9

I returned home and walked Martha to her car. I gave her a twenty for the chicken and said good-bye for what I hoped was forever. She moved in for a hug, but I denied her the full embrace by leaning in with my shoulder as opposed to my full body. I know that hurt her, but I thought it was better than letting her cling to the thought that things could be made better between us in the future. She drove off without uttering another word.

I wondered whether Jennifer was still out on the porch, lost in thought and poetry. It was just past nine-thirty and I had my doubts that she would still be lingering, but I took a chance anyway and walked the short distance in hopes of hitting pay dirt. Before I could even make out her silhouette in the shadows of the porch’s overhang, Jennifer greeted me with a hearty “hi” and her porcelain smile lit up the darkness of the night like a mouth-shaped flashlight. This time I didn’t ask if I could sit down and instead I went directly to the steps and positioned myself next to her, even being so bold as to make sure we were slightly closer than during our previous chats. There was a moment of silence as we took in each other’s auras and I suddenly began to connect with her on a level I didn’t even know existed until that evening. Hoping to continue our connection building, I asked her if she ever considered publishing her writing, but she told me that it would be an impossible feat because she always threw away her poems after finishing them.

“A poem has a place in time and once it is finished there is no use for it anymore. When a bird loses a feather, it grows a new one. It doesn’t try to salvage its loss, but instead, moves forward and continues to fly.”

I told Jennifer I didn’t understand where she was coming from, but she was glad that I was interested and proceeded with great enthusiasm to explain what she meant. Had this been any other girl, I would have agreed with her for the sake of agreeing, because in reality, I wouldn’t have cared. With Jennifer, I genuinely did care to know the answer and discover the girl.

“You see, a poem—well my poems at least—they’re like a combination to a safe. Each has many turns and different directions, but I’ve found through experience that you can only use that combination once. If I write a poem this evening and then turn around and read it tomorrow morning, it will already be outdated, misplaced, and for me, ill-conceived.”

I was shocked by what I had just heard. Jennifer could easily have been the second coming of Emily Dickenson and yet all of her writings were winding up in the trash. Artists by nature are often fueled by ego and more often than not, they crave validation for their works, whether it be a novel, a painting, or in this case, a poem. But here was someone, a beautiful flower of a woman, who seemed devoid of ego and interested only in the healing power of her words, which is what tempted me to ask her about what she had locked in her safe.

“What is that world like?” I asked, now more curious than ever to find out what made Jennifer tick.
“That, well, that’s something I can never describe in words. I only write about that which brings me there because words, at least by definition, could never truly describe the beauty, Drago.”
I didn’t understand and didn’t pretend to. She was a complex girl, and she knew it. What she didn’t know was that her complexity was winning me over and that I longed to be complex myself.
“Will you read me a poem one day?” I asked with a slight pinch of begging thrown in for good measure.
“I would be happy to, though it will have to be the right piece, and you mustn’t stand in my way when I choose to discard it afterwards.”
I agreed to her terms, eagerly anticipating the day that I could hear her recite her own words of poetry. I was genuinely interested in her work and how could I not be? What she said had such a ring of truth to it and at the same time she managed to turn an explanation of poetry into poetry itself. Her selection of words and dreamy delivery knocked me off my center. I had prepared a few funny lines to make her laugh, but my mood had turned meditative and lethargic. I wanted to find out more.
“Why can’t a combination be used twice?” I asked her.
“The magic is all in the present. On paper, they are just words. It’s their timing that means everything.”
“Why write down anything at all?”
“By putting into words what I’m seeing or feeling, everything becomes magnified and my understanding awakens. Next my imagination adds a brush stroke or two to the mix. For example, the simple green color on the leaf mixed with sunlight suddenly becomes green electricity, and the wavering blade of grass in the wind is nature’s hand inviting me to follow. All the elements come together to form a story or the combination. They are the entrance to the hidden world. For me, the next day they are just memories, used up moments of time. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do anything for me, Drago, and while I understand and appreciate that some people look to the written word for answers, I look to the moment the words were written as opposed to the words themselves. So you see, that’s why I throw my poems away.”
While she seemed sincere in her explanation, I didn’t totally buy Jennifer’s take on her craft and I knew there was something deeper at play, something she didn’t want to let out of its cage. She had been open with me about a lot of things since I had met her, but her defensive walls still stood tall around one particular piece of her life. In talking of her poetry however, I had noticed a sense of relief in her, like she had wanted to share this part of herself with someone for a long time, but had yet to find a person willing to listen. I was more than willing to step up and be that person.
Needless to say, I was completely blown away, both by Jennifer and her inner spiritual side that seemed to drive her. I had no similar experience or inner beauty on which to connect with Jennifer, yet for some reason I sensed her pulling towards me like a magnet to metal. Her poetry was like a religion to her and she practiced every day, a committed follower to her own beliefs. I could tell that she was reaching some higher plane, some heightened state of consciousness and it was all natural and self-taught, something very foreign to me.
“Can you teach me?” I asked her.
Jennifer took the potted plant I had given her in her hands and studied it for a few moments. She pointed out that the leaf was in the shape of a circle and then brought to my attention a vertical line that split the leaf into two halves. I tried to follow her, a studious pupil in awe of his teacher, but I was lost in the indirectness of it all.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“In a circle, you can come back to the same point, but in a line, that cannot happen,” she told me in an almost clairvoyant tone. “Lines are in motion and circles are complete. They are all signatures of nature.”
I started to wonder if she first retreated inward because of the harsh realities of her world. Perhaps there was something that happened to her in her youth that shaped her into the sage-like person she had become, but when I saw the depth and understanding in her explanation, I realized that she was more than just a hurt little girl scared to see the world for what it is. No, it was the rest of us that allowed the negativity and skepticism of our daily lives to consume us, only to blind ourselves from the beauty that was everywhere. Jennifer was plugged into this beauty, inhabiting a world that most people, including myself, would never see and could never fathom. She was no simple daydreamer, but instead somebody with a mathematical and innate understanding of the unseen world that few of us will ever even acknowledge.
“Can you tell me what other circles there are in nature, Drago?” she asked me.
I thought long and hard for a moment.
“Bird nests are circles,” I responded. “And actually, they can have eggs in them from time to time, which are almost circles. I should get a gold star or something for getting a circle within a circle.”
Jennifer laughed for the first time since I sat down.
“So what does all of this circle stuff mean?” I asked her.
“The circles are a part of a big jigsaw puzzle and the fun comes in figuring out their placement for yourself. I don’t think I’ll ever put it all together, but if I do, I’ll let you know.”
She smiled at me and an eerie feeling rolled over me. Although I knew Jennifer wasn’t talking down to me, it was obvious that she had superior knowledge of herself and beyond. I always felt that this department was my expertise, but now I see that I was misguided in thinking I knew the answers. I fully understood that people were under a spell of self-deception and that they believed their own lies. I always knew or didn’t know who I was and it’s what I always believed helped separate me from the rest of the herd. In fact, I always believed that it gave me an edge over people, but now I was exposed as a false prophet of knowledge and I found myself in uncharted waters with Jennifer.
Jennifer sensed that a conversation was going on in my head and she asked me what I was thinking.
“Oh, just that oranges, pupils, the sun, and manhole covers are all circles,” I responded. “I’m probably going to get into a traffic accident now because I’ll be seeing circles in everything.”
“I wouldn’t want that to happen,” she said, smiling in her own mildly flirtatious way.
I loved to see Jennifer smile and laugh and wished she did it more. It gave me a sense of security knowing that she was here on earth with me. I almost felt her poetry was competition, yet I knew also that this was the engine behind her dreaminess, an undeniable charge that was drawing me closer to her.
I decided everything was getting a touch too cerebral and took a chance and asked Jennifer if she wanted to take a walk and get an ice cream cone with me. She agreed, informing me that she would have to go inside to get her wallet because she didn’t like to keep money on her seeing the neighborhood could be a dangerous place if you didn’t play your cards right.
“You don’t have to worry about money,” I told her. “I think I can afford to buy you an ice cream cone.”
“Okay, but I’m buying next time.”
“Do you have to tell your aunt that you leaving?”
“I’m a grown woman, Drago,” she said with a smile. “I’m not required to tell my aunt my comings and goings.”
We started off down the street in search of a frozen treat.
“You never talk about your aunt,” I said as we made our way down Oak.
“I only see her at meals,” Jennifer responded. “She works during the day and watches television all night long, so outside of an occasional discussion over dinner, we hardly ever speak to each other.”
I could tell Jennifer was uncomfortable talking about her family, so I switched gears in hopes of not coming off as pushy. It was a crisp summer night, the moon was full, resting silently in the sky, and more than anything I wanted the moment to be perfect.
When we arrived at the corner of Main Street, I spotted a pair of yellow pants embroidered with alligators stumbling towards me. It was the same wino who helped himself to the putrefied meat sitting in my refrigerator and I couldn’t believe my eyes that he was not only alive, but seemingly as fit as a drunken fiddle. In fact, from a distance he looked like a distinguished preppie just set free from Harvard, but upon closer inspection he came off more like a middle-aged Blue Blood, half-cocked and with a trigger temper.
“HEY!” the drunkard screamed at me. “You’re that guy with the bubbly wine! After I left your place, I puked my guts out for hours. That booze you gave me had laundry detergent in it.”
I tried to ignore him, hoping Jennifer would think he was an incoherent lush with a knack for ruining romantic moments. Unfortunately, the monogrammed shirt gave me away and there was no dodging the incoming vagabond.
“Hey, buddy,” he continued beckoning as he walked closer. “I want my clothes back, too. Nobody gives me any money when I’m wearing this stupid outfit you gave me.”
In all honesty, there was a part of me that felt really bad for the wino. Not only did I nearly poison him, but I had obviously severely diminished his earning capacity by giving him an outfit that made it appear like he had just walked off of the golf course while making his weekly rounds at a prestigious country club. Both the pants and the shirt were of the highest quality, so I’m sure it was going to take at least a year for the embroidered alligators and monogrammed initials to decompose, no mater how many dirty underpasses the guy slept under. I had clearly pecked away at his income by making him a well-dressed bum, so in a moment of weakness that found me feeling sympathetic to his begging cause, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill, thrusting it into his dirty, stained hand.
“Gee, thanks, Mister,” the wino said, looking down at the hundred dollar bill in awe. “I’d say God bless you, but I don’t believe in any of that religious jazz.”
When the tipsy hundredaire left, headed for a nearby liquor store, I told Jennifer that he was the first true bohemian wino I had ever encountered. I walked through the story of how he had stopped by unannounced earlier today and how I had given him the pants and shirt. I even gave her the history of the pants themselves and how they were given to me by Rooster. She didn’t seem interested in any of my story, but instead wanted to know what my definition of a bohemian was.
“To me, a bohemian is somebody that is unconventional, usually with morals and a lifestyle different from the rest of society.”
“Are you a bohemian, Drago?” Jennifer asked me.
“No,” I said, kicking a rock along the sidewalk. “I like to think that I don’t belong to any particular group of people. I’m my own clique.”
“I can understand that. You are always so confident, but at the same time, not cocky.”
“It’s just a role that I learned long ago to play on the world stage. You see, most people actually believe they are the person in the role they are playing, but for me, I at least know it’s an act. I may be fooling other people, but I’m not fooling myself.”
“Do you ever play any roles with me?” she asked, using the most serious tone I had ever heard the dreamy girl take with me.
I stopped walking and looked at Jennifer intently and said, “Of course not! I would never do that. You’re the only one I find myself being myself around.”
“Good. I would never want you to be someone else. Let’s make a vow to be honest with ourselves and with each other.”
“That sounds like an agreement I can stand behind,” I told her as I once again started up our walk. “A lot of times, roles are just survival tools for me and I use them to get through a scenario or situation that presents itself. It’s a world based on Darwinism, Jennifer. Survival of the fittest and all of that good stuff. I just always thought it was necessary to do what you had to in order to make it to the finish line.”
Even though I tried to reassure Jennifer, it was clear that my playful indiscretions bothered her.
“Don’t ever play games with me, Drago,” she warned sternly.
I raised my right hand towards the sky and made a scout’s honor pledge to Jennifer that I would never play games with her unless the game in question involved a board, tiny playing pieces and a set of dice.
“Drago, can I be up front with you about something?” Jennifer asked me, looking me square in the eye.
“Of course,” I replied, though concerned about what she was going to tell me.
“I don’t like how you use people for your entertainment. I don’t think it’s right.”
“I don’t do it to be mean,” I said, hoping I could reassure her that my motives were not dastardly. “Sometimes it’s just hard for me to make sense of this absurd world of ours and for me, humor helps to keep things balanced. I mock myself, the rich, a drunkard—whoever and whatever. Everybody and everything is open game.”
“People are not game,” she said sternly. “And you just can’t go around all the time making a mockery of life.”
Jennifer seemed agitated since the incident with the wino and couldn’t let go of whatever it was that was pecking at her from the inside. I imagined that she thought of me as an outsider who had come to the neighborhood only to belittle the locals and their problems, but really, that was not me. If she thought of me as a snob then it was my own fault because I must had given her the wrong impression somewhere along the way. Perhaps she thought I was some kind of bohemian, and if so it was apparent that she didn’t like that cut of cloth.
“Okay, I’ll admit it,” I told her. “I probably was a little too tough on the wino with the alligator pants, but I genuinely do like the guy.”
“Drago, you have a good heart and I love the clown in you, but there are some things that I don’t like about you.”
Her words cut like tiny knives and I found myself slightly hurt and so I lobbed one back in Jennifer’s direction.
“Well there are some things that I don’t like about you as well.”
Jennifer stared at me long and hard and in that moment I saw two faces to her, a dreamer teased by her peers and a tough ‘hood girl.
“What don’t you like about me, Drago?”
“Well for one, you are this dreamy dreamer and you don’t seem to have any real dreams. You don’t want to leave this place, you don’t want to find a prince. You don’t seem to want anything in this world.”
Jennifer continued to stare at me and I could tell by looking into her eyes that she was not upset. If anything, I believe she welcomed me challenging her and she responded in a calm demeanor.
“I don’t need to have a future to make me happy,” she declared proudly. “The present is enough for me. The moment is fine by me. It is what it is and I make the best of it.”
“But I don’t understand! Aren’t you searching for anything in this world? Is being too content a good thing? I mean, do you just want to go through life in your own series of present moments?”
“I have my reasons for living the way I do,” she told me, her voice cracking slightly. “I prefer not to be under the spell of dreams that will never happen. That way there are no disappointments or frustrations and I can be at peace.”
“Dreams can come true, but you have to make them happen. You have to have a say in your destiny.”
“Like you did by moving here, Drago? You came here because you thought the grass was greener on the other side. Well, was it, or did you find out that you were mistaken once you got up close?”
I abruptly stopped on the sidewalk and turned to Jennifer.
“No, no. Up close is where I found you, Jennifer. You are the find of a lifetime.”
Jennifer was stunned and admittedly, so was I. I have never been big on sharing my feelings, but with Jennifer it was almost impossible to hide them.
“Why would you like a girl that has no dreams?” she asked, her words drenched in insecurity.
“You have dreams—everyone does. I just don’t think you’re sharing them with me.”
“Drago, we just met. You are looking for something in your life right now and if you ask me, I think I’m the girl that just happened to be in your path, which is making you think that it’s me that you were looking for. I’m probably not that person you imagine me to be.”
“That’s not true,” I said passionately. “All I have to do is just look at you or hear your voice—or even think about you—and I just know. This has never happened to me before. I know that you are very special. But what does it matter anyway, right? You said yourself that you didn’t want to get involved with anybody.”
Jennifer thought for a moment and I could tell she was sizing up my sincerity. Perhaps she was thinking that there may be more than just mockery on my mind. She looked at me with truthful eyes and squeezed my hand.
“I never said I wasn’t open to meeting my prince. I just need to know that I can trust him.”
I smiled at Jennifer, acknowledging this new understanding we had with each other and we resumed our walk.
“And by the way, in terms of the grass being greener here—there is no grass,” I said jokingly to lighten the mood.
“No, but there’s a clown,” she responded with a smile.
“Can I ask you a serious question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you ever think you could just take off? You know, uproot and leave and go live in a new place? I mean, I know you are content here, but could you do it if the situation was right?”
“I have nothing holding me here, Drago,” she said. “If it felt right, I would do it.”
“Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.”
Further down Main Street Jennifer pointed out a concrete building with cracks that wound up the foundation like an overgrown series of vines. She told me that the building once housed her dentist, but that the tooth doctor in question made the smart move and packed up shop for greener pastures in the suburbs. A few buildings down was a second hand clothing shop that she also made a point to single out. She said it used to be a musical instruction school called “The Music Center” and that her aunt, the one she lived with, would take her there at least twice a week for piano lessons. She claimed to have liked tickling the ivories, but stopped after junior high school, never to play again. We walked by a group of young African American men hanging out on the street corner and I said hello as we passed by them. A block later Jennifer turned around to make sure they were not following us and then she turned to me.
“It’s best to keep a low profile and leave who you are to the imaginations of the people around these parts, Drago,” she told me. “For instance, I would suggest not throwing around hundred dollar bills to homeless people. Flashing money like that will get you into trouble. This isn’t Wall Street Drago.”
It was obvious that growing up in the neighborhood had forced Jennifer to take on her fair share of hardened street smarts and it was equally as obvious that I was a rookie.
“How does a dreamy poet from the ‘hood know about Wall Street?” I asked.
“Never judge a book by its cover,” she said. “I do accounting for my boss and he has an extensive portfolio of stocks and mutual funds. Like you, I’ve been known to take on a few roles myself.”
We reached our ice cream shop destination and went inside, where the tiny parlor restaurant was filled with mostly high-schoolaged hoodlums with nowhere else to go. I eyeballed the offerings on the large wooden board and decided on a two-scoop sugar cone with chocolate chip ice cream.
“What do you want?” I asked her.
“Oh, I’m not a big ice cream person, but I’d love a scoop of orange sherbet in a cup.”
“One orange sherbet coming up!”
I placed our order with a twenty-something woman dressed in a white smock covered in splotches of multi-colored ice cream left over from a day’s worth of scooping. We waited five minutes for the two treats to return and I paid for them with a ten, telling the overworked and underpaid ice cream shop girl to keep the change.
We exited the shop and took in the night air as we licked and spooned the frozen sweets into our mouths.
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “I ask you to get some ice cream and you agree, only you don’t even like ice cream?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“We need to start communicating better,” I smiled.
“And what would you like to communicate with me about, Drago?”
I looked at Jennifer softly as she stood there with a tiny dab of orange sherbet smudged on the corner of her mouth and said, “I want to communicate that I really like you. I wish I had a better way of conveying it, but I have an ice cream headache right now and that’s the best I can come up with.”
Jennifer laughed and melted at the same time. I had broken down her defenses even more with my impromptu comment and we hugged on the sidewalk, two blossoming lovers set against a backdrop of ugliness and poverty. We were now the unseen beauty on Main Street and I felt all sorts of emotions well up inside of me. As we embraced, I saw a flash of my future and for the first time since I lost my childlike lust for life, I saw more than a black wall waiting for me down the road. For the first time I saw possibility.
I held Jennifer’s hand and it fit so naturally next to mine, two connecting pieces in a puzzle built on potential. I welcomed the warmth of her gentle touch and she squeezed me, a moment that sent my heart skipping like a stone across a motionless lake.
The walk home was slow. I wanted to savor every second of it and I sensed she felt the same way. When we finally did reach her porch steps, I asked her if I could take her to lunch the following day and she agreed, responding with her work address and the time she could take an hour break. I hugged her once more, wanting to hold her in my arms until sunrise, and when I saw that she was safely inside, I went home a different person.