Little David—ti Davíd—was late for his own funeral; but you can hardly blame a three-year-old. People shuffled back and forth, antsy to get things moving. We were on the clock. The day, like all days, was hot and cloudless; and since there was no embalming here, the child needed to be buried before sundown.
The boy had been brought by his father to the only hospital on the Haitian island of La Gonave. It was only open for a few weeks if and when the American doctors could come for their annual mission. That year there was enough of a lull in the nation’s seemingly endless string of turmoil and bad luck that they were able to make the trip. …
In my living room, near the wall closest to the tiny front hall, there was once a large piece of furniture, wooden and black and heavy, with varying shelf space of multiple heights and widths. The delivery men, when they were moving it in, hated it because it was immense. It really was a challenge and they struggled mightily and I felt bad for them but only briefly because I don’t imagine anyone forced them to become movers and, according to some philosopher who was much smarter than me, if you’re living the life you choose, you can’t complain. Anyway, for a few minutes, the unit was actually stuck in the entranceway and the movers didn’t know what to do. It just sat at an odd angle, wedged, while they looked at each other and swore. …
My daughter always looks up. She’s bored of what we’ve got here on land even when we’re somewhere nice, beautiful actually. She lies on the blanket and refuses to look at anything but up. Our stay at Lake Burns has been simple, well-deserved. The other kids laugh and cry but my daughter sits quietly. Jane says I should be grateful for this rare version of motherhood. I miss Jane.
Remember, the judge ruling on our divorce recommended we employ a mediator to determine how we’ll divide everything rather than hiring more lawyers.”
“How do we divide the furniture, cut them in half? How do you split the bed, the one we slept in and fucked in for five years?”
“This is not the way to resolve this. Neither of us can afford more legal fees. The judge gave me the names of three mediators, and I checked out all of them. Bernard Holbright is the best choice. He’s a well-recommended, retired judge. I took the liberty of setting up an appointment for next Wednesday.”
She snickered. “You took a lot of liberties with our marriage.”…
The New York winter chill disappeared when Jean entered the lobby of Maxine Elliott’s Theater, crowded with women. It was Jean’s fourth matinee since November 20th, when The Children’s Hour premiered.
She hadn’t returned for the play, but for the largely female audience, and more to the heart, for the maddening crush she had on one usherette who seated her in the second balcony.
In the last few years, Jean had scoured through journals on sexuality in the public library. Doctors called her condition inverted, depraved, a mistake of nature. Was it any wonder Martha killed herself at the end of The Children’s Hour?
Jean escaped into books, museums, theaters, and music recitals. For a few hours, the stranglehold of her homosexuality vanished into a novel by Pearl Buck, a painting by Matisse, a musical by Cole Porter, or a recital of Gershwin.…
Once a year in Budapest the local government of each district has an event called “lomtalanitás” or “ungarbaging”, an opportunity for people to rid their closets and basements of anything that they don’t need. The dates are posted a few weeks ahead of time, time enough for people to pile things onto the curb outside their building in preparation for when the garbage trucks will come to whisk it all away.
I found out that my district’s date was coming soon when I was walking home one day from the elementary school where I teach English. There are a few homeless men who sit in the park at the end of my block. They play chess together in the afternoons and drink cheap wine from plastic bottles in the evenings.…
offers me a map of the forest leads me through it in a sandpaper suit where each tree seems to know a different language the ground grows spongy, sinks and then drops away just roots and rocks and odd dark pools and the hawthorn bristles in broad Scots: each berry o’ mine is a planet and lower: this wood is not for you. An ash-tree is a great silver-green god but all the gods are dying black-tipped stems only show once the rot has the trunk. Greensands, gault and kimmeridge clay. No compass points, there’s no signal the map leads us both scrambling from one low ferned branch to another tall black cypresses whisper in Occitan the maples in maybe Croatian slippery leaf-mould and hart’s-tongue ferns foxgloves fringe a clearing round a huge service-tree in autumn crimson and hung with bletting fruit.…
