Someone Wicked This Way Writes

Judge your neighbor - revised as per writer's group critique....Please comment

2011-07-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

Judge your neighbor

Heidi Buyak

6/2011

Her order was very specific. A large cup of coffee with sugar free Hazelnut syrup, could we do that? Could we? Really? Because it was very important that she had sugar free because well, she’s a diabetic now, type II, she discovered that one day after fainting in the mall…..

If she had been to the mall, it wasn’t to look for new clothes. She looked like a startled bird under her big cotton candy high 1980’s blonde dye job and bright red lip stick, both of which she was too old for.

It was the Christmas crush and she was standing there in front of me in her vintage red and black buffalo check stirrup pants and red holiday sweater with appliqué Christmas tree and presents. Oblivious to the other customers piling up behind her like boulders in a flash flood she handed me a little packet of Christian Christmas goodies. Without really looking I said thanks and set it down gently on the counter. Our customers like us and sometimes they give us things. She leaned forward and whispered,

“I gotta tell you something. Oh, no, wait, can I trust you? Are you a Christian?”

“I am.”

She had to ask me again,

“Are you a Christian?”

“Yes, I am,” she could stop waiting for the cock to crow three times, I wasn’t denying it.

Relieved to be talking to ‘one of her own kind’ she leaned over the counter all breathy and conspiratorial and said,

“I know this is going to sound crazy, but, I was just across the street at the movie theater, buying a ticket to see Black Swan, again and, and, I got scared, you know, really scared, because, can I tell you? Can I trust you?”

“Yeah, sure, yes, of course.”

Get on with it, I thought.

“After I bought my ticket, I saw some Muslim women, they were in the theater and I just got scared, you know?”

No. I didn’t know. Doesn’t the bible tell us, ‘Fear not, for I Am with you’..... Nah, never mind, go ahead and fear.

She stood there, unblinking, childlike and lost, waiting for an answer from me.

Why would anyone take advice from me? I wear a paper hat for a living.

“No, no, I’m sure it’s all right sweetie, they’re probably just there to see a movie. Don’t worry; I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, go on, enjoy your movie.”

She toddled off. Thank God.

Right after she left, three pretty teenage Muslim girls walked by, giggling and gossiping.

We didn’t lose any windows in the blast, because there was none, and since I was in the same spot as I was before I was easy for my new friend to find.

She came back after the movie and took a free refill and I called her by name, now we were bonded for life, I saw it in her eyes. She then went outside to a table and was still there when I left for the day.

The next day she was back.

“So, who did you give the packet to?”

What packet? The one I threw out?

“Oh, I left it here, I’m sure who ever took it took it because they really needed it.” I told her.

She looked wounded and handing me another one demanded,

“Here, take another one and give it to someone who needs to be saved.”

Excuse me? Was I to do her calling for her? I wondered who was making her do this? It was obvious that she was too afraid to really go out there. If she was so ‘on fire’, why didn’t she go after those Muslim girls the day before? In her world Jesus died only for us white, middle class women.

I smiled and took her little Christian Christmas packet, which was also her tip, and she was on her way, this time to sit upstairs for a few hours, of sitting and staring.

The store manager was packed in with my co-worker and our supervisor behind the espresso bar, helping us, mostly by eating samples off the sample plate before any of the customers had a chance to get to them. Despite that, he saw everything and said,

“Looks like you got yourself a stalker.”

“Great.”

He just laughed.

I had had stalkers in the past, more like ‘fans’ really.

Once in college, this guy became fixated with my voice on the radio when I had a show there and could not figure out why I wouldn’t ‘go out’ with him, because he liked me so much. Curious, I told him I’d listen to him for one evening. He was a mealy little guy so I wasn’t too worried and I had friends close by. He kept talking in circles always coming back around to asking why I wouldn’t go out with him. To which I told him I had a boyfriend, and no, I wasn’t going to dump him. He said he was depressed, and seemed convinced I could help him. I just listened.

In the end and more for the attention than anything else, I heard he jumped ten feet into eight feet of water on the edge of campus.

They fished him out with a butterfly net and sent him home wrapped in bubble wrap. The stupid things we do in college.

He was disturbed.

The other one was here in Texas, a woman, well, a girl disguised as a woman. She floated into where I was taking Aikido and decided that she wanted to be a black belt too, just like me. Training her was an exercise in patience and restraint. All she talked about was her married boyfriend who taught Krav Magrav but would only use it on her, and wouldn’t teach her. Throwing her was like throwing an old woman to the ground.

Then, one day at the dojo, she met my family, and she had a new goal, going so far as to tell me that she would be a much better mother to my daughter than I was. I told my teacher who was also a police officer and he resolved the issue without anyone doing anything unprofessional.

She was insane.

This twit, with the big hair, was merely amusing by comparison.

The next day, she showed up again.

“So, who did you give the packet to?” She asked.

I lied.

“Oh, I gave it to my friend she goes to Marsh View Church…”

It was the wrong lie.

“Oh, you mean you didn’t give it to someone who needed saving? You were supposed to give it to someone who’s not a Christian.”

Wow, wounded and nasty.

She went away, dejected.

The store manager, was standing behind her watching and listening, when she wandered off he asked,

“Do you know who she is?”

“No.” So, he told me,

“I kicked her out of our other restaurant for distributing her religious literature to everyone there. She’s a real pain in the ass; let me know if you need me to step in.”

“Nah, it’s okay, I can’t make characters like this up, but thanks.”

I think he was relieved not to have to deal with her.

A week went by, and she returned, with a friend. She and he pushed aside another guest and slid into place in front of me. Introducing me she told him,

“This is my Good Christian friend.”

I was embarrassed and hoped no one heard her.

Her friend was all shiny, pink fat and topped off with just the kind of unctuous comb over you’d expect. He beamed at me like a televangelist that just had a little boy and looking at me he said to her,

“Oh, well, I could just tell she’s a good Christian, and she’s got a nice smile too.”

I recoiled in disgust, and then smirked and I thought; at least he said smile and not mouth, but it felt the same.

Of course he ordered a huge decadent sugar laden coffee drink with non fat milk, which I loaded with full fat half and half. I knew he’d enjoy suckling on in it front of his diabetic girlfriend. The customers just piled in behind him as he watched the backside of my shapeless uniform.

She was dragging him to yet another showing of her new favorite movie and they were gone.

I didn’t see her again until after the New Year.

Things were slow, after Christmas, so my supervisor had me whip up something cold and frothy to put in sample cups and walk around the store. My stalker had returned and was right there talking at me while I was receiving instructions from my boss. She didn’t care, leaning over the counter she whispered,

“Hey. I gotta talk to you.”

No, no you don’t, I thought, but instead said,

“Oh, okay, well, I gotta go out there anyway and hand out samples...”

She became agitated and giddy with anticipation she was actually going to see the puppet mistress’ legs and walk around with her, how exciting!

“Oh! You’re coming out here? Okay.” She was breathless and suddenly didn’t know where to stand.

Turning to my supervisor and under the din of the piped in music I said,

“Really? You want me to go out there now?”

She smiled back at me and said,

“Yes.” She thought it was funny.

Tray in hand I left my station and ‘Sweetie’ stood there right in front of me as if it was all for her and said,

“I gotta talk to you.”

Okay, we knew she was real good at ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ but if this was going to work, she was going to have to learn to ‘heel’. I started walking, so did she, sideways, facing me, talking, like one of those little cartoon dogs. She started talking at me.

“Okay, I gotta tell ya. The other day I came in and, you know, got my usual coffee with sugar free hazel nut and I was charged three sixty two by, you know, that guy? You know, the gay one?”

I stopped, turned and blurted a laugh right at her and said,

“The gay one? Wait, which one? They’re all gay!”

She was bewildered.

“Really, all of them?”

“Well, no, but about sixty percent, and that’s just the men!”

How did she know, I wasn’t gay? Oh, that’s right, If I was gay that wouldn’t have made me a ‘good Christian’.

She didn’t shut up,

“You know the one, he works over there it’s just so obvious...”

I knew exactly who she was talking about, hard working, helpful, funny; I’d sooner leave my kid with him than her.

I wondered, was it, Judge not, lest ye be judged? Or was it Judge not me, lest I judge you, for I am so much more righteous than thee...?

Then it occurred to me, I had just potentially ‘outted’ my new friends and opened them up to her special kind of irritation of them. I changed the subject.

“You know, a dollar to someone, like me, who works in food service is a lot more than maybe somebody else, because we make so little to begin with. I mean look at me, divorced, struggling to keep my house out of foreclosure – I need every dollar I get.”

For a second there I thought what an easy mark she’d be....

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She said to my back.

I had walked away and scraped her off.

I finished my sampling duty and returned to my station and cleaned something.

Forty five minutes later I was in the middle of a rush and she chose then to show herself pushing her hand between two customers she handed me something, I took it only because it was more efficient than not taking it. I put it in my pocket, it wasn’t money.

After the rush I pulled it out and read the business card, it said,

“Hello. This is God. I will be handling all of your problems and concerns today. That’s my job. Your job is to give them to me and then trust me. Have a great day!”

From anyone else, I would’ve really appreciated it. I’d even buy the magnet version of it for my refrigerator. But coming from her, it was not welcome. Plus it made me feel bad because I had lied about the foreclosure of my house. Then watching me read it she popped her head over the truffle counter and said,

“I’ll pray for you.”

No thanks lady.

She was back a few days later and I had what I thought was the answer, I said,

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here I went to my favorite cosmetic meeting last night and I think it’d be wonderful if you came with me to a meeting! You’d be great at it! Or, even better, we should get together at your house and have a party! When do you think we could schedule that? I’m off this Saturday; we could do it this Saturday.”

I turned to hand someone their drink and when I turned back she was gone.

My co worker who had been watching the whole thing said,

“Wow, I didn’t think she could move so fast, she was like smoke. I guess she didn’t like her brand of sales turned back on her. She’s really one sided.”

It was a couple of weeks later before she found her way back.

That day she found me in the bakery. Someone must’ve slipped her some sugar because she was mean.

“I hate this place! I like your other place better. They’re mean here.” She said pointing to the espresso bar.

“You know what those girls said about that guy? They were making fun of him and laughing at him.”

Looking at me and excluding me from her harsh criticism she continued,

“Everyone’s mean here, not you, you’re nice, because you’re a Christian.”

As if being baptized and going to church once in a while, made me a good anything, and without waiting for a reply, she toddled off.

During one of my weekly calls to my dad, I was telling him about this woman,

“She’ll come in and get a huge cup of coffee then goes sits and stares someplace for the rest of the day.”

He said,

“Maybe she’s homeless.”

“Oh. Thanks dad, now I feel bad.”

He told me a story,

“Yeah, we had this woman, up here, she’d come into the library in the morning and spread out all these papers over one of the tables in the back and tell everyone she was working on her book. Of course, there was no book, she was homeless.”

I felt small and scared. Small, because I had been raised better and scared because part of me feared that I would fail in my post divorce life and become that homeless woman in the library with the papers.

Now I felt sorry for her. What if she was homeless? Or what if she only went out when her husband was out of town or something weird like that. Maybe I should be a little more compassionate, less judgmental.

But, by the time she returned, the feeling had passed.

It was a few days before Valentine’s Day. She had already gotten her coffee and was going to see her favorite movie again for now the seventeenth time.

She wanted to let me know, and assure me,

“It’s a great movie, that actress is going to win an academy award, she’s just so good, even though there’s that one lesbian scene in it – that’s not why I’m going, it’s not, I’m Christian, I’m not like that, not into that. The movie’s just really good that’s all.”

Right, I thought.

After the movie she came back. I was helping a man buy expensive chocolate truffles for someone he loved when she sidled right up against him her body actually touched his. Her eyes were all bright.

“Hey!” She said.

“Hey, how are you? I’ll be right with you as soon as I finish helping this nice man.” I told her.

She then got even closer to the man and tried to crowd him to the side so she could stand in front of me.

I turned to get a box from the other side of my work space and she slid around to stay in front of me. It was creepy. It didn’t matter she needed to talk,

“I can’t wait to get married again so I don’t have to work anymore. I hate working. Don’t you?”

“No. I love my job. It’s fun.” And to prove it, I kept working.

“Oh, well, I was divorced in ’94...”

Judging by her wardrobe, I would’ve guessed ’84, but...

“....and I just can’t wait to get married again so I can stop working.”

I finished up with the nice man and asked her,

“You work?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I might’ve said it a little sarcastically because she took it badly.

“Oh, I mean, well, I don’t know, I always see you here, going to the movies, coffee, and,”

“I’m not always here! I don’t always come here! I work.”

“That’s what I’m asking, what kind of work do you do? I was just curious, that’s all.”

“I make gift baskets and I can do a lot of my work at night in front of the T.V.”

That was the job she wanted to stop for marriage? Would anyone do?

Obviously, I had really brought her down; talking about work she probably should’ve been doing instead of wasting time and money going to the movies. I tried to smooth her squirrel fur before she went and got me fired for hurting her feelings. I said,

“Come on you know me, I was just...”

“No!” She yelled.

“I don’t know you! I don’t know you at all.”

Her eyes went dead and she suddenly really didn’t seem to know me or any of my stunned co-workers. It was as if she had some kind of Asperger’s-of-convenience-syndrome because it took over and she just went blank.

She stalked off in a hard waddle and my supervisor and co-worker just stared at me and then laughed. My supervisor said.

“Wow, psy-cho.... you okay?”

I was a little shaken up, sweetie there had gotten real scary real quick but I was more afraid she’d go to management and complain about me. I wouldn’t be the first employee to lose their job that way. Of course management already had issues with her and she was probably too timid to make such a confrontation.

This time she was gone for months. I have no idea why she came back but she did, only now, she doesn’t bother any of us which is a real God send.

Write now, write here.

2011-07-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Heidi Buyak

July 5th, 2011

A friend reminded me the other day that writers, write. Plus, I’ve been reading the same thing everywhere mostly because I’ve been reading, watching TV, even cleaning, all to avoid writing.

My excuses are like weeds choking out my reasons. I am surrounded, everyday, by funny things to write about.

So, since everyday is the start of a new year, I resolve to write everyday and post at least once a week. I have a blog, I should use it.

Write? Write.

Judge your neighbor

2011-06-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Heidi Buyak

6/2011

If she had been to the mall, it wasn’t to look for new clothes. She looked like a startled bird under her big candy cotton high 1980’s dyed blonde hair and bright red lip stick, both of which she was too old for.

It was the Christmas crush and she was standing there in front of me in her vintage red and black buffalo check stirrup pants and Red holiday sweater with appliqué Christmas tree and presents. Oblivious to the other customers piling up behind her like boulders in a flash flood she handed me a little packet of Christian Christmas goodies. Without really looking I said thanks and set it down gently on the counter. Our customers like us and sometimes they give us things.

She leaned forward and whispered,

“I gotta tell you something. Oh, no, wait, can I trust you? Are you a Christian?”

“I am.”

She had to ask me again,

“Are you a Christian?”

“Yes, I am,” she could stop waiting for the cock to crow three times, I wasn’t denying it.

Relieved to be talking to ‘one of her own kind’ she leaned over the counter all breathy and conspiratorial and said,

“Yeah, sure, yes, of course.”

Get on with it, I thought.

“After I bought my ticket, I saw some Muslim women, they were in the theater and I just got scared, you know?”

No. I didn’t know.

'Fear not, for I Am with you’ Psalm 41: 10-13, nah, never mind, sweetie, go ahead and fear.

She stood there, unblinking, childlike and lost, waiting for an answer from me.

Why would anyone take advice from me? I wear a paper hat for a living. The question was so unchristian.

“No, no, I’m sure it’s all right sweetie, they’re probably just there to see a movie. Don’t worry; I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, go on, enjoy your movie.”

She toddled off. Thank God.

Right after she left, the same three pretty teenage Muslim girls walked by, giggling and gossiping.

We didn’t lose any windows in the blast, because there was none, and since I was in the same spot as before I was easy for my new friend to find.

She came back after the movie and took a free refill and I called her by name, now we were bonded for life, I saw it in her grateful eyes. She then went outside to a table and was still there when I left for the day.

The next day she was back.

“So, who did you give the packet to?”

“What packet?” I thought, the one I threw out?

“Oh, I left it here, I’m sure who ever took it took it because they really needed it.”

She looked wounded.

“Here, take another one and give it to someone who needs to be saved.”

Excuse me? Was I to do her calling for her? Evangelizing to people who you assume think like you and look like you, is not spreading the word of God, it’s preaching to the choir – and her brand of petulant pushiness left me cold and deaf. Who was making her do this? It was obvious that she was too afraid to really go out there. If she was so ‘on fire’, why didn’t she go after those Muslim girls the day before?

I smiled and took her little Christian Christmas packet which was also her tip, and she was on her way, this time to sit upstairs for a few hours, of sitting and staring.

My manager was laughing at me.

“Looks like you got a stalker.”

The next day I lied to her.

“So, who did you give the packet to?”

“Oh, I gave it to my friend she goes to Marsh View Church…”

It was the wrong lie.

“Oh, you mean you didn’t give it to someone who needed saving? You were supposed to give it to someone who’s not a Christian.”

Wow, wounded and nasty about it.

She went away, dejected.

The store manager, had been watching and asked,

“Do you know who she is?”

“No.” So, he told me,

“I kicked her out of our other restaurant for distributing her religious literature to everyone there. She’s a real pain in the ass; let me know if you need me to step in.”

I told him it was okay so far and I think he was relieved not to have to deal with her.

A week went by, and she returned, with a friend. She and he gently pushed aside another guest and slid into place in front of me. Introducing me she told him,

“This is my Good Christian friend.”

Her friend was all shiny, pink and fat topped off with just the kind of unctuous comb over you’d expect. He beamed at me like a televangelist that just had a little boy and looking at me he said to her,

“Oh, well, I could just tell and she’s got a nice smile too.”

I recoiled in disgust, and then smirked as I thought, at least he didn’t say mouth, even though it felt like it.

Of course he ordered a huge decadent sugar laden coffee drink but with non fat milk, so naturally I loaded it with full fat half and half, which he was going to enjoy suckling on in front of his diabetic girlfriend. The customers just piled in behind him as he watched the backside of my shapeless uniform.

She was dragging him to yet another showing of her new favorite movie and they were gone.

I didn’t see her again until after the New Year.

Things were slow so my supervisor had me whip up something cold and frothy to put in sample cups and walk around the store. My stalker was right there talking at me while I was receiving instructions from my boss. She didn’t care, leaning over the counter she whispered,

“Hey. I gotta talk to you.”

“No, no you don’t.” I thought, but said,

“Oh, okay, well, I gotta go out there anyway and hand out samples...”

She became agitated with giddy anticipation she was actually going to see the puppet mistress’ legs and walk around with her, how exciting!

“Oh! You’re coming out here? Okay.” And she suddenly didn’t know where to stand.

Turning to my supervisor I said to her under the din of the Muzak,

“Really? You want me to go out there now?”

She smiled back at me and said,

“Yes.” She was funny and as amused as I was.

Tray in hand I left my station and she stood there right in front of me as if it was all for her and said,

“I gotta talk to you.”

Okay, we all knew she was real good at ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ but if this was going to work, she was going to have to learn to ‘heel’. I started walking, so did she, sideways, facing me, talking,

“Okay, I gotta tell ya. The other day I came in and, you know, got my usual coffee with sugar free hazel nut and I was charged three sixty two by, you know, the guy? The gay one?”

I stopped, turned and blurted out a laugh right at her and said,

“The gay one. Wait, which one? They’re all gay here!”

She was bewildered.

“Really, all of them?”

“Well, no, but about sixty percent, and that’s just the men!”

How did she know, I wasn’t gay? Oh, that’s right, that wouldn’t have made me a ‘good Christian’.

She didn’t take the hint and kept right on talking,

“You know the one, he works over there it’s just so obvious...”

I knew exactly who she was talking about, hard working, kind, funny; I’d sooner leave my kid with him than her.

Is it, Judge not, lest ye be judged? Or is it Judge not me, lest I judge you, for I am so much more righteous than thee...?

Then it occurred to me, I had just potentially ‘outted’ my new friends and opened them up to her irritation of them. I changed the subject.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She said to my back.

I walked away and she stayed. I had scraped her off.

I finished my sampling duty and returned to my station and cleaned something.

After the rush I pulled it out and read the business card, it said,

“Hi this is God.... I will be handling things today, so....”

From anyone else, I would’ve really appreciated it. I might’ve even bought the magnet version of it for my refrigerator. But coming from her, it was too sincere to be sincere. Then watching me read it she popped her head over the truffle counter and said,

“I’ll pray for you.”

Again, same thing. My patience was wearing thin.

She was back a few days later and I had what I thought was the answer, I said,

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here I went to my favorite cosmetic meeting last night and I think it’d be wonderful if you came to a meeting with me! You’d be great at it! Or, even better, we should get together at your house and have a party! When do you think we could schedule that? I’m off this Saturday; we could do it this Saturday.”

I turned to hand someone their drink and when I turned back she was gone.

It was a couple of weeks later and I guess she had learned to vary her annoying routine as to avoid getting kicked out of every place she goes to.

The personality that had control that day found me in the bakery. Someone must’ve slipped her some sugar because she was mean.

“I hate this place! I like your other place better. They’re mean here.” She said pointing to the espresso bar.

“You know what those girls said about that guy? They were making fun of him and laughing at him.”

Looking at me and excluding me from her harsh criticism she continued,

“Not you. You’re nice. I can tell because you’re a Christian. ”

Being baptized and going to church on and off hardly made me a good anything. She toddled off and we didn’t see her for a while.

That night my dad called and I told him about her.

“She shows up, stays for hours, sits and stares, lingers over a cup of coffee, says she’s going to a movie.....” His answer was,

“Maybe she’s homeless”

Now I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

I really had been brought up better than how I had been thinking about ‘my stalker’ and I told myself that if she ever came back I’d try and learn a little more about her, maybe.

She came back the week before Valentine’s Day. She had already gotten her coffee and was going to see her favorite movie again for now the seventeenth time and even though there was that one lesbian scene in it she assured me that was not why she was going again and again because she was a Christian.

After the movie she came back. I was helping a man buy expensive chocolate truffles for someone he loved when she sidled right up against him her body actually touched his, it was rude.

“Hey!” She said.

“Hey, how are you? I’ll be right with you as soon as I finish helping this nice man.” I told her.

She then got even closer to the man and tried to crowd him to the side so she could stand in front of me.

I turned to get a box from the other side of my work space and she slid around to stay in front of me. It was creepy. It didn’t matter she needed to talk,

“I can’t wait to get married again so I don’t have to work anymore. I hate working. Don’t you?”

“No. I love my job. It’s fun.” And to prove it, I kept working.

“oh, well, I was divorced in ’94...”

Judging by her wardrobe I would’ve guessed ’84, but...

“....and I just can’t wait to get married again so I can stop working.”

I finished up with the nice man and asked her,

“You work?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She took it badly.

“Oh, I mean, well, I don’t know, I always see you here, going to the movies, coffee, and,”

“I’m not always here! I don’t always come here! I work.”

“That’s what I’m asking, what kind of work do you do? I was just curious, that’s all.”

“I make gift baskets and I can do a lot of my work at night in front of the T.V.”

“Come on you know me, I was just...”

“No!” She said.

“I don’t know you! I don’t know you at all.” And she stalked away.

Got Water?

2010-10-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

Heidi Buyak 10/2010

It was going to be nice to get into a natural hot spring and wash the dust off from a long ride. The night before, though, we had to car camp not one of my favorite things. In the morning my husband made me stretch my legs.

“Just hike with me up to that post over there.”

Reluctantly I went and then with a burst of energy I decided to beat him there.

What looked like a single short post from our vantage point, across a dry river bed, wasn’t. They were the edges of two wooden grave markers. Two different start dates and two different end dates burned simply and clearly in the rounded weathered cedar markers.

John and Erin, father and daughter, had been doing more than camping there, for a while. We stood silently looking out over their eternal view. It was dusty black and gold undulating dunes of the old seabed. It was an endless view. We stood there silently with them, found a few meager flowers and offered an equally meager prayer, and silently left.

He had read about Saline Springs on the Internet and this was just the kind of thing he liked to explore. The clothing optional bit was just a bonus and made it all the more enticing.

Someone back in the 60’s found these natural hot springs and developed them just enough to put in two cement tubs, an open air shower and an out house, which was not open air. Sandy paths cut through the gray gravel landscape connecting the amenities.

I slipped out of my shorts and pulled the tank top straight up over my head with one clean pull. He was already in the tub with the strangers. Next went my panties and bra. The air was dry and the same temperature as skin, I didn’t feel naked. I climbed in.

We shared the pool with another older couple. They looked to be in their sixties. We were in our late twenties. And they were a little peek into a future without sunscreen. Clearly, they spent a couple weeks every winter tanning their leathery hides. They were real disappointed that we learned about the place online. I didn’t think it was going to be a problem since it was nearly impossible to find and all the signs leading up to the place warned about the lax dress code.

Right on cue, another couple about our age pulled up in their little rental car and got out. He obviously read better than she did because he was ready to take a dip. She probably had a much nicer body than I did but we’ll never know. She stood there arms crossed and sour while he mewed and tried to persuade her. Better an old body then an old face. In the end, she won, he lost, and they left.

Another couple joined us. I think she was with someone. It was hard to tell we were all so consumed by trying not to look directly at her. Even I stared. Next to her, I had the figure of a thirteen-year old boy. My poor husband, it was either sit in the hot water and think of cold water or sit on the edge of the tub in eighty degree heat and think of… what? So we got out and put our clothes on.

After a quick look around we left. We had rented an Oldsmobile ‘under’ Achieva. On a long stretch of washboard and he decided to kick up a little dust and we started flying. There was this rock off to the right side of the road. No problem he barely dinged, thinking it would go shooting off the road. It didn’t. It came up underneath and mangled our front driver’s side tire.

He got out and put on the spare. The spare is the reason why car rental companies don’t want you to take their cars off road. A wheelbarrow tire would’ve been nice. Naturally, the dust he kicked up caught up with him and sandblasted him and the car. He got back in and we had a good laugh. We weren’t too worried because we had a cell phone and the map showed a paved road only ten miles away. If we were careful we’d be fine. I checked the cell phone, out of range.

Then another rock found the rear driver side tire and flattened it for us.

Rattlesnake canyon was only wide enough for one car, we had to keep driving. I checked the cell phone still out of range. Who was I going to call, the car rental people?

“Yes, hello you might want to call your legal department on this….”

No, we kept driving. We were just cresting a small rocky hill when we looked out the driver’s side window in time to see the donut spare go bounding by. It had popped its rim and it wasn’t going back, it had had enough. He got out and fetched the bad donut tire. He put the first shredded tire back on the front wheel, with sand spitting in his eyes.

Plowing along, the road had gotten wider. A car passed. It was someone from the hot springs.

“Are you ok? Oh! Hey! Hi! Do you need anything? You got water?”

“Yeah, we’ll be ok, gotta keep moving. We’ll be fine. Thanks.”

At least they didn’t say,

“Hey, you look different with your clothes on!”

Looking at our faces they probably thought they were too late to help us, that we had already lost our minds, they scurried away.

Pieces of tire were slapping the underside of the car. We could smell hot metal the brakes were heating up. If the brakes got too hot we’d end up as the meat dish in a “car-b-que” and we didn’t really want that.

The front tire had returned to its original components and we were now driving on the rim. Not wanting to be left out, the back tire also disintegrated.

How many miles can you go on a rim? A lot longer than the map was telling us.

The road was winding along a cliff wall, on the right and a cliff edge on the left. And it was still all loose rock and dirt, good for the car without traction.

Every hill we pressed up saved our brakes until the down side. A ridge loomed in front of us. He gunned it and we made it. Finally we saw the edge of the park and paved road.

Exactly one car length onto the pavement both rims snapped with a loud cooling crack and fell away from the wheel well. We had ground to a halt.

I checked the cell phone. It worked! We called AAA and they sent us a tow truck from Lone Pine. An hour later we’re on our way to town and to the garage of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe. It was late but someone was there to help us poor city kids. They told us they could probably get two new tires for us by tomorrow afternoon, sometime. We of course nodded and consented to his demands.

My husband asked if he should somehow try and connive the rental company into paying for the tires. He was always conniving, something he did with an uncomfortable transparency.

The mechanic put the car up on the lift. My husband asked,

“Well, whaddya think? Think they’ll go for it?”

The two men looked up at the underside of the car.

“Well, if you do that, the first thing they’re gonna do is put it up on their lift. And see the oil pan here? Well, it’s pretty banged up, might even be cracked. And the brakes are badly worn. No, you’d be better off not saying a thing and taking care of it yourself. Probably be cheaper.”

He agreed and three hundred dollars and a day later we were back at San Francisco airport. We had successfully turned the car in and were sitting on the shuttle bus. Then the driver asked,

“Who had the light blue Oldsmobile?”

We sat there real quiet, holding eye contact, our obligation over.

“Whoever had the light blue Oldsmobile, please check your pockets for the key.”

The Shore Cottage

2010-10-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

Heidi Buyak 10/2010

It took ten years but I got back, this time with my dad and my husband. I asked if he wouldn’t mind staying in the room that Willie died in. It didn’t bother him one bit.

Our first morning the sun was streaming onto the thick window sills and my foot was hanging out from under the blanket. I was slowly waking up when someone started pushing my toes one at a time like piano keys. My husband wasn’t in the room. I pulled my foot under the blanket and snuck to the bedroom door and peeked out. He was working on getting a fire going so we could have hot water for the shower. If he had done it he would have been shaking with laughter. He wasn’t and it looked like he’d been out there for a little while. Next my dad came out of the bed room of death and asked,

“Were one of you in my room this morning?”

We both said no and asked why.

“Well, just a few minutes ago somebody did this to my nose.”

He put his finger on the tip of his nose and moved it in a circle.

I told him about somebody playing with my toes.

We looked down at my husband just finishing up with the fire. Nothing had happened to him, and he didn’t like being left out so he went to the kitchen and made himself some instant coffee.

Dad and I agreed it must have been a little greeting for family only and since Willie was the most recently dead, it must’ve been him.

The brother my dad went to Ireland with the first time was staying at the hotel in town with his wife. We went up there and had breakfast with them before heading out for a whole day of sightseeing.

One of my favorite things is Irish porridge they soak it over night and then heat it up in the morning. The texture is like warm smooth tightly packed tapioca with the steel cut oats popping like thick bubbles in your mouth. You of course have to add heavy Irish cream and sugar to it to ensure that any health benefits are completely neutralized. But it’ll stick with you all day and settle around your waist and ‘arse’ for a lifetime.

We told my uncle Bill about our morning visitor. He thought it was funny in a completely condescending way. Not only didn’t he believe us but was sure it wasn’t even possible. Some people go through life not believing in anything higher than their own intellect, he was one of them.

First we went to the Church and grave yard and made sure everybody was still there. After some searching, using only my memory, we found the family grave. They were all there.

In the city of Donegal we explored the churches and bookstores and went shopping for handmade Irish sweaters.

It had been a long day and we got back late. Around 10:00 there was a knock on the door. Since we knew everybody on the street we figured one of our neighbors needed something.

It was a little man I had never seen before. Middle aged, sturdy, salt and peppered, moustache. He spoke to my dad thick and fast.

“Heard Willie the Shore’s nephew was home wanted to see for myself, are you he?”

“Yes, and this is my….”

He tried to introduce us, but the man ducked back out the door and picked up a wooden bin filled with firewood. My dad turned and shot me a glance that said,

“Who the Hell is this?”

I smiled and shrugged, I thought I knew everybody that knew us.

He brushed past us and into to cottage, smelling like wood smoke. He went right to the hearth and built us a fire.

“Wood’s better than coal, damn dirty coal, burns better, starts quicker than that damn peat as well.”

Then he plunked himself down in the best chair and took a look around.

“Them Yanks did a nice job. Good kitchen and nice bathroom. Willie woulda never done it himself, you know.”

He was right; all Willie ever said was,

“It’ll do me.”

Then looking at me, for the first time he said,

“I’ll have a drink, what’ve ya got?”

“All we have is soda.” I said.

“Alright then, if you’ve got nothing stronger, I’ll take what you’ve got.”

I got up and brought him back a small glass of something lemon – lime flavored. He took without a thank you and just sat there with it.

We still had no idea who this guy was and he hadn’t bothered to tell us or ask us who we were either. My dad made an attempt.

“I’m sorry but we didn’t get your name.”

“I’m Mickey.”

Okay. Dad tried for a little more.

“Mickey the Shore or Mickey the Rye?”

“Mickey the Rye.”

That helped, not at all.

There were two dominant families on the isle. Ours was McLaughlin and the others were the Doherty’s, if you lived near the shore you were ‘The Shore’; if you were slightly inland you were ‘The Rye’.

Dad kept chipping away,

“McLaughlin or Doherty?”

Exasperated with us he finally gave us a clue I could use.

“I’m Ellie the Rye’s son.”

Ellie, the first person I met here when I was 15. I gasped when I saw her. White silk gossamer hair floated around her head. The palest skin I’d ever seen, watery blue pink rimmed eyes and naturally blood red lips. I couldn’t believe she was solid.

Now I knew the connection. I gave my dad the run down. Ellie was my grandmother’s cousin and lived two doors down the street.

Pointing at me Mickey said,

“Aye, she knows!”

Was this a game?

So, he was a relation. He was my grandmother’s cousin’s son so to us, that made him, completely nuts.

He turned his attention to my husband and quickly asked,

“You’ll go fishing with me tomorrow.”

To which he quickly lied,

“Yeah, sure, thanks.”

Not hearing or waiting for the answer Mickey was verbally off down the next track.

“Just come back from England, lumber mill over there. They had to let me go….”

Had to? Or just really wanted to?

“…home again after fifteen fucking years. Home again and on the fucking dole.”

Did he just say, Fucking? And was he saying it now incessantly? With a mouth like that, I bet he knew some great limericks.

He started in on the water heater,

“If this fucking water heater gives you any fucking problems I’ll be happy to come over and fix it, don’t know why they put this one in it’s a fucking piece of fucking-shit. An how bout those fucking flues in the other rooms I can fix them for you. Yeah, they missed a few things when they fucking redid this fucking place. I can help fix ‘em if ya want just let me know.”

Now we got it, he had come over looking for a fucking job at 10: fucking, 45 at night. How about a ten pound note to get the fuck out of the house?

The fun was over.

I got up and changed into my pink gingham pajamas came back out and sat down.

Nothing.

This guy was thicker than Irish butter.

Finally, we’d been polite enough and my dad said as we all stood up,

“Well, it’s late and we’ve had a long day and we’re all tired.”

Mickey talked right over him as if that would make my dad forget that he had just asked him to leave.

He needed to be told again.

Standing there using that tone I remembered from when I was a child, he said,

“I think it’s time for you to go home. Thanks for the visit, but it’s late. Now. Good Night.”

Reluctantly he hoisted himself out of the chair like we were begging him to stay. He set his glass down and headed for the door, rambling the whole way,

“Oh you’re welcome, no trouble at all, an remember now, if ya need anything fixed….”

“We’ll come get you.” my dad told him ushering him into the night.

The door locked we all talked at once,

“Odd-duck”

“Nut-job”

“Glad you weren’t here by yourself.” Me too.

Dad said,

“I think we should keep all the doors and windows locked and he is not coming back to ‘fix’ anything.”

Clearly, Mickey’s rye wasn’t done.

Standing in the kitchen with my dad putting the glass in the sink he said,

“Strange guy you know, he brought us wood. Wood. Where the Hell did he get wood? There’s no wood in Ireland. Why didn’t he just bring peat?”

The next morning John Sheils stopped by to pick up the electric kettle, it had a bad cord.

We told him about our late night visitor.

Now, I met John and his wife Mary Bridget years ago and on every visit since. This was the only time I ever understood what he said.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you again.”

He emphasized it with eye contact and with a big grin added.

“And if he does, you just let me know.”

And with that he took the broken kettle and left.

John’s sister- in -law, Mary Frances, was expecting us for a full breakfast. So, we marched ourselves up the hill a half mile for our traditional Irish breakfast. Fried eggs, rasher, black pudding, porridge and tea.

We told her and her husband Eddie about Mickey.

“Doesn’t know when to leave, does he? Good thing you didn’t have whiskey, he’d likely still be there.”

Her husband agreed and added,

“He’s fairly harmless but I wouldn’t go out on that boat with him. Borrowed Willie’s rowboat one time and took one of the O’Donnell’s farm hands with him, came back two hours after dark pissing drunk. Had everyone out looking for them, a little unpredictable, that one.”

We were still listening to stories of Mickey when John walked in.

“Just come from Ellie’s house, was going to have a chat with Mickey. He wasn’t there and Ellie was crying…. Mickey’s gone.”

The Catholics crossed themselves, the Protestants, we, stopped chewing.

I looked at Mary Frances for clarification. She said,

“Mickey the Rye’s dead.”

Turning back to John she asked, “What happened?”

“It was the evening before last; there was an explosion at the mill all 150 souls lost. Ellie got the call this morning.” They crossed themselves again.

“Then who,” I asked.

“Oh, aye, it sounded like Mickey alright. He was always irritating Willie, asking to fix things. He’ll not be bothering you anymore. Though not much I can do now if he does.” A man of few words, he turned and left.

Blue

2010-10-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Heidi Buyak

10/2010

Recently, an old boyfriend contacted me.

“Is this the same Heidi Buyak from Pound Ridge that moved to Hawaii in 1988? Did I meet you at a Dale Carnegie class in White Plains? How are you?”

Oh, we met, and dated for over a year before I dumped him and moved to California.

Maybe he forgot.

Well, I remembered.

He had the nicest blue eyes.

At class every time I looked up he was looking back.

He’s still with the same company he was with then and back then his frequent flyer miles fueled my travel lust. We went some fun places. In no order what so ever here are a few.

New Orleans in July is the most humid place on the planet. The Royal Sonesta with a pool outside on the third floor, on Bourbon St. It’s the only place you see in all the shots of Mardi gras and the French quarter because it was the nicest thing on the street.

I didn’t know what to expect, but a large black woman sitting in her underwear on display in a store front window across the street wasn’t one of them.

To me, New Orleans was like a fat ugly girl all dressed up but too drunk to leave and no one to drive her home, so she’s just left her there rumpled up in the corner with some empty cups.

We lived closer to New York so we went there more often. There was this Italian restaurant, Carmella’s. It was BYOB and hidden just below street level. With its red and white covered tables and warm cozy tongue in groove wood paneling, Carmella’s was every Italian restaurant you’ve ever seen in a movie.

One evening, walking through Greenwich Village we passed this fern bar. In the middle of the large front window two men were passionately kissing. I was from the suburbs and even though I’d been to the city a few times, I still hadn’t seen that before, so, I took a second look, why not? He, on the other hand was horrified.

Here was a guy who wouldn’t wear a pink shirt because he was afraid it might ‘turn’ him. As if it was that arbitrary.

Maybe it was for him.

Maybe he had to remind himself every morning that he liked girls. For fear that one morning he might get up and say,

“I think I’ll go for a run and fall in love with a man.”

As I got to know him he had a list of these things that might ‘turn’ him. At first I just took them as funny comments because they were. But his list kept growing, GQ magazine, might ‘turn’ him, couldn’t eat quiche, and he couldn’t possibly go to a foreign film, no loafers, and no sweater vests. Okay, maybe sweater vests. Plus I was beginning to notice he couldn’t make decisions about the easy things. It was,

“What do you want to do? I don’t know what do you want to do?”

Make up your mind. Take charge. Lead. It’s only a night out, or an afternoon, it’s not a commitment.

It got to a point where I would write down ideas on little bits of paper and toss them into a bowl and have him pull one out. Once in a while maybe, but as a primary form of decision making?

The best thing he ever did for me was take me to Arizona.

Remember your first time?

It was October, sunny, clear and a dry 80 degrees. It was the first time I ever saw a desert sky. A blue so saturated staring into it felt like falling. As if it would stain your eyes blue forever. All other colors merely existed to prove that there was nothing more visually sensual than the Arizona sky. All other blues were polluted. I’ve been back a few times since and still feel the same way.

Occasionally we spent the weekends closer to home visiting his family but whenever I got the chance to take a trip, I went.

That December we went to Boca Raton to visit his dad and his dad’s girlfriend. From there we drove to Key West. On the way we had Cuban sandwiches loaded with pork and a dangerous amount of shredded garlic all pressed in a sandwich mangle to the thickness of your pinky. After that we had some Cuban coffee. A thick sludge designed to keep you awake well into the next revolution.

On Key West we froze. We saw Hemingway’s house and the multi toed cats he left the place to, and had drinks where Hemingway used to get drunk. Dark wood floors, ceiling fans and unscreened windows open under a deep roof. We also stood at the southern most point of the US and looked towards Cuba. And on a drive around the Key we tried to find Jimmy Buffet’s house, but his name wasn’t on the mail box.

We took tons of trips together and he was a nice guy but I wasn’t ready for nice and pretty soon I found him predictable and boring.

I started thinking about what I wanted I had always wanted to live in California. The adventure and the planning excited me. I told my parents, they were all for it. They asked about my boyfriend and I told them he wouldn’t be coming. They told me to be careful.

I did continue to see him for a while. But you know how it is once you’ve made up your mind suddenly everything the other person does seems to reinforce your decision? Thought I’d try the weaning method. Maybe he’d break up with me. No luck. Maybe I could just disappear. Send him a postcard. No.

One evening at his place, we were getting ready to go out for dinner. I was just stepping out of the shower. He was just stepping out of his bedroom, in my matching black bra and half slip.

Awkward. Time stopped.

I know that there are lots of men who enjoy that. I know that now. I didn’t know it then.

I didn’t point or laugh, that would’ve been rude not to mention psychologically damaging.

Plus, I was in the middle of borrowing his towel. I was in no condition to get kicked out. Not while he was wearing my clothes.

I broke up with him, but not right there. I didn’t want him to think that was the reason. I mean as far as unusual behaviors go that wasn’t the worst. If that’s what he liked, I wasn’t going to make him feel bad about it. So, I bought him some silk boxers.

When I couldn’t stand his indecisiveness, timidity and fear of ‘turning’ gay any longer, I dumped him. I told him I was moving to California and that if I didn’t go now, I’d never go. He went straight to bargaining said we could get married. I held my ground. His response was,

“How could you do this to me?”

I imagine I would get the same response now.

Looking back, maybe I should’ve stayed. Silk boxer shorts are cheap and he turned out more normal and predictable then just about everything since.

Four hours in Purgatory

2010-10-04T04:20:00.000-07:00

Heidi Buyak September 2010

Have you read that story about that guy who died and was in Heaven for forty minutes and came back? I did and I thought it was pretty hopeful. I bought another book a man wrote about his twenty three minutes in Hell, but was too scared to read it. I guess I was afraid it might seem familiar. Lots of people believe that Heaven and Hell can be right here where you are right now but when it comes to Purgatory you have to go someplace else, some place made by the drones of man to punish and grind us down into something worthy of moving on to the next level, if there’s anything left when they’re done.

In Texas they call it the Department of Public Safety, as if giving all the people in this room licenses to drive was something safe to do. I remember when it was called DMV and maybe in some places it’s still called that. Either way, whatever you call it, it really is, our secular Purgatory. I don’t know what you did but it must have been something in need of true punishment and purging if you end up here. By the time I got there the line was 26 deep just to get to the cheery cherub who would give me a number for the privilege to hopefully sit in a molded plastic chair and wait my turn for the chance to stand in another line.

They just called number 83 and just handed out number 105.

The room is filled with people who either have no access to a computer or have to be here because it can’t be helped, avoided, paid off or delegated. The visually impaired along with those who just never bothered to learn to read are also here. Skinny teenagers too dumb to fake looking anything but arrogant are here waiting for their first license which I’m sure they’ll use like an entitlement. Until then they’re sitting here partially pinched under the overflowing corpulence sitting next to them waiting for their forklift assisted handicapped sticker for their reinforced mini vans.

In the 29 people who have now gathered in line behind me I can hear two women talking about the anti depressants and anti psychotics that they’re on. They’re here to get their licenses renewed, thank God. Driving around impaired and without a license? Think what that’d do to their insurance rates. Or worse yet a revoked license. How would they ever get their little precious twins Flance and Tymothé to Fun, Fair, Safe, Soccer where everybody’s a winner? With so many parents raiding their children’s behavior modification meds, it’s a wonder as to how they found this lush, ripe slice of Hell’s vestibule. Then again, they probably don’t even know they’re waiting in line.

Purgatory was starting to work on me and I had only been there about 30 minutes. My future bunions were only about an hour away and my knees were pretty much done. Even if I got a chance to sit, the pain would probably never go away. The desk with the lady cheerfully handing out numbers telescoped away the closer I slowly swayed in her direction, knees locked, feet burning. I could’ve left but instead I decided to stay. It was going to be my strange social experiment: I was curious. How long could this possibly take? Why do so many people stay and wait it out? Standing here nose to nape like Darwin’s rejects, waiting with dead eyes to get our souls back from the scales.

My crime against man and nature was that I was divorced and I wanted my old name back, and for that I must be punished. He was a good man. Just ask him, he’ll tell you, “I’m a nice guy.” Just because he didn’t stop dating after we got married doesn’t make him ‘bad’. No, just made me a little stupid for not figuring it out sooner. As he told me, “All guys do it and if they don’t they’re either lying or pussies”. Right there, there’s proof of what a good man he was to give me the truth like that. “Do you want me to lie to you, sneak around behind your back? Is that what you want?” How ‘nice’ to give me the option. Yeah, if he really had those qualities, wouldn’t other people already be saying so, saving him the time of saying it himself?

The pale teenage pinhead in front of me keeps sitting every chance he gets. His outward laziness must be the envy of his other driver-to-be buddies, if they even had the energy, themselves, for something as strenuous and specific as envy.

Why is this place so crowded? Where do they all come from? You’d think by the size of this crowd this must be the only under staffed office around for a thousand miles.

Skinny kid in front of me just took a break from his block stacking game to pull up his jeans. It makes me feel old to think we’re giving licenses to kids who still play with blocks. Of course his blocks are on the phone his mommy and daddy bought for him which of course only confirms my age because I don’t even know if my phone does that kind of thing and I don’t care to find out.

Over half an hour and I’m only three people away from getting my number. I can’t wait.

This guy in front of me is going to look like an even bigger dork when his has to take off his ghetto turned baseball cap and reveal a flippy do hair style underneath. Isn’t it supposed to be angled at about 3:15 or maybe 6:30 so you can get your face up real close to the prison bars in order to talk to your prison husbands? His was off at about a 2:10 angle. What’s 2:10 get you?

He’s up. As it turns out it’s time for him to turn in his vertical learners permit in exchange for his big boy horizontal license. I can hear the smiling comrade on the raised platform tell him something about mandatory selective service: would he like to register? Well, if it’s mandatory, why is she asking him? Or maybe she said, “Mandatory selective service, you like, da?” He told her he was thinking about enlisting in the Navy anyway. Standing there, in pain up to my knees, I felt a blunted guilt at judging him so poorly. If this was purgatory, we were here to be judged but not by me.

Thirty five minutes and now it’s my turn. I heard about this interrogation technique once where they leave the prisoner alone for a few weeks without any human contact and then they send someone friendly in to talk to them and they’re usually so happy for the company they tell them anything they want to know. Getting my number feels a like that. I get my papers out for the good comrade. I want to please her she takes it, slowly, and is pleased with me. I am relieved. She seems efficient and surprisingly friendly. She must be new. Or maybe she can feel the overwhelming and collective despair in the room and it gives her pleasure. I explain to her what I’m doing, show her all the right documentation and ask her with all the remaining hope of a novice if I will be getting my picture retaken. She’s happily informs that of course they’ll be retaking my picture. Hope leaves me as I realize that, of course, they have to keep me here longer. It pleases them to do so plus they obviously haven’t finished weighing my soul.

My number is 119 and I am sent to the chairs to look for one of the freshly mummified that I can push out and replace. No one qualifies so I shuffle to the back of the waiting area. At the corner between the waiting area and the testing area there is an office with a door open. I look in. It’s a standard office with cheap government furniture bought at a premium. I hear no other voice in my head that makes me hesitate, having been temporarily relieved of my soul. I reach in right inside the door. I grab a chair and sit down, hiding behind another soulless drone standing in front of me. It’s padded and not clipped to anyone else’s chair. I slip out of my shoes. The floor is cool on my feet.

Like those people who suddenly found themselves temporarily and unexpectedly dead and in either Heaven or Hell, I hadn’t expected to find myself here either. I started out the day going to a potential job interview. It was at a temp agency and I had already applied online, plus I had walked in my resume the day before and made the appointment. In all my arrogance I fully expected to be offered a job in house doing what I had done before at another agency I worked for. I was disappointed. After refilling all of the forms I filled out online and after giving them my resume again I was ready to take their computer tests confirming that I can’t do anything but sales. I already knew I was both over and under qualified to be a receptionist, so why not just get this process done and over with?

No, the girl at the window who was young enough to be wearing those braces for the first time around told me to go ahead and give her numbers of my past employers, the most recent of which was about five years before she was born. I smiled and informed her that I was pretty sure by now some of the people I had worked for were dead. She didn’t mind. She just informed me of their policy. I very nicely asked if I should just go ahead and take the tests and do the interview, since I was already there, all dressed up and in heels.

No, I should go and get the numbers first and come back. I said sure. No problem. I just live down the street and I’ll be back with those numbers for her.

Now, I need a job and I know I can get a job but I was pretty sure I couldn’t get the number of the oldest employer on my list, a shipping company I worked for in 1988 that moved from the United States back to Bergen, Norway, much less any hope of finding anyone who remembered me or even the man I worked for who by now should be very comfortably retired. On walking in there, two things were obvious, I was not twenty and I hadn’t worked in an office in fifteen years.

So, I thanked her and very nicely and politely excused myself and left. Her blind adherence to policy and complete lack of free thought struck me as stupid but inspired me not to go home but to rush over to the social security office, before she got a job there avoiding customers and the work they represented.

Prejudging her, of course, was wrong. When I got to the social security office I could clearly see she would have been over-qualified to work here. It was a nice, new, clean building, well laid out with lots of service windows, all of which had people working in them. Numbers were being called quickly and people were moving through efficiently. It wasn’t what I imagined. A nice police officer not only helped me with my forms but actually expended energy in going and getting me the one I needed that they were all out of, and he didn’t seem to resent doing it at all. By the time I finished filling out my form, my number was being called and I was sitting across from another nice helpful guy.

I was unprepared and told him so. He told me to run up to the court house and get a certified copy of my divorce decree and to just come back to his window. It was an uncommon statement of common sense and good customer service. I didn’t think that people who worked in the post office, social security office, DPS, or welfare office were allowed to act so efficiently and kind. I think there’s a policy against it. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

Off I went to the court house and thirty eight dollars later I was out and back again at the window. We had a nice chat and he asked me why I was going back to my old name and why I would want to get divorced. Rampant infidelity, his, not mine. I left out the part about the drug abuse. No one has the time to listen to that, plus, I didn’t need anyone going after my ex’s job; I needed the alimony. He just smiled and nodded. Then he did a cruel thing. He suggested that while I was out, I should go to DPS, since I now had all the paper work I needed. So, I went.

When I got here it was Wednesday, 11:15 a.m. Not that time matters here. Time is a human construct. Time and hope are two things all those who enter here must abandon because here they do not exist. So, I was finally clutching my number, 119, sitting in the back of the room in a contraband padded chair (one surely reserved for any of these fine hard working and speedy employees to sit in) in the office I took it from, where they are undoubtedly reprimanded severely, should they ever be caught actually being fine, hard working and speedy. That kind of deviant behavior would never be allowed. It would only make the other employees feel bad, and it might make the general public feel good, and we can’t have that.

Sitting there, cooling my bare feet on the floor, I further imagine the office a place of refuge during peak hours for all of the employees to go and hide in, but there’s probably a lounge in the back for that, away from the smell of desiccating corpses and near audible moans of despair.

There are no metal detectors here and I wonder why as we all stand here like cattle. There are six 8x10 employees’ photos in cheap metal frames on the wall behind the check in desk. You’re forced to look at them the whole time you’re waiting in line. I assume these honored workers were ones that actually died on the job, rubber stamp in hand. They processed six people in the month they sat there, dead, and were therefore elevated to prized employees of the month.

Hiding just barely in the waiting pen, it’s shift change at the lovely front desk. Anywhere else that thing would probably be behind bullet proof glass or at least a cage but they somehow manage to keep us all docile with no air circulation and I’m guessing with a soft and gentle lacing of the air with a little CO2 bled off from all the failed driver’s tests. Do they even fail drivers anymore? It doesn’t seem like it.

The nice lady up front was replaced, or possibly taken out back and shot, for exceeding to do her job. The comrade that replaced her was much improved. Warming up on me as she steamed by informing me,

“You really can’t take that chair out of the office.”

Clearly, I could. I mumbled something about hiding but the Soviet sow had already sailed on by. I didn’t move which, of course, here looks just like moving, so I was good. I just kept my head down and continued writing.

12:20. They were calling 95, 96, 97, and 98, for the second time. From where I was still sitting, I listened to an exchange between a woman who wanted to be a school bus driver and the counter worker who was preventing her.

“Can I take my test?”

“No, because you’re required to get finger printed first.”

“Okay, I can do that. Can I do that now?”

“No, because you need to get finger printed first. Are you qualified on air brakes?”

“No, haven’t taken my test yet.”

“Well go get your air brake certificate and then come back and I don’t wanna hear you taking your test, out back until you got your air brakes, then we’ll finger print you, but we can’t test you without finger prints.”

I’m confused, I think, I’m not sure. The poor woman was sent away or back to a line somewhere.

Finally, someone with some authority and tact told me about the chair, again. They were really serious here about our discomfort. She said that patrons were not allowed to sit this close to the testing area, which was empty, and that the chair wasn’t allowed to be removed from the office. So, I stood up and just left it there and moved forward into the galley of blue molded plastic chairs tethered two by two.

They would’ve been happy to have provided us with just sharpened sticks, I’m sure, and were probably disappointed to find out that they couldn’t, at least not until they were promoted to Hell.

I sat next to a pleasant woman who planned better than I did and brought a book, a thick one. She didn’t remember how long she’d been there but she thought it was about three days. Since she could read, I took a chance and tried out my joke about the employees of the month up there and how they died for the honor. I was relieved when she got it. We talked about the book she was reading. She told me that the man who wrote them delivered all three to his publisher at once and then promptly died.

1:26. Numbers 115, 116 and 117 are called. My seatmate left and I had the whole row to myself. Two out of the four employees went home or to lunch or maybe they got promoted. 1:30. 118, 119 and 120 are called. Apparently, they start over with number 1 when they get to 120. Now, I get to stand in the line I originally came in here for. Maybe when I’m done here, I’ll go to the post office, to see how it compares. By 1:50 I’m seen. You know you’re no longer among the living, when the person waiting on you has hair piled higher than humanly possible and nails so long it makes all personal hygiene impossible.

I hand over my license, my paper work proving I have a right to get my birth name back, and give her some money she forces out the command to stand in front of the screen and look at the dot in one breathe, or where one breath would’ve been if she had one. Another employee of the month in the making. She had me remove my glasses because on my last license I had them on and I was actually smiling. This time though, they had me remove them, in order to take the rest of my soul.

I looked over the counter to get a glimpse of my future picture in color but she wouldn’t let me see it. Instead she handed me my paper black and white copy. I hid my shock. I didn’t want to give her any more pleasure then she was already sucking from the air between us. In four hours, they had managed to drain twelve years of life from me. I had lines in my face that weren’t there this morning when I got dressed up and put on my make-up. I’m going to come back here twelve years from now, they’re going to look at this picture and say, “Okay, no, you’re fine we, don’t need another shot.” They’ll take it anyway, of course.

Let Your Light Shine by Heidi Buyak

2010-09-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

What if you could go to any exotic place you could think of, for free.

Would you go? What if you couldn’t think of any exotic place to go to?

Would you stay home?

Please?

I met her at our door wearing short shorts a tee shirt and bare feet.

She was wearing a beyond vintage A-line brown “tweed” polyester skirt the kind of fabric that was shiny on the back and wouldn’t breathe if you cut holes in to it. On top she wore a beige long sleeved high necked Victorian blouse. She was also wearing panty hose. Like sausage casings with her little piggies trapped in a pair of vinyl beige pumps. She kept the shoes on, though it was clearly our custom to take them off.

Panty hose on Guam? She must have brought them with her. No one wore panty hose on Guam.

It was never below 90 degrees and so humid it rained every afternoon like throwing up when you have a migraine.

I hadn’t seen an outfit like that since the ninth grade.

It was in style then in 1979 when I was fifteen living in New York in the cold.

She came with her husband who was a pilot with my husband.

The happy couple commuted from their spread in Colorado where they owned a mountain.

So, every three weeks they’d fly out and stay at the hotel for two

while he flew his line and then they’d fly home.

My husband invited them to our tenth floor apartment.

We took them out on the lanai and showed them our view of the Philippine Sea.

And then came back in and sat on our hand carved rosewood furniture.

I had just come back from a trip to Bali.

A friend of mine flew out from California and we went and spent a few days on Bali.

The whole place assaults you.

The air is clove cigarette smoke. Your eyes burn as much from that, as from the pollution or the bright sarongs worn by the men and the women.

The people are rich in art and spirituality, but poor in things.

Unfortunately because they are poor in things around every corner you hear, “you buy from me, you bring me luck, you my first customer, braid your hair?” On and on until you’ve said ‘NO’ so many times you’re ready for parenthood. And the food could make your eyes water too as my friend found out when or drivers cautioned her that the sauce was hot. So she blew on it and popped a table spoon of it in her mouth. Tears streamed down her face as she fanned her mouth.

Since I just got back I thought it would be nice share my photo album of the trip.

We saw the Mother Temple which I liked so much I can still see it sometimes when I close my eyes.

We shopped in Ubud with its amazing batik artists and silversmiths.

One day we fell in with this Australian architect, who was trying to get a grip on his recent divorce.

With him, we toured the most expensive resorts you didn’t need a helicopter to get to.

By ourselves we went to the monkey temple and were shocked when one monkey mounted another one right next to my friend sitting there. I don’t have that picture, except for the one in my mind.

In one day of driving around saw a complete funeral. In the morning it was the colorful procession on the back of an elephant. In the afternoon it was a pyre and then at sunset, ashes returning to the sea for rebirth and reincarnation.

Bali might be dirty and unorganized but that contrast with all the beauty and fantastic art and food makes it a stunning assault on the senses. Who wouldn’t want to go?

So, there we were she and I huddled shoulder to shoulder, sitting on my dragon and phoenix bench couch handmade in China by Buddhists, flipping through my photo album.

The men were talking about flying and ignoring us.

One picture I showed her was of a beautiful woman walking down a dirt road wrapped in a gleaming emerald green sari balancing a pyramid of brilliant oranges on her head going to temple. The sky behind her was a roiling gun powder blue black. It was the kind of picture that no matter how bad a photographer you are, it still made you feel worthy of National Geographic, the subject matter was that perfect.

It was the next picture however that really perked her up. An empty gravel road after a festival, wet from rain. Bamboo stalks with their leaves left on, lined the road and had been left to go blonde in the sun and were gracefully arching over the street. I liked it, not a great picture, but it had that morning after look and feel. She liked it too because she pressed her soft pale and sweaty finger onto it and said,

“You know what that is?”

Well, I didn’t but I was interested.

She was suddenly so animated.

Maybe she was one of those eccentrics that just stopped buying clothes when she stopped growing.

So that she could spend all her time reading comparative theologies. I was so hopeful.

The men stopped talking. Her husband beamed at her with pride.

I thought,

“Wow, this might be good”.

“No, I don’t.” I said. Maybe I was wrong about her.

“They’re Evil.” Of course they are.

I paused for a breath hoping she had more but that was all she had and that was all she said.

Carefully, slowly so as not to startle her I shifted away from her.

“Really, I didn’t know that.” I said politely eyebrows up.

She nodded with arrogant pursed lips, like she had just taught me something.

Silence was starting to form a black hole in the room.

“Have you ever gone on any trips with your husband?”

“No.”

“So…. What do you do when you come out here with him for the two weeks, or so?”

“I stay in the hotel.”

Still not believing, I asked,

“So, you never go on trips with him?”

“No.”

I asked her,

“You wouldn’t want to maybe go see Bali? Sometime?”

“Oh no! I would never go there!” I thought I’d shown her some nice pictures.

I thought she was enjoying them.

She made me feel as if I’d just shown her home porn.

“Really? Why not?”

This is what she said….

“Because places like that are full of heathens.”

Oh.

Well there you go.

The answer was so obvious.

What was I thinking, showing her such offensive images?

I mean how can you argue with that?

Well, you can’t so I didn’t. I just said,

“Oh.”

I sat there for a second and just drank her in.

I never wanted to forget her, the most unimaginative, incurious person I’d ever met.

Her cheap delicate gold sprayed cross glinting at us as it hung over her outdated beige high-necked ruffled shirt that matched her hair, skin and reflected her personality.

Her husband’s glazed eyed stare, smiling and nodding right along with her as she set us all straight.

Her fear and judgment made me uncomfortable. Her Christianity was not mine.

Suddenly we were captives in our own apartment.

Tribal Chuukese love sticks in one corner a carved Buddha in another, nailed down onto our traditional Chinese furniture, the painting on the wall of the flying monkey god of Bali laughing at us.

There was some more preaching on their part about some church they found with like-minded people. How easy it was for them to preach to us. We were safe and stunned into silence.

We just nodded politely until they decided that we had been set straight and left.

When I recovered from their ‘preach-attack’ I remembered,

“Let your light shine…. So that others may see your good deeds….”

Or, you could stay home.

Hello. My name is Heidi

2010-09-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

This is how I introduce myself. Then, I force the handshake ritual.

What I get in return is a cold, dry, limp bag of bones thrust at me.

It’s up to me to shake it for them. Once that’s done I wait for their name.

I’ve given them mine now they are supposed to give me theirs.

Did they forget? Is it a secret? Are they in the witness relocation program?

Even those people have names, right? Nothing.

Sometimes I’ll get, “It’s nice to meet you.”

All they’re saying with that is, “It’s so nice for you to meet me.”

Most of the time it’s the mother’s of my daughter’s friends.

They’re meeting me for the first time and they’re dropping their kid off at my house.

That event might get me a spacey reply of, “I’m Donald’s mom.”

“I figured that out lady. Now, what I need to know, from you, is if Donald is as airy fairy as you.

And if he were to fall down and scrape his knee, who would I call and ask for?

So that I may find out which brand of bandage Donald is allergic to, and then I can give him one of those.”

I kept my name after I gave birth.

I’m always surprised and saddened by those women who didn’t.

What I finally ask is, “and you are….?”

The spell breaks, she blinks and from somewhere long ago in her past she remembers.

It took her too long, I no longer care. My politeness timed out. I immediately forget.

Besides from somewhere inside it sounds like someone needs a bandage.

So, let’s wrap this thing up. When I, or anyone else, says, “Hello, my name is….”

You are to firmly grasp their hand and if you can’t focus on their eyes at least look towards their face.

And if your Botox allows, smile.

Then, tell them your name.

Hello. My name is Heidi.