Steamin’ years on Eastlake thanks to the best customers anywhere! 2305 Eastlake E. 324-1442 H M T H E U UBMROS a i n m i H i m 1531MB,M MOI MMMM M A R C H 1 0 - 1 3 PSYCHO OPERA A frantic multi-media performance from Solo L.A. performer/vocalist John Fleck and Director David Schweizer. A P R IL 7 - 1 0 PAT GRANEY An evening of new work by the Seattle choreog- rapher/director that HIGH PERFORMANCE MAGAZINE calls "one reason name acts from out of town have an increasingly difficult time looking good in comparison to Seattle work." M A Y 5 - 8 NEED TO KNOW NEEDCOMPANY, an explosive Belgian theatre ensemble takes a controversial and theatrical look at U.S. politics abroad. M A Y / J U N E 1 9 8 8 NORTHWEST NEW WORKS FESTIVAL The region's only annual festival of contemporary performance works. THEBIGBANG 6 1 6 S W P A R K A V E . PHOTO:MARK RABINER-MODEUHEATHER BRADEN C lothing.. .Accessories.. .Men’s . . .H a ts . . .Jew e lry .. . Women’s . . . Key Cha ins.. . G loves .. . Postcards.. . FUN!!! 10% Off to our Seattle customers with mention of this ad. 2 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
Paternity— Ruthann Robson Recreating that “ fam ily feeling without fa ther .. .the magic of numbers and the art of accounting. st Multi-Cultural Education at the Crossroads—Melissa $ Laird I Northwest schools unfold strategies for building past prejudice and reinforcing pride. Rhonda Kennedy Merilee Bunker, Usa Miller Account Representative— Washington Philip Minehan Ad Production Stacey Fletcher, Qualitype, Robert Williamson Typesetting Harrison Typesetting, Inc., Lee Emmett, Marmilmar, Arrow Typesetting, Qualitype Camerawork Craftsman Lithoplate, Inc. Cover Separations Portland Prep Center, Inc. Printing Tualatin-Yamhill Press Thanks Judy & Stew Albert, Robert Anderson, Linda Ballantine, Walt Curtis, Dru Duniway, Jeannine Edelblut, Molly Hershey, Anne Hughes, Keith Jellum, Maria Kahn, Craig Karp, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Deborah Levin, Peggy Lindquist, Zak Margolis, Theresa Marquez, Melissa Marsland, Doug Milholland, Kevin Mulligan, Larry Needham, Laura Russo Gallery, Norman Solomon, Northwest Film & Video Center, Missy Stewart, Sandy Wallsmith, John Wanberg, The Clinton 500 Cover image: Carmen Miranda C.T. Chew of Seattle, self-pro claimed World’s Greatest Fake Art 1st, ” has a one-man show currently at the Seattle Art Museum. This is a self portrait. nje"?.' "S3 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published in Oregon, Washington and National editions by CSQ—A Project of Out of the Ashes Press. Oregon address: P.O. Box 3588 , Po rtland , OR 97208 —(503) 222-6039. Washington address: 1520 Western Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101 — (206) 682-2404 . Unless o therw ise noted, all contents copyright @1988 Clinton St. Quarterly. This Meeting Did Not Happen, This Birth Never Occurred—Bob Sawatzki Kabengo is born to an Amazon as midwives and the forces of nature vie with the State of Utah. Praise Failure—Rick Rubin One man’s experience crossing a 13 year desert of personal pain and g row th . . .keeping lean and limber during the hard times. & N o r ie g a . . . North . . . Nugan Hand . . Just say No! People, campaigns and events have whirled around so much recently that i t ’s hard to see the forest for the trees. With a senile, lame-duck president in office, eagerto clear his adm in istration 's squalid slate, it ’s a dangerous period for our nation and the world. It’s critical that we make connections between what seem at first to be totally unrelated incidents. Consider what is unfo ld ing—the U.S.-fed crisis in Panama rises to front page status. Bud McFarlane is convicted for withholding information from Congress on the Iran-Contra scandal. Nicaragua invades [Contraoccupied] Honduras. Lt. Col. North, Rear Admiral Poindexter, Ret. Gen. Richard Secord and arms dealer Albert Hakim are indited for “ conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.” The U.S. sends the 82nd Airborne to [client-state] Honduras, not surprisingly pushing the “ North & Co.” ind ic tments back to page 16 (Oregonian- Mar. 18). Geo. Bush eliminates his Republican opposition and Jesse Jack- son emerges as the Democratic frontrunner. Att. Gen Edwin Meese’s house of cards begins to collapse as key aides resign. The Iran-Contra affair has unveiled a Byzantine web of relationships exDad—John Callahan Dad brings WWII to the homefront. Growing up with a flattop and forks to spare. Year of the Tree—Jon Robertson Tapping into Tree Time. . . r home in the deeply rooted world of old growth. I Tipped a Toddler— Leanne Grabel Mommy in the Hollywood District works through the spinach shards and fantasies of exile in Bali. tending worldwide, all clumsily choreographed by the White House and the CIA. Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny’s book, The Crimes of Patriots, an in-depth look at the CIA- front Nugan Hand Bank, helps explain the rot that led to that bank’s unraveling in 1980 and the roots of our present c r is is . Secord, ex-CIA head William Colby and an immense cast of mafiosi and “ ex-U.S.-military” men were using the bank for drug money laundering and illegal arms transactions long before the Reagan administration was installed. Nugan Hand Bank had offices in the opium fields of Thailand, did business with the Sultan of Brunei and the Marcos family, and stole hundreds of millions of dollars from “ depositors” across the globe. It took advantage of lax banking scrutiny in Panama, the Cayman Islands and even its home base, Australia. Bank officia ls destroyed boxes of documents without being challenged, even after the bank had fallen. Meanwhile, an agent of the bank was sent back to Saudia Arabia to fill up large plastic bags of currency in exchange for unwritten “ claim numbers.” The CIA and Defense Department refused cooperation with banking a u th o r i t ie s o f any n a t io n , preferring to pretend that nothing untoward had happened. Downtime—Bernadette van Joolen A young woman is helped to discover she’s a special person by a man on his way out. The v i^ r from H M M * d a T s teashop on the road up from India. Take your time. . .things come around again. Paying last respects to Clifton Chen ie r . . .even the bartenders are dancing. The Reagan team thought they’d learned much from the Nugan Hand experience. That profits from drug money laundering could be used for foreign policy initiatives invisible to Congress. That saying “ No!” to drugs in the U.S. would serve as effective cover for illicit operations elsewhere. That U.S. citizens care less about what happens to foreign individuals than their fellow Americans. This level of deceit may not blow up in George Bush’s face, but it should. It ’s time for us to “ Just say No!” No to Contra-aid. No to the far-greater sum (estimated to be 5 times the aboveboard congressional appropriation) of CIA money channelled to the Contras. It ’s time to look behind the Noriega crisis in Panama to imagine why the U.S. is desperate to unrail one of the original Contadora sponsors. Strange the lack of press coverage on the 22 Latin American nations who have urged the U.S. to end its meddling in Panama. Or on the underclass supporters who continue to keep Noriega in power. It’s truly time for the U.S. to turn a new leaf in its relations with the world, to stop playing policeman and start picking up its own economic pieces. Soon. Or we’re due for some nasty surprises. DM Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 3
4 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
THIS MEETING s f DID Nov HAPPEN, A 1 ■* < THIS BIRTH NEVER s Bob Sawatzki f j -|wo hundred thousand humans were born on I June 12, 1983 and this is the story of one of ± them. His name is Kabengo. At the time, the mother was 33 years old, it was her first birth, she knew she was pushing the envelope. The father was 31, he couldn’t believe this was really happening. Kabengo just wanted to get out. Let me out of here, he said that morning and gave a kick within the embryotic sack, punching his mother’s kidneys. She wet the bed. It woke her up. My water has broken, was her immediate assumption. My wife Loreli thinks she is the Queen of the Universe. In fact, she looks like an Amazon. My name is Nick Diamond and I’m a very lucky guy. Salt Lake City, Utah, is a unique kind of place for an Amazon Queen to be waking up but there it was, all around. The sun streamed in through the very large windows and French balcony doors of our cheap, high-ceilinged, upstairs apartment. Outside the city was sleeping on a beautiful summer Sunday morning—this state of repose suits Salt Lake very well. Loreli heaved her body over like a watermelon and levered herself up on one elbow to a sitting position, then stood up, six feet tall and a hundred and ninety pounds. It must have been the bed bouncing back that woke me up. “We’re going to have a baby,” she said. Then she called the Utah Women’s Health Center. They said they were occupied until noon and asked her how far apart her contractions were. “What contractions?” Loreli said. She was very calm. She was in no pain and it was six o’clock in the morning. When in doubt take a bath was Loreli’s general rule for ambiguous situations, and so she did. “What’s this you’re trying to tell me,” said Loreli. “ Sue Barton’s very competent,” said Dr. John. “ She’s performed several births already you know. She’s already licensed in Alaska where the first birth she assisted at was a home birth. I’m saying I am out of here in the morning. I am going home to Ashland, Oregon. I am history, sister. Tonight is my going away party and I know, I have a strong feeling, that this being your first birth and you the Amazon that you are, there will be an interminable hangup, I just know it, and ruin my party. Besides, on my way out, it’s a way to flip- off this block-headed state of Zion. J-t was a long slow quiet afternoon. We sat on the front lawn sanding the baby crib. The way to do it is hold up the piece of frame you are working on with one hand, sand with the other and peer through the bars. We took pictures of each other. I was thinking, I don’t want to see myself behind bars. Loreli got her first real contraction. “Ooooh,” she said, “ kind of takes your breath away.” By 5:30 the contractions were coming at regular five-minute intervals except when they weren’t. “This is not clockwork,” I said to Loreli, but we called the Birthing Center anyway and Sue Barton came to check Loreli’s progress. After all that time and serious conDR. JOHN WAS SUGGESTING WE PERFORM A CRIMINAL ACT. I WOULD BE AN ACCOMPLICE TO THE CRIME. LORELI WOULD BE THE WILLING VICTIM AND KABENGO THE UNWITTING CRIMINAL, GUILTY OF ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE WORLD. I got up and had a ritual last breakfast as a free man—Spam and eggs. I packed up my backpack and got Loreli’s big bag ready to go, full of tapes and books and changes of clothing. We planned on hiking to the Birthing Center and spending the day like a day at the beach. Then we went back to bed. I unplugged the phone so we could sleep. Afew hours later we were up again and ready to go. Loreli clumped downstairs to nip a rosebud—to have something to look at when it really hurt—but immediately came clumping up again, laughing. Dr. John was outside in his truck, concerned. They thought we had been run over or gotten lost or had an emergency. They had been waiting for us. Dr. John was not really a doctor, he was technically a nurse-midwife, but his very demeanor let you know in every way that he was up to the situation and a cool capable hand and could be an M.D. if he wanted to but was just not all that fond of golf. Dr. John whisked Loreli off to the Birthing Center where they tested and proved that, no, the crystals did not form, therefore her amniotic sack had not burst but her mucous membrane was leaking. She was only dilated three centimeters. That meant that sometime within the next 36 hours we could expect birth. “ Don’t call us again,” Dr. John said, “ until the contractions are coming five minutes apart like clockwork.” And whisk, in the little Japanese pick-up truck with the Oregon plates, he swept her back to the apartment. It was on the way there that he first suggested the idea to Loreli— why don’t we have a home birth? Well of course that had been our original intention before it was explained to us that midwives in Utah could be licensed either for home birth or for hospital and clinic births—not both. Choose one. We did. We’d been assigned a student midwife, Sue Barton, at the University Hospital Birthing Center, and were resigned to a perfectly sterile birth experience. tracting she had only dilated to four centimeters. Pretty soon Dr. John showed up carrying your basic black extra-large size doctor’s bag. It rested inobtrusively but with quiet authority on the table by the bed. What did he have in that bag? Only all the vital contents of a modern surgical operating room. What do you say, Dr. John suggested to Sue, we have the baby here? Although he had successfully officiated at nearly a thousand births, Dr. John was not licensed to perform home births in the State of Utah. Sweet Sue Barton was certainly not sanctioned for such activity, she was just trying to get licensed at all in Utah. Dr. John was suggesting we perform a criminal act. He and Sue would be co-complicitors. I would be an accomplice to the crime. Loreli would be the willing victim and Kabengo the unwitting criminal, guilty of illegal entry into the world. It’s what we all wanted but we responded with jokes and nervous laughter. We kept going back and forth. We waffled. All the way up to the critical moment we pretended we were going to do the right thing, but the allure of an actual, natural, home birth was undeniable. “Our ace in the hole is you guys don’t have a car,” Dr. John pointed out. “We’ re not going to have this baby till eleven or so. Instead of hanging out at the Birth Center I can be at the party. You guys keep me posted. I could call this turkey in over the phone.” At this point I remembered to turn on the tape recorder: Sue: Well whadayou think, Dr. John? Dr. John: I think one way we could to it is that if you agreed, um, on a friendly basis to stick around, and I sanctioned it. You’d be covered. Sue: But I wouldn’t if you’ re not here. Dr. John: You would be covered on your o w n — j u s t on y o u r ow n recognizance. Sue: What’s that supposed to mean? (Nervous laughter—Silence) C an da ce B ie ne m an Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 5
Dr. John: Don’t feel comfortable with that. Okay. Loreli: No, I can tell she doesn’t. Nick: (Resigned) We can go to the Birth Center. . . . Dr. John: All right. Is it a big deal, is i t . . . . Nick: It ’s just exciting to have it at home. Loreli: It’s. . . . We want to have it at home! Sue: I agree! I don’t have any problems with home birth, I love it. I mean I’ve done it before. Loreli: But I don’t want to put you in a position. . . . N ick:, With the cops, you know, raiding us: All right! Put that baby back in there! Loreli: We want Sue to be comfortable. We like her. (7b Sue.) We want you to e n jo y i t to o . Oh- ohhhhmmm. (Sigh) One good thing about contractions is they get over. Dr. John: Okay I’ ll tell you what we’ ll do. I’m going to run back up to the party. Stick around. Check her when she needs to be checked. And then we can go down to the Birth Center as soon as you document the change. Want to do that? Do you feel all right with that? Sue: All right. Dr. John: Okay. And just call me, you know. You can just call me if anything happens in the next two hours. You’ re not here. You were going home as far as I know. This meeting did not happen. IT WAS AS IF KABENGO WAS ALREADY WITH US BUT IN A ROOM WITHIN A ROOM. LORELI WOUND UP AN ANTIQUE MUSIC BOX AND LET IT RESONATE, FOR KABENGO’S BENEFIT, AGAINST HER DISTENDED BELLY: “THE HAPPY WANDERER.” It was a blessing to have Sue Barton, student nurse, with us that evening. Loreli was really getting to be an invalid and was nauseous. She tried eating crackers but just vomited them up again. We listened to Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert. At regular intervals Sue applied the fetal heart monitor. The kid’s heart was fine. It was as if Kabengo was already with us but in a room within a room. Loreli wound up an antique music box that was shaped like a little Swiss chalet and let it resonate, for Kabengo’s benefit, against her d is tended be lly : “ The Happy Wanderer.” I was supportive during the contractions, pushing on Loreli’s back against the pressure the baby was putting on it. I kept a record of the intervals between contractions and wrote down Loreli’s comments: “ That was an easy one. That was a funny one. This is a real one.” Between 7:00 and 8:30 Loreli went through “ transition” —intensely painful contractions that increased her dilation from 4’/2 centimeters to 8V2 centimeters. Loreli wasn’t, couldn’t have been, ready for this new pain. She threw up her apple juice. She couldn’t stand to be touched. She was laying on her side clenching and unclenching her fist. Loreli just wanted to get away from the pain. She tried walking, kneeling, laying on her back, but there was no getting away. “ Breathe,” Sue said. “This is what those breathing exercises were for in the birth class. It’s to distract you.” Dr. John arrived with a change in the weather. Outside there was a breeze picking up and clouds moving in. We put layers of blankets down to protect the mattress. Loreli called for pillows to prop her up to a sitting position. Dr. John was snapping on rubber gloves and unfolding and laying out a sterile field, one of half a dozen stuffed into his bag of medical magic. Dr. John: Okay Sue I called you at whatever time it is now. You got my call and i t ’s ten to nine. Sue: Okay. Dr. John: You can, youjmow, do the whole thing, but I’m going to show you how I do Intacts. If you just kind of listen to my voice I’ l l . . . if I sound kind of bossy that’s just how I get here toward the end. Loreli: That’s okay. We need somebody to tell us. Loreli’s voice was getting ethereal, wispy, with the tremendous exertion of the contraction. It was a relief to push that hard and an exhaustion, her body in a frenzy of absolute arousal while pushing followed immediately by total collapse when re s t in g . Sue coached her breathing: “All the way down to the bottom of your lungs, make your blood bright red. Deep slow breaths.” “ Stroke your nipples. . . . real light, just light,” said Dr. John. Listen to my voice. You won’t rip and you’ ll be good as new in two weeks. Okay. . . . Relax. . . . Sue: That was a good push. Loreli: The harder I push the sooner it comes, right? Okay this next push is going to be colossal. Sue: I call those polar bear pushes. What time is it? Dr. John: Ten minutes to nine. I’m not even here yet. THE FORCES OF NATURE WERE IN FULL CONCERT AND LORELI WAS PUSHING AGAIN. DR. JOHN COACHED SUE AS SHE CAUGHT AND TURNED THE BABY’S HEAD AND I SAW HE WAS HUMAN. Loreli wants to push but she was afraid to push. She would tear, she knew she would tear. “Too healthy,” said Dr. John. “Such a fucking Amazon you are. Your pelvic floor muscles are so healthy and so strong there’s going to be a bit of bleeding.” Dr. John threw away the first set of rubber gloves and snapped on another pair, then generously globbed lubricating jelly onto his fingers. “Tighten your vaginal muscles. Now loosen them. Now feel me s tretch ing , two greasy fingers, okay. .. . You’ve got real strong muscles. You do your Kegels. “Yeah, I’ve done Kegels all my life,” said Loreli, from somewhere far away, out of her mind. In between contractions, the midwives applied the fetal heart monitor. “As long as that baby’s heartbeat is all right we won’t cut,” said Dr. John. “Try squatting. It will open you up a centimeter more. It “YOU CAN FEEL THE BABY’S HEAD. DON’T BE AFRAID. PUSH! PUSH THAT WHOLE FEELING AWAY. IT’S NOT GOING TO GET BETTER SO DON’T LET IT HANG YOU UP. PUSH AGAINST IT!” will bring the baby’s head down into the perineum.” 1 We helped Loreli into position holding onto the brass bedstead. Then she tried standing. Then she tried laying on her left side. Pushing hard she got a cramp in her leg, “ Don’t use your legs, let your legs loose,” said Sue. The contraction ended as outside the balcony windows I saw adull distant flash of lightning and heard slow rumbling thunder. "Do not be afraid to push against a burning feeling or a feeling that you’re gonna split ‘cuz you’re not gonna split.” “ I ’ve started to feel that already.” “ Don't hold back. You can feel the baby’s head. Put your fingers down there in the vagina next time. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Push! Push that whole feeling away. It’s not going to get better so don’t let it hang you up. Push against it!” “That’s good.” “You are doing beautiful. Touch your baby! Touch your baby’s head!” Resting. Breathing. The fetal heart monitor again, Kabengo’s heart beating, sounding like a very tiny washing machine on an infinite cycle. “ Many kids will take a dip here but you’ re so healthy. She’s got such incredible tone in her pelvic muscles. There might be a little tear.” “Can’t we cut it?” “ No, we’ ll try it this way. I’d rather sew up a laceration. When you cut you usually cut nerves, you either get hyper-sensitivity or numbness.” Sue spread out another sterile field— to put the baby on. Loreli had another tremendous contraction . The baby crowned again, momentarily, then slipped back as the contraction ended. “ I’m chickening out, I know I am,” said Loreli. Loreli was acting like she was pushing, and she was pushing, but she would not let herself tear. And the wind began to blow. I discretely opened the balcony door. The Amazon woman needed help. Kabengo we are trying to get you out of there. There was suddenly lightning in the near vicinity and Sue laughed, startled. Then more lightning and great claps of thunder right out there on the corner. You could hear the trees bending in the wind. And the rain. It was a delight, a relief, a distraction. Lorefj pushed and pushed and hearing the thunder and feeling the lightning she did not notice that she was crying and she let herself tear. She was ripping apart at the seams—her Amazon muscles just too tight to admit such a thing as the human skull. She pushed and let herself be torn. She tore in three places. There was a baby’s head sticking out between her legs. Loreli was laying on her back, leaning against me to relax. When I saw the baby’s head beginning to emerge I forgot about him facing upside down. So it was from over Loreli’s shoulder that I saw this black, bloody, mushy round thing sticking out. It’s a monster, I was thinking. Dr. John and Sue Barton didn’t say anything about it so I thought perhaps I had better not mention it to Loreli. Things were hap- pening very fast. The forces of nature were in full concert and Loreli was pushing again. Dr. John coachect Sue as she caught and turned the baby’s head and I saw he was human. Kabehgo gasped and cried out, just his head sticking out deep between Loreli’s thighs, his shoulders still inside, like: Get me out of here! The shoulders came easily on the next contraction. Dr. John pulled him out and then there was a little boy on Loreli’s stomach. Sue reassured Loreli, “ You have a fine baby. You’ ll be alright.” The placenta came a few minutes later. Dr. John neatly tied the umbilical cord in two places then handed the surgical scissors to me to cut the cord but I declined the ceremonial honor. I didn’t need that simple symbolism. No one could be more cognizant—I was the author of this child. Writer Bob Sawatzki lives in Salt Lake City. His first story in CSQ was “Sexuality, the Neighbor Lady and the Family.” Artist Louise Williams lives in Lacey, Washington. Her last illustration in CSQ was for “At Play in the Paradise of Bombs.” STOREFRONT PRESS Design Consultation Paste-up Camera work Quality offset printing Women-owned and operated Member, Graphic Communications International Union. 514 E. P ine Seattle, WA 322-3150 SWINGSIDE CAFE "Where life meets art and other obstacles" 4212 Fremont Ave. N. 7-3 Weekdays, 8-3 weekends 633-4057 ACADIA HEALTH CENTER Massage • Reflexology Deep Tissue Manipulation Chinese Ear Cleaning Sauna M-F 10-9 Sat 10-6 5720 Roosevelt Way N.E. 526-8331 6 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
Summer 1967—photo Kajira Wyn Berry A 4 * m on g th e w rit er s in m y to w n in th e ea rl y 19 60 s, I w as r ec ko ne d a te nt at iv e su cc es s w ith fu tu re e xp ec ta tio ns .M or e th an 50 o fm y sh or ts to rie sh ad b ee n pu bl is he d in n at io na lm ag az in es . M y be st w er e se rio us , p ub lis he d in P l ay bo y a nd Es qu ir e. O th er sI ’d se nd a ga in a nd a ga in to le ss er an d le ss er p ub lic at io ns , s om e of th em n ot hi ng to ta ke h om e to m ot he r. At le as t I w as s el lin g, a nd le ar ni ng m y cr af to ra rt. I ea rn ed a lm os te no ug h to s ta y al iv e, o n a bo he m ia n le ve l i n Po rtl an d, O re go n, a ci ty e as y to li ve c he ap in . I a lw ay sh ad a ca r, an a pa rt m en t of m y ow n w ith g re en er y th ro ug h th e w in do w s an d fo od o n th e ta bl e. I co lle ct ed h un dr ed s of re je ct io n sli ps , b ut fo rs ev er al y ea rs so ld m or e th an h al f t he st or ie s I w ro te . A fte r8 y ea rs I w en t t hr ou gh a d ry spe ll, w he n no s to ry id ea s ca m e to m e. N ev er m in d; a lo ca l n ew sp ap er ’s w ee kly m ag azi ne w ou ld p rin t'm y no nfic tio n. F or h a l fa ye ar Ip ub lis he d th er e a l m os te ve ry w ee k: w itt y es sa ys , po lit ic a l s at ire , pe rs on a l iti es a nd s lic es o f l oc a l li fe .T he picture sh ow ed m y be ar de d 35 -y ea r-o ld f ac e. Th e pr es id en to f t he S w ee tH om e R ot ar y c l ub w ro te “ In ev er th ou gh t I ’d fi nd m ys e lf ag re e i ng w ith a b ea rd ed b ea tn ik li ke y ou , bu ty ou r l as ta rt ic le . . . . ” A lit tle old la dy st op pe d m e on th e st re et to te ll m e ho w m uc h sh e ha d en jo ye d a re ce nt pie ce . Th en , at a n ed ito ria l co nf er en ce i n Ju ne 1 96 6, t he p ub lis he r sa id, “H m - m m m ,S oan dso a ga in .” Th e se n i or e d i to rs a na ly ze d w ha t t ha t ha d m ea nt for a w ee k, t he n de c i de d m y ar tic le s w er e no lo ng er w e l co m e in t he p ub lic a tion . S om eo ne la te rs ug ge st ed th at th ey w er e af ra id I w as g et tin g to o m uc h of a r ea der sh ip . Th e ed ito r Id ea lt w ith s a i d he ’d pu b l is h m e un de r a ps eu do ny m f or h a lf as m uc h m on ey a nd th at w as th e en d of th at . G od — or fa te by w ha te ve r na m e— had w ith dr aw n its fa vo rs . I stro de out onto m y pe rs on a l d es er t. T 'wo m on ths af ter th e ed itor re ve a l ed th at I w as n ot to b e pu blis he d, m y be au tifu l ,m uc hlo ve d w ife o f 2 1 /z ye ar s le ft m e. She sa w th e sh ap e of th e fu tu re .T he li fest y l e ha d be en fun fo ra fe w y ea rs ,but n ot fo ra lif et ime. W e bo th c rie d a lota nd th en she m ov ed b ac k to San F ra nc is co . M y he ar t gr ew su lle n and m y m in d pe rp le xe d. Lo ok ing ba ck after the da rk ness h ad cl ea re d, I saw t ha t sh e he lp ed k ic k m e th ro ug h a b l ac kho le i n m y pe rs ona l ity , into a rea l ity m or e in te ns e th an p re vi ou s. Bo rn a ga in !O h the ag ony. C linto n St . Q ua rterly — S pring , 1988 7
I immediately wrote a novel, something I’d always wanted to do, a wildly surrealistic manuscript full of every kind of slang I’d ever heard. It took one year. My agent in New York said he thought it might be “ a very important book.” He sent it out 16 times. Some of the best editors in the country agonized over it, praised it, even guessed someone might make a lot of money with it. A Trip on the Superchief. Nobody every published it. I took a year off, working as a caseworker for Welfare in New York City. I needed the money and thought a writer ought to know the world. When I’d saved enough I went to tropical Jamaica, and first-drafted another novel. Coyote in Massiveshaft. Then I crewed a sailboat to California and hitchhiked home to Oregon. My novel hadn’t sold, but my life wasn’t suffering because of it. I found another lady in 1970, the year I received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to finish the second novel. My agent hated the manuscript and sent it nowhere. He called it “ brilliant from paragraph to paragraph, but. . .the navel watching of a pot smoker.” I sent it some places to learn whether it was as disgusting as he thought. Editors who’d loved the first novel hated the second. One man cited “ personal reasons.” When I read a few pages now, the first novel embarrasses me, the second seems great fun with a lot of serious comments to make. Later I got pulled into the book about the dead Indians. That was my own fault. Starting a different book entirely and needing a chapter about Indians, I looked up the people who used to live along the Columbia River where I live. They drew me in. They’d been one of the richest, thickest populated, most successful peoples in North America, then winked out in a great malaria epidemic, a 90 perdent dieback during the first three weeks of August, 1830. Chinook we called them. Nobody had written a decent book about them. oV'1S.n &d *»wc p ° °S $ iya o d p soft01 Had I been accustomed to writing nonfiction, I’d have found a publisher before I invested 2’/2 years in research and writing a book that would fall into the crack between scholarly and popular. Another dead baby. The summer of 1979 my agent rejected Barefoot in Rainy Eden as having no national appeal. Later that month my mother died. While I was in California burying my mother, the woman I’d been living with for 5’/2 years fell in love with a carpenter. Within a month she moved herself and her two very loveable kids out. Women are so sensitive to a man’s career. She had other reasons as well, no doubt, and love is all-compelling. I ’d been working as handyman half-time at Bud Clark’s tavern, but had lost even that job in an altercation with the janitor, who had an ironbound agreement with the boss. I was so deep in my book I just kept writing. mall blows leave only scar tissue; hard knocks can wake you from your trance. I was 44 that summer and hadn’t published anything in 9 years. A woman up the street was trying to have my dog killed too. I put myself back together and finished the Chinook book. I started it around to the publishers and ran away from home again. Frugal years had taught me how to live on little, and when I worked I saved half. With some inheritance money left by my mother, I backpacked around the Pacific Rim, clockwise, eating at street stalls, sleeping in hostels, enjoying and learning for two years. Having no wife, no children, no job or commitment or much to hope for, I was free. Praise failure! When I returned to Portland in 1978 I was not entirely sure I was a writer, but I did like to write. I tried to sell the agent on a bo’ok about my travels, but he snorted at what I sent him. Scattered back across the desert, in addition to the two novels and the Indian book, lay the corpses of short stories, essays, film proposals, first drafts of other novels and even a pornograph. At the height of the pornography wave, even my dirty book didn’t sell. Once for a year I didn’t write at all, trying to weasel out of my 20-year contract with misery. I was so clearly a loser by then that it was hard to explain to myself, let alone to people I met. “What do you do for a living?” they asked, and I had no answer. A writer, they knew, is one who publishes. “ But what do you do for a living?" they needed to know. ♦ * 1 ® v non#* Yet I could never figure out what else I wanted to do. Other occupations seemed tawdry and pointless. A writer, finally, is one who writes, naked as a jaybird in the emptiness of his mind. During those lean years I made my daily peace with failure. A writer is particularly prey to voices incessantly yammering inside his skull. When all the voices talk about the first couple of hours in the morning is failure, the task of getting my mind deep enough into my story to write became burdensome. Along the way I came across some quotes to hang before my typewriter. “ Perseverance Furthers,” was one. A mystic promise I found hopeful. All I seemed to have going for me was perseverence. Or was I only damn-fool stubborn? Other people seemed to succeed. Only I languished. Were friends watching me with pity? A no-talent guy, in over his head? The best quote above my typewriter was Ho Chi Minh’s: “To be a man'you must endure the pestle of misfortune.” I meditated Ho’s pestle and the getting of manhood a long time. Wisdom through blows, as though the blows themselves were kisses of fortune. Ho stayed on my wall a long time. Writing seemed a good path toward growth and wisdom. It made me examine everything intensely, selecting among building blocks more complex than any stonemason’s. Writing taught revision, which is c ra ft . Concen tra t ion . Endurance. When nothing worked, I tried harder. I came to see writing as my way of learning, about the world and myself. A true path, one of the meanest there is. It affixes you to words, forces every note to have an exact meaning, is excessively left brain, and sometimes hurts. That pestle pounds substantially hard. In 1979, after 13 years and 3 months, my product began to move again. A friend invited me to recite a Chinook myth at the local arts celebration. A slick regional magazine asked for a couple of articles. A local weekly wondered if I’d write a column about the outdoors. I’d reached the far side of my desert. et’s assume I broke two mirrors in 1966, then got part of a year off for good behavior. I had published two exceedingly tiny articles in 13 years, and two or three previously published short stories had appeared in anthologies. Successes small as shrubs produced slow increases of courage. Writing requires some faith that your coinage will not ring hollow or leaden in peoples’ ears. After awhile I began offering more ambitious pieces. Those sold too. Iwas in the scrub trees. The magazine that banned me began to feature my work again. Like other medium-size cities, Puddle City doesn’t believe in its own unless mirrored by success elsewhere. If you’re any good, what are you doing here? we ask each other. I’d have to hurl myself at the big trees again, ignoring the rough bark of rejection, my only fuel a diminished faith in my own correctness. Yet, what pleasure to see my work in print again. I’d known people for 10 years who’d accepted that I was a writer without ever reading a word I’d written. Twenty years into my career I was still trying to get started. Success had certainly eluded me. Yet, what had I lost? Looking back at myself at 27, barely starting to learn and already so eager to succeed, I saw good reasons why success might have proved harmful. Inflated my ego and stiffened my style. Fixed me on whatever made me successful, doomed to try, as do a lot of successful artists, to repeat again and again whatever worked. Made me think myself meritorious through personal greatness, when really only riding a fortuitous breeze that suited time and media. Isn’t a real life breaking free to follow your star wherever it leads? For that twisty path, failure keeps you lean and limber. Or burns you out early. Sure, that’s a risk, but life is a cross-country adventure, not a highway to the bank. And while it must be possible to follow the 8 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
harder paths with pockets full of money and ears of adulation, I suspect that for me it is easier to go the route without too many seductive diversions. Failure gave me freedom, which seems to me more precious than material goods. After the really major blows I got to run away from home. Having failed at matrimony and career, without option or advances, paycheck, medical insurance or pension plan, I fell away like a leaf into the jetstream. Failure stretched me toward my limits. Kept me poor. Gave me lots of healthy exercise. Kept my waist slim. Successful people have to join health clubs for exercise no better than scrounging firewood and fixing the plumbing. „ m which s e e ^ . opho l\ ° or Pe n S 1° If Ho Chi Minh was right, we ought to thank our unlucky stars and congratulate friends who’ve lost jobs, spouses, faith or possessions, which they’ve probably had too long anyway. Wouldn’t a life of unending good fortune, with nary a hitch or emotional harrowing, actually be bad luck? And finally boring? Having endured 20 years of unprecedented national prosperity on the mea- gerest nickle and dime trickle-down, I was free in my middle age to come or go as I pleased. Failure taught me the chanciness of life. Even the finest craftsman will fail if his style goes out of fashion. Mediocre ideas triumph, good ones often fail. Personalities intrude and old school ties bind. Merely growing too fast kills many enterprises. The higher the risk, the better the chance of failure and great wisdom. I’ve earned a grown man’s cynicism toward the self-congratulatory babble of those who briefly catch an updraft of public fancy. Looking across the mountainside from the wreckage of repeated disaster, I watch the posturings of such wind riders with amusement. Times w ill change again. seems t° One must beware the rocks of self-pity, upon which many failures go aground. Self-pity eats the soul. To gain from failure requires an intermittently stout heart and willingness to patch one’s trousers, tighten one’s boots and trudge on. Beyond self-pity lies humility, and selflessness and finally clarity of vision. One’s ego becomes supple even as successful people’s thicken and harden. Probing failure to its core can be rewarding. Fame is not reality, nor fortune wisdom. Waking from the trance may be realizing both how free you are and how enslaved. True success is internal and the grounds keeper has as good a chance at it as the C.E.O. Have we not been born into this astonishing era to experience our uttermost possibilities? Embrace even failure; what can defeat you? Writer Rick Rubin lives in Portland. His last story in CSO was “Coyote and Monkey in Bali.” 709 Broadway East Capitol H ill 328-4386 LA VISA SERVING ORIGINAL MARGARITAS COCKTAILS BEER & WINE The Best Original Mexican Food in Seattle" SERVING LUNCH & DINNER 6 DAYS A WEEK EXTENDED HOURS BACK.. . i MASTERCARD M-Th 11:30-8:45 Fr-Sat 11:30-9:30 AM EXPRESS 1001 E. Pike *324-6211 As Fresh As It Gets Enjoy the abundance of organically-grown, Northwest produce. From the fields of Northwest farms to your own kitchen, our fresh, unsprayed fruits and vegetables are, frankly, the best there are. Available At CENTRAL CO" O P G r o c e r y 12th &Denny on Capitol Hjl LW F bint; Zioe N. Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 9
seve Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 । w er mind had a place it kept its secrets. The W k J place was like a pocket in the tightest pair of 1 1 jeans. The jeans were like those she had lulled on when she heard her father’s key in the loor on Saturday mornings. The pocket was like the
PATERN Illustration by Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring , 1988
No matter how much money there was to hand out, her father always brought home fresh custard doughnuts and bloodshot eyes. She would break open a warm doughnut and watch her father’s weary face transform as he told of the night’s exploits. It wasn’t just bragging, she knew, for her father was what they called a card-counter, and a good one. He was not a compulsive gambler, but a man blessed with a mathematical mind and cursed with the absence of opportunities that might provide other outlets for his talent. His only problem with gambling was finding people to bet against a that often supports four sleeping bodies for at least part of the night. Breakfast is luxurious, and Kyla is thankful again, although she thinks the world is unfair for defining the simple pleasures of life as luxuries. There are fresh strawberries and lush pieces of whole wheat toast with home-made apple butter and the chatter of children with food on their faces. There are curtainless kitchen windows, open to admit the tropical February breeze and the glimpses of red and pink hibiscus waving to the sun. There is the humming of her own washing machine in the garage and a selecHe was such a man, w ith his blond crewcut, his paper, novelty notecards and postcards by local artists. Rose is one of Kyla's few clients whose business shows a substantial profit. Kyla considers it one of the limitations of her present life that Rose is also one of her best friends. “What’s up? I just thought I’d stop in on my way to the shop from Nita’s. Nita and I were just talking about you and the children. How brave you are to raise them all by yourself. And ,” Rose pauses, to smooth the backs of her hands under her shoulder-length hair and flip it in the humid air, “ how your children look so much alike." Kyla attempts the time-tested diversion of offering libations, in this case, a cup of tea, with a litany of choices including Rose’s favorite, orange blossom. No matter how often it happens, Kyla is startled when Rose chooses to divulge gossip to its subject. Kyla knows that people talk about her. After all, she and the children inhabit a close community in a tourist trap on the southern tip of Florida. Kyla also knows that although she is respected for the fees she keeps reasonable with her unerring efficiency and the that have guided her course in life. The numbers that were always the solution to her father’s “ I’m thinking of a number from one to ten.” It was just a matter of choosing which one of the two, and her father usually allowed her guess to be correct. “Of course, you know that everyone in town wonders. I mean it’s only natural.” Rose sips her steeping tea. “And I wonder what will happen when this man finally appears to claim the fruits of his seed.” “ Life is not like a soap opera.” “Oh, I don’t know about that. I had a friend in New York who used to write for one of those things. All she did was read the newspaper and remember her childhood. Have you ever watched any? Some of those daytime dramas are very realistic.” “You mean the scenes where the darling little bpy—who has aged five years in two weeks while no one else has gotten any older—has survived a terrible car crash and needs several gallons of a rare type of blood and the hospital loudspeaker blares for the real father of little angular six foo t six frame, his large hands scarred by* machines and his hard blue eyes tha t bulged like frogs’ eyes when he was angry. She couldn’t imagine tha t she’d look like him when she grew up. white man who always seemed to win; a man who inspired distrust because he did not drink or smoke. She’d eat too many doughnuts and her jeans would get tighter and tighter. She’d make her father a second, and then a third cup of coffee. As she got older, she’d look at the man on the other side of the table and wonder if people were right when they said she was the “ spitting image” of her father. It was hard for her to tell. He was such a man, with his blond crewcut, his angular six foot six frame, his large hands scarred by machines and his hard blue eyes that bulged like frogs’ eyes when he was angry. She couldn’t imagine that she’d look like him when she grew up. After all, though her father was fairly handsome, he’d look pretty ugly as a woman in a culture which admired women who were delicate. The intensity of her speculations would be dissolved by the routine of the remainder of Saturday. Her father would go to bed, reading the newspaper until he fell asleep. Her mother would go off for a half a day of overtime at the shirt factory. Kyla would be left alone with her list of chores. Washing clothes was what she hated most. There was always a crowd in the basement laundry room of the apartment building. No matter how thoroughly she’d checked the pockets, it always seemed that a stray piece of paper or tissue would make its appearance known. She tried to clean out the washing machine as casually as possible, hoping that none of the fretting women in the small hot room would notice. But even if they did not see the inside of the machine, no one could ignore the paper shredded all over the wet clothes. Kyla’s children are waking her up by putting their fingers in her nose, in her mouth, in her ears. She usually enjoys sleep like a good cleaning, but today she wakes up feeling tired and dirty. Pieces of dreams still cling to her like shreds of soggy tissue. Her secrets often tumble out of their pocket in the watery world of sleep. “ You kids,” she says, trying to be stern. Yet she is already smiling, already putting the names and faces of the night behind her. She finds it difficult to resist admiring her children, as Rachel, Donovan and Marina giggle and exchange the conspiratorially innocent looks of creatures still seeking a workable vocabulary. She kisses and cuddles each of them in turn, but in no particular order, and then all of them together. They tumble around, laughing and shrieking, Kyla thankful that she invested in the queen-size bed tion of Japanese “ new-age” music on the public radio station. Kyla wants to know why everyone can’t live like this—and she isn’t interested in hearing economic theories. The music seething from the stereo’s one working speaker is enough theory to digest in one morning. Then there is the colorful rush of getting four human beings outfitted for one day: matching socks, a pair of striped cotton overalls to iron, a purple barrette for the baby’s hair, rainbow shoelaces tied in double knots and the search for the missing red shirt. Scurries to the car, a short ride, kisses good-bye and Kyla is pulling . back into the alley with only the baby, Marina, in the carseat. The older two children have started their day, equipped with lunchboxes and new beeswax modeling clay, at the Free Hearts Alternative School. Kyla and Marina do not enter their stucco house from the same door they exited. Instead, they walk from the wide gravel driveway around to the front of the house where they are greeted by a huge woodburnished sign: KYLA DADE C.P.A. The office is windowed, neither small nor large, neither neat nor disheveled, with a few framed photographs of children scattered on the wall among the diplomas and political posters. The slightly rusted baby swing welcomes Marina, who watches as Kyla flicks on the computer and sifts through the account books and tax forms on a long wooden table. Kyla puts on her glasses and begins to work on the pitiful income statements of Spectrum, a cooperative art gallery whose members are contemplating Kyla’s suggestion to apply for nonprofit status. The brass bells tied to the door ring at about half past two, while Kyla is breastfeeding Marina and eating a slice of date bread piled with cream cheese. It is Rose, of Rose’s Paper Works, a small shop near the ocean selling handmade services she performs with her unremitting reliability, she is considered slightly inferior because she is not an “ artist.” Her art of accounting is disparaged, as if it is merely a technical A skill. There is no one in this town J p u who shares Kyla’s conviction about the magical nature of numbers. There is no one here who understands the mystery of Kyla’s favorite numbers, three and seven. The numbers 12 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
Jeffrey Robinson to report immediately to the operating room and all the doctors and nurses raise their left eyebrows at each other?” Rose laughs, but is undaunted. “ I guess you’re right. Men just don’t care about kids.” Kyla doesn’t remember saying that, but she lets Rose continue. “ I mean, I never knew my father. He left my mother when we were kids. I hated him. I saw him once when I was twenty and I couldn’t even look at the bastard.” Kyla has heard this story before, from Rose and from a hundred other adults whose voices receded into childhood tones when they talked about their father’s desertion. Then-there were those who talked about the emotional distance of their fathers, as if they were men with hollow bodies. It all made Kyla vaguely defensive, as if she should rush to protect the institution of fatherhood. “That must have been difficult,” Kyla tries to sound sympathetic. “Oh, I survived. What was your father like?” “ My father is a nice guy, regular salt of the earth. He was always good to me, still is. Nothing traumatic in our relationship. Kind of boring, actually.” “Well, I always suspected as much. But while we’ re trading secrets,” Rose persists despite the downward turn of the Kyla’s full lips. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth. Your children all have the same father, don’t they?” Rose sits back, as pleased as if she thought her bland invocation would be sufficient to convince a pathological liar to make an exception, a guiltless sinner to confess. “What makes you think that?” “ They all look so much alike.” “They look like me.” Kyla is exactly right. The four people share the same pale coloring, the same honey streaked curling hair, the same eyes round as blue moons and protruding from the oval angularity of their faces. Their lips are uniformly even and full, their noses aquiline, their fingers long and their hands disproportionately large. “ Tha t’s t ru e , ” Rose admits, only s ligh tly hiding her d isappointment. “Though they must have inherited something from their father—or fathers.” Not if they don’t have any. ” Kyla rocks Kyla also knows she is considered slightly inferior because she is not an ‘ ‘a r t is t .” Her a r t o f accounting is disparaged, as i f i t is merely a technical skill. There is no one in this town who shares Kyla’s conviction about the magical nature o f numbers. Marina, pressing their faces close together like a nineteenth century painting of mother and child. The day rapidly collapses around Kyla as if Rose’s raw echoes had started a landslide. When Kyla loses interest in her clients’ fiscal tax years, she tries to edit her computer program on nonprofit corporations. Marina’s whining distracts her and she overwrites the program. Three days work is lost. Free Heart School telephones to announce that Donovan has had another accident: “ Can you please bring a change of clothes, and are you really sure that he is toilet trained sufficiently to be in the preschool?”Kyla dutifully bustles Marina into the compact blue station wagon to deliver a shirt and pair of overalls for her son, but then decides to take both Donovan and Rachel back home, in the hopes of a quiet, early evening. ‘ ‘Why don’t you jus t tell me the tru th . Your children all have the same father, don’t they?” Rose sits back, as pleased as i f she thought her bland invocation would be sufficient to convince a guiltless sinner to confess. The children have a different agenda. They bicker and demand Kyla’s absolute attention. Marina cries. Rachel pours the dog’s bowl of water over Donovan’s head. Marina spits up. Donovan pulls the training pants from his dresser drawer and puts them in the toilet. Marina screams. All three children want only to cling to Kyla. A sweet supper does not console them. Attempted treats of bowls of ice cream, favorite books, Lego blocks, forbidden pastel chalks, blowing bubbles and coloring books are useless against their ill tempers. The usually enjoyed communal bath only results in six round blue eyes which bulge and stare at Kyla as if she is a traitor to some cause to which she does not know she should belong. It feels a hundred hours past midnight when she outlasts her children’s burst of tyranny and the children are asleep in their own small beds, seeming to listen to each other’s cranky breathing, waiting for the signal to renew the mutiny. It is one of those nights Kyla cries from exhaustion. It is one of those nights when the joy of stretching diagonally across her queen-size bed is not enough; she wants someone to gently move her over as he comes to bed after checking the children. It is one of those nights Kyla doubts the passion of her choices and curses the career that gives her the freedom to implement her schemes. She wishes the phone would ring with a rescue message. The only problem Kyla has tonight, like all such nights, is that she cannot decide who should be the bearer of the message. She only knows that it would be a man and that he would look like her enough to be her twin brother. Only in her fitful sleep does Kyla allow specific men to be contenders for the role of rescuer. She has dreams about pulling a list of three names from her jeans, rejecting each one, then folding the list carefully and slipping it into her tight pocket as she reaches for another custard doughnut. When the phone finally rings with a would be rescue message rather than a client or a request for Kyla to volunteer at the battered women’s shelter, it is weeks later—weeks too late. Things have been running extraordinarily smooth. Donovan hasn’t had an accident in all of March. Rachel has learned to love to read aloud to her brother and sister for hours. Marina is sleeping through the night. Kyla’s accounts are in order and the income tax deadline is approaching gracefully. Kyla is spending less time with Rose, and more time with Evelyn, a new and more considerate friend. Besides, it is early spring and the weather is heavenly. It is the season which makes the populations of the northern sections of the country plunder their address books for acquaintances in the subtropics who wouldn’t mind a visitor or two. All of Kyla’s children were born in winter. Douglas is on the other end of Kyla’s long distance line and he wants to visit. He and Kyla have been friends for a long time. They met each other in college, years before Douglas went north to Mackinac Island at the strait between the icy lakes Michigan and Huron and Kyla came south to a narrow strip of land off the “Gold Coast” of Florida. Yet there are certain old lovers one should never trust; lovers who left living scabs rather than mending wounds. She is trying to remember her vow never to see Douglas again. And Kyla is suspicious because he is now married. Douglas has a charm that penetrates while it implies that he needs to talk to Kyla about family problems only she will understand. The wary Kyla tosses her hair generously, and somewhat flir- tatiously. and tells him she’ ll pick him up St the airport next Tuesday. She puts her better judgment to sleep like a naughty child. Tn^t child gets restless once Douglas is actually in her presence. Her real children seem to overwhelm him at first with their busy corporeality, but by the time the troupe arrives at the stucco house facing west, Douglas is easy with the kids and they all seem to like him. He loves children, telling. Kyla this fact over and over on the ride from the airport, as if it is not obvious, as if it contains some deeper message. Kyla is carefully registering her perceptions to s e i if he gives any one child extra attention. Kyla shows Douglas to the guest room, its demure twin beds outfitted with pink and sea green striped sheets that look fresh as the first squeeze from a new tube of toothpaste. He laughs and strokes her head. Once she had called him oenmel, an ancient Greek beverage made of wine and honey, something that is both strong and sweet. She was studying philosophy then, fascinated with the ancient Greeks and their myriad theories about the perfect number. He was studying French literature and used to read her Flaubert in his faltering rendition of the original. Now he sells hand-hammered silver to tourists on a summer resort island that allows no cars. He married a former fashion model. Now Kyla delves into columns of numbers, making sure each is accurate, if not perfect. She is an unwed mother three times. The small ironies of life are not wasted on either of them. It takes him two days to tell her he is disturbed because his wife Lenore is sterile. He tells her this after her own three children are safely asleep and it is just two adults sitting on the back step listening for the distant sound of sloshing salt water. It seems Lenore knew she could not conceive, but did not tell Douglas because she thought he wouldn’t marry her. Douglas is weeping. “ Deception,” he says, “ always makes me this way.” > > w yla. Iwant to know. I need V * to know.” Br^k “Come on. We’ve got to BL « k g e t going. Your plane leaves at near midnight.” “ I can’t leave until you tell me.” “ Evelyn’s already on her way over to stay with the kids.” “ Kyla, don’t be so cruel. I’ve got to know, is Donovan my child?” “ Ssh. The children are sleeping. And I to ld you, he ’s not. Now d o n ’ t be ridiculous.” “ It’s not ridiculous. We were lovers the last time I came down. He looks enough like me to be mine, doesn’t he?” “ Look, let me tell you in plain English. I got my period after we fucked the last time. You aren’t Donovan’s father. You aren’t Rachel’s or Marina’s father either.” Kyla notices that she has lapsed into the harsh tones of her childhood neighborhood; tones her father never used; tones which meant that the speaker was either lying through her teeth or telling a horrible truth. “ This is serious. Very serious. Because if Donovan isn’t my child, I ’m going to have to divorce Lenore. I mean, I’ve always wanted children. I’ve always thought I’d have at least one child somewhere in the world. I don’t want to hurt Lenore, but I’ve got no choice.” “ I don’t understand. If you suddenly found out you were a father by some woman other than Lenore, you’d stay with Lenore?” Kyla is stifling her soft laugh, reminded of soap operas. She almost regrets that she can’t trust Rose, the two of them could relish this story over a glass of wine. But then it would be all over town. “ My kid could visit Lenore and me on the island in the summer. I could teach him to swim and we could bike around the town. It would be great.” Douglas has a notion he might be convincing Kyla of something. “What does Lenore think of your great plan to save your marriage.” “Well, she doesn’t know about any of this. But she’d get used to it. She’d have to.” On the drive to the airport, Kyla falls into herself. She tried to disguise her inner silence with witty conversation and the recalling of shared anecdotes. She tries to erase the strange exchange with Douglas back at the house with memories of college and stories about the scenery. Despite her efforts, Douglas launches into a disjointed tirade about fatherhood, in which the words “ natural” and “ unnatural” dominate. He is talking about fruits and seeds and immortality while Kyla is trying to direct his attention to mango trees, to a cultivated avocado, to the remnants of an orange grove dissected by the bypass from the highway. Suddenly Douglas is talking about his own father, who he calls Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring , 1988 13
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