly. Can't do much about that now. Think of something else, get comfortable. Owen pulls the sheets up around him. Clean, with blue stripes, his son's second wife put them on this morning while he sat in the chair watching. He turned ninety-one last month. His feet are cold, even in wool socks.

Ten o'clock. He hasn't shaved. Two years ago this time, if the weather was fine, he'd be out with Lillian on his own front porch in Texas. Sometimes they'd fight, then she'd stomp inside, slamming the door behind her, but they'd have lunch together anyway, sandwiches with mayo, then go on down to the church for bridge. She was always his partner. People treated them like married, even at Second Methodist. After all, they'd been together fifteen years.

Then came that good spring, best in how many years, warm and early, soft rains, just right, but he couldn't plant his own vegetable garden, not even with a colored boy doing all the heavy work. Couldn't hardly bend over now, couldn't sow straight, couldn't pick up a damn squash seed and stick it in a hole. Bad as that. Why keep it up? When Owen told Lillian, that's it, he was moving to a Home, she cried. She'd never cried before. Why now? He told her, "Sugar, we had a lot of fun, but it's time for moving on." After all, he reminded her, they'd never figured getting married, never talked about it, not even early on. She stopped crying, got mad, said she knew all about those lonely widows in rest homes. He said, "Hell no, I'm done with all that, Lillian, it's just, well, I'm just plain tired."

In fact, he was tired—of keeping the house, or pretending to, and a little tired of Lillian. Still, fifteen years with a woman, she gets in your bones. He'd had women in his bones all his life, whispering in his ear. However good they feel at night, however sweet they kiss, still there's that whispering: "Me, it's me you want, and nothing else. I'm the one who loves you most." Not that he always minded, or even blamed them for the whispering. Some men did. Why? No reason to be mean. God's gift to men. Some say Adam was a fool, giving up his rib. Not Owen. What's a man supposed to do all by himself in Eden or anywhere?

Owen drinks fresh orange juice the son's second wife brought him. She's nice, maybe nicer than the first one, Owen can't remember. A stroke six months ago scattered all his memories. Some he's lost for good, some just coming back now, like that song. Or how his son came after the stroke and said, "Dad, I'm taking you home." Owen was confused. He was in a Home already. His cheeks rasp the pillowcase.

"I need a shave," he told his son this morning.

"Why, Dad? Are you going someplace?" Owen could see the front door from his bed. Would strangers carry him, the next time he goes out that door?

"I'm not going anyplace. I just need a shave." The one thing he did for Emma, forty married years, was come down shaved for dinner. He did that much—treat her table with respect. Could be his son never noticed. A lot got in the way. For sure Owen's beard doesn't grow much now. Still, the point is shaving.

"The nurse-aide comes tomorrow. She can do it then. Remember what the doctor said. If you push yourself and have another stroke—"

The second wife said, "I'll help you, Owen, soon as I'm back from shopping." Now they're both gone and he's alone, waiting for her. Women like you waiting for them. His mother said: "When I come back from town, Owen, we'll make hot cocoa." And Emma: "When I come back from church, we'll take a drive." She always walked to church, same church as Annie's husband. Annie lived a mile away. If he hurried, he'd have one sweet hour with Annie then just time to get home before Emma. Only once he stayed too long. Emma's face hard as January when he drove up. Somebody had told her. For two days, not one word to him. He was sorry, told her so, trailed her like a puppy. He hadn't meant to hurt her. A strange thing, Emma was prettier than Annie and for sure she loved him more. So why did he need another woman? But he did, like some men need a drink. Even now, when his body has out-lived his needs, his memories keep going back to women taking care of him and him never giving back enough.

His blue-stripe sheets, a blue road back to Iowa, l908, and the whole country frozen dry in winter. Rough sheets, his mother pressed them with a ten-pound iron. At night his attic bed was like sheets of ice. His father wouldn't let him use a warming pan. Coal cost money. In an Iowa winter then, every single thing you touched was cold. No, there were three warm things: a milk cow's teats, bread from the oven, and his mother's cheeks when she pulled him to her quick and pressed her face to his, always when his father couldn't see. Owen was the youngest and his mother loved him best. She climbed the stairs to say goodnight to him, wrapped her shawl around him when the wind came through the roof and held him as he fell asleep. His father beat him, never smiled, not even in the good years when the barn was filled with corn.

From the first moment Owen thought about his future, he knew it wasn't Iowa. At sixteen, he met a man from Texas who said a young man could make good there, couple years on the oil rigs makes enough to buy a little farm. Owen told his mother, "Let me go, there's nothing for me here." She cried. His father stayed in the field that day, wouldn't come in to say good-bye. Owen left and the old man died that spring.

Lillian didn't say good-bye either. She called her sister, they packed her bags and she was gone while he was at the doctor's. She'd never really moved in, not like young kids now who play at keeping house. He and Lillian, they stayed fresh. Three days a week she slept at her sister's. She wouldn't do his housework—he hired a girl for that—and she hated gardening. "I take care of my skin," she said. It was true. She wore hats, gloves, long sleeves. A lady keeps herself up, she said. Past eighty, her skin was soft and white as bacon fat, smooth as suede. He'd had younger women for damn sure, but it pleased Owen how she kept her skin for him, a gift worked on a long time. Thinking of her body warm in bed mixes him up with his mother's white oak table, rubbed for years with lemon oil. Owen's sister took the table, never asking what Emma wanted. Nobody ever did.

Emma. It was a scorcher the day Emma died. She was canning beans. Owen had gone to town, bought some feed, played a little cards, came home and there's the doctor's car outside and neighbors gathered in the kitchen. So now he's a widower and he never said good-bye. Heart attack. She didn't deserve that either, not after all he'd done or didn't do. Poor Emma.

Think of something else. Shave before the second wife comes back. A good gal, she treats him like her own father. Cleans his room every day, helps him walk around the house, made a flower garden in his window. She cooks for people's parties, gives him samples—everything pretty as a picture in a magazine, but too fancy, he likes plain food. Emma's beans with fatback cooked all day, fresh peach pie, nothing's good as that. Still, the second wife is nice to him, so he says her Chocolate Mouse Whatever is very tasty, even if it's white. Who wants chocolate white? His son had the kitchen all redone for her, everything matching, little island in the middle, marble counters, big ice box built right in. When he showed Owen all the dials and buttons, neither one of them brought it up: Emma waited twenty years for linoleum.

Get up. Shave. His beanpole legs. Have to think to move them, send a goddamn telegram to wiggle his toes. Move! It was different once. He'd do the milking, feed the stock, deliver a whole town's newspapers all before six in the morning. Hardly sit down, just for meals. Annie used to laugh at him, "Freight train, ain't you got no local stops?" Now the doctor says, "Owen, your arteries are more than seventy percent occluded." Clogged, he meant. That's how it is, your own body strangles you.

MOVE! Yes! Owen's feet move back and forth like hills under the covers. The effort makes him sweat. They never say it comes to this, you're sweating while your feet are cold in woolen socks. Should he wait for the second wife? Suppose he stands up and his feet don't hold? A mule kicked him once. Thirty years ago? No, more, sixty? He remembers sixty years? Anyway he stood there, blood running down his legs, beating the mule. Emma pulled him in the kitchen, took off his pants in front of the boy, wiped the blood with her clean apron, said, "Never mind, I got others," but he knew she'd rinse that apron, bleach it and somehow get the blood stain out. Aprons cost, even homemade. Sure, later they had a nice little house and sent the boy to college, but he hadn't done well by Emma. At least he never pretended, like some men, it was her fault he cheated. It wasn't.

Owen tried not to see Annie, at least not so often. He wished Emma knew how hard he tried. But oh Lord, Annie's black hair, her laugh, her cool fingers, her wide, ripe smile. He couldn't stop himself until he had to, when she and her husband moved out west.

Sit up! Owen rolls on his side, swings his legs out from the covers. Look at them hanging there, dry as two sticks. Sits up, dizzy, leans on the bed frame. Where'd his blood go? Once he had it to give away. The neighbor's kid took sick, same blood as his, he gave every month until the kid got better, worth it to make Emma proud of him and get himself distracted. Annie had just moved away. Now his blood's dried up in his arteries, caked like clay inside him. Just sitting up makes him dizzy. Don't tell them, they'll get the doctor here again.

His son was always tense with him. Maybe if he'd had daughters, it would have been easier. Even as a boy, he'd get upset at any little suggestion Owen ever made. He'd see the boy sitting in the kitchen talking to Emma, but when Owen came in, the boy got quiet as a cat. Made Owen feel like his own father. Emma said once, "He just wants to please you. He thinks you're not proud of him." So now the boy's pleasing him, by God. Special doctor, his own TV, hospital bed in the guest room, "Dad, you're staying here a good long time."

"Serve you right," says Owen, "if I get my strength back."

A sound. Not the telephone, he can't hear that. Thunder? Maybe a truck going by. Lillian always got the telephone. She never let on he couldn't hear it. No, she told people, "Owen's reading, he gets absorbed." Lied for him. But it wasn't only kindness. She was jealous, much more than Emma. Guests at the door, Lillian would say, "Come on in," hospitable as you please, then, "Owen's tired, I'll see how he feels," and of course they'd say, "No, no, we're just passing by." She hemmed him in. At first he got mad and they'd fight, because hell, he loved people—young old, colored, Mexicans, Christians, Jews—nothing passes time like talking. Yet something in Lillian's jealousy pleased him, maybe seeing he could still make another woman want him all for herself. No, it wasn't jealousy that pushed him away, it was pride. Owen didn't want a woman taking care of him, having something over him he couldn't repay. Now here he is with the second wife dressing him. Women have their way with you.

Stand up! He stands up. He stood up on his first birthday, his mother told him, clapped and sat back down again. He feels like clapping now, but something warns him, save your strength.

Walk! Owen gets to the bathroom finally, holding onto furniture. Some kind of knick-knack falls and breaks, he'll get the pieces later. Finds a razor in a drawer, fool piece of plastic with a blade inside. Shaving cream? Here, but have to hold on something. Towel rack? Now he can't see the big mirror. But there's another little glass, like Annie had for make-up. If she saw him now, all dried up, what would she think? She shaved him once, though he said don't, he had shaving all mixed up with Emma. But Annie did it anyway, then rubbed her breasts on his smooth face. First swath of the plastic blade. Not so bad, considering. Shaving an old man's face, like cutting wheat in the Texas hill country.

First weekend in Texas, he and his friend Jud drove out in the hills with a couple of girls. Girls liked Jud, but he never took hold, moved west and only came back years later. "Get married," Owen told him, "settle down." But Owen had Annie already, and Jud must have thought he was kidding. He wasn't. "Marrying Emma's the best move I made," Owen said, right in front of her. Emma smiled, but could she say the same for him? At least he'd told her.

Blood on his cheek. Can't reach the toilet paper, use a towel. Emma's apron all bloody from his leg. Don't think about that. Now the neck, not bad, some nicks, never mind. Now the other cheek, but damn little glass keeps losing his face. Finally, all done. Razor falls, what the heck. Holding the towel rod, looks in the mirror. Damn good job, why'd they make such a deal of it? Owen puts his hand to his cheek, then pulls it away, how can your own skin feel like it's not part of you? Never mind. He's shaved. Emma, did you notice?

Rinse! But it's that fancy faucet and he can't remember how the handle goes. Left, right? Front, back? Damn, he knew before. Push this gizmo first? Yes. But the water shoots out blazing hot and Owen jumps back so fast he loses his balance, steps on the razor, slips, falls, hits his head on the counter, it's bleeding good now. At least he still has blood.

The second wife finds him on the bathroom floor, calls the son who comes flying home. "Jesus Christ, Dad, look at you!" Owen tries to explain, gives up. By now the son is shouting at the second wife and she's shouting back at him, like two hens. She says she has to shop sometime, she told Owen to wait. Finally, the son: "Dad, please, you can't do things like this." Who's this old man calling him Dad? Where'd his son go? The boy who stood on the running board of the old Ford and helped deliver morning papers. Owen never let on how he loved those rides, the two of them rolling through dark streets, hardly talking, the boy throwing papers, thud, against all the wooden porches. "Good arm," Owen says.

"Arm? It's your face, Dad! You cut your face to hell." Now they're whispering, they think he can't hear. "Nothing's broke!" he wants to shout. "Just a little blood!" Better save his breath.

The son talks on the telephone to somebody, then back with the wife, now to him, "Dad, promise me you'll stay put. The doctor's coming by tonight." Finally the son goes back to work and then it's the second wife's standing over him. Lord, don't these people rest? Asks is he hungry. Why should he be hungry? She keeps talking. Sorry she panicked at the blood. Owen feels his cheek. It's smooth, feels good, Emma would appreciate him shaving.

"I fixed you something, Owen," the second wife's saying, "Wait right here." Sure. Where can he go now? Just to make sure, she tucks his sheets in tight this time and hurries back with two little tiny pies, some kind of berry stuck on top. Says later she'll help him to the kitchen. He can sit and watch her work.

"You treat me good," he says. Meant to say? No, she heard him.

"I'm glad to, Owen." She keeps talking. "When my own dad was sick, I couldn't be there." She talks and talks. He stops trying to listen. Emma never said much, but he liked sitting with her in the evening, later, after Annie went away. Maybe Emma forgave him. On their fortieth anniversary he bought her a pearl necklace. He couldn't tell her all he felt and a month later she was dead. Damn, he did his best with all of them, not enough, but his best. He smells an old perfume.

There's a voice: "Owen, you didn't touch your pie."

Let me be, they're coming now. A soft hand pulls the covers up—that's nice, his mother's shawl on winter nights. "Never mind, you rest now." Who's talking? Who left? That second one? But the other ones are here, filling up his room: his mother, Emma, Annie, Lillian, whispering, "It's me you want, me, I'm the one who loves you best." This time there's no rancor, they're singing an old song. And he, silent, tells them all: "I did my best, I'm sorry." They shake their heads and come in close, soft and full, all around his withered body. They laugh and sit on his bed like sisters and tell stories. They remember and remember and it finally comes to Owen that they have long since received what he never could give and have all in their own ways found recompense.

An hour later, Donna, the second wife, slips in to get the plate and touches Owen's smooth-shaved cheeks. They're cool already, pale as the sheets. She calls her husband, crying, "Come home, dear, it's over." Then she pulls up a chair and sits by Owen's bed to wait. Soon, with no disturbance, memories of her own father fill the silent room and ease her old regrets.