“The people you love become ghosts inside of you,
and like this you keep them alive.” Rob Montgomery
Oh, god! My feet hurt because I've been on them without a break for nearly five hours. As the busboy had called in sick at the last moment, my back hurts from doing his job and busing tables in between rushes. Even my face hurts from maintaining a smile, or close to one anyway, each time I say hello to a customer arriving, or good-bye to a customer leaving. Then there's the headache brought on by the stress of a screaming toddler who had insisted on hurling food at her parents and the unfortunate couple in the next booth. And finally, the confrontation between an angry wife, the other woman, and the idiot watching them with obvious relish as he sipped the cheap wine he'd ordered for his “date,” all the while assuring her that the vintage was exquisite and would marry very well with their meat loaf. It never failed to amaze me how low some women would go for a loser.
As I pushed the cart carrying the latest bin of dirty dishes toward the back of the restaurant, I heard the front door open. As the hostess, it was my cue to get the dishes to the kitchen, remove the apron from around my neck and waist, smooth my hair, and paste on another smile as I hurried from the kitchen to the lobby. I could see an older man standing before my station and chatting with old Mrs. Pritchert who, as always, had to be on her way but who had somehow managed, as always, to find a reason to dally.
As I approached them, I was struck by the sense of familiarity I felt for the man, though his back was turned toward me. The feeling grew stronger as I drew nearer, along with a strange sort of joy and anticipation. I knew him and yet, I didn't. Who was he?
About that time, Mrs. Pritchert glanced over and paused in her recitation of her cockatiel's latest antics and beamed a smile in my direction.
“Rebecca, my dear! Someone came by just to see you!”
The man turned and I gasped. No! It couldn't be!
“Georg?” I whispered, turning my head ever so slightly to one side as if doing so would prove or disprove what my eyes were already telling me. “Georg? Is that you? But-but how...?”
He smiled and excused himself from Mrs. Pritchert before stepping forward to take my suddenly chilled hands in his strangely warm ones.
“Yes, it is I, my dear. Come to visit with you for a while.” He gave my hands a squeeze before turning his attention back to Mrs. Pritchert. “Will you excuse us, dear lady? My friend and I have much to talk about.”
The old woman shot a coquettish smile at him.
“Why, of course. Rebecca, you invite him to visit more often. Okay, dear?”
Then with a small waggle of her bejeweled fingers on one pudgy hand, she walked out into the night, leaving the door to close behind her. Slowly I turned to face my visitor and found him smiling gently down at me.
“I come as a shock, don't I, dear Rebecca? Does my presence frighten you?”
“Of course not,” I scoffed, “You've only been dead fifteen years and suddenly you show up here all hail and hardy as if you didn't just come from your grave, wherever it happens to be.”
“Not close by.”
“I kinda figured that. So, let's go sit down while there's no one else here. I've got to get off my feet or they're going to walk out that door without me in protest.”
Georg chuckled sympathetically and motioned me ahead then followed me to a table sitting closer to the gas fireplace. With great elan, he held my chair while I sat then carefully slid me closer to the table. Suddenly I remembered myself.
“I'm sorry, Georg, but would you like something to drink? Some wine, perhaps?”
He grimaced regretfully.
“No, thank you, my dear, but I'm afraid I can no longer enjoy such pleasures. But, please, you have some for me.”
I thought longingly of the bar with its lovely bottles of Baileys then shook my head. Better not. I needed a clear head to know I wasn't imagining this encounter.
“I think I'll pass, too, if that's alright with you.”
“What pleases you pleases me.”
I grinned as I teased, “Then it pleases me to please you as well.”
His eyes twinkled with merriment.
“Then we are in agreement to please one another?”
“Yes, we are.” I paused as I once again tried to keep a grasp on my sense of reality even in the face of this, whatever it was. “Georg, are you real? You seem real. You're sitting here talking with me and your hand was warm when I touched it.”
“I am real, yes. You must sometimes trust only your heart, Rebecca, and not so much your mind. For there comes a time when we only exist in the hearts of those who loved us as we were.”
Warmth filled me and I impulsively reached across the table to rest my hand on his.
“Then you are immortal, dear Georg, for you were, and still are, loved by all who knew you.”
“Thank you, my dear.” He patted my hand with his other. “I wanted to come see you and tell you something.”
“And what is that?”
He patted my hand again.
“I visit the Den every now and then to see how everyone is doing and who new has shown up.”
“And are you pleased?”
“Always. As time passes, some have joined me and we often discuss what we've read and how the author presents themselves and their impressions to their readers.”
I nodded.
“We are all impressed with how far you've come since you first entered the Den.”
I felt my eyes moisten.
“Thank you, but you are a very large reason for that, Georg.”
“Thank you, Rebecca, but I merely introduced you and gave you a place to start. It was you who accepted the offer and made yourself a home.”
“I didn't think anything I posted would ever be read.”
“Oh, your work was being read. It just wasn't ready to stand on its own. Eventually, you found your voice more securely, became more confident, more adventurous. That is when your words began to breathe and take flight. That is what drew me to you at first. The spirit with which you imbued every nuance of emotion. That is when you became yourself. You became a Poet as well as an author. You began to become whole.”
I absorbed what he was saying deep into my being and felt the strength of it fill me.
“You said I made myself a home.” I shook my head. “That's not entirely accurate. It was more like I had found my home.”
“As I knew you would, when the time was right. But I was referring to that home within yourself. Until that moment, you were like the Velveteen Rabbit learning to become real. So full of questions inside, you were! And eventually you found the answers to the most important. Those that led you to yourself.” He smiled gently. “I watched it all as it happened. Every poem, every story you wrote, you became more real. You lost the starch of newness and settled into the facts of who you truly were. It was lovely to behold.”
“I had no idea you were doing that.”
“Of course not. It was your show, as the saying goes. Not mine. If I had tried to interfere then it would have become more my show, which would have been a disservice to the truths you were finding for yourself.” He shrugged. “I had my own show to direct. I simply didn't have time to direct yours, or anyone else's either.” His eyes met mine with a smile. “But I could watch and I could cheer for you. And if I saw you needed simply to rediscover the direction you had chosen for yourself, then I tried to provide a small nudge of encouragement and not the direction itself. So you see, my dear Rebecca, it was you who made the choice to carry on in the direction of your choosing rather than remain in one place. Not mine. Not anyone else's. It was all yours to make and you made it. And the evidence of it was there in your poetry and in your stories. In the voice you found within yourself.”
“Some say that what I write, the romance, isn't of value as serious literature.”
“And who are they?” He scoffed. “They are those who parrot what they think they're supposed to say and not what they should say for themselves. Like the critic who critiques not to construct but to appear an expert on what he knows nothing.” He shook his head. “No, ignore them. They are lost to themselves and have no idea what they're about. Concentrate on yourself, your life, and your own work. Continue to grow into the whole ever-changing person you are. I've watched you from the beginning, when you first toddled into our Den. You were so uncertain of your acceptance, and yet,” he eyed me shrewdly, “you were not willing to debase yourself by being anyone but who you were and who you were becoming. Oh, yes! You belonged, my friend, from the very beginning. I knew it. Others knew it. And soon everyone knew it. But you had to know it as well.”
“Do you know when I knew I had become a true part of your world, Georg?”
He shook his head, yet his expression was knowing.
“When I wrote The Old Lady in the Field and everyone spoke of it as if it were fine literature. That it wasn't silly or worthless. That it, that I, had touched them somehow. It was almost as if, I don't now, as if gates were opening and there were people waiting for me on the other side.”
“They were opening, Rebecca, but you were opening them. Not us. We were just there to welcome you inside.”
“But it was my poetry that you liked most, wasn't it?”
“Not so much liked most as understood best. I am a poet, too, remember? That is my first language. I am not so, shall we say, bilingual as you and others are. I enjoy writing prose, but it's poetry that fills me unlike prose can.”
“I'm not sure about me,” I admitted, “I can write either and feel, uh, feel...”
“Nourished?”
“Yes! Nourished.” I cocked my head. “Why is that do you suppose?”
“Think about it. What do you write about? Is it not the same things but in different ways? Like an artist who can create in any medium and do so comfortably? If the truth is to be told, most creatives can. But many are simply most comfortable with one and there is nothing wrong with that.” He bent forward and took my hands, now warm in his cool ones. “I must go now. But I want you to know how pleased and how proud I am to have seen you live up to all I knew you could be, and how certain I am that you will continue to prove my instincts were, as they say, spot on.”
He rose to his feet and drew me up beside him.
“Will I see you again, Georg?”
He nodded with a gentle smile.
“Depend on it.”
He allowed me to lead the way back to the lobby. Once there he turned to me with a mischievous grin.
“It's almost Halloween.”
I grinned in return.
“Yes, it is. And here I am with a, what? Ghost? Spirit?” I eyed him shrewdly. “A latent poltergeist, maybe?”
We both chuckled, but then I sobered as I realized we were saying goodbye.
“I miss you, Georg. I miss your ways of always being there. Not just for me but for all of us. And it's at Halloween that we miss you the most. It just isn't the same without your virtual Halloween parties.”
He paused in the act of turning to the door as if to ponder something.
“You know, I don't think that old Wulf D. Bane ever showed his face again,” He grinned slyly. “But you didn't leave much of him to show, did you?”
We both laughed as I walked him to the door. Once there, he turned one last time and bent down to brush my cheek with a cool, feathery, almost there kiss.
“Goodbye, my dear poet.”
“Goodbye, Georg. And thank you.”
And as he walked out a couple walked in, and I went back to work.
c. 2023
In Memory of Georg E. Mateos
Poet,
Author,
and Friend to all of us here
On authorsden.com
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Oh, god! My feet hurt because I've been on them without a break for nearly five hours. As the busboy had called in sick at the last moment, my back hurts from doing his job and busing tables in between rushes. Even my face hurts from maintaining a smile, or close to one anyway, each time I say hello to a customer arriving, or good-bye to a customer leaving. Then there's the headache brought on by the stress of a screaming toddler who had insisted on hurling food at her parents and the unfortunate couple in the next booth. And finally, the confrontation between an angry wife, the other woman, and the idiot watching them with obvious relish as he sipped the cheap wine he'd ordered for his “date,” all the while assuring her that the vintage was exquisite and would marry very well with their meat loaf. It never failed to amaze me how low some women would go for a loser.
