Next: PIT3/1 : A Call

Points In Time

Westlake Village, California

January 6, 2010

12:12 PM 

Having some idea of how long the publishing process takes. Hoping that ‘Border’ or ‘Barnes & Noble’ were either of the ‘guaranteed placement in at least one major book marketing chain’. I had been checking both local bookstores for the past month, and today...

“Hello…” I said to the woman in ‘Information’ “...I’m looking for a book of poetry by ‘Barbara Longford’.”

“One moment, Sir.” Checking the computer. “Yes, Sir.”

My heart fluttering.

“The book came in with yesterdays shipment.” Pointing in the general direction of ‘Poetry’..

Going to the rack, looking...

Looking. Oh, my God! My heart thumping now.

Wanting to pay and check out fast.

Going quickly to the counter...

“That’ll be twelve-fifty-seven.”

Outside now. Sitting in my car now. Removing the thin book from the ‘Barnes & Noble’ bag, my heart still racing, I look...

                  ‘A Three Day Lifetime’

    by Barbara E. Longford

Opening to the dedication page.

“Dedicate to my Chicago muse, with

everlasting love.

                            B.E.L.

Remembering, I sat staring out the window.

Then I cried.

Westlake Village, California

March 15, 2010

6:55 AM (Pacific Standard Time)

Sunlight showing from around the otter seams of the still drawn drapes. Still mot fully awake, glancing at the ‘Baby Ben’ on the nightstand as he reached for the phone… “Yeah, hello.”

8:55 AM (Central Standard Time)

“Mitchell.”

6:55 AM

Fully awaken now, a voice he hadn’t heard for twenty-four years. The one word as fingernails onto a blackboard…

“Marsha?”

It had taken her five years to work up courage to make this call. Now, though she’d played the words she wanted to say in her mind a thousand times, ‘now’, at a loss for those words. Her stomach fluttering...

“Yeah…” she said “...Thought after all this time, I’d surprise you... ‘Surprised’?”She asked in am overly cheerful tone.

Sitting on the edge of the bed. “What do you want…” he asked in anything but a cheerful tone “:...and how’d you get this number?”

At her kitchen table, stirring a packet of artificial sweeter into a mug of black coffee…

“I knew you’re probably still be in the ‘drop a dime in the slot and dial ‘operator’ time, butt you have heard of the internet, haven’t you?”

The sleep induced cobwebs clearing. “You found me on the internet, did you?”

“Yeah. And finding your phone number wasn’t too hard  after.” Bluntly asked. “You married now?”

“No, I’m not married! What the hell difference does it make to you, Marsha?”

“When I left, I thought you were pretty much into that colored lady…”

Wondering why this call, and why this question. “ ‘Lita’.”

“Yeah. And I thought that maybe you two...”

“Lita and I would have married.”

“What happened?”

“These days it might have been different, but then? Lita could not live in an all white world and we both knew I would not survive living in a black world.”

“‘Elysium’? You still go there?”

“It closed the week after you left. I went there that next Sunday morning and there was a chain across the road. Morgan and Evie, and Janice and Ken and Sandy were there and none of us knew what to do so we all just went home, at least I did.”

“Did you keep in touch? Do you ever see or talk to any of them?”

“No, not really. Seems the field was our common denominator… Evie called me about fifteen years ago. It seems that Morgan passed away due to that ‘agent orange’ shit…”

“From Vietnam?”

“...yes, and Janice killed herself when they diagnosed her other breast had cancer. Ken and Sandy? Never saw or heard from them.”

Not really caring, but this untimely call from Marsha, giving me the idea that her life was not going as she expected. Curious now.

“You ever find your old boyfriend? The muscle guy that you used to give blow jobs to while he was weight lifting naked. Uh…”

“Stan Jacobson.”

“Yeah . ‘You’! You ever remarry? You look up your muscle guy?”

“Yes, I did.”

“ So, how’d it work out?”

“We got married in ninety-one and divorced in ninety-four.”

“Three years only…” wondering how any one could stand her for even three years “...what happened?”

“He’s a bum! Never had a job. Never worked. Lived off of what I made and lived in my apartment the whole time we were married... and every now and then, beat the shit out of me.”

“Marsha…” sincerely said “...that’s terrible!”

“Yeah. And one day he knocked my teeth out…”

He ‘knocked your teeth out’! .Really’?”

“Yeah, the bastard did. Then I kicked him out, got a restraining order and started divorce proceedings.”

“I’m really sorry about that. So, curiously, what name do you go by now: ‘Goldman’, ‘Lipensky’ or ‘Jacobson’?””

Hesitating… “ ‘Lipensky’.

Lipensky? She’s still Marsha Lipensky?

“Where you living now?”

Nothing in this conversation had entirely quelled the remembrance of his shitty life with Marsha. “What the hell difference does it make, ‘where I’m living now’.”

“Mitch…” her tone softening “...I was just wondering how you are?”

“ ‘Why’? ‘Why. Marsha’? Why do you give a shit about any of this now? Last time I saw you, you couldn’t get far enough away from me fast enough to even say ‘goodbye’. Why now?”

Seconds passing…Words she’d been wanting to say for  years, suddenly blurted, “Because I love you.”

The words as though cold water had been poured over him. She loves me?

“You ‘love’ me’? You fucking ‘love’ me!” Thoughts swirling through his mind. “You told me that you’ve ‘always’ hated me! That you pretended to be angry for weeks so you wouldn’t even have to talk to me!” His breathing coming harder now. “ So you’d ‘never’ had to fuck me!”

Seconds passing… “Now! After twenty-four years… ‘No, Marsha’! After these twenty-four years and the ‘thirty-one years’ we were married; ‘now’, from out of the blue you call to tell me that …” in a mimicking tone “...‘you love me’?”

The line silent…

Stirring her cooling coffee, expecting this tirade. Knowing she deserved this tirade. Grasping for words, anything to take the edge off his anger. “You just woke up?”

“Yeah…” taking a deep breath “...so what?”

Searching for words. Even for stupid words. “You gotta pee?” she asked, thinking, Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

These words no less weird than, ‘I love you’ , coming  from out the mouth of his wife… his long gone, ‘ex-wife’.

“Yeah. I just woke up and you just asked if ‘I got to pee’! What that hell’s that got to with anything?”

Going on. Giggling. “You got a boner?”

“Huh?”

Remembering. Saying anything to take the edge off his anger. “I used to think it was so cute, the way you always tried to hide your boner when you got up in the morning and had to pee. So, you still get boners?”

Recalling the thousands of times he’d shoved it between his thigh causing him to do a penguin waddle to the bathroom. His tone softening “Marsha, I’m ‘seventy-five’.”

“I know. But do you?”

“What? Do I ‘what’?”

“Get boners.”

“Why you wondering…” Thinking, what’s she got in mind “... if I still get boners?”

This not going the way I wanted. “I’m seventy-three, Mitch, and still get horny.”

Missy and her ‘grandmas still like to fuck’ coming to mind. Wondering, Why the hell is she telling me this? “When there’s a reason to, ‘yeah’ Marsha, I can still get a boner.” His tone softening, “And I do got to pee!”

Thinking, she’d ‘hold on’ anyway, but… “Do you want me to hang on till you get back?”

Never able to hold a grudge, this ludicrous conversation beginning to titillate him…But not willing to concede anything .“Up to you! Only If you want to, Marsha.”

“Yeah, I do! Go Pee!”

“Taking a few minutes to put a pot of coffee up also.”

“It’s okay…” going to the sink, spilling the cup of cold coffee out and pouring another cup from the peculator “...I’ll wait.”

Me and my limp dick did pee, then I poured three mugs of water, and six spoons of coffee to my electric peculator.

Back in the bedroom, “Marsha…” pulling my pajamas off, “I’m back...” slipping into a pair of jeans “...hold on a second,” and a warm cashmere ‘V’ neck sweater.

“So , after all this time, what’s this about. Why this weird early morning telephone call after twenty-four years?”

“I remember you were always an early morning guy and figured you’d still be home now.”

“Yeah…” glancing at the small clock on his nightstand “...it’s just seven-twenty here.”

“I’m sorry.”

Words his wife, Marsha would ‘never’ say. “Excuse me!”

“I’m sorry! So ‘sorry’.”

“Sorry for ‘ what’?” Asked saecastically. “Sorry for thirty-one years misery!”

“Sorry for ‘everything’, Mitchell…” holding back tears “...for ruining what should have been the best years of our lives.”

Marsha had been the cause of too much misery. She’d said thing to him that no man ‘ever’ wanted to hear from his wife, if he loves her.

As far as I’m concerned you’ve a whole lifetime to be sorry for.”

“You’re right! I know I treated you like shit…”

“Yeah, baby…” angrily “...you sure did!”

Once again her planned words escaping her. Changing the subject. “Where are you living now?”

“ ‘Jesus’, Marsha what difference does that make.”

“I’m still here, in the same place I left California for.”

“Still there after your ‘muscle man’ divorce? Still in the duplex with your cousin?”

“Not exactly. Max passed away about seven years ago.”

“So, she leave the apartment to you?”

“No, I bought the whole duplex from Marty…”

“Her son?”

“Yeah. By that time I owned my apartment, so bought the lower one from Marty and been renting it.”

“And the shop?”

“ ‘Marcie’s Manicures’ ?”

“If that’s what you call it, yeah!”

“Mitchell, we did fantastic! Even more repeat and new business than Max’s place that had been in a much better location.

“Knowing how you like to talk, did figure you’d do good working in a manicure shop. Still there?”

“No. We didn’t own the building, only rented the storefront and it’s… ‘my’ reputation, and Marty thought I had too much say-so there and wanted to put his wife in, so bought me out, and the place flopped in six months.”

“Hold on. Coffee’s perking, so I’ll pick up the phone In the kitchen.”

Forgetting, I guess out of habit, I hung the phone up breaking the connection.

 Next: PIT3/2: Cathartic