Winter is Coming (Chapters 1 thru 7)) plus Advance; a Minnesota story about old folks))

Winter is Coming
(A Story out of Minnesota)


Advance/ or Afterward: We all seem to have been born in an era of ‘Once upon a time,’ and feel and hope fairy tales can reach out to us at any time. Nowadays, age becomes less of a factor, less than mood, and we venture back onto the stage to the play, the facts behind us are really nothing when we become old, no one can raise the dead, so mental processes start, we want to grab the spirit of romance, perhaps once, just once more. Sometimes we leap, for cupid or Psyche, for the gothic mind, old people dream, just like young people, but old people are at the end of the road, not the beginning. The harps are playing, the invisible harps—when they will stop, a daily guess. Too often the old die feeling unwelcome on earth, choosing to die, I fear without a filled heart. They realize there are softer winds in heaven, and so they let go of the useless pain they endure here on earth trying to please. Sweet ones, dear ones, they go, thus seeking harmony in another world.

In this story, “Winter is Coming” I try to bring a short delay, so a few people could refine their last days, true and obedient to their hearts. For they all know, from the first paragraph to the last, someone will have to carry them to the tomb, soon. I do believe Roberta in the story realizes her smiles can turn into weeping, but perhaps there might be some joy in grief, but I suppose she still wants to see the face of her husband, in her death. Sammy has found his true heart I do believe, and it pleases him, and he wants to leave that thought grow, leave it there; he doesn’t want anyone to take it away, perhaps he feels he will not have time to find it again, wittingly he loves, desires, trays to conquer. Ezra, is perhaps thinking he adores beauty, laughter, he endures Sammy, even though Sammy is shy, but he doesn’t try much, he’s perhaps tired of it all, if it happens, it happens, and stale in comparisons to him is Sammy, yet Sammy takes the intuitive step to have a last romance. But should he leave? He’s comfortable. And at the end, God’s plan takes care of it all. Simplicity for the inadequate, you could say, numbered we are among the earthly many.



Chapter One
The House

It looked like it was going to be a white Christmas. Sammy, who had all the false notions of a green one, seemed worried, but then the heat bill would be less if it was green, and less folks would die in Minnesota of the cold, thus, he welcomed the mild or if not so mild winter that was approaching, and if it be snowy weather all the same, but at present it was damp weather for the most part, and autumn was the best part of the year in Minnesota, with the changing of colors, that is, the color of the leaves, now dropping off the trees almost as fast as rain drops in a storm, quietly floating in the air, timidly hanging onto the trees. The place, his home had become friendly to him, the rigid skies, their frosty mornings, frost on the tiles on roofs of houses, his house in particular, his roof, yes, he beckoned to himself: one way or the other, winter was coming.
He and Ezra L. Davis got gradually more well each summer, winters seemed to take the best out of them; it was a relationship a mutual relationship, both owning the house, having their own privacy at any given time, the house was old, but well kept by them, Sammy living upstairs, the other down. Sammy had four rooms, and Ezra had six, thin-walled, a stairway that rounded going up to Sammy’s rooms, a garden in the back, and along side of the house, a crooked staircase going downstairs leading into the cellar, where the washroom was, and where the heating system was, an old time furnace, perhaps seventy-years old; except for occasionally meeting down there by accident, and infrequently wanting to talk of old times (for often they used he phone to do that), or planning something, and as time went on, they met less and less, spent their evening alone covered with a blanket and a good book to read, as every winter came creeping in, and by.

Roberta had gone from Munich, Germany to Vicenza, Italy; when Sammy asked for news of her, Ezra said, “She’s been to a number of countries over in Europe. Her private letters are all lost and I read them of course, and contain nothing of value.” Sammy was still thinking of something to say, he added, “We’re both used to it by now I suppose…I really don’t care that much anymore.”
Ezra, usually did follow up an such comments, and did not comment, and Sammy offered no more.
“Oh, incidentally, what happened to that woman who almost died at the Church—the one you saved I hear…?” Said Sammy to Ezra.
“Excuse me…what woman?” asked Ezra L.
“Well,” said Sammy smartly, “for once you can’t remember what you do, so I don’t feel so bad, we are both getting old. I heard you did quite well; in fact she’s living a more healthy life now. You know her family, the Brandt’s. She’s a widow, I fancy. She and her boy and daughter live out in White Bear Lake.”
“Oh, now I remember, that was a year ago…!” said Ezra.
“You still are a good doctor, old but good!” said Sammy H.
“The children are not very posed, rather uptight, sort of worried they may lose a gold mine if she gets married off at 78-years old, and the boy—Donald, isn’t the main problem, it’s the two girls, one far too good-looking for her own good, and the other not so good and older and more spoiled than the other two, she wants everything. I’m sure they will keep her away from the marriage alter, not that she’ll mind, I dare say.”
Sammy said casually, “I’ve run into her at the old Market Place downtown, during last summer, twice at the bagel stand, I like cheese on mine, and she eats hers with meat. I was going to ask what she does for activities, but of course I didn’t.”
“Ah yes, I’ve heard she likes to do this and that, but she never does, her kids again, fearful she might meet someone, her husband was killed in Korea, I think anyways—left her with enough money to live quietly on for the rest of her life I expect. I guess the kids don’t want any gigolos around her,” commented Ezra.
“Yes, I’m sure that is what it is,” said Sammy, and observed then after, that it was time for an afternoon rest (they both were talking over the phone, Sammy had called Ezra downstairs).

Neither Sammy nor Ezra had plans for Thanksgiving, they never did. Sammy H. who had a large family in Kansas City, was too ill and weak to go (nor was asked), and his family would not come up to Minnesota to visit—always too busy. Ezra was eager to receive his family whom lived in town, a daughter across the street, but they were now used to doing such events without him, so he took his medicine and fell to sleep as usual, a book in hand. They both really did not look forward to the festivities of the holidays, but rather had a sense of strangeness to it, a gloom by the prospect that their families were so preoccupied, they were too busy to know them—they had forgot who they were, perhaps a phone call, if indeed they did that, or could remember to do it, but seldom did they do it.
Roberta, who was all she could hoe for, decorated her house accordingly, as she had done for a half century without her husband, now long dead, saving her cut out turkeys and other ornaments. And she was mutually grateful for her children who kept her company most of the time. She told her children she was saving to go to Las Vegas, she liked to get away, and gambling was a kind of sport for her, something to do, and it seemed safe for her children to allow it, since she went alone. Actually, she wanted to go on Thanksgiving, and her children didn’t like that idea, they wanted her around for the grandchildren, perhaps do a little baby sitting, if time allowed, and she cooked a good huge pot of chicken soup with the turkey usually.
It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and she received a card in the mail, it was from Sammy, it was written very neatly, “When are you coming to Church next?” it read, then she turned it over, something seemed unusual, it was a talking card, it seemed to irritate her, that he could not make a phone call or have talked to her in the past in Church, thinking this was not adult behavior, and she pushed the card onto the floor from the end table, where the phone was.
It was but a week to Thanksgiving, and she could hardly remember what Sammy looked like, the few times they met, at the Market and church, and during each of those times had but a few minutes encounter, they had little to offer each other, so she said to herself, it was a mere coincidence, and now he writes a card, what is he contriving, to bond with her, drag her out in to the woods at 78-years old, he talked very little to her, if at all, was all she could remember, and what he had to say, was really about nothing, apart from he said he was, or used to be a doctor. Now he writes a card, is frank on it, writes as if he knew her for years, she wanted to tell him to dry up, she could be outspoken if need be. His structure, his face was not vivid to her even, emphatic if anything, unclear, only that sparkling concentration could she remember he had.
As soon as she had pushed the card onto the floor, it did not resolve a thing in her mind, it was not a pleasant moment, she was diffident for the moment, waiting perhaps for the card to leap back up, to finish the reading, she had only read a few lines, there was a few more to be read, but if she picked it up, would it strike another discord with her, a good question she thought.

Now and again Sammy would stare at the phone, waiting for it to right. He did it, he told himself, I did it, not quite mannishly, but calculated suddenness, that is what it was, he told himself, he surprised himself he did it, sent the card, the one she noticed, and now ignored, which Sammy of course didn’t know. Meanwhile, Ezra, called her on the phone, he was not as shy as Sammy.
That night it got very cold, Ezra had to bring extra blankets out of the storeroom, and Sammy had a hard time going to sleep, he woke up several times to go to the bathroom, his eyelids half opened, pale from stiffness, and cold air in the house. The windows were letting in a draft, which circulated the household, almost producing crystals of frost on the windowsills. He rubbed his hands to thaw them out. Looked at the phone, ‘she didn’t call,’ he told himself, ‘…but perhaps later on.’
Sammy looked out his window, the first real frost had come, it was thick on the roses, thick like cat fuzz, the leaves on the trees hand white cobwebs of frost other veins, or so it seemed. The bird nests in the trees in front of the house were white rimed. Sammy and Ezra stood in at their windows looking out towards the road, eyeing the frost, the trees, the roses. Feeling the tingling cool air of the house, looking, just looking, thinking another day closer to Thanksgiving, and Christmas beyond that, and a New Year; Sammy would be 87, and Ezra, 83, before the New Year started.

Roberta knew the early frost would turn over soon to be the first snow fall, pure and fresh it always seemed to her, the first snow fall, the grass crisp like wool, she rushed not to be late for church, she had to drive her old 1972-Ford Galaxy 500, yellow in color, and had but a quarter of an hour to make it to church. She had forgotten where she put the keys, a lapse in mind for the moment. Sammy had dressed up in a black suit and black tie, exquisitely. His mind was not much concerning private lie, but he wondered if she would be there, if if so, wound her children also be with her.
Walking to the corner he saw the bus, it stopped, waited for him to get on, “Jackson and Wheelock” he told the bus driver. Perhaps it was obvious to the bus driver, thought Sammy, he’d forget the address, he had to look at a piece of paper, but old age, he told himself, cuts into the brain, the short term memory, and leaves all the long term for man to go over, and over and over, it was a way, he thought, for God to punish man for all the wrongs he done, thus, he had them to remembered like it or not. And now, old as the hills, he was too old to do wrong.
He saw the brown of the telephone poles go one by one pass him, the buildings flash in a clap of an eye, bulk and solid the buildings were, walls, and streets, and frozen gardens now, crystallized with frost, passed the eyes.


Chapter Two
The Church


The streets were still stolid, not icy yet, under the frost was a sheet of sand and salt the city had sprayed the night before in fear the first snow would fall and ice build up on the streets by early morning, while folks were going to church, thus creating a crisis with accidents, Minnesota was good for prevention in this area.

The bus stopped, and Roberta parked her car in the lot, and walked a few steps to the church doors. Sammy walked up Rice street to Wheelock, to Jackson, took a right, and a hundred feet or so was the church, he took the steps up the embankment to the front door, and Roberta was walking in from the side of the church to the front door at the same time. He left this overcast inside the church, in the coatroom, and buttoned up his woolen sweater to the rim of the bottom of his neck.
They both found themselves unexpectedly by one another as they started walking down the isle to be seated, perhaps pleased, but neither one made a full glance at the other, Roberta said conventionally, “Thank you for the card, it was charming.” Now she questioned why she said that, I mean, it wasn’t charming a week ago, amazed she was at what she said, “I’m glad you liked it. I hope you are not telling me that to pacify me, because it was kind of grubby handwriting.” She laughed, he was right she thought, it was grubby.
“It’ll do, for a doctor!” she said.
“I wish I thought like that,” Sammy commented. Wish the sun would come out and stay, but you know these winters, I mean fall’s the time we get out of fall and winter, I’ll be another year older, at my age every year counts as triple.”
“I was thinking that, also.” She moved a little ahead of Sammy, and scooted over to a pew, looking at him, she waved him along, to join her. Some kind of a thrill excitement came over both of them, a buzz, with a tinge of laughter. They sat for a minute tense and silent. Almost as if they were both empty of words, then suddenly he dragged out some thoughts, her fingers tapping on her bible, “I see here the sermon is going to be on ‘…irrational feelings,’ the preacher here has an attitude for psychology issues if I recall right.”
“I hope it helps the young folks here.” Said Roberta.
He looked at his watch; it was ten minutes to nine, “A few minutes more.”
She paused for a moment, watching him fix his tie, move his watch about on his wrist, she looked deep into his blue eyes from the side, the shadows around them, almost dark, and his copper skin from the sun, it was fading. Roberta broke out with a heavy sigh, looked about, caught the light coming through the windows, then looking up from the windows to the ceiling, “Did you know they painted them angels on the ceiling a year ago?” she said.
He didn’t speak for the next five minutes, his expressions showed insignificance, so she examined, and felt, but it was the autumn of 1989. Sammy felt as if, without warning, a squeezing hand around his heart. Then with insignificant seriousness, she said, “Try to work up a bit of cheer, the holidays are close. You seem a bit anti-social, if not sad.”
“Yes, I know. I couldn’t figure out the word myself, but that will do just fine, I need to overlook so much. Oh well, let me try by asking you if you’d like to join me for Thanksgiving?”
He stopped abruptly then, and turned his eyes to her, folks were filling up the pews now, and the preacher had stepped out of a door, alongside the podium.
“I virtually go no place without my children, or by myself, never with a man alone, since my husband has passed away, especially not on the spot.”
“Roberta you absurd woman; what are you doing asking me to sit here with you then?” Said Sammy.
“We are just beginning.” She said politely.
Sammy thought how different his vice was now, it must sound unrelated, expansive. It was really not his sky style today it was something new for him to be so open with his wants.
“Perhaps I slightly overdone my expectations, but I’m not thoroughly anti-social you see, and I’m working on humor.”
“For some reason, I do not feel prepared for this encounter,” said Roberta.
“I tried to snatch up the situation; I was hoping you would consider Turkey at my house, and chicken soup.”
“Why, Dr. Sammy H. Jeffers. I was thinking that surely we could be good friends, and cum about perhaps. I have often thought it would be fun to do things with another person—a man, but men always become so impatient, twenty-four hours after I meet you, from what I remember, and what my children tell me nowadays it is even worse. You mustn’t let this be a nuisance for us.”
She looked at him, as she spoke, with friendly regret. Thinking this would be their last meeting, which was really their first; and an unusual one at that. It would seem the words and the looks would have needed to be a little more graceful, pleasant, but this was work for both of them, and new.
Sammy said, “I was just hoping you could come, and I could admire your loveliness.”
“At our age loveliness is not in the mirror, as much as I’d like it to be, or in a gracious figure, as I once had, but in dress and dignity and taste, softness, we expect it, it’s rarity is a spice we need, and it is of course a realistic work of art for a man to produce this. Otherwise why misuse my time; I’m somewhat happy as I am.”
Sammy smiled, “I’m working at it,” he said, and she laughed, gave a societal smile; her beauty did seem to withdraw itself from inside of her. “You are a quite hopeless romantic, I’m afraid. I suggest you unbutton your sweater, it is getting hot in here.”
He was starting to sweat, “Of course” he said,--she then turned courteously toward the preacher, he was about to address the congregation.



Chapter Three
Thanksgiving


“Old people need to feel useful,” said Sammy to Ezra, on Thanksgiving Day, “We are perhaps like sick people.”
Sammy called Roberta, and she said she was coming over, after she showed her respects to her children and grandchildren. Then Sammy turned to Ezra, who had a bald and oversized head, almost as big as a watermelon, almost with no neck, and large ears. Sammy liked him though, in spite or because of the fact that he had a way of looking at life and not taking it so serious, where Sammy often thought it was vulgar, but not too unkind—and he could take things quite serious.
Sammy got a phone call, it was his boy in Columbus, Ohio, and he was the boy that was not a disappointment in his life, the only one of five kids. He talked to him for an hour, rubbing his wool like whiskers against the side of his index finger; he hadn’t shaved since Sunday, and today was Thursday.
That was the only phone calls either one of them got; Ezra knew his chidden would say: it was the weather; sorry I couldn’t make it over.

Roberta showed up at the house, it was 2:00 PM. She had on a yellow satin dress, trimmed with a white. She grabbed Sammy by the hand, and pulled him to Ezra, “Introduce me…” she said. And Sammy did; Sammy glanced over her shoulder, winked at Ezra as if he had found his lost treasure, she sensed he did something like that, and left it alone of course it was, if anything, flattering, then under her breath she said “A nice big house you two have.”
The Turkey was cooking down stairs, and the table was sit, it had been set for two hours. He looked down at her with a soft inquiring smile, a tinge sky; Sammy was all of six foot three.
“Well, Roberta, are you ready to eat…perhaps again?” asked
Ezra.
They all sat down at the table, Sammy slid his chair a few inches over towards Roberta’s, almost touching her thigh. His whiskers showed. The two men did not talk about their families, to them, they were the worse in the world, but kept to safe subjects, carefully trimmed to suite the occasion.
“We are a smart little group here are we not?” spoke Roberta.
“Yes we are,” said Ezra, with a heartening kindness, “and the turkey brought you a gift,” he pulled out of his pocket a turkey key chain, and gave it to her. Sammy was surprised. Roberta hooked one finger around it, and twirled it, she looked at it as if it was a discovery, then moving back, she put it on her lap, and started to fill her plate with the many items on the table, Sammy turned about a tinge, made an appalling face, like a monkey, with two golf balls in his cheeks, then turning back to the others said, “We forgot to say grace.”

Roberta had been looking thoughtfully at the two, and appeared not to notice Sammy’s jealousy. Ezra had caught her eye, and Sammy told himself, ‘I got to be civilized.’ He was always the jealous type; Ezra, fat and bald and not all that handsome, never was, but was always charming, and it didn’t seem to bother him that he was as he was, his voice was even soft, softer than he could imagine today, but soft any day of the week. Sammy, he was feeling embarrassment for his thoughts, thank goodness no one could read his mind he deliberated, perhaps a bit of his face they could though. About this time, Roberta, who was sensing this, would rather have been elsewhere, and looked away from both of them.
A burst of clapping came like fresh air, it broke the tension between the three, Roberta added to her clapping, a few words, which gave an added spiciness to the situation. And she prayed there would not be a mounting irritation from Sammy. It seemed everyone was now delighted in the holiday meal, the tension dropped a foot, moving hastily on and out the windows. She saw Sammy as something brittle, yet flexible in conversation, but not in heart. Ezra was complimentary, but he looked like he was more after profound physical pleasure, more than Sammy anyway, a principle once he said, with a PhD behind him; he taught grade school, said it paid better than a college, and you didn’t have to worry about being fired. Roberta didn’t like unpleasantness, nor made to feel remorseful by another, and felt a little more comfortable than a moment ago, but in general her feelings of relief were evident, and she asked to be excused, in fear they would produce another rough moment. Sammy agreed, but sulkiness came, sweet-tempered sulkiness that is.

The present Thanksgiving dinner, and for the most part, day was over. Roberta was driving back home. Sammy was on the sofa thinking, just thinking, and Ezra was interrupting one of his children’s dinner-parties, and got the phone hung up on him.




Chapter Four
Winter is Coming


Roberta sat at the window sill, holding a glass of orange juice, leaned it against the sill, gazing down into the backyard. The first snow was long past, winter had come, it was December 24, 1989, she pulled out her handkerchief wiped her eyes dry, she had known Sammy just forty-three days (known him on a personal bases for forty-three days). Her eyes opened and closed like the rotation of a windmill, her eyes was showing a watery reddish liquid, her lashes soaked, winter had started passively and then abruptly it seemed to have landed in her lap.

From his bed against the wall, with a dim voice he said to her, “Was that all the time we had?”
“Yes,” she had responded, Roberta in a cheerful way. And she added, “And just in time, too.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Roberta cried at the window sill, today and yesterday was too much, yesterday especially, Sammy had died, and she was there, and now today Christmas, it was just too much; too fast, yes expected, but too fast.
Donald came up the stairs to see his mother, “You need to be sensible about this mom,” he said, “do want is best for us and comedown for Christmas.” With some satisfaction he left her and joined the rest of the family gathering in the living room.
She paced the bedroom floor some more, “And what’s to become of Ezra now, that’s what I cannot see…I suppose I should go down stars and fix something, something always needs fixing.” She said aloud, pacing. She was withdrawn, her face puckered, a tear slipping and sliding over her cheeks ever few minutes now, the flood was over for the time being. The little love that had grown between them came out now. She whispered to her brain, “You do what is best I’m too rattled, I don’t want to lose my children on Christmas, bless their hearts.”

Ezra had called the ambulance, but that was a month ago, it came in a few minutes. He, Sammy stayed in the hospital a full month, tried to make it to winter, and he did by a few days, not sure why he was waiting for that specific day, but he was. When he saw Roberta a few days after he had arrived at the hospital, he was ever so pleased to know she was there. He had asked her everyday, “Would you be able to come straight after you see your kids to see me,” he would say it urgently, but casually. Then say “Thank you,” before she agreed, and Roberta would stand up briskly, and say “Of course.”
Three days before he died he never recovered from consciousness. Just lying in the bed; there was gross damage to his heart, and brain. Roberta had stopped herself from saying, “We need hope Ezra,” she had not been saying that the last week before his death.
Now in her bedroom, his laying straight, stark naked under those cotton sheets and light robe, in a marmoreal peace was the aged man she had come to respect, with all his faults, jealousies, and sweetness. He looked like the towers at Troy, bold with a solid shield she pictured him, but he was really just an old man who had seen whatever he had seen, worked hard, got very little love from his family out of life. And looked the other way, said very little about it, and plowed on, as they say, as Job once said in the bible when someone asked him what he was going to do, since the world was coming to an end, and he just said, ‘…keep plowing my fields (meaning: we got to eat, and what can we do about it anyhow).”



Chapter Five
Ezra: A Trying Winter


[February 9th 1990] Ezra had told the nurse, clear as day, “I want to be notified if there’s a sign, any sign of raised intracranial pressure or activity, if and when he wakes up, in particular, if his pulse changes, his respiration.” (Referring to Sammy.)
The nurse Mary, assured him she’d call, and if she could not get a hold of him, she’d call Roberta. Ezra had stayed in the hospital several days, off and on that is, out of the approximately thirty days Sammy was in, if anything he, it seemed—he, Ezra and Roberta took intervals, although they both were already convinced the third week Sammy would not pull through, that was the unspoken part between them. During this time Ezra became drowsy, and was hard to rouse…almost with growing resentment. He became a bee on the bonnet of the nurses. His kids never visited him, only the one from Columbus, Ohio.
He could see in Sammy, a deeper level of his mind was aware he was dying now, he even told him he was, a taboo I suppose in today’s world, but he hoped when his time came, someone would tell him so he could say his goodbyes instead of avoidance. His dismay over the event of his death was badly evident. He fought his own resentment, as he seldom had to, but in this stale situation, it was oddly new and compelling.

December did pass, it kind of seems unkind to say so, but it was essential to move on, he held a long reserve of patience during this time and at the end he saw he had made no headway at all, he had to grieve like everyone else, and he cried night and day, quietly. I suppose what helped Ezra during these days was Roberta and they became closer friends. She waited with confidence, and edited her words to comfort him, she did not abandon him, his house became familiar ground, and she became more flexible, courteous and calm the month of January, as they grieved together. He became quite passive and lethargic, almost on the rim of content to be alone, hard to stimulate.
It was on February 9th, she called him, and he didn’t answer the phone. She didn’t like that he should simply vegetate, and presupposed that was his new stage. Thus, she drove over to his house. She had a key; Ezra had given her one, just in case, and as she walked through the doors, on the floor he laid. Her voice and her eyes added all to plainly, that she was going into shock, being ready to conceal the new event, but she shook herself, “Roberta stop, wake up, get back your senses”! She told herself. Somehow it was as if she injected herself with a wakeup pill; she paused on the rug, red rug; Roberta had felt her mind thinking as she walked about, waited for her to figure out the next move. He had an allergic reaction—she told herself, so it looked, his throat looked as if it had swelled up, “Sure,” she said, “he couldn’t find or get to his items, breather or shots to counter the allergic reaction quick enough.” (It later on would prove true.)
“I’ll ring up my Doctor,” she said outlaid so her second self, could hear it, confirm it in her mind for her. “No I’ll call the police,” she then said, “perhaps I should call his kids, no they don’t care, but will perhaps…yes, perhaps will care to check his assets…! (a reeking bitterness to her tone)” She walked out onto the porch, got the fresh air and arranged her thoughts.
She walked back into the dinning room. It was late morning: ‘Why am I part of these events…?’ she asked herself. Two deaths, the first being, forty-three days after she met Sammy, then died—and now only forty-seven days after Sammy’s death, Ezra dies (both old for sure, but is it not a coincidence?).
Yes indeed, it was a coincidence which was tolerant and almost amusing at the same time, surely not commonplace by far; fatigue came over her, and she was a little clumsy as she called ‘Regions Hospital,’ the emergency, crises center.

It was late when she got back home, having taken in the sunny afternoon and now the dark night creeping in, days were short in winter, not long, it was in the evening she sat placid on the edge of her bed, in profound thinking, thoughts swirling about. She was on her knees when Donald her son came in, he stood on a rug by her bed, her face was clear in the glow of the lamp, she had been crying: “Ezra?” he said.
“Yes, he died today…!” Roberta paused after saying that, quietly, to familiarity, like the dwindling of time, days, perhaps hours, these were but a key in a lock someone was turning. There seemed nothing to say at the moment, nothing required. Perhaps Donald did not come in at the right moment, but he did come in, and now he was left to silence. Donald left, now she was alone again, as she wanted to be in her own comfortable well-ordered room, the moon shinning through her window, solitude made evident.



Chapter Six
Roberta’s Reproaching


[March 19, 1990] Roberta, who had already been reproaching herself for the unpleasantness of her recent feelings—was making much out of the little things, she was the recipient you could say of two heartaches, tense with hysterical thoughts now, and she ignored the everyday little things with her family. Somehow she seemed to have become brittle; it was now thirty-nine days or so, since Ezra died. She was hoping to find some kind of relief. Her eye happened to spot Donald working in the yard, shoveling her sidewalk.
All the holidays were over, the present-giving also. Her family was a little neglected, a little put about. They were perhaps patient with her, but seldom did she require this kind of patience, perhaps this was the only time in her life she need it from her family.
To find her isolated in her own house was kind of a surprise to her, Donald looked from the outside in, through the living room window, a casual grin, she read his lips, his movement of his mouth, “All right, it is all right.” She squeezed her fists, and walked away, up and down the stairs, this second death was more penetrating than the first. Perhaps she was scared. She produced some kind of a eupeptic chuckle. She was preoccupied; she took some medication to fill the empty space inside of her, to calm herself down. Whether she was aware of it or not, it is impossible to say, but Roberta was feeling sudden painful uneasiness; yet she could scarcely name this at the time, but Donald felt it too, he gave her a tolerant vague smile, “Perhaps you need to get some sleep,” he hesitated to say, but with a cheerful voice said it none the less, when he had come in after clearing the walkways around the house.
Roberta moved. With a long, hasty, graceful step, from the window to the sofa, she let her self drop a foot, she felt comfortable, smiled at her son, he looked both at her, as if he was grateful and relieved she was resting, it didn’t occur to him, she was having a heart attack. Roberta thought so, but was unsure, she had never had one before that she knew of, it was curiously something new for her; then she started shaking, and Donald knew something was wrong. (He had been looking at a lovely winter picture of him and his mother that was over the sofa, on the wall; he was but twelve years old then.
Still looking at his mother, lightly, and scarcely unsure if all was well, he noticed she was no longer breathing, particularly, her chest was not moving. She had died (it was the last day of winter).


Chapter Seven
Donald’s Aftershock


The sun was sinking, and the moon was floating it seemed into the misty stillness of the clouds, trying to seep through with its laced light; in the zigzagged way; furthermore, the effects of the snow seemed crystal like, more beautiful than in any past observance. Donald drove home by a long detour, arriving back at his house by dusk, he had phoned his wife of the tragedy, as he called it.
When he arrived home, he went directly to the basement, explored a box, where he had put some of his things his mother gave him from childhood, and during his growing up stages. It was this he thought, these boxes of papers and trinkets, which made his life different—little things, as if she had been beside him at that very moment, and in essence, it was but a few hours ago.
He found many cards, Christmas cards signed by her each Christmas, also birthday cards, one after the other he picked them up, looked at them, felt them, read them: silver dust on some, some with faces, others religious; now that she was gone, they seemed more special, not regular. His youthful, strong hand picked up the postcards she wrote when she was on her trips. He swung the postcards back into the box, watched them fall flat on top of one another. He paused, appeared to have finished his search for whatever he was looking for, killing time, discontented about it all.

That evening, late evening, as he sat up with his wife over coffee, it occurred to Donald that it would be forever, somehow an unexplained reason, but a good time to hear his mind say it, he would never see her again, perhaps he was lightly hoping he could, would, but considering the fact, he knew the relationship once predestined, was over.
As Donald talked on, his wife, Ana interrupted, answered his loose talk with something friendly and perhaps unimportant, “It wouldn’t do to get discontented about it she was an old woman, seventy-eight, or was it seventy-nine, we should see how much she left, sell her house and, take a vacation, it is long overdue. I mean, she’d not have us grieve on forever, and we got to bury her and so forth and on.”
Perhaps Ana was right, and she described it in a gregarious way, but she was of—or had I should say the temperament of a cat; agreed Donald looked at her strangely: these things had to be done of course.


Characters:

Dr. Sammy H. Jeffers
Ezra L. Davis (PhD. Grad school Teacher)
Robert Brandt (Children: One boy (Donald), two sisters)
(Occupation, writer, Historian)

Donald Brandt and wife Ana



Notes: Chapters 1 & 2 written 5-11-2007; Chapter 3, written 5-12-2007; and Chapters 4, 5, 6 & 7 written 5-13-2007, at home in Lima, Peru.

Two Short Stories: Iguacu Falls & The Robbers of Buenos Aires

The Gulping Waters of
Iguacu Falls
[Brazil, Argentina]



[April, 2007] Advance: “It was not an agreeable two days, rather two days of rain, and my wife and I were on two sides of the great falls, called Iguacu, one part in Argentina, the other in Brazil. We flew into the area from Lima, Peru.
“Like most of my trips, I had studied the falls, its height, its volume, its dimensions, and it proved to be the greatest falls in the world. Some three hundred feet high, over four hundred thousand liters of water per second, close to two miles circumference.
“And so here we were for three days and two nights, and from here we’d fly into Buenos Aires, for another three nights, which would be my second time in that city.
“But Iguaçu Falls, is really likened to the Great Wall of China, with its massive 240 plus falls linking it into a great circle, stretching and dazzling the length of the eye. The stone walls of the falls are also likened to the Great Wall of China, bold and powerful looking. And when you walk these walls, or rather, cliffs, you get the chilly breeze crossing over and under and around your body, slapping your face, legs and arms with its water, you cannot avoid it, fight it or hide from it, but it feels great.
“It is as if God himself, fell on his elbow and left a big dent in the earth, and thus, created the greatest falls the world has ever seen.

[The Hotel] “My hotel wasn’t much to talk about except the buffet in the morning and evening. What they lacked in room service, and accommodations, they made up for in food, free food, and quite the assortment. The bed was one foot from the floor, and the floor had spider webs all around the bed, under it, on the ceiling, and it was suppose to be a three star (we asked for another room and got it), I think it was perhaps, some fifty years ago, a three star. But my wife, Rosa wolfed down the assortment of meats, fruits and greens from the buffet, ensuring we got our money’s worth. Our hotel was in Iguaçu city, Brazil. There was only water in the refrigerator, but no heat for the cold room, nor was there a bar, nor was there a safe, nor was there anything beyond the basic necessities. One has to keep an eye on the Tourist Companies in South America, they will give you the slap, and pocket the rest of the money, and say, “Oh, I didn’t realize it, I’m sorry.” But you know what you can do with your ‘sorry’; they all think a sorry fulfills the requirements of bad service.

[From my notes/4-26-2007] “We did make it (to Iguacu) as you may well have figured out, and I even had time to write a second poem, seven hours after seeing ‘Devil’s Throat,’ (a horseshoe rounded falls, part of the falls) on the Argentina side of the falls; but with fewer problems than what we’ve been having. The poem is called ‘Gulping Waters of Devil’s Throat,’ It is 12:10 AM, I woke up after arguing with the man that picked us up after leaving, Buenos Aires, picking us up at the airport in Iguacu City, and drove us to the falls, unwillingly drove us, because we came in thirty minutes late. What a day, two planes, two taxies and a train to get here, to get to the falls. And now it is raining cats and dogs. There is a metal walkway that goes from one point to the edge of the falls, some ten blocks, the closer I got to the falls, the faster I walked, I really got excited. By the time we left the falls, and got to the hotel, I was soaked from head to toe. And in addition, the Hotel smells more like a zero star hotel; we told them to wake us up for our free breakfast.

[The Falls & Dam/4-27-2007] “The day was long again, our guide has to be the most laziest one I have yet to experience in all my world travels, and they have been 700,000-air miles up to this point; he just doesn’t want to do a thing, trying always to talk us out of doing what is on our agenda. Had we left it up to him, we would have remained in the hotel for the whole trip. The falls were great today, went to the Brazil side, under the falls, yesterday it was on top of the falls, in Argentina. It is the number one falls in the world, and makes Nigeria Falls, look like a baby compared to its parent, Iguacu.

“Rosa and I, went (and our lazy guide) also went to the Dam (Itaipu), which produces 22% of Brazil’s energy and 90%, of Paraguay’s: I had found out the dam was the most powerful in the world, between the two countries. And an engineering wonder of the modern world. The steel in the dam is equal to 80-Effil Towers.


“Anyhow we made it through the day, and I finished readying Sylvia Plath’s only novel, “The Bell Jar” on this trip.”


The Gulping waters of Devils Throat
[A Poem about Iguazu]


It gulped, gulped and gulped
Like the insides of a throat—
Clashing upon layers!

Constricting, dashing, sinking
Into the great spiral
Called: the Devil’s Throat…!

The massive contents
Of four hundred thousand litters
Of water, per second, over the falls,

Emptied, and swallowed
At this very end—; gulping
And clashing, upon layers!


Written 12:15 AM; 4-26-2007
#1798 (Brazil)





The Rateros of Buenos Aires


[April 27-29, 2007: taken from notes written at the time] Advance: not sure where to start this story, but I’ll try to make it chronological, linked to Iguaçu Falls, for once we left Iguacu City, we caught a plane to Buenos Aires, and got another three star hotel. There we had steak at a number of places and enjoyed the little sun left in this city, entering its fall period. The Hotel was better than the one in Iguacu City, in that it was cleaner, but the buffet, Rosa missed. We went to a musical also, and Rosa loved it, called “Sweet Charity.” But on the 28th of April, things changed from a happy vacation to an unforgettable one.

Notes: “It happened around 3:00 PM, 4-28-2007 (I am writing this now in the hotel, in the evening, several hours later). Rosa and I took a taxi to visit the Russian Orthodox Church on the other side of the city, somewhat, or so it seemed, from where our hotel was. Everyone was telling Rosa how safe the city was, thus we put our guard down, a mistake for sure. In any case, after taking some pictures from the park, and shopping at the little venders throughout the park by the church, we started to walk toward 9th of July Street, finding out it was above us, and thus, we took the lower side road, as it blended into the 9th of July, about a mile down the road.
“This story may be a little zigzagged, because I wrote it down at the time, I mean in the evening, several hours after the event, and things were a bit foggy, but I will reproduce it as it is, for I can’t really recall it, now, moment for moment. We were walking down the street, it looked kind of mysterious, a few cafes, and a few folks sitting here and there, suspicious looking. I was kind of looking for a taxi, but none came by. And when we came to a cross street, I didn’t grab a taxi, because it was going west, and I wanted to go North, so I figured it was another four blocks to the intersection of where the 9th of July street would blend into this side road, so we crossed the street, three young men were sitting on the curve. One about five foot nine inches tall, 170 pounds, the other about 130 pounds, perhaps five foot six inches tall. The third, perhaps 185 pounds, about six feet tall.
“They now were in front of us, and Rosa said to me, “They look like those robbers (so and so mentioned).”
“A moment after she said that, the robbers said “Now, Now, let’s do it!” and they turned around, I quickly looked at Rosa, we had made a complete stop, and I said, “Run, Rosa Run!” But it was too late; she had two of the fellows around her. She held onto her purse, and crotched downward; she would end up with bruises on her arms and legs, but she held to that purse for eight to ten minutes; as I fought off and on the three robbers.
“The tall one came at me, I pulled my pen out tried to stab him, and he backed off, Rosa called for help, and I tried to get to her, and one of the two men pulling the strap of her purse came to help the big guy, his arms now around mine, and the other guy pushed me off balance, so he could go back and assist his friend, I gave the big guy a back punch, and he let go, and Rosa called for help again, and I ran to her, and again one of the two assailants had to let go to fight me, and I kicked and punched, but the big guy now was in back of me, and again I fell off balance, and my pen broke, not sure if I stabbed the assailants, or if one broke the tip off so I could not stab them, they were fearful I might say.
“I was free for a minute, and I screamed to anyone that might be passing by, and there was a woman watching up the block (I would find out later, she and her husband came by in their car, stopped a block away, the husband remained in the car as she watched the continuation of the show, two cowards).
“Anyhow, I went back to Rosa, to fight the two other men, because the big guy was now several feet away, and he jumped on my back again, and someone twirled me, and I flew into the street. I got back up and ran after them; they jumped over the fence, and were gone with my wife’s purse in hand.
“The police came, saw them running, and he ran after them to the train station, but could into find them, or did not want to find them.
“The lady who watched, talked to Rosa thereafter, neither one of us hurt badly, Rosa’s glasses broken, and my knees cut up. She seemed concerned, but why did she not stop the car by the robbers and honk the horn, or do something other than watch the show. The husband would not get out of the car, and I’m sure he was embarrassed of his wife watching and doing nothing.”

In conclusion, I suppose I can think of it as my last great fight, at 59-years old. On one hand it felt good to punch away on a few robbers, I think they got the worse of it, yet we lost $37-dollars, a $115, camera and some nice pictures of Iguacu Falls.