Issue 3 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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wino Freddy on the leprous living-room carpet outside the bedroom door. —Who had tried to pinch her stepping calves. He had tried to pinch them again when she left. After her mother told her to leave —Please get out, Mildred!— when she tried to prop a folded newspaper under one leg of the lopsided bed. Get out get out get out—when she had stood in the open bedroom door with hanging arms, the folded newspaper in one hand pleading with her mother to let her clean the room, at least, if she didn't want to be moved —to her pretty little house a historical little house it used to be a drinking & gambling establishment, Mother— to a nice clean bed in a nice clean room. To a hospital bed, at least, where she could have professional care, if she didn't want the care of her daughter. Whom she couldn't expect to stand by & watch her mother die of malnutrition in a lopsided bed in a rundown boarding house— —Will—you—get out! When she had gone back the next morning, the old wino had refused to let her pass, blocking the bedroom door with his crumpled body. He had not been there when she'd come back an hour later. When she had found the bedroom door locked. & there had been a sign dangling from the doorknob one half of a brown paper bag on which someone her mother had written: OUT TO LUNCH in red pencil. She had tried to talk to the landlady of the boarding house. Who had looked at her accusingly. & had referred her to the social worker who came to feed her mother twice a week. Who had also looked at her accusingly. & had said enigmatically that she was an honest woman who had her integrity— She would have liked to know what her mother 64 had said to the old wino to say to the landlady what her mother herself had said to the social worker to make sure her daughter stayed away. If what she had said was what had perhaps started these people staring. & whispering. She had stayed away then. But her thoughts had forced their way into her mother's bedroom constantly. Cleaning it. Propping up the bed. Holding loving spoons full of soup to the toothless lipless mouth. Of egg custard. Making her mother swallow her pride. Every day she had walked past the boarding house, in the evenings. Hoping for a sign. For the landlady waving from one of the windows. The old wino Freddy stumbling down the steps of the porch, gesticulating & jabbering for her to come in. That her mother wanted to see her. Not unlike what had finally happened. Except that her mother had been dead when it happened. When the old wino had stumbled down the porch steps toward her, & the social worker not the landlady had waved to her from her mother's open bedroom window. —Knowing she'd be walking by, 'stalking her prey'— She sat staring at her father's portrait with hanging hair & hanging arms; the cemetery shovel still in her right hand. It was dribbling dried grey crumbs of earth on her Chinese rug. On the sea-green back of one of the Chinese cranes. It all had started with the shovel when she accepted the shovel full of dried grey earth, & stepped forward, preparing to throw the traditional handful of earth on her mother's grave. —Into the poor invalid old woman's face, like a last insult: she had felt them thinking. For months she had felt their thoughts weave ugly spider webs around her little house. Around her reading 65
silhouette on the historical balcony. Around her, lying in bed at night, clean & cool & comfortable, while her poor invalid old mother was slowly dying of malnutrition in a lopsided bed in a run-down boarding house. She had felt them begrudge her the quart of milk they'd see her buy at the grocer's, the blond stem of Cuban bread. Their eyes boring holes into her back, until she'd turned the corner, into her street. Their pointed mouths hissing what a disgraceful daughter she was. Was it her fear that had planted the thought of persecution into these people's heads? Where it had been translated into: Retribution— Justice—before it crystallized into action, when she accepted the shovel. Which had given the signal for the chase. Not a real chase. A slow-motion chase. More like a procession. Which might easily have turned into a real chase, however, had she turned around & started to run. Instead of continuing to walk slowly backwards back back back groping for the curbs with her heels before stepping up or down to make sure she wouldn't stumble. & fall, God forbid, which might have been the signal for them to fall upon her, & maybe trample her to death. Slowly slowly she had backed away from the steadily advancing procession of eyes. Eyes that looked black with accusation. Into which she had bored her eyes staring back at them, hoping to keep them at the same distance, with her eyes. —Her heart hammering in her ears. It was still hammering in her ears, with the methodical sound of nails being driven into wood.— While they drove her back back back through endless sun-parched streets with loose stones between parched patches of weeds back—back—back toward the door of her little house. Into which she was able to slip, thank God, because she had left her door unlocked when she left for the cemetery. 66 They all left their doors unlocked, in this small southern town. Which was inhabited by honest lawabiding citizens. With a keen sense of justice. Into whose steadily advancing faces she had quickly shut her door. & locked it. As soundlessly as she could, for fear of offending their honesty with the click of her latch. It couldn't be later than 1/4 to 6. Her mother's funeral had been set for 4:30. It had started late, but the sermon had been brief. & she lived only two short blocks from the cemetery. The interminable backward walk had lasted at most 5 minutes. They would go home now, she hoped. & leave her alone. She hadn't expected to see so many people that so many people knew her mother, who hadn't left her bed in almost three years. She had expected to be alone at the grave, with the old wino. & perhaps the social worker. Perhaps she ought to pack a suitcase & go to Egypt after all. For a month or so, to give these people time to come to their senses. After they found out the truth. Which the social worker might feel compelled to tell them, when she was told what they had done to her after the funeral. Were still planning to do to her, perhaps. If the social worker knew the truth. If she hadn't been one of the black pairs of accusing eyes in the procession, if the social worker had gone to the funeral. Of course the social worker had gone to the funeral. The social worker had more of a right than anybody to go to the funeral. After taking care of the poor old woman for close to three years. Twice a week. It was the social worker who had peeled the poor old body from the filthy sheets. Nothing but skin & bones. Who had given the poor old body a good last bath. Spraying it with a nice-smelling lotion, before she put a decent clean gown around it. & cut the grey felt hair to pageboy length. & put a touch of rouge on the 67
Page 1 and 2: ROBERT TAYLOR, JR. Union Street Sta
Page 3 and 4: espect for those who supervise him
Page 5 and 6: In bed, on the verge of sleep, she
Page 7 and 8: They sit together in the turret, on
Page 9 and 10: RICHARD SPEAKES Scrimshaw The man t
Page 11 and 12: ELAINE FORD Whin I met Ivor in a pu
Page 13 and 14: I'd only spoken it once. "Moira, an
Page 15 and 16: etween the gravestones and the pape
Page 17 and 18: in the street." "How do you know it
Page 19 and 20: CLEOPATRA MATHIS Journey in the Sno
Page 21 and 22: STEPHANIE STRICKLAND RICHARD HENSLE
Page 23 and 24: cloth from a New York mill, the col
Page 25 and 26: JANE MILLER The Heart Climbs Devili
Page 27 and 28: URSULE MOLINARO The Chemistry of Mi
Page 29: now. Any day now, perhaps. Perhaps
Page 33 and 34: Where she had perhaps planted the t
Page 35 and 36: JAMES BRASFIELD The Stringer Called
Page 37 and 38: C: You have translated Whitman into
Page 39 and 40: also describe my high school years
Page 41 and 42: sequence and sequence. Not in the b

Issue 3 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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