Dinner with Dad April 29, 2016

The prompt this time is called 5 X 5. It’s a list exercise that asks you to create five short lists with five items on each list. The topics for each list are as follows:

1. Five cities you are familiar with (they do not have to be cities you love)
2. Five colors
3. Five people you have loved
4. Five favorite foods
5. Five regrets

After you’ve generated the lists, take one from each list and generate a new list of five. Do this several times (five times would be a good number to aim for!)

Here’s the list I ended up with:       

1. Pop
2. NYC
3. Filet Mignon
4. Silver
5. Not marrying him

What I wrote is below.

_________________________________

We meet at the Monkey Bar, at a table in the back. It’s not the same Monkey Bar that he and Mom sat in on their honeymoon; it’s moved. It has a corporate owner now, and it’s trendy and loud. The bar is packed with the after-five crowd: overpaid Millennials and Generation Xers who are still dressed all in black, still trying to be relevant. The walls are a deep red; thin lights hang by long silver chords over a black bar top, and the hostess stands at the black stick of a podium with an unhappy blonde queen next to her.

“I’m here to meet Dan DeLorenzo,” I say, and he picks up a bronze, leather-bound menu and walks me back to a small, cool dining room, where the noise from the bar becomes muffled.

Pop doesn’t look up when I arrive. He’s halfway through a filet mignon and a half-bottle of Cab; the pink center of the steak is glowing under the soft light of the sconce on the red wall behind him. “You’re thirty minutes late,” he says, taking a bite, chewing slowly. He looks up at the blonde, using his fork to motion toward his wine glass, then toward me. “I’ll bring another glass right away,” he says, and disappears.

“I was pretty hungry,” Pop says, “so I ordered.”

“Okay,” I say, opening the menu. “Sorry I’m late. I decided to walk. It’s such a beautiful, warm evening.”

“Yeah, well.” He looks up; his eyes look brown in the dim light, though I know they are blue, like mine. “You could have taken a cab. I don’t have a lot of time.”

I’m thrown off by his demeanor. I’ve never known this man: he’s typical, gruff, unaffectionate. An imposter of sorts. The host returns with my wine glass. “May I have the salmon, please?” I ask. He nods, and takes my menu.

“Still polite as ever,” Pop says, giving me a half smile. “Just like your mother.” It’s a compliment, but he still sounds mad.

“You seem angry,” I say. “Are you?”

“Maybe a little bit. I don’t know.” Now this sounds familiar. The man who didn’t quite know what he was feeling.

“I mean, I haven’t heard from you in months,” I say. “Not even last night, on the Day of the Dead.” He puts down his knife and fork, pours me some wine.

“We’ve been busy,” he says.

“Really? Doing what? Answering prayers?” He laughs.

“Something like that.” It’s the first warm moment between us; there’s my Dad. A crack appears and some light shines through. “I’m disappointed, if you want to know the truth.”

“Now you sound like Mom,” I say. We both laugh.

“I mean, why didn’t you marry that nice guy? All those years he’s loved you—”

“Dad—”

“And the other day at the gym—”

“You were there?”

“Couldn’t you see that he still felt the same way as always?”

“Dad—”

“The guy’s got some money, Tiger. He could take good care of you.”

“He wants a mommy,” I say, taking a sip of the wine. It’s full of tannin. It will be terrible with the fish.

“You want to live alone, is that it? You don’t want to give up your independence?”

“No,” I say, “that’s not it.” I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t want to marry someone just like him. I love the guy, but I don’t want to marry my father. It took eight years to figure that out, but I finally did. I can’t say that out loud, but he looks up, and in that moment I know that he knows. He already knows.

My fish arrives and we eat in silence.

You Beautiful Doll April 22, 2016

The prompts this time were:                               

A beautiful doll

There’s nothing to be afraid of, really

Roses, Roses, Roses

_____________________

The Spunky Shirley doll was flying off the shelves that year. She was the first of her kind: a lifelike toddler that walked, talked, drank from a bottle, peed and even pooped (plastic panties and diapers included). Personally, she creeped me out, but as a Toys R Ya’ll employee in charge of the doll section, I had to deal with her.

Dealing with her meant stacking the pale green and pink boxes of her five high, scanning the new boxes that came in weekly on huge pallets, and separating the variations of the spunky one: Asian, African-American, Native American, and Caucasian. You think those guys at Mattel would have at least given them different names, but no: four faces, all named Shirley.

“How do you look at those faces all day?” my co-worker, Rose, asked me. Rose was a pretty Millennial who looked like Snow White with a pierced nose. Management made her take the steel hoop out before every shift, so she had a big red hole in her nostril.

“You get used to it,” I said, tidying up the Cabbage Patch dolls; they were always slumping over in their boxes.

“They remind me of that episode on The Twilight Zone,” she said, looking up at the Malibu Ken and Barbie 2-for-1. “You know, the one where the doll talks?”

“How do you even know about that show?” I asked. “Way before your time.”

“My parents own the boxed set. Anyway,” she went on, waving her hand in the air as if to push my last question away—her nails were short and painted black—”this doll starts threatening the family, saying shit like, ‘You better be nice to me, or else.'”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then she trips the dad and he falls down the stairs and breaks his neck.”

“Nice story, Rose. Well, Spunky Shirley would never do that to me,” I said. “And the Cabbage Patch kids over there? Spineless. Literally.” Rose didn’t laugh.

“She fucking creeps me out,” Rose said, staring at Native American Shirley with a muted rage. Then she gave the box a little kick.

“Hey!” I said. “Knock it off. That’s a $100 doll. Get back to work.”

“Ooooh,” she said, mocking me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your little baby doll. You probably liked Chucky, the murdering red-headed doll, too, didn’t you?”

“Get the fuck outta here,” I said, laughing.

“Whatever, doll lover.”

“Get back to work, Rose.”

“When no one’s around you probably fondle them and—”

“God damn it!” We both cracked up. “Go, you asshole!”

After Rose left, I sort of felt bad for Shirley. Just like Madonna, people either loved or hated her. No one was indifferent. I picked up African-American Shirley—really just an Anglo face with brown skin—and looked deep into her glassy eyes. She walked and talked and peed and pooped; next year she would probably spit up a little, but it wasn’t her fault if she was creepy and annoying. She was designed that way. Still, if you want to know the truth, I never liked being alone with those dolls on slow nights. Her battery was built in, so she would blink occasionally. I know it just meant that her battery was working, but it never ceased to startle me.

Everybody Loves Raymond (Except Me) February 19, 2016

The prompt this time was the five-word free write. For a description of this prompt, click here.

The five words, and what I wrote in response, are below.

Honeybees   

Mushrooms

Magenta

Thunder

Crashing

_____________

As if having my Dad in rehab wasn’t bad enough, Steven’s cousin, Raymond, decided to show up on that rainy day, asking to crash on the couch.

“Steven’s in Vancouver on business,” I told him, knowing it wouldn’t deter him. He was calling from a pay phone at the train station. I didn’t even know pay phones existed anymore, but Raymond didn’t believe in cell phones.

“That shit gives you cancer,” he used to say so eloquently.

“Steven will be back on Monday,” I said, hopefully, but Raymond wasn’t deterred.

“Well, I’ll be heading to LA on Sunday night. I can just crash with you for a couple of days, can’t I?”

“LA?” I aked. “I thought you were living in Vietnam now.”

“I am. My flight back there leaves from LA.”

I had grown used to Raymond living across the ocean in another country. I liked having him far away. The farther the better. Mongolia would have been nice, or the South Pole.

I didn’t want to be alone in the apartment with him. I didn’t trust him (or myself) after what happened the last time. But he was the closest thing Steven had to a brother—they even looked alike—and Steven had always been loving and loyal to Raymond. In other words, I didn’t really have a choice.

“You still have keys?” I asked. I figured I could conveniently be out for the night when he arrived.

“Jimmy,” he said—he was the only one who called me that, other than Steven—”I don’t know where the hell those went.”

When he arrived, I was baking a spelt and sesame loaf. Everyone knows that means I was anxious. I always bake bread when I’m anxious. It calms me down.

“God, that smells great!” he exclaimed, dropping his duffel near the door and grabbing me. Raymond is about seven inches taller than I am; he’s burly and furry, a bit like the lumberjack on the Brawny paper towel packages. He looks like the straighter version of a Tom of Finland drawing, though Raymond would be the first to tell you that his sexuality is “fluid,” something he feels proud of.

“You look great, man,” he said, holding me out in front of him and looking so deeply into my eyes I blushed and had to look away. “Been doing a lot of yoga?”

“Yeah, and also running a bit.”

“Right on.”

Cally, our seven-year-old Calico, came running right up to him, rubbing on his legs and purring loudly. She hates everyone, but she can never get enough of Raymond.

“Hey, baby,” he said, leaning down to pet her. I could see the curve of his deltoids through his shirt and I felt myself rush with arousal. “Are you going to sleep with me tonight?” He was talking to Cally, but I knew the invitation was open to me as well.

It was going to be a very long weekend.

 

Nonna* January 29, 2016

The prompt this time was two lines from David Ray’s poem, “At Emily’s in Amherst“:

Outside, standing between Cypresses

I imagine her 

What I wrote in response is below.

__________________________________

The angel, Gabriel, came to her in a dream, she said. He told her to get her affairs in order: she only had two weeks to live. So she gathered her grown children from as far away as Chicago and Los Angeles, and brought them to their childhood home on Mt. Washington.

“Are you pregnant?” she asked my mother, who was only six weeks late.

“I think I am,” Mom said.

“Yes,” my grandmother said. “And it’s going to be a boy.”

She was right.

We never met. That kidney-shaped fetus was me, and she did, in fact, die two weeks after having that dream.

Here’s what I know: she was a healer. Women would bring their colicky babies to her and she would lick her thumb and make the sign of the cross on their foreheads. “Don’t wash it off,” she’d say, and send them home to sleep.

She baked her own bread and grew her own tomatoes. Made lasagna from a simple recipe handed down to Mom, to Pop, and then to me. Everyone always asks for the recipe.

She never learned to speak English. When my father was a little boy, she used to make him translate for her at the open markets in Pittsburgh, haggling over prices in two languages.

She gave birth to eight children. The oldest, Nicholas, died of pneumonia after crossing the Atlantic with her alone in 1903. They were processed at Ellis Island. Her name is not on the wall there, but she exists in the ship’s manifest in curly script. Nucito was her maiden name.

When I visited her hometown in Basilicata—a hilltop town called Corleto Peticara—I stood in front of the altar in the exact spot where she married my grandfather in the tiny church built in the 15th century.

Life was hard for them. They picked olives and grapes, they tended sheep and cows. To her young, strong body and mind, America seemed like a magical place where life would be clean and new and modern.

Here’s what happened: they lived in poverty, in an Italian, Irish, Jewish ghetto. Her husband had an affair with the homely widow up the street who had a witch’s hook nose and always wore black. My grandmother grew older and had a stern, handsome face, but my sister said she was kind and quiet and always smelled good. She always wore an apron. My mother only spoke a little Italian, but they still managed to have long conversations, and they often held hands.

Sometimes, I still see her in the old country, her hair in a long, dark braid. I imagine her standing between two Cypress trees. I want to tell her not to marry him, to stay in Italy, but I know she won’t listen to me. She wants to come to America. She wants me to have a better life than she had.

_____________________

*Italian for Grandmother

 

 

Role Playing November 13, 2015

The prompts this time were inspired by a recent obsession with Dynasty, that high-camp show from the 1980’s. A friend and I worked our way through all nine seasons on DVD. I wrote down many of the one-liners that Joan Collins had every episode. The few that follow were the prompts one evening. What I wrote is below.

If you’re quite through with your pop psychology lesson for today, I am late for a meeting

Well, the only word for it is passe

Listen, we all know you for the gold digging slut that you are.

I’m terribly sorry, but you’re not going to make love to me tonight.

________________________________

Let’s not quibble, Dear,” I said earnestly, and Jason shot me a dirty look.

“Stop talking like that.”

“Like what?” I said, rearranging the scarf on my neck so it covered my wrinkles and the brooch faced forward.

“Like you’re Joan Collins, that’s what,” he said, then motioned for our waiter to bring two more mimosas. He used the international hand signal: two fingers pointed at his empty glass, then two fingers up.

“Slow down, Darling,” I said. “It’s only 11:30.”

“You’re driving me to drink,” he said, only half-kidding.

I was sipping mine self-consciously. The lip gloss that little tart at Sephora sold me was tacky, and I knew it would only stick if I dabbed it with a paper napkin. Jason was looking away.

“What are you staring at?” I asked. “Or should I say whom? The busboy?”

“Stop it,” he said.

“Well, why are you looking away? Look me in the eye, dammit!” He rolled his eyes.

“You’ve gone too far this time, Cookie. You really have.”

“Have I?”

“Yes. Method acting is one thing, cross-dressing offstage is clearly going beyond the beyond.”

“Is it really?”

“Aww, Christ! Will you stop talking like that?”

The waiter brought our second round. The glasses were thick and sturdy, catering types, but I did so enjoy the bubbling orange of a mimosa at Sunday brunch. I took a big swig and emptied mine in one gulp.

“Thank you, dear.”

“You’re welcome, Ma’am,” he said. Jason audibly groaned. It seemed I was passing.

It was one of those glorious late summer days in San Francisco: seventy degrees with big, fluffy fog clouds hugging the perimeter of a pale blue, otherwise cloudless sky. We were trying out brunch at an old hangout that used to only be open for dinner; sitting under an awning without a heat lamp in my strappy sandals (size 10 1/2) felt wonderful.

“This is because I asked you to wax your chest, isn’t it?” Jason said.

“What?” I was sincerely incredulous.

“You’ve always criticized me for emasculating you.”

“That’s absurd.”

“And now you’re punishing me with this, this act.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really don’t.” I laughed then; I did my best Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter laugh. “Ah ha ha ha ha, Darling. Don’t be daft.”

“And you can drop that fake English accent, Cookie,” he said, knocking back the last of his drink. “We both know you’re from Ohio.”

“But Mummy insisted on British boarding schools,” I reminded him. “I guess the accent just stuck.” I batted my false eyelashes at him.

“Oh, God,” he said, smacking his hand against his forehead. “Do I really have to endure this for the entire run of the show? Eight weeks?”

“Nine,” I corrected him.

“Coookieee,” he moaned.

“Yes, Darling?” I adjusted my bra. Could I ever get used to wearing these contraptions?

“I want my husband back.”

“I know you do, Sweetheart, but—Oh, look! My Eggs Benedict!”

Below the table, two little sparrows were hopping about and peeping for dropped crumbs. They sounded like they were in an argument. I wondered if they were a couple.

 

Working From Home October 16, 2015

This time the prompt was “nonsensical sentences.” Writing participants generate a series of bizarre sentences and read them out loud. The writing we do afterwards is often strange and funny. For a description of this prompt, click here.  

What I wrote is below.

___________________

“No, as a matter of fact, I do not want to go on a free Caribbean Cruise. So take me off your calling list: now!” I screamed the last few words, emphasizing “off” as if I was scolding a naughty chihuahua. Goddamn telephone solicitors. I thought that shit ended in the 1980s. A Disney Cruise? Please. You and the Little Mermaid can go fuck yourselves.

I promptly got back to the project at hand: cleaning out the fridge. Something had gone rotten in there, and I was going crazy trying to figure out what it was.

My place was a disaster. That’s what you get for taking two weeks off to visit Machu Picchu and turning your apartment into an Airbnb. The Scandinavian hippy family of six I had rented it to was making kombucha in the bathtub while I was high on coca leaves, thousands of feet above sea level. I came home to find a dark ring around my hot pink claw foot tub and aphids in the Fig Newtons.

God only knows what they sprouted in my fridge. Whatever it was—the cellulose mother for red wine vinegar, goat yogurt fungal creme, or rose and earthworm kimchi—that crap stunk.

“I’m calling in sick today,” I told my boss. “I’ve got an emergency here at home.”

“Donny,” he said, in that exasperated tone of his that always exasperates me, “we have an event today for 2,000 people and you are to be one of the roast beast carvers. We’ve already pre-charged your favorite electric carving knife.”

“I can’t leave the apartment,” I said, pulling open the crisper drawer for the fourteenth time: nothing.

“You’ve been gone two weeks already,” he whined. “We need you here!”

“Call someone else,” I said. “Call Paris Hilton or Perez Hilton. Call Janet Leigh. I’ve got to get back to work.” And I hung up.

I had already had quite a morning. The mirror in my bathroom seemed offended by my Peruvian farmer’s tan, the comb and the hairbrush were picking on my faux pompadour, and the blowdrier gave a creaky call and then petered out in what amounted to an electrical vocal fry. I skipped the concealer after my face lotion complained of saggy neck syndrome, saying, “I am not responsible for anti-aging in any way. I am not a miracle worker.”

“Then why are you called Hope in a Jar?“ I asked, as I slapped the lid back on. “And fuck you, too,” I added. Asshole.

Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling good about my sun-damaged skin, so I went to pour my first cup of coffee, hoping it would elevate my mood, and when I opened the fridge: BAM! Holy Mother of Baby Jesus, that smell!

I nearly retched, the way I did when the train climbed away from Cuzco and my tiny guide handed me my first coca leaf, winking at me with his one good eye. The nausea was worth it there, of course, on top of the world at the ancient temple. But here, in my own kitchen? Had it been worth the lousy $650 I earned to have to deal with this mess? This rotten radicchio, this curdling cabbage stew, this moldy milk? I think not.

 

 

 

An Old Love Story September 11, 2015

     

The prompts this time were:      

We were only children

Old Love/New Love

Letters in the mailbox

What I wrote is below.

_____________

We were only children, really. Twenty-five and still coming out to parents and friends. I thought you were straight for two months. Your handsome face behind the glass counter, your strong and gentle hands moving the croissants with a paper sheet. I watched your bicep flex as you scooped the chicken salad, or when you brought the pitcher up to the arm of the steamer, that big, beautiful espresso machine and your lovely, full-lipped smile.

We rode our bikes home through the warm summer evening, stopping once for a beer, and I thought, “Here I go again, falling for a straight guy.” I did that a lot back then, so when you told me you found me attractive, I nearly choked.

“Are you experimenting”? I asked. “Because I don’t like being a practice run.”

“No,” you said, “I’m gay. I’m interested in you. Don’t you get it?”

What followed was one of the great, short-lived love affairs of my young life. Your smooth, hairless chest and soft kisses, the deliciousness of working together like friends and leaving together like lovers. Candlelight nights and lazy mornings. The time we couldn’t find any lube; I suggested olive oil, but grabbed the sesame oil by mistake. The next day you said, “I will always think of you when I eat sesame noodles now.”

When I returned to school, your letters began to arrive, waiting for me behind the tiny metal door of my P.O. box. I felt like a Jane Austen character, especially the day I climbed up into the old elm and read your profession of love. “I know what you’re thinking,” you wrote. “That I shouldn’t profess love in a letter, that we haven’t known each other long enough, but I don’t care: the truth is I love you. I love you. I do.”

No one had ever written me a love letter before.

Where are you, I wonder? And who are you now? Are you bald and unhappy? Are you a faithful partner? Do you think of me sometimes? But most important of all, are you being loved? That’s what I really want to know. Are you being loved? Is somebody loving you?

Familiar Voices September 4, 2015

The prompts this time were:    

Remember to breathe

I’d recognize him anywhere

Love is deaf and blind

What I wrote is below.

___________________________

It’s the only time I’ve been late, and I’m rushing up the stairs, the voices battling in my head. It’s okay. You’re late. It happens to everyone. You’re tired and stressed. You’re going to sing like shit tonight. Hurry up. Slow down. Breathe. If nothing else, breathe.

Just as I reach the restroom, out comes Nikil, our teacher. “Hello!” he says, the deep resonant voice, the white smile.

“Hi,” I say, and finally exhale. I’ve been holding my breath.

“See you in there,” he says, and I think: Musicians are always late. Why am I freaking out?

Inside the tiny classroom, Nikil sits in front of the five of us; his wavy black hair and large eyes remind me of Ganesh, the Hindu god. “How is everyone doing tonight?” he asks, and I notice his milk chocolate skin peeking through a tear in his jeans. When he places his elegant hands on his belly and says, “Okay, let’s start with a few nice deep breaths,” some part of me wants to weep with relief. Just breathe. That’s all you have to do. “And two more,” he continues, “this time engaging in your core, like you’re blowing out candles on a cake.”

The day had gotten away from me, the alarm going off at 7:00 a.m., my lunch hurriedly packed and unappetizing, two crowded classrooms filled with 40 new faces. One of my students is blind. When she took my arm and I walked her to the shuttle stop, she confided in me that she hadn’t always been blind, that she lost her sight just a few years ago, and that because she was a trained singer, she had a well-trained ear.

“It’s a blessing in a strange way,” she told me. “Being free from the way we judge one another by how we look. I have an image of you in my mind,” she said. “Because of your voice.” My voice.

Now Nikil is playing scales on the piano, higher and higher. “Nice relaxed jaw,” he reminds us, “tongue flat in your mouth. Open your throat.” Marianna is sitting on my left. Last week I sounded terrible without her. Karen on my right sings easily, soulfully, but Marianna and I sound like children together. “Don’t strain,” Nikil reminds us, his long fingers climbing higher on the piano keys. “Pull the note back away from the sinus. Relax the root of the tongue.”

Marianna and I are in perfect pitch, but we’re approaching the top of my range and in two more octaves, she’ll climb beyond me, and I’ll have to move back down in order to climb back up.

I’m surprised how good I sound, though. Much better than I expected. The clock on the wall reads 6:45—only 30 minutes left—and I think, Breathe in; sing out. Don’t focus on anything but this: the position of your ribs over your diaphragm, the jaw loose. There is no bad news here. No appointments to make. No bills to pay. Just this. Only this. My voice, my lungs. My lungs, my voice.

A Witch After All April 11, 2015

The prompts this time came from the SF Noir Film Festival catalog, and included photos and descriptions of the films. 

Two of the photos are posted here. They inspired the writing below.
____________________________

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” one of the little brats asked me on the set. These child extras really get on my nerves. And you’d think after nearly ten years The Wizard of Oz would be obsolete, but every single time I tell someone about my role in this new film, they either look at me dumbfounded or ask whether I’m Glinda or that foul, green-faced witch. “For Pete’s sake,” I tell them, “don’t be so simple. Think outside the box, will ya?”

“I’m a glamorous witch,” I sometimes say. False eyelashes that look real, and a lacy black gown with a built-in corset. Red lips. Even in black and white you can tell I’ve got red lips. And it’s my first big movie role, but I can’t tell you the title yet; we’re still in production, honey, and I signed a contract. My lips are sealed.

I’m nearly 27, getting old, and I finally got out of getting typecast as the sidekick or the sassy sister. I got myself a real juicy role this time. But this is Hollywood. Everybody thinks they’ve got a chance to make it big, and everybody wants to know what you’ve got swinging. They can say, “Well, let me tell you about the project I’m working on,” or “Let me introduce you to so-and-so.” It’s quite a racket.

I made the mistake of telling some fella at the local watering hole about my new role. The girls left together in a cab. “I’ll walk,” I told them. It’s only about three blocks, and it was one of those warm April nights when everything was in bloom. You could even smell the flowering trees above the exhaust. Anyway, he was a good-looking guy—Honey, they’re all actors and bartenders; they’re paid to be good-looking.

“You’re a real doll,” he said.

“Aww, shucks,” I replied, “you’re a real sweet talker.”

“Naw, I mean it. You got beautiful hair,” and he reached out to touch it.

“Careful, Sweetie,” I said. “If you mess it up, I’ll have to hot-roller it all over again.”

We got to talking. He seemed harmless enough. And I had had two whiskey sours by then, so I spilled the beans about my glamorous role.

“A beautiful witch, eh?” he said. He seemed genuinely intrigued.

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

“I dunno.”

“What? You a man of the cloth or something?”

“I’m a Christian,” he said, then he put his hand on my knee and kept it there. “So,” he started, “are you a good witch or—”

I don’t know what got into me. I just picked up what was left of my drink and threw it in his face.

“Hey!” He hopped off his barstool like a drenched little rabbit. “What’s the big idea?”

“What’s the problem here?” the bartender asked.

“This man doesn’t know how to treat a lady,” I said. “He’s got Russian hands and Roman fingers.”

The bartender took one look at my admirer and simply said, “Beat it, Mack.”

“Wait a minute—”

“I said hit the pavement, or do you want me to have the bouncer throw ya out on your tail?”

“Lady,” my admirer said, “you really are a witch.” And he took his hat and left.

I savored a Lucky Strike and then asked for the tab.

“It’s on me tonight,” the bartender said. “And if you want, I can call you a cab.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, leaving him fifty cents. “I live close by.”

“Okay, then. Goodnight.”

On the way out, the bouncer, a big, doughy Irishman, held the door for me. “I looked around,” he said. “That guy who was bothering you ain’t nowhere in sight.” I decided to nod as a gesture of thanks, like a queen. Royalty.

Outside, a warm breeze blew my hair off my face, caressed me. I laughed with pleasure. If I had a broom, I would have swept right up into the sky. But I’m not that kind of witch. Not at all.

Goodbye, Old Friend August 15, 2014

For this prompt, I handed out the list below. It’s a list of commonly used old sayings; you may be familiar with many of them. I deliberately left a gap between clauses and asked everyone to mix and match the halves so we came up with new phrases. Some of the sayings we ended up with were hilarious, some of them were thought-provoking, and quite a few were poignant. “Don’t believe in moderation,” was one. Another one was, “When life’s path is steep, an old broom knows the corners.” I ended up being drawn to, “One day, you can’t make him drink.” What I wrote surprised me.

The list and my own writing are below.   

______________________

The list of old sayings:

A bird in the hand is                                worth two in the bush.

A penny saved is                                       a penny earned.      

A stitch in time                                          saves nine.      

Better late than                                         never.      

Don’t believe                                              everything you hear.

Early to bed and early to rise,              makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

 

Never spend your money                          before you have it.

One day                                                         at a time.      

Save for                                                         a rainy day.      

Seek advice but                                            use your own common sense .

Seize                                                                 the day.

The best cure for a short temper is           a long walk.      

When life’s path is steep,                             keep your mind even.

A new broom sweeps clean but                 an old broom knows the corners.      

Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if        it kept its mouth shut.      

Everything                                                      in moderation

 

Give a man a fish and                                   you feed him for a day;

Teach a man to fish and                               he’ll eat forever

 

Health is better than                                   wealth

Life is a journey,                                          not a destination.      

Life is                                                              what you make it.

Money buys everything                              but good sense.     

Out of sight,                                                  out of mind

 

Plan your life like                                       you will live forever    

and live your life like                                 you will die the next day

 

The more things change,                            the more they stay the same

The truly rich are those who                      enjoy what they have.      

What’s good for the goose is                      good for the gander.      

You can lead a horse to water but            you can’t make him drink.      

You have to take the bitter with                the sweet

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One day, you can’t make him drink, though you bring the bowl to him, and scoop the water up in little handfuls, bringing it to his mouth. That’s when you know it’s over; the life you’ve shared together is about to end.

So you pull out the Mexican blanket and cover him—he’s shivering more than usual—and you take the cushions from the couch and place them on the floor next to his bed. You lie down, and you wait.

He sleeps. His breathing is slow, but steady, and occasionally he wheezes. But soon you are both in a deep sleep, dreaming your own dreams. His dreams have always been unknown to you. Is he chasing that grey squirrel up the fruitless mulberry again? Is he marching down the beach with his mini-frisbee?

At 11:30, you awaken and place your hand on his belly—still warm—and surprise yourself with the joy you feel knowing that he is still alive, though you know he will not move from this bed ever again and you will never again feel his cold nose pressed up against your face.

You relieve your bladder in the bathroom, where a candle burns near the mirror. You scrutinize your reflection. Crows feet run deep from the corners of your eyes. Your neck is baggy and red. When did you grow old?

In the kitchen, there’s an open bottle of red wine on the counter. You pour yourself a glass and sit down on the couch cushions again, stroking his head, saying, “It’s okay, Buddy. You can go if you need to. It’s okay.” But you don’t really mean it, and he probably knows you’re lying, the way he knew on those lonely nights when you drank too much and cried watching stupid movies like When Harry Met Sally, even though you knew it had a happy ending. Or Summertime, when you knew it ended sadly. You were past forty and still single and feeling very sorry for yourself.

He’d crawl into your lap, his wiggly half-Chihuahua body shaking more than usual. “It’s okay, Buddy,” you’d lie, and he’d place his front paws on your chest and lick your chin, knowing you were going to that place again.

Those who work with the dying say they will wait for you to leave the room if they don’t want you to see them die, and though you can’t imagine any creature wanting to die alone, you stand up and walk back to the kitchen, wondering what he wants right now, wishing he could show you.

You remember him the first day you brought him home, how he was just a butterscotch drop with bat ears and two brown marbles for eyes. How you sat on the floor in the shelter and he crawled into your lap. How he chose you.