Alex 2

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“But Dad, you don’t get it.  Billy’s friend says that I have to call the judge.  I can plead guilty and then we won’t be wasting his time in court.”  Alex blows into the fingers that are not holding the iPhone.  It’s really cold on the street corner.

            “Alex, it’s Sunday.  You can’t call anyone at court today.  Besides, I don’t think that’s an acceptable procedure.”

            “Dad, I have to talk to the judge.  Do you have his number?”

            “No, I don’t, Alex.  It’s probably unlisted, and I’m sure the judge has a secretary who takes his calls.”

            “Look, I get that I’m not innocent.  I’ll just cop to driving with a suspended license and take the fine.”

            “We’re hoping that the judge will be lenient, given your medical history.  We talked about that, remember?  I’d like to get that $500 fine reduced,” says Alex’s father.

            “Jeez, Dad!  All you care about is the money.  You’re gonna let me go to jail for thirty days.  That really sucks!”

            “That’s not what I said, Alex.”

            Alex clicks off the iPhone.  His dad is such a jerk.  Billy’s friend said to talk to the judge.  And anyway, the new doctor gave Alex a clean bill of health.  Alex can barely remember the first time they picked him up.  He’d done something—ecstasy?—and he was out on the flats, in a cornfield, and the ball of light came down out of the sky and the aliens came and touched him.  After that, he got back in town somehow, and his dad and Gram met him a restaurant.  All the people he saw had three eyes, and Alex had this weird taste in his mouth, so he was spitting it out on the table.  Dad got the cops to take him into the ER.  Big guys, practically lifted him up like a suitcase and carried him to their car.  Handcuffs and everything.  It was terrifying. 

            Alex shakes his head.  He touches the spot Jack Kerouac stabbed and erases the thought.  It works to get rid of thoughts and dreams, too.  It’s too damn cold outside so Alex heads for the coffee bar.  He has his stuff stashed behind one of the couches.  Maybe Deborah is still in town.  She’s good for a coffee and a snack.  He’ll give her a call.            

The iPhone meows.  It’s a text message from Gram:  Job apps?  Where R U staying 2nite?  Alex frowns.  He’s been looking—kind of.  He talked to Jake who has a friend who works at the smoothie place.  He even got an application from the music store, but he can’t remember where it is.  Not in his pocket.  Maybe it’s in the tent.  He’ll look later.  Meanwhile, he’ll call Deborah.  It’d be great to get laid tonight.

Compassion

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Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems.  If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

–His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Wisdom of Compassion, p. 1

Alex 1

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Alex leans back on the stained sofa.  The young woman opposite him leans forward.  She is definitely interested.

            “Yeah, I’m into a Kerouac life-style.” Alex nods, giving her his most sexy smile. “You know, keeping a journal, moving around.”

            “You’re a writer?  Gathering material?”  she puts in, somewhat breathless.

 He takes a sip of his coffee, thinks, ‘oh, have I got her.’  He asks, “You live around here?”

            “Not really.  I’m at NYU.  I’m just visiting my parents during the winter break.”

            Alex knows he has to be careful because she might ask to see his work.  He did have a small pocket size notebook, but he lost it somewhere, maybe in the OWS tents.  Like his hat, that fine fedora he was wearing.  He can’t find the hat either.  But this girl, what’s her name?  Deborah.  If he plays it right, he could have a warm place to stay tonight.

            “The thing is, you know, it’s about getting out there and living, not sitting for hours in front of a screen,” Alex says.

            Deborah loses her smile and sits back.

            ‘Uh-oh,’ Alex thinks. ‘She must be a techie.’

            “I’m a comp sci major,” Deborah says, all prickly.

            Alex pulls his iPhone out of his pocket.  “Cool.  Check out this new app.”

            Deborah has to move next to him to see.

            Alex awakens on a couch in a strange room.  He is enmeshed in a dream in which a man who might have been Jack Kerouac took a huge knife and plunged it into Alex’s skull.  The Kerouac type was telling Alex to forget his dreams.  Alex touches the spot on his head above his left ear and the Kerouac dream is erased from his memory.

            The room is a spare storage room in the house that belongs to Deborah’s parents.  Alex didn’t hit the jackpot, but he did win a bed for the night.  Plus the parents are kind of old hippie types who went to college here and never left.  The house is outside of town, with no cell phone reception.  Alex thinks he’ll maybe write a road book. 

            Deborah drops Alex back in town.  He’s feeling good after coffee and a shower.  He is out of smokes again, so he calls Gram on his iPhone.

            “Hi, Gram.  I’m fine, but I’m a little hungry.”  That’s all he has to say.  She meets him at the diner.

            Gram is really his father’s stepmother, but she’s as good as a real one.  Alex sees her sitting in a booth by a window.  He slides onto the bench.  She looks him over.

            “You’re looking a lot cleaner than the last time I saw you,” she says.

            “Yep.  I got a shower this morning.”

            “Where did you sleep last night?” Gram asks. “You weren’t at the park.”

            “I slept at my friend’s house.”         

            “What friend is this?”

            “Uh—I can’t tell you the name,” Alex says.

            He orders a big breakfast: two eggs, sausage, and hash browns with toast.

            “Alex, you’ve been here for three weeks.  As far as I can tell, you’ve just been hanging out and couch-surfing.  Did you make any job applications?”

            “Yeah, well, I talked to my friend Marty, and he said he could hook me up with some guys at the computer depot.”

            “And?”

            “I’m going to call him today.  He’s been out of town.”

            Gram has those lines between her eyebrows.  “Alex, this is not part of our agreement.  You said you were going to fill out applications at some places in town.”

            “God, Gram, I’m going to, OK?”

            “But not wearing that outfit,” Gram says.  Her mouth is sewed up tight.  “And by the way, when was the last time you changed your clothes?”

            Alex throws down his fork.  “I can’t have this conversation right now.”  He picks up his coat.  “Can I have a few bucks?”

            “I told you last time that I’ll buy you things you need, but I’m not handing you cash,” Gram says.

            Alex shoves his arms into his coat.  “You and Dad, you stole four years of my life,” he says.  He picks up the four halves of toast and wraps them in a napkin.

            “Alex, you wouldn’t have been admitted if you had been healthy,” she says, but the words land on Alex’s back.

            He strides down the street in angry boots, looking for someone who will bum him a cigarette.  He really needs a smoke.

            There’s Jack Kerouac coming out of the music store.  He stops to light a cigarette.

            “Hey, Jack!”  Alex says.  “Can I bum a smoke?”

            The man looks at Alex, eyebrows up.  “Sorry, bud.  My name’s not Jack.  But you can have this one.”  He hands the lit cigarette to Alex.            

“Thanks, man.”  Alex takes a long drag off the Marlboro.

What It’s Like

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talking to the Mad Hatter

who’s wearing a backward baseball cap

and headphones

peering into the empty, locked car

who says, “Don’t make me a third.”

meaning the guy he sees in the reflection

himself

is…who? Come inside. Please.

“Go away,” he says.

“Leave me alone.”

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being a Dalit

who cleans toilets

with bleach water

several times a day

knowing that put the seat up first

or

stand closer

if understood,

won’t be remembered

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Hand him the tissue

say, wipe your butt

to the blank stare

Your ass! Wipe your ass!

Sometimes he does

sometimes doesn’t

left to me to clean up

two-hundred-pound baby

Braids and Waves

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Braids weave a wax design

Winding turquoise, teal and pearl

Amethyst and marigold

Vines to emerald leaves unfurl

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Waves make points, curving curl

Into petals, roses fully blown

Striped by saffron sunlight

Cobalt tone on tone

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Braids of souls connected

Ancestors woven chain

head homeward together

Until none remain

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Waves into particles whirl

Condensed illumination

When souls afire triumph

In the light of all creation

Tangled in Magic: the beginning of the Karakesh Chronicles

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Chapter One

Agatha Flees Hawk Hill

Agatha strapped her dagger around her hips, preparing to escape from her childhood home. At fifteen, she refused to be married off against her will. Her uncle Chaucey may have considered Santer, his counselor, an acceptable husband, but she did not.

Santer was half-warlock. He had left his apprenticeship early to manage Sir Chaucey’s lands. Fifteen years younger than Chaucey, the counselor was still old in Agatha’s eyes. He was a slim cobra of a man, given to wearing hooded tunics and sliding soundlessly through the stone hallways.

Agatha had always avoided his company. His slitted gaze made her uneasy. Everything about the older man repulsed her, from his yellowed teeth to the way he flicked his tongue like a snake.

She would not stay in the manse another day. Instead she would run away to seek her twin brother, Malcolm.

Until today, Agatha believed her twin brother had drowned, along with their parents. But after a surprise visit from Aunt Viola, news of her brother set her head spinning.

Her twin brother could still be alive.

Agatha descended the spiral stairs in her soft boots. No one intercepted her. Chaucey and Santer were snoring at the oak table, their heads resting on their arms, legs flung out and loose. The strong sleeping potion she had dropped into their goblets after supper had done its work.

Sliding past them, Agatha paused for one last look at Chaucey, her guardian for the past three years. His beard, once reddish-brown, was now dull and threaded with gray. His eyes, even in rest, were wreathed in wrinkles.

“He was not unkind to me,” Agatha thought, “but he did not care for me. He only cared for his dogs and his birds.”

She didn’t spare a glance for Santer, the counselor. Good at his job of managing the estate, the man was a snake in all other respects.

Agatha left through the scullery door.

By the light of the moon, she crept out to the stable of Hawk Hill Manse, and hastily tightened the girth on the saddle of her gray mare, Manakshi–a gift from Aunt Viola for Agatha’s fifteenth birthday.

Manakshi nuzzled Agatha’s cloak looking for a treat while she fixed the saddlebags. She froze when the horse knocked into a wooden bucket. The clatter it made on the cobbles disturbed the birds in the mews.

She began to lead Manakshi past the mews to the stable door when there was a rush of beating wings.

Archer, her uncle’s prize gyrfalcon, left her perch and landed on the grille. Agatha stifled a squeak of surprise. She stared nervously at the bird who stared back with unblinking onyx eyes.”Take me with you,” said Archer.

Agatha soon learns that Archer is a valuable companion on her quest. She also discovers that Santer is pursuing her. Meanwhile, Malcolm records his harrowing adventures in a journal. Will Agatha reach Malcolm before Santer succeeds in destroying them both?

Tangled in Magic is also available at www.handersenpublishing.com

Mother

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The first time I tried to write

about my mother,

the words exploded like grenades

all over the white paper field.

Pieces of A’s and T’s,

dead blackbirds on snow.

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The second time I tried to write

about my mother,

the pen skidded away

as if skating on ice,

leaving slices

of purple bruised chasms,

with swift, deadly water below.

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The third time I tried to write

about my mother,

the pen struggled through drifts

of burning white, windblown sand,

bleached bones of words unsaid,

questions unasked,

too hot to touch,

and too late,

too late,

too late.

Mariposa

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Here is another story from my teaching archives. Amidst all the opinions on immigration, the plight of the children is often disregarded.

As shy as a butterfly, and as silent, Mariposa joined the ENL kindergarten group in the first week of October.  Her presence made the group into an even dozen.  The children were mostly of Mexican background, but there were also children whose first languages were Arabic and Korean.

         Mariposa refused to speak.  During my initial language interview, she not only would not answer any question, she turned her back on me.  Later, during the requisite screening, it became obvious that Mariposa understood a fair amount of English.  She pointed to the objects that I named in the cut-away picture of a house.  She simply refused to speak in English or in Spanish.

         The week following her admission, we began ESL lessons.  Mariposa sat wide-eyed and observant, and silent.  The other kids said, “She don’t talk.”

         “That’s ok,” I said.  “She’ll talk when she’s ready.”

         Many non-native speakers go through this “silent period” when they enter a new school.  Experiencing immersion in a new language, new culture and social situation can be overwhelming.  When other affective influences are considered, it is easy to understand the reasons for a silent period.  An English language learner may have arrived from a worn-torn country, or have left beloved family members behind at home.  The child may have lived in extreme poverty, may have attended school erratically, or not at all.

         One student of mine, not Mariposa, was also silent for the first weeks.  She also presented such blank eyes that we thought she might have a learning disability, or even possibly a hearing deficit.  Her mask was, it turned out, a type of self-defense.  Now that she is talking, this girl demonstrates an uncanny memory, in English.

         Many immigrant families have stories they dare not tell, stories of border crossings in airless, crowded trucks, or night-covered runs through the desert.  Many are living two or three families in one tiny apartment. All are seeking a better life for themselves and their children who come to me every school day.

         Mariposa’s first interactions were gentle taps on my arm to get my attention.  She pointed to a scissors she needed, or to a child who was not following directions.  She was a capable child, cutting and coloring accurately and finishing her work before most of the others.

         As part of our morning circle time, a hamster puppet named Bumble sings with the children and asks them questions.  Mariposa’s wide smile showed her enjoyment of Bumble, but she continued her silence.  After several days, she would seem about to speak, and then catch herself, remembering she had decided not to talk.

         About two weeks after her arrival, she was sitting at the table with the rest of the group.  Behind my left shoulder, I heard her whisper in Spanish.  I didn’t draw attention to this breakthrough, but I had to smile.  She was beginning to emerge from her chrysalis.

         Over the next few days, Mariposa could be heard making whispered remarks in Spanish to one of the other girls.  She began to smile when we picked her up for ENL time at her classroom door.  She came willingly, with a bounce in her step.

         Snails and turtles  from their shells; butterflies emerge from chrysalises.  These are the obvious analogies for these young English language learners.

         Mariposa’s metamorphosis was signaled by the word “pizza.”  One morning Bumble, the hamster puppet, asked each child, “What is your favorite food?”  I expected to pass over Mariposa as usual, but that morning she answered in an almost inaudible whisper, “Pizza.”

         Later on, we were singing the song about colors.

         What are you wearing, what are you wearing,

         What are you wearing today, today?

         I noticed that Mariposa’s head was bent; she seemed to be staring at her lap.  Then I saw that her lips were moving, forming the English words of the song. 

         At that moment, I felt like a butterfly had unfurled its wings before me for the first time, only it was my heart that was expanding and taking flight.

The Scent of Stone

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In my palm

I hold a sphere of lapis,

blue with flecks of gold.

I found it in her drawer,

resting in a cloth basket.

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It lay in her hand

for thirty years

during meditation.

“It’s a microcosm,”

she told me once.

“The blue is space.

The gold flecks are stars.”

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She’s gone now,

but I hold the universe

on my palm.

When I lift it to my nose,

I smell the lemon verbena lotion

she spread on her hands.

Such small things connect us.

A Little Separation Anxiety Music

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Praises to the kindergarten teachers! Here is an article from my teaching archives.

Carlitos’s twelve-year-old cousin warned me about him before school started. 

         “He’s really bad,” she said in her lilting Mexican accent.  “He don’t listen to nobody.”

         She was right.  The first three days of kindergarten, this little dynamo only wanted to play in his newfound heaven of toys and kids.  The fact that he spoke only Spanish had nothing to do with his wayward behavior, since he would ignore his own name.  Carlitos did not want to have a moment of silence or a quiet time after lunch, and he certainly did not want to sit still and listen to stories in a foreign language.

         The first major meltdown must have happened in P.E. because I soon got word that Carlitos was crying and didn’t want to go to the gym.  But that was just the beginning.  In less than a week the rosy glow of kindergarten’s novelty wore off for this five-year-old.  There were too many rules, too many people saying, “do this” and “don’t do that”, and way too much English.  Staying home with mom was much more comfortable.  So Carlitos became a crier.

         Carlitos cried when his parents put him on the bus.  He cried when he got to school and he cried on the way to his classroom.  Just when he’d settled down to “pintar” (color), an activity that he liked, along came another teacher to take him away for ENL class.  Then he cried some more.

         Usually it was Mrs. D., my ENL student teacher, who picked up Carlitos and a handful of others from the upstairs teachers and walked them to our improvised classroom on the stage.

         One Monday Carlitos was having an especially hard re-entry after the weekend at home.  I could hear him wailing as I led my group of students up the stairs toward the hallway between the main building and our end of the school.  At the top of the stairs, we all stopped short.  Mrs. D. was trying to keep one hand on the sobbing Carlitos while preventing her little group from walking into the pool of his vomit.  Carlitos continued to weep and wail and choke while the nurse, and then the principal, came to investigate the ruckus.

         One of the steadfast custodians was called for clean-up.  Principal Mrs. K meanwhile ascertained that Carlitos was not ill, only overwrought.  She took him for a wash in the boy’s room.  The rest of our brood, considerably subdued, made its way to the stage and began the daily calendar lesson.

         Soon Mrs. K appeared with Carlitos, who was still shrieking in major Spanish decibels.  She brought a chair to the edge of the carpet, saying to the pint-sized siren, “Carlitos, this is the crying chair.  You may sit here until you are finished crying.”  She put a box of tissues on the table beside him and a trashcan next to his chair. 

         The class was agog.

         In between gagging and retching, Carlitos wailed on.

         “Quiero mi mami!  Quiero mi mami!”

         The rest of the kids were frozen by the display, so much so that there were no sympathetic tears, just wide eyes and awed silence.

         Over the piercing noise, I made a futile attempt to be heard.  Holding up a letter card, I said, “This is the letter D.  It sounds like /d/.”

         Not a head turned my way. Not an eye blinked.  I forged on.

         “Here’s a picture of something that begins with D,” I called out, louder now, holding up another card.  “It’s a kind of pet—“

         “Quiero mi mami!” Carlitos screamed and vomited into the trashcan.

         “—that says ‘woof, woof!”

         “—mi mami!”  Gag.  Wretch.

         Ms. G., the basic concepts teacher, poked her head around her door, stared for a moment, and retreated.

         I looked at my watch: twelve more minutes of class.  Reaching behind my chair, I grabbed my guitar and checked the tuning.

         “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands,” I warbled.

         No response.

         “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”

         Two heads turned.

         “If you’re happy and you know it—“

         Slowly the heads of the kindergarteners rotated toward me.  Some hands clapped.

         Carlitos’s volume lessened.

         Second verse: “nod your head!”

         Carlitos’s crying was equaled by some voices singing along.

         Third verse: “stamp your feet!”

         The wailing changed to whimpering.  We finished the song with a flourish: “jump up and down!”  Everyone but Carlitos jumped up and down with vigor.

         Ah, the power of music!  Pete Seeger would have been proud. That legendary folksinger has always claimed that music can make a better world.  It sure worked for me.