Our Strangers, page 4
Pilot: A little owl, it had no blood on it. It was perfect. I think it was hit by a car.
Birder: So what!
Pilot: (Pause) Well, I thought you’d be interested …
Birder: Saw whet!
Pilot: What?
Birder: Saw whet!
Democracy in France, in 1884
* * *
Henry James, in A Little Tour, describes what he calls democracy as it prevails in France: A waiter brings a customer, in a cafe, some writing materials. Then, the cafe being quiet, and the waiter having nothing else to do, he sits down with the customer at the table and proceeds to write a letter himself.
Claim to Fame #8:
On the Way to Detroit
* * *
In the airplane on my way to Detroit, on a recent trip, I sat next to a woman who turned out to be the widow of the nephew of Lewis Mumford!
England
* * *
My left hand keeps trying to type another e into the word acknowledgment, making it acknowledgement—the British spelling—while my right hand keeps deleting the e. Maybe my left hand grew up in England.
Criminal Activity in Historic
Colonial Williamsburg
* * *
During a block party, a tourist enters a gift shop holding an open container of beer. She is a little tipsy, a little loud, and talkative, and won’t leave, though she stays near the door. The shop owner is annoyed and asks her several times to leave. The woman persists in staying where she is. A shop employee is watching from the back. After some discussion, the shop owner calls the police, and the woman is arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Months later, the case goes to court. A witness is called for the defense: it is the gift shop employee, who is sympathetic to the accused. The woman with the open container was doing no harm, she says, she was not really drunk or disorderly. There is no witness for the prosecution. The judge, exasperated, dismisses the case.
Conversation in Hotel Lounge
* * *
Two women sit together on the sofa in the hotel lounge, bent over and deep in conversation. I am walking through, on the way to my room.
First woman, loudly and distinctly, happily: “I never had fun before!”
I am surprised and intrigued—what a heart-to-heart they are having! I try to imagine her life up to now. I try to imagine what she has been experiencing recently, and also the revelation this must be to her—the concept of fun. My thoughts take just a moment.
Second woman, speaking softly, inaudibly: “[Mumble, mumble].”
First woman: “No, no. Fun is a Chinese word. Fun is Mandarin. It means … a kind of rice noodle!”
Claim to Fame #9: In Detroit
* * *
In Detroit, standing in a line, I met a woman who turned out to be the daughter of Samuel Beckett’s publisher Barney Rossett.
A Friend Borrows a
Better Shopping Cart
* * *
A man who collects old televisions, old telephones, old magazines, and other old things says to his friend, “Oh no, don’t throw them out!” He’s talking about a pair of very large and very old speakers. He says he will take them. He travels by subway from another part of the city, bringing with him his shopping cart. The speakers are so large that only one will fit in the shopping cart. He takes it by subway back to his apartment. He returns for the other speaker, but this time without his shopping cart. He has noticed that his friend has a better shopping cart, so he borrows that one. Does he return it right away? Yes, he returns it right away, again coming by subway. Why didn’t he take both speakers at once, in a cab? Well, that might have worked, they might have fit next to him on the back seat, and he can afford a long cab ride. But he won’t spend any more than he has to. Among his group of friends, he has the most money and is also the only tightwad.
Sabbath Story #1:
Circuit Breaker
* * *
Heat wave in city.
Orthodox Jew stands on sidewalk waiting for non-Jew to come along.
Non-Jew, stranger, comes along.
Will stranger help Jew?
Jew takes stranger into building and down into basement.
Stranger flips circuit breaker switch.
Now air-conditioning unit comes on again.
Upstairs in apartment, many men are sitting in undershirts sweating in heat.
Stranger is offered milk and cookies, in thanks.
Letter to the U.S. Postal Service
Concerning a Poster
* * *
Dear Postal Service,
I was in my local post office the other day, and while I waited in line I had time to examine a poster that was displayed there. It was large (about three feet by four feet) and brightly colored, and it said, in very large letters, “People are good.” The picture behind the words showed the inside of a very large cardboard carton with a few Styrofoam peanuts in the bottom. The text of the poster concerned sending a pair of shoes packed in a large box full of Styrofoam peanuts. I expected the message to be environmental, asking us to consider the waste involved before we overpackaged what we were sending.
I have often been annoyed by receiving items unnecessarily packed in Styrofoam peanuts. I try to collect the peanuts and put them into a plastic bag to take to my local packing and mailing service for reuse, since I don’t like to throw something into the landfill that will never break down, and I am then further annoyed. With what I imagine must be static electricity, the peanuts cling to my hands, my hair, and everything else nearby, so that they are difficult to pick up and even more difficult, since they weigh almost nothing, to shake into the bag.
I always enjoy reading posters that agree with a favorite position of my own. But as I read further I was shocked to discover the message this poster, co-sponsored by an internet auction service, was conveying: that sending a pair of shoes packed in an outsized box filled with Styrofoam peanuts was what you or your writers or their writers called “a kind of love.”
This seems wrong to me for several reasons. As I understand it, people shipping items that have been purchased through an internet auction are strangers to the people buying these items, and the transaction is purely commercial. If they pack the purchased item with great care, it is either because they are conscientious or because they want to ensure that their ratings remain high and they will be able to sell more items in the future. It is not out of any sort of love, which they could not feel for a stranger unless they were truly enlightened, which most people are not. But worse than that misconception is the larger message: that overpackaging is good, or at least merely a harmless, rather charming foible. To send an item like an unbreakable pair of shoes in such excessive packaging demonstrates no love for the environment, and without love for the environment any other form of love is less admirable, in my opinion, though that is just an opinion. You are surely only encouraging the sort of wastefulness of which our society is already sufficiently guilty. As a government agency, you ought to be particularly concerned about this.
Please reconsider the message you want to send.
Yours sincerely.
Mature Woman Toward the End of a
Discussion About Raincoats over Lunch
with Another Mature Woman
* * *
She says, in a reasonable tone,
“It doesn’t have to be a Burberry!”
Sabbath Story #2: Minyan
* * *
Man is standing on sidewalk outside synagogue holding cell phone.
Stranger comes along and asks man if he can use cell phone.
Man agrees, stranger makes call.
Man then asks in turn if stranger will come inside synagogue.
Needed: one more man to make up minyan.
Stranger agrees, stays for most of service.
Our Network
* * *
The more time goes by, the more people we attach to ourselves. I do not hire a lawyer except in special circumstances, when I want to threaten my relatives or my former husband or my landlady. But I do have a therapist, a stockbroker, and an accountant who I see regularly. And it is of course quite likely that my stockbroker has a therapist, and that his therapist has a lawyer. No doubt that lawyer also has a therapist, an accountant, and possibly his own lawyer. This association of professional people providing essential services is a very strong network in our community.
William Cobbett
and the Stranger
* * *
A man, a stranger to him, asked Cobbett why he looked so fresh and young. Cobbett said he rose early, went to bed early, ate sparingly, never drank anything stronger than small beer, shaved once a day, and washed his hands and face clean three times a day at the very least.
The stranger responded that that was too much to think of doing.
Claim to Fame #3: June Havoc
* * *
My parents bought a small house in Connecticut from June Havoc, a talented actress and tap dancer even as a tiny child. She was not as well known, however, as her sister, Gypsy Rose Lee.
A Matter of Perspective
* * *
I saw something white moving through the air by the side of the house.
I thought it was a large white butterfly fluttering by—
a rare white butterfly!
But it was only a special delivery letter,
coming past the window in the postman’s hand.
Master Builder
* * *
With most excellent workmanship
he is up there on his ladder,
with greatest care ruining
the oldest house in town.
Enemies
* * *
Enemies : One way to say it
I have an enemy, I never had an enemy before.
Actually, now I have two enemies. No, I have only one, still; but he now has one, and because he is my partner, his enemy must become my enemy. And because his enemy’s partner is supporting the case of his enemy, his enemy’s partner must become my enemy, too.
Enemies : Another way to say it
We have some enemies, now. We never had enemies before. Or at least I never did. He did. Now together we have at least two. He had some, down in the city and also near here. Now we have one who is really only mine, unless she includes him in her anger. And we have another, or two, if the woman is going to join the man in turning against us. We don’t know that yet. They, or he, really started out as his enemies, or enemy, but if I am going to take his side, they will have to become my enemies too. These enemies are both, or all, here in town, or near enough. It will be awkward and unpleasant, or sad, to meet them on the street. I have never been in that position before, of finding it embarrassing to meet someone on the street, an enemy.
Lonely (Canned Ham)
* * *
The thin little old woman
goes timidly
into a shop
on the day before Thanksgiving.
She asks:
“Do you have a canned ham?”
That Obnoxious Man
* * *
That obnoxious man! I saw him on the train the other day and I knew who he was, but I couldn’t remember his name. I kept thinking about him after that, trying to remember his name. He was so obnoxious, long ago, when I knew him. By now his hair is white, but he still has that way of staring straight at you like a frightened rabbit with his eyes bugging out.
I am on the train again today, and I wish he would get on. Then I would ask him what his name was. Maybe after that I could stop thinking about him.
The beginning of this—“That obnoxious man!”—made me think of a poem by Lorine Niedecker. Or else it is the other way around, and it is because of the Lorine Niedecker poem that I say “That obnoxious man!” Her poem goes:
(untitled)
The museum man!
I wish he’d taken Pa’s spitbox!
I’m going to take that spitbox out
and bury it in the ground
and put a stone on top.
Because without that stone on top
it would come back.
Actually, it probably worked both ways: I began the story with those words because somewhere in my memory, though I didn’t know it, was the Niedecker poem. Then, when I looked at my story, it reminded me of the poem.
Now I might write it in a different way, more like her poem:
That obnoxious man!
I saw him on the train and I knew exactly who he was,
from long ago!
But I couldn’t remember his name.
Oh, I wish he’d get on the train again
so I could ask him his name.
Then I could bury him
And put a stone on top.
Wistful Spinster
* * *
What is that,
touching her so lightly in the bath
as she lies back in the warm water?
Ah,
a floating bookmark …
Old Men Around Town
* * *
In our town an old man used to come out of his house and take his daily walk along the sides of the streets. There were not many sidewalks, so he shared the street with the cars, but in the back streets the cars went by slowly. He was a tall, thin old man with a slight stoop—the father of the doctor in our town. He held his cane in one hand and a cloth bag in the other, for the mail, and he walked briskly but with such small steps that he did not advance very fast.
He seems to be gone now. The warm weather has returned, but he does not appear on the streets. In the cold weather there are no old men on the streets. Now that the warm weather has come, a few old men have appeared, but we see them only in the center of the town, walking a short distance along a sidewalk to enter a shop or standing at a street crossing. One of them is fleshy and bearded, in shorts and suspenders, dark socks and sturdy shoes. Another is bone thin and totters, swaying to one side, resting a hand against whatever bit of wall is nearby, or leaning far back to open a shop door.
Another old man used to walk past our house. He had good balance and a longer step. He wore a tam-o’-shanter at an angle on his handsome head. His white beard was short and curly. He had lived in the town all his life, unlike the doctor’s father, and he would stop to tell us where the sidewalks used to be and who had died a violent death, in which house. We no longer see him these days.
Yet another old man, once a week, would stand dressed in a suit and overcoat by his gate, in polished formal shoes. He was out early, waiting to be picked up by his son.
We see these old men on the streets of our town, and we see others in a nursing home, where they have been left by their families. The nursing home is itself like a little town, with its own chapel, barbershop, gift shop, and community meeting room like a town hall. There are the offices of the administrators, and there is the hallway like Main Street. There you may meet the others from the town and stop to talk with them. Some of the residents, though, spend the whole day going up and down the hall. They have given up stopping to chat, if they ever did, and as they pass you, they stare hard at you, almost with hostility, or else look straight ahead with vacant eyes.
One of them, fine-featured, neatly dressed, who walks briskly, with a vigorous step, mutters to himself about his men and what work they will be doing today. He stops to tell us that he must be up early in the morning—to get down to the factory. The factory is gone, his men are gone, but he still seems to be in charge of something.
A large-framed, tall, and bony old man still has all his wits about him. He sits in his wheelchair in the doorway to his room, facing out into the hall, and if we stop to talk to him, he tells us about his life as a wool sorter and grader in Australia. His wife visits him almost every day and spends many hours there, sitting in a chair next to him, their little dog on his lap brightly observing the foot traffic and wheelchair traffic as it goes by.
Lying in his white-sheeted bed is another old man, the professor, with skin almost as white as his sheets. In a nearby bed lies his roommate, his skin dark brown. They are good friends and are affectionate with each other, though the roommate has more of his wits about him than the professor. The roommate enjoys his visits from his family, but does not like to leave his room. The old professor has lost a lot of his memory, though not his sense of humor. He tries to make a joke, but he does not speak clearly, and only his family can guess what he is saying. He knows who his visitors are, but he does not remember what he has done in his life. His family wheel him out of his room in his wheelchair and down the hall. At mealtimes, they take him to the dining room, where they help him to eat his food.
In a village we have been reading about, two hundred years ago, an old man would live out his days, whatever his condition, either in his own home or in the home of a relative or perhaps another person paid to look after him. He might be a burden to his family, or he might find small ways to help them. As long as he could get about under his own power, he might roam the streets or the fields, the meadows or the woods. Then one day he would be struck down by illness or accident, and die slowly or quickly.
