Let's Pretend - Helen Rowntree

The Job - Michael James

When people ask me about my job I try to explain that I don’t think of it as job, ‘cause that’s what you do to pay the bills. What I do is more  in the way of a vocation, something I do because I like doing it, and because I think it’s something our society is in need of. I mean, I have met very few who could handle what I do, who face what I have to face day in and day out. Most would fold within a few weeks of starting; as a matter of fact, most do just that: throw in the towel after a month or so, often not even collecting their pay checks. It takes a certain kind of person to keep the edge needed to be effective in my line of work. You can’t go soft or sentimental and still do a day’s good work.

I guess I should thank my mother for the skills and fortitude I have. Like, she didn’t even want a kid, let alone a girl to begin with, being single and no prospect of a husband. So when I came along, she wasn’t entranced, you might say; she wasted no time going gaga over a baby. And as soon as I could understand her lingo, it was chores for me after school and all evening. She earned her living making candles for boutiques so I could be employed in any weather and at any time, day or night. And it was night mostly, ‘cause I had to go to school in the day when she needed the apartment for herself and whichever partner she was entertaining at the moment. So when I returned, it was first the belt to straighten me out, then the work bench.

Of course I grew up hating my mom, vowing I’d do something tricky with her as soon as I was strong enough. I can’t remember how old I was the first and only time I laid into her, but I sure can remember the incident vividly. She had come at me with the belt, as usual, though that time it was going to be special since I was late coming home from school. But I had picked up a nasty, jagged stick on the way home, and held it behind my back. When she let me have it, I lashed her about the legs with the stick until she cried,”Uncle.” She was bleeding and crying and yelling all at the same time, telling me to “Get out and never come back!”

I took my time while she mopped up the blood on her legs, putting a few things in my back-pack, making sure I was provided for that night, which I expected to pass on the golf course nearby. Then I banged out of the apartment. Of course, people came looking for me but they didn’t find me.

The next day I went to school as if nothing had happened, and indeed, nothing out of the ordinary did transpire until near the closing bell when a kid came into the classroom with a note for the teacher telling me to go to the principle’s office at once.

Instead of doing that, I walked jauntily out of the main gate, anticipating freedom, and smack into the arms of a waiting staff member who accompanied me to the place I was supposed to visit. There I was told that the school didn’t tolerate such behavior and that I was forthwith expelled. I would probably be visited in the Hall by the officer in charge of young offenders the next day, who would send me to juvenile court where a public defender would represent me. I would have a hearing before a judge and receive a sentence. Meanwhile, I could cool my heels in the tank for other juvenile offenders awaiting trial, six miles from city hall, since my mother had signed a complaint against me. And waiting to make sure I arrived there in a timely fashion, there appeared the local truant officer, grinning widely, who spun me around and zip-tied my hands behind my back.
 

“Someone’s gonna pay for this,” I growled in a low voice.

“Yeah,” she answered. “You, honey! Now git!” And she shoved me forward and out to the waiting squad car.

When I entered the Hall I was led to a huge woman I learned later the girls all called “Butch” out of her hearing. It meant nothing to me. “Reception” was a windowless room off the entrance to the concrete building. It had a steel door, unlocked by a key attached to a chain on Butch’s belt.  She pushed me through the doorway. From that wide band of black leather hung other cop paraphernalia, what looked like a taser, spray, and bracelets.    

Butch sat facing me on the only chair and told me the procedure. She would undo the zip tie; I would strip; she would check me for weapons, drugs, and anything dangerous to myself or others. She would confiscate any of those; I would dress in the grey sweat clothes of the Hall; she  would zip me up again, and we would go to the processing center. Had I any questions? I hadn’t. I was learning fast. She would, of course, not tolerate disobedience or violence.

She was very thorough, leaving no stone unturned, so to speak. I was to find out later how much fun such searches can become.

My introduction to our system of criminal justice left me sure of one thing: I wanted to be on the other side. I would become a model juvenile prisoner so that when my file was sealed on my eighteenth birthday, I could work towards becoming the model law enforcement officer.

Sentencing was not lenient due to my mother’s vivid description of my “unwarranted attack.” Nothing was said about her beating me with a belt, and my so-called defense lawyer didn’t raise the issue. Make it clean, he said, and you’ll get the minimum for a first-time offender. I did. I would have to finish high school incarcerated. Fine, I thought, the better to learn the ropes. So I cozied up to each of the officers in turn questioning them to determine which hoops they had had to jump through to get a badge. They could do it, then I could, I thought.

Well, long story short, I jumped through the hoops, earned my stripes, and ended up here, at this detention center for foreign female fugitives and tentative terrorists, my function being the collection of intelligence through interrogation. My bosses say I’m good at my job; I get great written reports and have had no complaints from any of the legalistic sissies who hang around  the political arm of the center.

One feature I like about the work is its variety. Not only are the prisoners different from each other in character, courage, and content; they are sometimes so devious as to fool even my female co-workers. The male interrogators they fool all the time. In fact, I have been called upon several times in the last two years to question male prisoners who were particularly intransigent. But I prefer the women partly because I know from experience what it feels like when I work on them in the wrecking room. I am able to create a crescendo of pain and emotion, hold them there, then cut the ground from under them to drop them into despair. It’s at that point they usually give me everything they’ve got, when they have no more hope of continuing as they were. The only thing they want then is cessation of pain. 

The correct application of pain has been the study of certain groups since the Dominicans developed the tools used by the Inquisition. And of course people like Goebels and his team left us detailed, scientific instructions for carrying the study to the next level in documents captured by the Allies after the collapse of the Third Reich, documents which have never been declassified and to which only students of advanced methods of interrogation have had access. Which is just as well, of course, since in their weaker, revengeful moments, some might employ such methods on those who had dealt unkindly with them when they were young and defenseless.

This brings me to my mother.

A vacation is coming my way soon and Mother has invited me to join her for a week in a house on the beach on James Island, in the San Juans. The currents around the island are fierce; six knots is small talk at maximum ebb. I’m still working on the details of  my plans for Mother, but already they’re shaping up to be the greatest tribute to my trade since Torquemada.  

Memorium - Maureen

When I last visited my daughter in Minnesota, she planned a day for us to go out to lunch. After ordering for us at her favorite Indian restaurant, she pointedly got out her note-making equipment - a graph-paper tablet and favorite pen and began.  

. 

In a most cheerful voice she said: We are here today to plan your memorial service. 

I asked what had inspired this. She said since her father and I had called her recently about doing Advanced Directives, she thought she should get the service planned, as well.

I said, “Suppose I don’t want a Memorial Service”. She said, “You don’t have a choice. A memorial service is for those left behind and if my sister and I and the rest of the family want a memorial service, I, at least, would like it to be something you'd like.”

Fair enough, I thought.

“So,” I said, “what’s on your list?”

“Well, I know you want to be cremated,” she said, “Where do you want your ashes scattered?”

“Oh,” I said,” Christmas Lake, I suppose,” the place in Minnesota where I had lived for 30 years.

“Any place else?”

“What do you mean?”  I asked.

“Well, you can split them up and have them in several places.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Wouldn’t you like some in San Francisco?” she asked.

“Okay,” I said… “Maybe off the Golden Gate Bridge.”  Now I was getting  interested.

“And some in Philadelphia where I was born and maybe in Ocean City where I went every year as a child”, I added.

I began to wonder if there would be enough to go around. She assured me there would.

“Next,” she said, “what about the service?”

“Well,” I said, “I guess I’d like some favorite readings and only a couple of pictures. You know how I hate to have my picture taken.” 

No artifacts that I could think of. She said she’d take care of that.

Then, continuing on her pad: She asked about music.

She said growing up she only remember the Bee Gees and ABBA being played around the house. She wanted to know if my music tastes had changed over the years and perhaps included something more appropriate to the occasion. I mentioned that I had moved on to Dave Matthews, Coldplay and The Dixie Chicks. Peter, Paul and Mary and Paul Simon had always been favorites.

She said she thought she could cobble something together since my music interests were obviously not going to be critical to the occasion.

“What else is on the list?” I now asked, becoming more intrigued.

“How about food?” she said. 

“Oh, “I said, “how about a basket of those little Milky Ways – the ones they give out at Halloween. They have always been my favorite.”

All right she said they could be dessert, but what about the meal?

She’s the cooker, so I said, “How about your delicious meatloaf?”(Every time she visits, she makes 4 or 5 meat loaves to freeze). 

“Okay,” she said, “and mashed or scalloped potatoes?”

 “Or maybe a pasta dish”, I suggested. I was getting into this.

When she started on the vegetables, I said: “You choose the sides, depending on what’s in season.”

Okay. That was accomplished.

“So, “I said, “what else?”

“I think that’s all,” she replied.

But, I asked, “what about the eulogy…what will you say? 

You know the part where the children get up and say things like: my mother meant everything to me; I would not be the person I am today without her; Or without her guidance and love I could never have succeeded; or she was the kindest and most loving parent and I learned everything I needed to know about life from her”.

We were both laughing and then she got quiet and said: “No, I guess I’d just say you were brave.”

“Brave?” I repeated. 

“Yes,” she said.

“In what way?” I asked

“Oh,” she said, “you know - you’re not afraid to travel alone to New York and Paris and places.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s true, but anything else?  Brave about anything else?”

“No,” she said. “That’s it. Just brave.”

So, Brave I will be, right ‘til the end.

Besame - Michael James

We touched; it was not meant.

But bodies know no accident 

In which the touch leaves burns upon the skin

And heart unwinds itself in fearful din.

Was what she sensed just like an urge 

From earth’s force field in one fine surge

That flowed from me to her,

From her to me, 

Like magnets drawn together?

And when we did touch tenderly,

All of earth’s passionate embrace of life and love

Flowed through us: we glowed, we sparked, we blew the fuse

Of circuits slotted into slumbering systems.

The world, our world then, was new, was vibrant with meaningful accord;

Then we could count and what we found was one.

Lying near you let me touch your resting body,

The you, once filled with flame-lashed cells and psyche one with me,

Gone to haven safe from folded flesh and sagging knee.

Where are you now? How do I touch you when pain keeps you far

And my hand hesitates to reach out where once it held most dear

All it could grasp between its anxious fingers?

Where are we, now, I cry, the ones who still remember?

Love to answer softly soon replies:

“You are one. To reach her, feel inside. 

Feel into your heart; there she lies awaiting your caress.

Elvis– John Field–Dave Lewis

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

August 16th, 1977. Big sky country.                                          

Heading west on Interstate 80. Halfway through my life.          

Ahead of me clouds dyed red by the setting sun.                       

Then orange, pink, yellow, green and finally gray. 

Perhaps an omen. Way off in the distance the Rockies 

And not much else around except a whole lot of breathing room.

Behind me the amnesia of all those sad little towns 

I’d just passed through. Outside of Rawlins 

I switched on the radio and had its static in my ears

When a disc jockey announced that Elvis was dead.

Discovered unresponsive on his bathroom floor

And died an hour later. They’ll take his body away,

I figured, and open it up because this had to be an inside job. 

Then the DJ played “Heartbreak Hotel” and that was that 

Until dusk came down like a tent collapsing 

After the last show is over and the circus moves on 

To the next Podunk town with lots of sawdust but not much glitter.

For a while I wondered what “Love Me Tender”

Would sound like in the underworld just below this one

Or wherever he’d gone. Then I remembered 

A couple of songs he sang on The Ed Sullivan Show

The night death touched his music so little

That all of us college kids knew he’d live forever.

That was years before he turned his body 

Into a nail and started pounding it into the ground

With pills instead of a hammer

Stumbling and mumbling around on the stage 

Like a bloated Liberace imitator, 

Spending and spending himself for his fans

As if there was no such thing as a reckoning.

After thinking about that for a while I needed company  

And fast because what a fever it was making do 

With a few scraggly shrubs kneeling down in the wind 

And a scattering of Burma Shave signs. Minutes, days,

Maybe an hour later I pulled into the first all-night truck stop I came to, 

Esso, Texaco, can’t remember which 

With lots of semis dozing in a parking lot the size of a football field.

Inside the café under a haze of cigarette smoke

Guys drinking coffee, eating pie and listening to Elvis  

Singing “Jailhouse Rock.” It was nice they let him out of the jukebox 

And good to be sharing a world with kind-hearted folks like that.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Text in BOLD print is one of Elvis' song titles – 48 of 500

Who’s that  at this time of night?

Hard Knocks  too!

Do Not Disturb !

Where Do You Come From ? she asked

Do You Know Who I Am ? he replied;  it’s Johnny B. Goode

Don't Ask Me Why  I am here. 

It’s  Just Because

A Boy Like Me, A  Girl Like You 

Can’t be at the  End of the Road

Help Me Make It Through the Night 

I am  Doin' the Best I Can   on   Such a Night

Can’t  we Talk about the Good  Times ?

Or is it  The Impossible  Dream ?

If you say  You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' ?

Where Do I Go from Here? 

She replied:

Go East Young Man

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 

I thought,  You're the Devil in Disguise 

But  Now and Then  There's A Fool Such as I 

And I was  All Shook Up  and Almost in Love   -  Almost 

With a  Brown Eyed Handsome Man  

But   By and By 

You wanted to be the  Big Boss Man

And all my hopes went  Blowin' in the Wind

I Got Stung ,      Big Love,        Big Heartache 

You left me in the  Early Morning Rain

And  with my Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

You said,  I'm Not the Marrying Kind 

So this is The Last Farewell

It is  Almost Always True  that a  Change of Habit  

Is at the Edge of Reality

Your Cheatin' Heart  will always be  Steppin' Out of Line

Summertime Has Passed and Gone 

Startin' Tonight , Stay Away , It's Over

Slowly But Surely You’ll be soon be  Shoppin' Around  for  Girls! Girls! Girls!  with Golden Coins

Saying,  Love Me Tonight.

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

Renewal - Robyn

On Keeping Your Checkbook

When my oldest daughter returned from college, she was telling me about the new friends she had made. In the midst of the descriptions, she turned to me and said: “You know, Mom, I would never have a friend like you.”

I was a bit taken aback but on recovery I said I realized we weren’t much alike, but on a philosophical note, I pointed out that it was good to have friends from a wide variety of personality types. 

“Oh, no,” she said, “it isn’t just the personality thing; it’s more the way you keep your checkbook.”

“Keep my checkbook” I said, “what do you mean?”

She said: “You know, Mom, how you always write the number and amount of the check on the back cover.  None of my friends keep their checkbooks that way. We always add and subtract every check and keep an accurate balance.”

I said I thought that was a good trait and certainly one I admired, but I admitted I didn’t know how my friends kept their checkbooks and certainly never choose friends based on checkbook-keeping.

But I was intrigued, so I decided to test the theory: What was the relationship between friends and checkbooks?

The next time I played bridge, I asked the folks around the table – good friends, all, – how they kept their check books. I didn’t have to explain, everyone seemed to know what I meant.

One said that when the statement came in from the bank each month, she threw it – unopened - in a box and planned to keep the box for seven years because she heard that was an IRS requirement.

Another said she changed banks every three or four months.  She explained that she couldn’t stand to keep track and the bank eventually cleared things up and gave her a balance, so she could start anew.

And the final player said she kept her check register but admitted she rounded off to the nearest dollar and accepted the statement balance every month.

So, I went back to my daughter and admitted that her methodology was actually quite valid. How you keep your checkbook was a pretty good way to choose friends; however, it probably wouldn’t be the first question I’d ask.