Sally Mars: Stories

The Bamboo Forest

It was supposed to be heaven. But they were late for to the airport and arrived rushed and sweating and if only they’d checked cause the flight was delayed. Who should have called, her or him? The strategy to save their hunger for the plane rather than spend money on overpriced airport fare was poorly thought, since there haven’t been viable meals in coach for years, and they paid five dollars for a box of crackers and potato chips. So it was before they even landed that a sense of dissatisfaction set in; that, and being taken.

Sometimes an argument isn’t made with words. Sometimes it’s posture, or hands, the way fingers migrate to assure even a paper’s width of space between his and hers. They turn in their seats, trying to sleep in the noise and the chill with growling bellies and clammy armpits, meticulous in their unwillingness to touch, more deliberate than in the avoidance of a stranger.

But it’s still early when they land, and the sun is bright and the wind is blowing, “Trade Winds” they overhear on the shuttle to the hotel, which sounds romantic and reminds them why they’re here; why the saved for this, and that dreams do come true.

It’s still light, early enough to see that the view from their “ocean view” room is mostly of another enormous tower but yes, there is a sliver of sea. The window opens two and a half inches, just enough to blow their near-empty plastic cups from the desk, spilling small remnants of iced mocha coffee (double the price of home) onto the pale berber carpet, leaving yet another stain there.

The restaurant is too festive and they are too tired, though they try. They drink expensive fruity drinks - well, him one then back to beer - and order sixteen dollar nachos that come with pineapple and ham. “Tomorrow,” they say, still awkward with each other as they return to their sea-sliver view.

She wakes early and notes the crowd on beach already at 6:30am. Anticipating the warmth of the sun, she dresses quietly in her swimsuit, looks in the mirror, then covers up, pulling the robe tight around her throat and telling herself this is only because it’s always chilly by the water.

She keeps her robe on in the chaise she paid to sit in, thankful she brought a little money down with her. By 8:30am she is starving, and forced to remove the robe to use it as a “placeholder” cause she doesn’t want to have to pay for the chair a second time. She heads up to the room where her husband is dressed and furious, no idea where she’d been. She’d forgotten to leave a note, or deliberately neglected leaving one, depending. She calms him, in reality glad to be off a beach peopled by the slim, fit and young. They decide on breakfast away from the hotel, after last night’s seventy-five dollar tab (plus tip) for more or less nothing.

Hawaii seems even less glamorous away from the hotel, where tired streets remind them of the part of town they grew up in at home, but don’t go to anymore. They find a Denny’s. Breakfast is thirty dollars and takes nearly an hour. She is thinking about the money last night and now today, the costs she was budgeting for the trip – meals, tours, souvenirs – already failing to work out as planned. $150.00 dollars (with chair), she’s picturing the big screen TV with surround sound they’d been looking into, breaking that cost down into Hawaiian days.

The sun is hot but the breeze is cold. Not breeze, wind. It’s windy to the point of sand lodging in your teeth if you smile. The sign in the lobby has rental cars starting at $25.99 per day (based on three, with a nearly equivalent amount of taxes and fees involved, but of course the sign doesn’t say that). They rent a car (though the clerk pushed the jeep) for $45.99 for one day (plus fees and taxes) and buy a $6.95 map. On the road they soon learn the cost of Hawaiian gas. But climbing the coast road she could, in fits, forget the prices and the way he talked to her this morning when she had just lost track of time – it was an accident – and really one based in benevolence since, she said, she was trying to be nice, letting him sleep in; she could, in fits, forget how she felt in her bathing suit.

The road bends again and they are suddenly in a forest – just like that, a blink, no sign of rocks or sea. There’s a place to pull out and other cars parked there (mostly jeeps); it’s free. They joke that at least something in Hawaii is. There are three young people smoking marijuana in the parking lot (or so it seems). Her footwear is wrong for the trail but she stays quiet about this. The air smells good, like a certain kind of perfume and she suddenly understands why they call certain scents “green” - she always thought green meant grassy, but this is different, fresh and wet. The woods are loud with birds that surely must look exotic but somehow can only be heard, not seen.

Then she remembers: The chaise, the robe. She forgot all about it. The chaise is one thing, but the robe! They’ll probably charge them sixty dollars; how will she explain that on the bill? She is trying to keep herself from crying.

Her husband reads aloud a little plaque about how bamboo is really a grass. So she was right about that smell after all.

He reads aloud how the bamboo forest responds to adversity with a determined ability to renew itself.

He looks at his teary wife, takes her hand, kisses it.

The Writer

Everything good happened to him.

I’m not saying he didn’t have talent. He did. You can’t take that away from him.

He’s not the kind of guy you can picture going through those channels, the ones it takes to win a grant, or get his book published, or his script read by big name studio people. No, those acts seem...structured, and he’s so nonchalant, nonchalant in a way that that lets you believe that everything that happens for him is lucky and accidental, reinforcing the idea that he is a good man and that good things just come to him whether or not he is and whether or not that’s how it happened.

He owns his house and a cabin and a farm somewhere. But not a washer or a dryer.

“Every neighborhood needs a Laundromat,” he tells me, “Speaks to the nature of the people there; young or transient or settled in and stubborn, unable to fix something broken. I get my best material there”

But I know it’s the maid who does the wash.

The Maid

She takes his soiled things home to her apartment because the machines are cheaper there. She puts the extra quarters into her little girl’s piggy bank, whispering to her baby how she’s going to go to college and grateful for the extra two hours she can spend with her as his clothes spin and dry.

My Angel My Angel Do You Know You’re My Angel

We didn't know you would turn out so beautiful. We would have loved you anyway of course and we might even have called you beautiful because to us you would be. We do. You are. But really, you are beautiful. You just turned out so beautiful.

The Barefoot Kind

I would ski down your ribs and sled across your belly. But you are not a mountain, and I don't like the cold.

I would dive into your hip and surf your outer thigh. But you are not an ocean, and my balance is questionable.

I'd sow seeds along your jaw and turn them into your throat. But you are not earth, and nothing I have planted in you has ever grown.

I would scale you, probing your crevices, pulling myself onto you, higher. But you are not stone. And I am not comfortable with heights.

I would see by you, melt by you. But you are not the sun, and I am not light.

I would run you sweetly between my toes, wiggling them then standing still, remembering how the feeling felt. But you are not grass. And I am not the barefoot kind.

Father's Day

He left the boy’s mother when the boy was four and thought when the boy was a man he’d understand, but no. His own flesh and blood, nothing but venom. He likes to think he has another son somewhere. As a man, it’s possible. He always drinks in the same bar, waiting to be found.

Dream Analysis

“To dream that you are walking up a flight of stairs indicates that you are achieving a higher level of understanding. To dream that you are descending a flight of stairs signifies you will face many difficulties.”

I pretend I remember ascending.

Liability

You are the yellow spotted peel on the hard marble floor. I shift my weight onto you; I crash and wind up broken but it is me who feels ashamed – having fallen in front of everyone – so I pick myself up again, telling myself: No one gets hurt the way I did.

I Feel Shame, Knowing Shame

She was thrilled; she was cheering. She was 45, maybe 50. The stadium camera turned to her and she jumped up and down, arms overhead, fists pumping. She was smiling, really joyful. She looked up and saw herself on the scoreboard. Quickly, reflexively, she touched the underside of her arms. She folded her arms then, lost her smile. Then smiled again, shyly, watching herself wait for the camera to turn away.

Resurrection

It’s not that I was dead just too long untouched until you took my hand.

Secret Messages Etched in Stone

I thought I had bad luck but then I realized he was being cruel. Wasn’t my luck that was bad, it was my judgment. I’m not so wise, I didn’t catch on right away or even right after. And that’s not why it ended.

And I’ll confess to you here there wasn’t only one of them. X, Y, Z: All the same. I had a thing for cruel men. I gave them what they never should have asked me for; I gave them what they would have taken anyway. Z stole something. Y broke something. X left something behind and just when I got used to it, he took it back.

Now all these years later he still sends me secret messages. He tucks them into places he knows only I will find them. They say: It was all your fault.

I Dreamed of You

I dreamed of you.

I pretend that you can feel this. I pretend that you dreamed of me too, that I have conjured you, that I will hear from you soon/now before I shame myself writing to you again, saying:

I dreamed of you.

Lifespan

It will take all of my life to break these boots in. It will take all of my life for that oak to grow. It will take all of my life to know if you lied when you said I will love you forever.

Beautiful Woman Dines Alone at a Crowded Cafe

I noticed her at first because she was very beautiful. She was alone. I watched her at her table. I watched her when she ordered, and I watched her when her food arrived. She seemed happy.

Crowded cafe, a couple asked if they could share the table, a four-top. The woman said yes, and the couple politely angled their seats away from her while they waited for their meal. The three chatted a bit, but not readily.

The woman finished quickly, and left.

Devil/Angel

It’s easy to be a devil: Just strip down bare and indulge your senses. Add tridents and fire for atmosphere and be certain to rush, or better yet rush others.

It’s hard to be an angel: White is not my color and wings are just impossible. Restraint is clumsy. Clouds, ridiculous.

Kindness, unnatural.

Nobody

This isn’t the first time I looked at a picture of someone else and thought it was me or looked at a picture of myself and thought it was someone else. It happens in mirrors too, not in my own bathroom of course but sometimes in a restaurant, a mirror across the room and me wondering who that woman is and why she looks so tired.

It's a feminine question: A compliment-fishing, celebrity-inspired, pseudo-secret pop quiz; if you're a woman you've probably asked a man. I ask him: So who do I look like?

He tells me: Nobody.

A Perfect Spectator

I wanted to play catch. But I was a daughter or a little a sister. And besides, no one had time. I wanted a bat. But they bought me dolls.

I wanted to go with them to the game. But I was a daughter or a little sister. And besides, I wouldn’t understand. One day my brother brought me into the city and I saw the outside of Shea. I wanted to understand. But I was a daughter or a little sister. And some things are for men or boys.

My brothers moved away when I still small and one day my father taught me. By the sound of Scully and Garagiola a rookie named Cey broke the tie, walked it off in fact. My father was furious. They called Cey “The Penguin” and of course a small child is charmed by this. So I was thrilled he was the hero, but I kept that to myself.

I wanted to be a baseball player. But I was a daughter or a little sister. I didn’t want to play softball. And besides, we moved away too often for me to ever join a team.

I wanted to be a baseball player. And of course it was obvious, but I was late to the fact that it didn’t matter if I played on a team or not. I was a girl.

I wanted to be a baseball player. She said: If you turn out pretty enough, maybe you can marry one.

This was before Title IX. This started about the time that Aaron broke the record and for me it hasn’t stopped. Scully is still on the air. Ron Cey is still remembered; he played for The Dodgers and The Cubs. Aaron’s record has been broken, sort of. Puckett made The Hall and then left the planet early, like he left the game early, and they don’t even play anymore on the street that bears his name. They built a new place, a prettier one, named for a corporate sponsor.

And I don’t want to be a baseball player anymore. Of course not; I’m old now but I tell myself I was lucky. It’s a hard life, it ages you, all those days on the road far from home and family and working, really working all the time cause that’s how it is when you’re away. And there was what it took to get there too, living in other people’s houses, sleeping on buses.

And it’s hard on the body. And it’s hard on the mind, feeling old at thirty-seven which is younger than I am now.

I don’t feel old at all.

So I guess things worked out. I am a perfect spectator. I have seen amazing things: Two no-hitters so far, two championships. And a woman at the ballpark who played the game some herself, telling her daughter: You can be anything.

In Memory of My Father

Happy Father's Day, Julius. I'll sit in the stands today and understand because of you. I want to because of you. I'll remember our first time, and the second time, and the setting and the day will remind me of many settings and days but I will need to remind myself: I cannot call you. But imagination is more vivid than memories even and in my daydream you're alive and we'll talk after the game. And I'll tell you not only that we won or lost but the details I know you like to hear; the kind of things you taught me to recognize. And underneath the poo-poo in your voice for my team – victim of my league – I will hear the impact on your speech of lips curled up, teeth exposed. I will hear underneath the poo-poo in your voice the specific sonics of your smile; the particular, subtle affect that says what you're unable to, something about being proud of me.

163 to 1

What if you could have a second chance? What if you had a chance to do it over, or just again, and this time you win. You win or survive or get lucky or keep what you lost. You have a second chance, and this time it comes out just like you dreamed it would. Maybe then you’re satisfied. Maybe that’s enough.

Maybe we all live up to our level of satisfaction.

I admit I could be satisfied with less. I sometimes feel like I’m overflowing. I never thought I’d live this long or thought I’d want to live longer. Sometimes satisfied isn’t really satisfied because, you still want more.

I never thought I’d live this well, or see the things I’ve seen: The cycle, stealing home, winning The World Series twice. I want more. I want more cause it would be different now cause I’m different. It’s a paradox, see, “more of the same”, wanting to live to be very old while worrying over the fact of whose mother I am now old enough to be; feeling twenty-four while dousing myself in hair dye and wrinkle cream. Nobody looks like they feel. Life is a sedimentary thing; it's layers, upon layers. I’m not only forty-six but every age that came before it. I am seven, fifteen, thirty-six. And each new layer on top of all the others makes it something new, like ingredients in a pot of stew, every little event changing the way it tastes, each ingredient still there, rendered less potent by adding more of them. Some are stronger than others.

I want to remember the good times, but I want so many they become hard to remember.

My favorite sound is Vin Scully and it has been since I was nine. He’s still present; I still listen. My home is gone. My new house is clearly better but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the one I left.

Where is the line between second chances and fresh starts? It’s that sedimentary thing again, all that history comes with you and it turns out you didn’t even know what it was you loved.

You remember when you picked them or maybe you can’t because it’s just the way you were raised and it came so naturally to you. And there’s another paradox lying right there beside your fresh start: Everything you’ve ever known is already there waiting for you right now in a place you’ve never even been before.

They say you can’t go home again while they say you can find a new home. They say it can’t get any better than this but it can, if only more of it.

They said contraction. We say: Play ball.

Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr.

Randy Johnson would shout at the batter “Strike!” or “Out!” - as if his height and velocity weren’t enough. He didn’t do it every time, and not exactly often. He did it once in awhile, so either you were waiting for it, or weren’t expecting it. Either way he’d stress you out. And if he beat you he would pound his chest like an ape and call you juvenile names straight from a grammar school playground. I wonder what Randy Johnson was like in grammar school, how tall, and did that make him meek then, or terrible?

He played beside Ken Griffey Jr., the great, and in the days when The Twins were lousy and The Mariners were good there would be hardly a soul at The Metrodome. Griffey tripled, and an old man shouted from the stands, “Whipper Snapper!” Griffey, like the rest of us, laughed.

Griffey’s old now and he alone draws a crowd. The last season in The Dome, back with the M’s, he hit a towering home run into right. A young man in the stands shouted, “Grandpa!” Griffey, like the rest of us, laughed.

A Fan's Dilemma

I cheer. I yell. I heckle, just a little bit. I wear a lucky shirt. I wash a lucky shirt because it might have loser germs on it. I cheer. I yell. I try a different shirt. I think good thoughts. I think bad thoughts, just in case I’m a jinx. I yell. I cheer. I turn my cap inside out. I heckle, just a little bit and only sometimes. I sit in the same seat. I try a different seat, just in case it’s a jinx. I cheer. I yell, all the while fully knowing I have no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the game.

He said, What you do, it matters. That's when I knew he was falling in love.