“Wakeup,” said Jerry, to Chick Evens, an echo
bounced in Evens’ head—ear to ear—as if shot through a tunnel...
Sandy,
Evens’ Girlfriend
He had been staring into his cards for
several minutes while the group gossiped, his mind had stepped into a dark
storm of thoughts: he had been beating Larry’s cousin with a beer bottle over
his face, they were over on Indian’s Mount, off Mississippi Street, across the
old wooden bridge (this all
took place several months ago), a gang of
them—a few kids his age the rest a year or two younger, just graduating from
High School—celebrating, not really the Donkeyland Gang, a few kids from Rice
Street, a few from the East Side, all from a variety of different High Schools (Washington, Johnson, Central, etc) and a bonfire was burning high on top of the
mound—the mound being the size of a football field, with an encircling embankment of a hundred feet or
so, with old skeleton foundations of houses that used to be, reaching out of
the soil, dotted all around the mound: and Mike L., had went into the foliage
with Sandy—they had been eyeing each other up throughout the evening, right
into the beginning of twilight until
this moment, both standing on each side of the fire, across from one another
and she followed him—and now several minutes had passed, and she was screaming
rape from a hundred yards away in the foliage as music was blaring from a
battery operated radio, and Evens went to find out what the sound was about, that sounded like either
crying or sighing for help, and here was Mike L., on top of Sandy pinning her
to the ground, he looked like some kind of savage beating the palm of his hand
across her face to submit.
Everyone else, everyone at the campfire,
was disbelieving anything was really happening—taking place, a few said they
couldn’t hear a thing: Evens assuming, that if indeed they heard something as
he was hearing something, she was just enjoying whatever Mike was doing, and
they pretended to not hear—out of sight and out of mind that kind of mannerism:
a spirit of unruliness diffused with those sitting around the bonfire, and to
be frank, they could have cared less.
Evens remembered Sandy
saying, “Please come to the party with me, I really want to go but I fear
without you they’ll take advantage of me.”
How right she was, especially now Evens looking down at the situation,
and Mike saying “What the fuck do you want?” And Evens saying, “She’s telling
you to get off her, you’re raping her, can’t you hear her, she’s protesting,
she’s three inches from your fist!~”
Boldly, Mike said, as if not hearing a
single syllable of what Evens had said, was telling him: “Get serious, fuck
off,” and went back to his robustness in securing his lustful desires while
Sandy continued to try and move, wiggle, push him away, to push him off of
her—while she was crying and protesting—: actually she was in the middle of a
dissent, that is to say: pleading now with Evens to stop him.
Evens now remembered several guys and a
few girls by the campfire—why hadn’t they come to help, to stop Mike from doing
this repulsive thing? Surely they all
could hear this entire ruckus: all acting as if nothing was wrong—even the
girls; matter-of-fact, he even had asked one of the guys: no two or three of
the guys—yes, two or three before he left to investigate: leaving the
campfire—and all the intoxicated, he said while in motion: “You hear anything,
you hear someone crying for help?” No one heard a thing, or would admit hearing
a thing, nor took a moment to go investigate, as if this was staged; perhaps
they had on their minds a gangbang.
But he was raping, trying to rape
Sandy—and that was the bottom line, his Sandy, well it wasn’t his Sandy then,
they had parted ways, but parted well, they were still close friends, in a way,
always to be friends.
The last rebuke was again, fruitless,
and although Evens was more sober than Mike—perchance not all that much, he
didn’t realize he had a beer bottle in his right hand, pulled Mike back by the
hair with his left hand, pulled him off Sandy so she could escape his
clutches—he resisted coldly jerking his hand and shoulder and all his weight
forward, and then Evens hit him a few times with the bottle in the face,
breaking the resistance. Now Mike had a confused puffy face, awakened but
confused, not confused in what he was doing, he knew exactly what he was doing,
but what Evens had done—perhaps he was a little delirious: he no longer had
restraining influence over Sandy, Evens stepped back—saw the beer bottle in his
hand and dropped it onto the ground, and Sandy stood up, completely.
‘Escape’ evidently raced through Sandy’s
head because it didn’t Evens’, matter of fact, he just noticed he had the beer
bottle in his hands, and had just dropped it, but Sandy was thinking: these are
Mike’s friends over yonder over by the fire, more so than Evens’ and they were
now coming to investigate, oh yes, now that Mike was in pain—screaming
pain—perhaps wanting someone to rescue him, like Sandy wanted, forget Sandy, she
was of no consequence to them, but Mike, yes, Mike, it was now a different
story, justice must be done, prevail; funny how everyone heard Mike’s cries and
not Sandy’s.
That night Chick slept badly, in the
morning his mother received a phone call from Mike’s mother, she had said they
were seeking compensation for the hospital bill, if not ready to call the
police for the damages Evens had done to Mike—which they were contemplating; so
she said in so many words: it was a crime what your son did to my son—and
perhaps it was. But surely no less a crime what Mike had done to Sandy
It was a mild sunny morning, and Sandy
“I admire your courage for standing up
and stopping that animal from raping my daughter; I wanted to thank you
personally.”
Diligently, Evens told her what Mike’s
mother had told his mother—what she was intending to do—not sure why she was
holding off on doing it, perhaps she had some good insight—and she said, “I’ll fix that, and if you talk to
her before me, you can tell her I’ll call the police and tell them you were
protecting my daughter who is seventeen years old, from this Mike who was
trying to rape her, and he’ll be spending his days in Stillwater Prison,” Mike
had turned eighteen, it was no longer St. Cloud Reformatory for such a crime,
it was the big house. Now Mike’s mother, and Mike, and Mike’s father had food
for thought, as they say.
“All right, swell!” said Chick feeling some
weight lifted off his shoulders, and not feeling helpless, and as guilty as
Mike’s mother portrayed him, if not redeemed, then told his mother, then made a
phone call to Mike’s mother and all went silent, but the stifling of her hot
breath over the phone.
(It would be twenty-years past, when
Evens would bump into Mike L., again, walking down Rice Street Lexington Avenue
Then Evens’ thoughts shifted to Mike
Gulf, one side of his brain was telling the other side—so it seemed, each
having its own voice, and he himself seemingly having an independent voice
within that strange and hidden environment inside his head: I mean to say, he
appeared to have a voice, somewhere in-between the other two: “Mike Gulf is
full of shit,” said the right side, then the voice of the left side answered:
“Perhaps you’re right, I know he was dating Sid’s sister Diane?” Then Evens tried to figure it out—intervene,
“Yes,” he told the two parts: the Right Brain and Left brain (and as they were about to respond to Evens,
they protested: ‘Why do you call us ‘the Right and Left’ can you not give us
better names like: Mutt and Jeff, or Nick and Pick, or Tom and Jerry, you know
something with a little more dignity than, Right Brain and Left Brain?”)
Said
Evens hesitantly: “She was, still is, Don Quinn’s wife, separated of course,
former wife. She’s rented out the house
across the street from me on Cayuga
Street
“So, it was that Mike was detached from
its consequences, and Don Quinn went to the bar to that musty air saloon, and
found Mike bragging, perhaps saying: ‘I’ll kick his ass when I see him,’ just
like Barb’s boyfriend, said to me, when I went over to the East Side of the
city, to that bar and he was bragging.”
“Sure that’s what it was: big mouth Mike
Gulf,’ both Mutt and Jeff confirmed, simultaneously: the once straggling thoughts were now in
agreement with fact (Jerry
started staring at Evens while in his deep thoughts, then caught the curve of
Betty’s neck, which took his attention off Chick, lit a cigarette, pushed back
his hair, rested his forearms against the edge of the table) …
“…but what about Richard Zacardy and Tom
Fortuna?” said Mutt and Jeff—as if they were both liberated from a gloomy room
and wanting to gossip more, like those friends of Evens’ were doing, had been
doing around the table: they were in essence, today anyhow, companions playing
a dark rainy game of recognizing the faults of others, as if on a rusty
bicycle, riding over pumps, trying to get Evens to link it with Sandy.
“What about it,” said Evens? His mind was like a feeble lantern, trying to
make light inside that dark part of his soul, as if it was night, to appease
the two voices, the twin voices inside his brain—Mutt and Jeff, —consequently
feeling as if he was in a dark muddy garden full of weeds trying to untangle
himself from them, and make sense out of the past—no, it was as if he was
examining porcelain, and had to tread easily on these thoughts lest he break
the vase. Remembering with difficulty why they had joined together over this
issue of current events, and not so current, perhaps they were tired them
selves of the darkness. Who’s to say? I
mean, one usually slept the day away, while the other was pestering, and at
night, well, who’s to say was doing the talking, producing those half sleep
nightmares, and dreams—racing here and there?
“What do I mean, you know what I mean,
you knocked him out with one punch when you were fifteen, and they took Richard
to the hospital, and his mother, no his father called up your mother and was
going to call the police, but he was sixteen and a fight is a fight, over a
stupid bat too, and Tom, he’s just like Richard, and like Mike L., they both
went out and raped girls, no all three wanted to rape girls, and two did, at night and tied them to the bedposts, and
Richard’s father had to mortgage his house to fight it in court, and won the
court case, and Richard was free as a bee, and the idiot went back out and just
visible enough again got caught doing the same thing all over: and then he as well got caught peeking through the
windows up at your karate dojo—in that house next to the karate dojo, and you
had to save his sorry ass, lest the neighbors kill him, or beat the shit out of
him, and what happened next, you
know, he ended up in prison. That is
what I mean.”
‘Oh,’ said Evens, innumerable follies
laid at his mind as he sat there, and the tedious intervening days came to and
fro like bats out of a church’s bell tower. It was all monotonous child’s play,
all this fussing over women, bazaar, when all you had to do is go out and find
one, fifty-two percent of the world’s population were women: so Evens thought,
and surely the right and left, I mean Mutt and Jeff, picked up on the humble
and great murmur of those thoughts, lingered with them, useless thoughts, to
make a lively day a drunken day more interesting, especially today.
“Slow down on the drinking,” said Mutt
to Chick, “Oh yes,” confirmed Jeff, by adding “It makes you more depressed.”
Evens now gazing up into the darkness
anguish and anger at his right and left thinkers—Mutt and Jeff, “Let me drink
in peace,” he said.
He must have said that out loud, because
a few heads turned towards Evens.
“O, what did you say?” asked Jim.
“Didn’t he say something,” said Bill.
“Yes,” said Betty, “but I don’t know
what.”
I could not call my wandering thoughts
together, they and I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life in
the day, and they were between me and my desires—Mutt and Jeff that is, as if
trying to invade the dark part of my soul, they wanted me to stay in the night
mode, which seems to be on one hand more truth finding, but less realism, the
good thing is, you can fly from one corner of the mind to the next, in the
speed of light:
Janet
Ridler, was very charitable, she owned a four acre farm, in North Saint Paul
area side of town, of Minnesota, she was my first babysitter (1948-49), better than that, she took care of me and my brother Mike, five days
out of the week—sometimes seven days out of the week, and twenty other kids,
she owned what was called Kiddy-Corner, a night and day care center, perhaps
the first one in Minnesota, always fighting with the county to allow kids to stay
overnight. I was there for four years straight, as was my brother from the age
of eighteen months old, to five and half years old, something like that. When I
was twelve, I met her one day, and she invited my brother and I to stay with
her free for two weeks, my brother was fourteen, that is when I met Laura, the
secret love of my life, she was seventeen, dark hair, olive skin, dark eyes,
she worked at the farm for children—a child care person: I always called it the
Boarding Farm. Her and Mike and Steve
got along well, Steve was Janet’s son, he was eighteen.
It was a warm and colorful summer, 1959,
we played till our bodies glowed. But I
was always the one trying to catch up. The shadow, not that my brother tried to
eliminate me from the picture, perhaps it was the other way around he tried to
have me part of it, but Steve teased my youth a little bet, and Laura, was
always sweet, too sweet. Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft
fasten of her hair tossed to and fro.
Every morning I lay waiting to catch a
glimpse of her. Watching the door, checking the window, when she appeared on
the doorstep, or in the lobby for work, my heart leaped. I ran with my eye, I
seldom found words to say, but my eyes never failed me—foolish blood, that’s
what I call it now, looking back.
Steve was not a handsome lad, but as the
old saying goes: a woman, if she sees enough of you, usually she’ll fall in
love with you, on the other hand, for a man, well he has to like what he sees. How true this was with Laura. She was according to my book, falling in love
with the wrong guy, all she had to do according to me, was simply wait a few
years and I’d grow and she and I could dance the polka, no not really, we could
fall in love, that is how it was suppose to work out, so I told myself, or
perhaps the right side or left side of my brain told me—sorry, I mean Mutt and
Jeff, or I told them, who’s to say who told who, we seldom worked together.
In any case, I was having a hostile kind
of romance, one she never knew about with her image. I dreamt, as perhaps I’m doing now, we walked
through the flaring streets of Rome, I was pushing the drunks away from her—I
was a Centurion, a Knight of the Roundtable,
I held tight and onto and was swift with, my sword…all heroes have
swords
(the sounds of dark rain of the evening
was creeping into Evens’ ears, as he was daydreaming, impinging upon his focus
of Laura)…
all my senses seemed to desire an
unveiling of this secret romance of mine, to her, to tell her to slip into my
dreams, it is were you belong—no that is not exactly what I wanted, that is
Mutt and Jeff wanted, their opinions, talking nonsense as often they do: I
wanted to speak to her, I was confused when those two weeks were up and I was
at home upstairs in my attic bedroom, and thinking about her.
“Steve was kind of ugly,” said Mutt to
Jeff, looking at me, as if it was a question, and not a statement.
“Oh that’s kind of harsh,” I said.
“Yes, for sure, I know,” said Mutt.
(The thoughts of Chick Evens were now
indistinct and seemingly leaving his forehead, they had got stuck there
somehow—, “Oh yes,” he said:)
“Oh yes, I met her and Steve years
later, I was eighteen, a year ago: yes, he was still ugly, I mean, not all that
handsome, and Laura and he had been married for five years, she looked it,
matter of fact, she looked like she had been married for twenty-five years,
living down by Lake Carnelian, down there by Stillwater Township—where I bought
a plot of land.”
Observing, Mutt, saying, in a tone of
voice not encouraging, “She glanced at you quite a lot, you didn’t glance back
at her, why?”
“Good question: I saw myself as a
creature obsessed at one time perhaps put down by her, but she didn’t really
put me down, yet my eyes burned with anguish when I saw her, a year ago, as if
to say after an intolerable delay: look at what you could have had, and look at
what you ended up with. But I didn’t say
that, I didn’t say anything like that, yes I did think that, it was a passing
thought, perhaps yours Mutt and not mine, or Jeff’s. She was happy, and I was
happy for her, and I was happy for me, we were two twinkling rivers, going different
ways, and I was happy about that also.”
“Happiness is a byproduct, did you know
that Evens?” said my left side of the brain, Mutt.
“Yes of course, I taught you that.”
“You also taught me, a byproduct is
something you give, and observe after you give it, and that the giving makes
you smile, it makes you happy—which is the byproduct, now what did you give her
and she give you…?”
“Wakeup…!” said Jerry a second time, to
Chick Evens, and he did, seemingly as if he had just stepped out of dark into
light, he had appeared to have forgotten he was playing cards, even forgotten
his recent move, so he had to recheck his cards, and that’s what he was doing.
“You were daydreaming,” said Jerry.
Evens looked up slyly over the cards in
his hands.
“What would you do if someone was raping
your ex girlfriend?” he asked.
Jim waited until the monologue paused,
then he stood up abruptly, “I’d not betray a friend,” inferring he’d be obliged
to go and protect her. Then Jim stepped out to go around the table, to relieve
himself upstairs, without looking at Evens when he passed him, called out
loudly across the living room as he went up the staircase to the bathroom,
said: “I’d have kicked his ass good—with a beer bottle if that is what it
took!” he had evidently already heard what had taken place, or previously
happened.
₪
#909 (5-3 & 5-2012)
