A Mother for 2 Zacharies

Preface: trying to fit life onto a page is like painting an elephant with a mascara brush.

Spoiler alert: I lie sometimes. OK, mainly a factor of forgetfulness, but still, I lie.
In my life I have been brushed by stars. I was recalling one such occasion today that was in the 80’s.

My lover and I signed up to be extras in Austin, TX. A lot of films are set there and we were called for one whose working title was unremarkable, but which was finally canned as “Two Mothers for Zachary”, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Valerie Bertonelli, and Colleen Flynn as principals.

We did a lot of waiting around, reading books until called in to a courtroom scene. As they ushered us extras in, Vanessa Redgrave in all her regal beauty was seated up front. I swear, space kind of warped around her, as though she was a human force field or something. But, more incredulous than anything, upon spying me, she walked directly away from her set place, came straight up to me, extended her hand and said, ”I’m so glad you’re here”. I’ve no idea of my response and how could I possibly remember given that my jaw, stomach and so many other parts dropped off line in the interaction. Why me? At the time I had no idea, and am still not totally sure though I may have a clue. Later I was to see her descending alone the back stairs of the courthouse, dressed in costume in a quiet topcoat. She briefly stumbled and for a second I saw her as she might have been had she not risen to become the star she had: just another average, anonymous Brit, working for the Empire, leading a life of quiet desperation as it is said. But she, obviously no ordinary Brit, had escaped and rose to stardom.

I’d never been involved in a film production before and could not identify the story it was trying to tell, nor the characters so I was not sure at the time who she was to be. I learned later she was playing the mother of the lesbian whose child she was trying to take. Valerie Bertonelli played her lesbian daughter. The incongruity of a proper English actress playing an earthy, American Southerner, while a married rocker played a lesbian struck me. It seemed, once noticing that, that I recognized how Hollywood routinely put gays in straight scenes, foreigners as Americans, and vice-versa. Strange.

We didn’t have too many calls for that movie and were shortly done, but a couple of related incidents come to mind about it. And the first is actually a non-incident. Because, years later, YEARS! I realized that for whatever strange reason, my girlfriend and I did NOT invite them to the local women’s bar! How could we NOT have thought of that!? But we didn’t. My ‘lover’ (our relationship was strained at best) was definitely the cleverer of the two of us, and she never even mentioned such a thing. Without a doubt we would have had to disguise the two of them. Heck, this was a film, how hard could that be? We could have danced like crazy! They would have had a glimpse of real lesbian life, which had to be good for the film! And to say it would have been good for us is putting it mildly! What fun!

But it was not ever to be. At the end of the day, we went home and they went presumably back to their hotel room. Lonely, I would have imagined. Most of all I would have wanted to be important to Vanessa! I could save her from her loneliness!

Oh well. But one more incident occurred of note. Both my ‘lover’ and I were Massage Therapists and at some point, Colleen Flynn mentioned that she would like a massage so Kim and I piped up. Thankfully, I got the honor and that night I went to her hotel room with my table and gave her a professional massage. While conversation is discouraged during massage still we talked of some things. And before leaving, I mentioned to her as I mention to almost anyone who asks, that I had always intended to become a writer, but that didn’t seem to be happening. She prompted me to look into the book, The Artist’s Way, and the next day brought me a copy!. What a sweetie! (I bet you thought I was going to relate an entirely different and perhaps slightly seedy experience, didn’t you? Had my ‘lover’ been the masseuse, seedy would have been a given.) I tried to use the book faithfully a bit later in my Austin experience sans the ‘lover’ with whom I was having so much trouble. (OK, just to give you a clue, I finally left for good the morning I awoke, wondering in what I thought was full sanity, if I could bury her in the backyard. Oh, yeah, time to leave.) But, to this date have not really utilized its tenets. Of, course I’m not dead yet and I still have the copy awaiting my attention, secreting the few tidbits I’ve hidden in it. I’m glad it worked for so many people, as reviews prove. But for me, not so much. Probably just my temperament.

Why did VR shake my hand? Strangest thing: again, years later, I saw a picture of her made up for a movie role, the name of which escapes me. But her hair was dyed platinum blonde, and swept back. When I showed on set that day, I looked similar! Not as lovely, of course, but with short, platinum hair! What a strange coincidence! I have to thank my ‘lover’ for that bit of cleverness. She always had the most ‘out there’ ideas. That I go platinum and she shave half her head was par for the course. So, I think Vanessa was just responding to the strange resemblance of her previous role and me and perhaps thought I had done it deliberately. Well, in retrospect, that’s embarrassing for I had not.

I have been touched by stars in other times and places. Some well-known stars, some more like black holes. Some led to enlightenment, some burned me to a crisp.

I’M ONLY THE NAIL, HOW WOULD I KNOW

Space is reclaiming the matter of my mind;
poor mind in touch with the fact
that it is losing itself.
Dementia reshapes my thoughts, while
silence holds back the noise of me, twin powers and I their prey.
Though wanting to die in peace, I find myself
dying in pieces
my powers whittled away by
time’s keen, if filthy blade.
In another corner, there is a race to see whether my heart will stop beating me
or my mind thinking me
first,
both clanging into an unsustainable
future in which the only part I can play
is watching my own decay.
If you knew
that was the only show playing,
would you watch?
Then I wonder,
When I die, how can I be received
by that in which I’ve not believed?
Comes an answer:
“Neither knowledge nor ignorance is an
impediment to salvation.
There is much knowledge, the mind is
ignorant of.”
I’ve said it before:
As nail is to hammer
poet is to poem
driven to splinter bored existence
while binding something other, something better
to hold us all together
Maybe
it’s a master plan.
Perhaps
a carpenter sent me.

ILES PARK

She almost died. Her crisis came about because she was incredibly stupid, even for age 13, but she didn’t realize that until she was 65 proving how little intelligence she had accrued in the interim.
First memory: It was around 1958. The previous day had seen torrential Midwest rain which had only stopped shattering the sky this morning. She got on her bike and rode to her cousins to see if anyone was up for a ride or wanted to hit some baseballs around. Her youngest cousin was game and off they went to Iles Park, their usual haunt.
But this was no usual day. As they crossed the tracks at Ash and rounded the curve, they could see the park was under water! This had never happened in their lifetime!
As it put a serious crimp in ball practice, she and Phil put their gear and bikes down and started wading tentatively into the park, each step sinking them a little lower into the water. She hadn’t ever realized how much lower the Park was than the area bounding it. So while none of the surrounding streets were flooded, she yet sank deeper and deeper as she walked towards the center of the park with the maximum rising just over her hips. What fun! A well known, to her, second home, suddenly transformed by nature’s work into a quasi-swimming pool! A natural one! Not like the concrete and chlorine ones she was used to and enjoyed regularly. This was different and thrilling in an odd way and soon she sank down and began to splash around in the deepest area. Did Phil? She didn’t think so, looking back. At the time, she might have thought him ‘afraid’, and so was ‘showing off’ by submitting herself to the water. Or perhaps a boy’s propensity to pee often anywhere they wished, told him something I couldn’t hear. Nah, he was just smarter.
She swam and splashed and rolled over to float briefly on her back, soaking her hair thoroughly. She contemplated swimming through the tennis courts, but the water wasn’t as deep there, the concrete rising slightly from the grassy surrounding park and she would only have scraped her knuckles.
The day passed as days did with children, hopping from one swing to another bench, to ride around the block, to a teeter-totter, to whatever and then to home.
Second memory: She lay on her grandmother’s davenport in agony. She had been ill yesterday, feverish, her throat on fire.
But today, however possible, was even worse. Her entire mouth was a nightmare of fever blisters infected and oozing pus just like her inflamed throat. Her nose throbbed red and tender with acrid mucous. She ached in every part and felt chilled to the bone despite the raging fever. Her grandmother tried to feed her tea and toast. Though she had not been able to get anything past her swollen fiery throat for days she still was not hungry. When her grandmother insisted and placed the tiniest bit of toast dipped in the tea at her lips, she tried, but could not get it past her swollen throat.
At that moment, she knew with more clarity than she perhaps had ever had in her young life so far that she wanted to die. Nothing else. It was not a sad thought. She turned her face from her grandmother’s hand while that thought settled into every corner of her being.
But she lived. The doctor came later that afternoon, pronounced the illness strep, gave the antibiotics and left.
Perhaps it was this, her current illness at age 65 that made her remember that other, younger, much more dire one. And in a flash, she realized that swimming in Iles Park, then afloat with years of dog feces and their accompanying worm egg sacs, the vomit of drunks, the semen of midnight rendezvous sloughed off in prophylactics or spread on the ground to name just a few of the hazards not offered in a concrete, chlorinated pool must have led to the strep. What had she been thinking? Or rather, how could she not have thought of that? She didn’t know. Too much trust in nature’s mini-miracle? A glistening lake on a hot day, free of charge? Showing off for her cousin? Had her grandmother warned her about not going into flooded areas? She had no recollection of that, but a faint guilt lingered over the memory, because her grandmother still thought she might have a stray brain cell or 2. And here was dead set proof of their absence. And it had been her grandmother who saved her life by calling in the doctor. For a grandmother on meager Social Security, who could squeeze a penny till it shrieked it was quite a financial sacrifice. Her grandmother had been 65 at the time. Same as her now.
In her slim, weak defense, there was never much ‘splainin’ in her house. Kids were just sposta already know. Teaching was in short supply. Yeah, she should’ve known better. She shouldn’t have been willing to show off for a younger, albeit in hindsight much wiser cousin. But it wouldn’t be her last time for showing off, with concomitant ruinous results. Nor should she have allowed herself to be blinded by the wonder. It may have been the first time, but it wouldn’t be the last time wonder and nature and a sparkling surface laid a shiny, luring mantle over a sickening presence. And tried to kill her.