David James

Nighthawks (yet another version)
 
for Edward Hopper
 
It’s late and he’s at the café counter, drinking cold coffee, worrying about how he’ll die. It could be next month or four years from now. Backpack on, he could be trudging along the mountain ridge and lose his balance, tumbling for years, it seems, to oblivion, one sudden chunk of darkness exploding in his dream.
   
He looks up, stares at the woman in a red dress sitting next to him and then stares back into his coffee cup, cream swirling like a broken question mark on a snow-covered mountain.
 
**

An Age-Old Garden Party
 
No one thought it would really happen, you know, at least, not that way. Some said it would lead to the end of civilization while others claimed it was inconsequential. The philosophers argued through the logic of probability, concluding that logic had nothing to do with myth.
            
In the end, like most things, it came down to chance. What were the odds that someone could fall that far and survive? To think that the person you loved the most would be the one, accidentally or not, to betray.
            
Some even claimed it didn’t matter. It wasn’t relevant. What happened thousands of years ago had little to no impact on our day-to-day lives. They said we’re not puppets on a string. We’re not dolls fashioned by eternal hands into flesh-coloured breakable clay.
 
Betrayal is often misunderstood and can be confused with love. The woman picked an apple and gave it to the man to eat. There was no malice, only love for her partner. Sadly, she had no idea it would result in being tossed out of the garden to work and live and suffer and die.
 
What’s strange is that only after the banishment, after walking out of the garden, did either one of them feel the desire to pray.
 
**
 
The Pretend There’s Nothing Wrong Game
 
“The optimist claims we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.”  James Cabell
 
When your sump pump fails and the basement floods, just smile. As the drunk speeds through a red light and totals your car, climb out, shake the glass from your hair and consider yourself blessed. After your girlfriend dumps you for the star quarterback, treat yourself to a hot fudge sundae with extra cherries. 
 
Whenever something bad happens, pretend nothing’s wrong, pretend it’s not worth the emotional trauma involved with resentment, anger, jealousy or fear. It’s all life and thank God you’re alive to experience it firsthand. What didn’t happen, or what should have happened, is useless. Forget it. Ignore it. The life that counts is the one you’re wading into right now. Pretend you expected this. 
 
Pretend you love every minute of it.
 
**
 
Current Karma (a distant relative to instant)
 
“…And I think I am happy enough.” 
last line from a poem by Al Basting
 
A three-quarter moon plants itself in the maple tree out back, claiming the sky as its own—not a cloud in the entire state. Temperature down in the fifties tonight but a high of seventy-nine tomorrow, October 22. I’m lucky to be playing golf with an old friend for the first time this year.
 
My wife is coming home after spending the weekend with her father, ninety-six, in hospice, and I’m looking forward to giving her a big old bear hug, seeing her new haircut up close. Later this week, we’re driving to Canada to attend a play with my brother and his wife, stay overnight, have a few good meals, and laughs together.
 
It’s safe to say we’re blessed beyond compare. For now.
 
**
 
How Do You Know When to Give Up?
 
My wife’s father has lost twenty-five pounds in three weeks. He’s at home, in hospice and can’t eat solid foods. Besides one whiskey and Coke, he’s living on two Boosts per day. At ninety-six years old, he knows his time is up, and we hope the end is soon and painless, if that’s possible.
 
He’s still able to dress himself, get around with a walker, watch the Lions beat the first-place Vikings on TV. But he can’t help feeling scared when the future looks so bleak. And we can’t ease him into the ground or give him encouragement. What the hell do we know? This is a narrow path that he has to walk alone.
 
My wife gives him a pedicure, a foot massage and lotion on his scaly legs. She sits with him as he watches The Sound of Music for the two-hundredth time, trying to stay awake. But even if he doesn’t, he knows the movie by heart, each line, each character, the songs drifting along the edge of his dreams.
 
I love her for walking with her father right up to the edge. No one can practice dying. We all get our one beautiful chance to enter that darkness. I can’t help but wonder: will I wrestle or fall or leap?
 
**
 
How Do You Know When You’re Done Grieving?
 
Some say it takes a year or more. Others say when you stop wearing black. The experts claim you’re good when the pit in your stomach is gone, and you wake up three days in a row without thinking of the deceased. Maybe it’s after you dream of the person, and in your dream you’re in a boat or at the store or walking down the street as the sun shines on both of you, talking as if nothing happened.
 
Maybe, just maybe, grief becomes a part of every day thereafter until, like so many leaves falling, you stop noticing.
 
**
 
Little Disturbances Later in the Day
 
for Grace Paley
 
One Saturday morning, I noticed that all the kids on my block were sixty-seven years old. Chloe, on her bike, complained of her bad knees and cataracts. The four Schmidt brothers played basketball but at a much slower pace. And no one could do a jump shot. Amelia and Annie were having a tea party, but instead of sitting on a blanket on the grass, they set up a card table and folding chairs. The sun glinted off their gray pigtails. When Simon, Henry and Elliot walked by, baseball gloves in hand, I heard Henry say he was seeing a surgeon next week about a left hip replacement. Cloud, the entrepreneur, was already operating his drink stand near Rolston road, serving Bloody Marys and highballs in addition to lemonade.
 
As I laid on the couch for my late morning nap, I could hear their voices, the basketball dribbling, the thwack of a baseball caught, a squeaky bicycle wheel rolling up and down the cul-de-sac. Throw in the wind, the low growl of an occasional car driving by, and the birds calling in mid-spring, and I fell asleep pretty easily. 
 
**

Smelt It, Dealt It
 
I don’t know how it happened, but I can smell colours. That glass there, that’s blue; the magazine on the TV is green. There’s a little red on the wall, a clock, and then tons of black. What’s with so much black?  Smells like licorice dipped in tar.
 
The sense of smell is so underutilized today. No one stops to “smell the roses.” No one slows down enough to smell the rain coming up from Toledo, smell the lilacs in full bloom, smell the last days of my aunt in a nursing home, praying she doesn’t die in the same room as my Uncle Darrel. I can smell him, black coffee and cigar.
 
I can smell the past like a wet basement, a couch soaking up the muddy water, a bag of dry dog food melting in the corner.
 
I’m as lost and afraid as the next guy; in fact, I smell fear. It’s a thin smoke in the room, the smell of sweat and grapefruit combined with used tea bags and oatmeal. It’s an unmistakable smell. And the older I get, the more this fear finds me—at the gym, in church, at the drugstore, in my living room. 
 
                             at night I lie down
                             and smell the end, a grey mist
                             rising in my eyes
 
 
**
 
How Do You Know Someone Hates You?
 
It’s in their eyes—a steely look of doubt and anger, maybe disgust. They squint a little. The forehead begins to wrinkle and they turn their head to dismiss you, annihilate your presence from sight.
 
Sometimes these people simply ignore you, pretend you’re not there, that you don’t exist. Or the opposite. They push and shove, trip you, willing to kick and swing anything at your body and face.
 
And every now and then, you meet the real devious ones who shake your hand, smile and show you their straight white teeth, talk like they’re interested in what you believe and experience. But as soon as you turn around, the dagger hits you squarely between the shoulder blades, twisted and pulled.
 
**
 
​David James has published nine books and has had over forty of his one-act plays produced. He’s been writing prose poems since 1974 after seeing/hearing Russell Edson read at his university.