Walking in the realm of Poetry and Art,
lonely am I
Bound by Poetry and Art,
I submit to their call, unconditional.
Leaving my job behind, Poetry I pursue,
Wealth I cast aside,
My soul a gentle wind, invisible,
Drifting through the night’s tide.
My heart stirs without reason,
Beats faster, again and again.
What causes this unrest,
I cannot discern.
Some nights, sleep eludes me,
Sometimes.
Dreaming of strange people and places.
Yet the meaning remains shrouded in mist.
My stomach hurts right after writing the title. I’ve avoided this grief as it’s so real that it begins to hurt physically. But somewhere Tessa knows how I feel. She was my dog, but also my friend. We spent years walking the forests, its verdant valleys and then sunny summits, also surveying streams and more open, pastoral places. And we went in all seasons, unafraid and confident.
In time, the old girl slowed down a bit, and many of her whiskers had turned grey. I watched her and she watched me, maybe knowing that time had begun to call her to a further, unknown destiny. But we carried on. One day she became sick, and got better for a while, but then became ill again. The vet said she had cancer. She had thrown up and eliminated a lot of blood, and was in pain. The more humane action at that point was to put her down, to let her go, and that’s what occurred. I was there with her the whole time and held her, assured her.
I think I helped her in those last moments and that they were with as little pain as possible. But what or where is this assurance afterwards against grief for myself? It is for me like a light rain coat or thin sweater in minus 20 degree Celsius winter weather.
Therefore, it’s no assurance or insurance whatsoever.
I am caught in the storm.
And, as the storm brags its vexatious winds, bullying, and as those winds blow cold snow upon my already troubled countenance, a demeanour of frustration and withdrawal and plain stupid pain, I try and think of better days…
It was warm when I retrieved her from a small northern rescue outfit. An old woman and man, obviously good souls, ran the shelter which consisted of a large fenced area in back of their property. They relied on donations for almost everything and had an agreement with vets in training somewhere to perform necessary operations to prevent the dogs from being taken by breeders. They were the n the middle of an almost God forsaken climate of mosquitoes though, for there was a series of bogs or swamps close by that allowed many more mosquitoes to breed than a regular summer place even rural.
That’s why Tessa always not only disliked mosquitoes like anyone or any animal would, she absolutely abhorred them and it was noticeable if one or a fly even went near her.
I’d asked to go in the cage where dogs were barking, especially Tessa. The old caretaker, grey hair disheveled, clothing torn through age and hard work, and unrepaired in places, had said, ‘If you want. Go ahead. Nobody has asked to do that before.’ I went in and Tessa barked at me nonstop. But I could see she was not an aggressive soul but rather a scared soul.
When it was time to travel home she lay in the van just in the middle a bit behind me and stopped barking. Looking up at me I could see her saying to the universe at that time something akin to, ‘Oh. He is the one. He has come to rescue me and bring me to a forever home. He is not a threat and I can relax a bit now.’
Not bad Tessa. That day I took you out of the humid mosquito infested world and we left with air conditioning and a water bowl you’d not have share.
In life she could never completely relax, for God knows what trauma or abandonment Tessa endured in the beginning of this life. But for her, she came a long way through the years and was comfortable as possible.
They say not to use cliches, but who are they exactly at the end of the day and what do they know? Other than a spelling mistake or some real structural error, I was never too concerned with what some stranger, or school of thought, had to say.
Everyone is an expert, aren’t they?
Tessa had a good run, maybe a great run all things considered.
I did the best I could, each and every day.
And, most importantly, Tessa is in a better place now.
As for the grief, my stomach still hurts, and though it’s uncomfortable I’m not afraid.
——
changed his mind
still chasing your
dead father’s love
dig him up, see
if he has changed
his mind
embrace depravity
and understand this
is the new bottom
there’s this old black
soul that likes to tease
me
she shows me some leg
when she’s feeling sexy
i ask her nicely to take
her high heel and dig it
into my chest as she
hikes up her skirt and
does whatever she
pleases
she usually laughs
explains that at her
age she would have
to remove the diaper
i kiss her hand and
explain to her that i
don’t mind anything
simply looking to
be broken in two
she gave me the
number of a guy
down on third
oh, the twists
and turns
———————————————————————-
to ever repair
snow on the first
day of spring
somewhere the world
is on fire and no one
gives a shit
only personal tragedies
register on the soul
anymore
beaten, blinded
broken into too
many pieces to
ever repair
live long enough
and every hero
will disappoint
you
somewhere your dead
father starts to laugh
another endless night
of wondering how to
sleep while in pain
there surely must be
a pill for this
wash it down
with vodka
water from the
old country
but this was
made in texas
exactly
—————————————————————
one too many rainbows
sometimes i imagine
my shadow holding
a gun
where did he get
that thing
i suppose i have chased
one too many rainbows
now, in the twilight of
democracy, still thinking
hope exists
she’s disguised as misery
an easy whore that can’t
get any work
baffling
sometimes i imagine
my shadow holding
a gun
sometimes, an AR-15
he likely knows that
the first shot probably
won’t kill me
————————————————————————
saw something different
kissing under the blood moon
rekindling a flame that just
won’t die out
she haunts my dreams
all these years
raise a glass and pretend
that any of this matters
living in this hell is sacrifice
enough
these are the nights you
dream about all the women
that got away
and here you are with the one
that saw something different
she tastes like a better tomorrow
of course, we’ll cross that
bridge when we get there
tonight is for the lovers
the dreamers
the sad fucks that deserve
a little moment of happiness
there isn’t much else left
in this world
————————————————————————
never fall in love with me
i always tend to fall
in love with the ones
leaving soon
the ones already
married
the ones that will
never fall in love
with me
i have tried to break
this habit as i have
grown older
i should have thought
of that long before i
gave up on people
i suppose
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Disturb the Universe Magazine. You can catch him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
1. Please share your thoughts about the future of literature..
It gives me the greatest honor to share and partake my own passion for literature, that ornament that embellishes our livelihood throughout lifetime, I am smitten by rendition and erudition of books in all life spheres, to build up a cultural cauldron inside my mind, to dissolve in the amalgam of civilizations and conception of the other, I am not that fond of traveling abroad, for fear of nostalgia to swathes of my endeared heartfelt homeland, rather I consider reading is the solution to unravel the riddle and decipher the intricacies of the others’ thoughts, attitudes and expectations.
It mirrors their torchlight guidance for the generations who are in dire need of your imagination and enlightenment to recognize who they really are, to perceive to what extent they reached out in their conceptualizing the core and crux of what is going on in the literary and scientific arenas.
I do start since the prim of my youth, as a curious onlooker youngling in pursuance of language exposure, I listen a lot to the radio transmissions, like BBC news, or VOA coverage, I wrote down what I was hearing with the help of pronunciation skills I gained, the process by which I acquired spontaneity and fluency in English, fundaments in some other languages, didactic methodological errands to tackle my subject matter helped me a lot, throughout planning to – do lists in English, to your amazement, I tried to find out equivalent in my Arabic Fus7a the mother tongue, regarding idiomatic structure, interjection and syntax.
That linguistic inclination granted me tools and opened up large scale horizons to address the other, the process reached its zenith alongside with the gigantic leap of the know how, technological platforms, I jumped into platforms and mobile apps dealing in learning languages, there are so many to imitate the inventory contents and speak with the other. Since then, I planned a pathway to work on translation as a bonfire or a kindled flame to light up minds and allure other to the benefits of linguistics, as I volunteer to do so, awaiting to reap the fruits and my words instilled and inscribed in the scroll of universal history of literature like the notable role models in prose and verse.
That is a philosophical question, compelling me to the inner self of mankind, good and evil deeds created and innate inside of us, instinctively we might be susceptible to both pathways, but the mighty hand of good and righteous so doing is the vanquisher at last, goodness is like the lofty sun light, a heavenly revelation, but all humans err, and have shortcomings and deficiencies engendered, that abomination and obscene inclination dimmed the lovely hearts, that may delude us and made us into an abyss of the hell. There are wise proverbs admonishing us all—do good and cast it into the seas, do as you would be done by. Therefore, emanating from that mundane truth, we must uphold the slogan or motto of good and faithfulness rather than malfide and diabolical intrigues.
And where can we find your books?
My printed out paper literary output was not that superfluous, I wrote about 10 short stories long time ago, but some of which were printed, in fact, 3 of which named: a human being.. But?.. The altars of imagination.. Snippets tinged with the savory of one’sself.. So many published electronically on Facebook prose symposia such as:the Golden Forum of short story, the Arab conference magazine platform.. Poetic anthologies are my passion, I wrote rhymed and free verse, my first diwan named : give me some sake, my poetic quill?..’ Hanaiki ‘Published and printed, but alot of poems scattered through websites and platforms, I also translate from other foreignlanguages into the Arabic.
Novels and novella play an important part of significance, the Adventurous novel ‘Nabhan and Dannan Alhazhaian’ – Nabhah and the Cask of Bewilderness, published this year, along with a translated novella— what’s after? Both Arabic and English versions of mine. For me, I dreamt to publish an encyclopedia encompassing most of luminaries around the globe with entire congregational literary genre masterpieces I have translated for them, still that dream awaiting a sponsor to make into the light. Translation is all in all undulating waves of outrageous sea of knowledge, full of untold sunken pearls in need to shine. A plea to all literary avant-garde laureates in all fields—give a keen eye on the translators, supposedly, I am one of them. Also, I am doing great in the sphere of literary criticism, you can follow my studies for the Arab writers through Arab symposium for contemporary criticism, and magazine like Amarjy, Damietta, blue world magazine, Nokhba, and other Greek, Romanian and Albanian podiums.
Anyone can search on my name through Google search engine in Arabic and English: Ahmed Farooq Baidoon أحمد فاروق بيضون.
The future is promising, throughout unprecedented microcosm of consensus of literate, authors, playwrights, novelists, poets and poetesses, along with the evolutionary literary new genres, like haiku, tanka, haibun, micro-fiction, micro novella, I wish the future of literature created a venue that shall simplify meeting of the notable acculutred from the entire global territories, to stand united as upholders of word beauty and firmaments, they build up mind apart from undermining mental calibers of the generation by trivial bandwagon of fallacies and violence. We all call upon peace, welfare and serenade, to populate the Earth, to be worthy living and let the children of the world sing the song of unity and unanimous psalms of love. I dreamt that I could hear the sparrows chirping again.
I wish it will be the turning point for a fruitful future, that’s all,
If only I could see the sunlight without imbued clouds,
If only I could see festivity world-wide without a droplet of tear or bereavement,
Let-alone a world of grudge-free and cherished with tempestuous sentiments.
Be it a dream in impelling need to come true or still the apparition of hatred looms?
(I Am The Wandering Letter)
Behold—here I am the solitary letter,
Let go astray in a paginated paper,
My ink fountain has muttered its insomnia,
I wrote down words and battle myself in a race,
I stay up late at daytime and darkness loom at night,
Therein – could hear all shall carry and trace,
I call upon everyone before the glow of twilight,
How come could eyes blink-my ribs fed up with stress,
How come shall we caress those melancholic setbacks with laughter alright,
And, hide all what may choke of distress,
And, flout all contemptuous abomination and dismiss,
Oh! Let-alone that blackout and sleepless eyelids perplexed till late times,
And, all inflected upon us—such lethal crimes,
I shall lay aside all overwhelming screams into oblivion rhymes,
Behold – the stroke of pens, ripped papers of mine; be it echoless as I feel down,
That serves me right as crippled, knitting my eyebrow and frown,
Does the croak of toads prevail in the universe and trumpet?
Verily, the celestial skies manifested as my salvation refuge to glimpse in slumber,
From color to another, we shall stomp it,
Behold-homesick of days, in grey tug of conflicting starry curtains – please hide,
If only I could be back in shape, a free letter without clipping wings – open- eyed.
Preface
Being touched like a flame lit twice afire,
I ran to the illusions of three characters I knew well,
Marlowe, Marlow, and Marlowe.
Though they knew little of my faults, their intuition carried me to them.
Then, the wisdom of the future, heralded by naked angels, touched me.
We embraced each other, reflections mixing our roles,
never our ambitions for adventures.
Amid an absence of sanity and security,
we considered the uncertainty of time,
existence was now a plan
a playing field of absurdity.
Seduction
for pleasure, not honor.
Immediately, I searched for the remedies
that would unite the past with what was once the past
but is now
at the center of what can be imagined.
My feelings went astray as sensations courted all things moving forward,
forward in a circle.
How do I
define loyalty?
By
disgrace
and embarrassment?
The whereabouts of desires glistened
as I waded toward the underbelly of reality.
In the distance,
where logic cannot overcome fear
God, the Almighty,
yawned
as Hera flirted with him.
But his eyes were fixed
on
beautiful but dangerous
Aphrodite,
bathing nude opposite herself.
I became the difference between myself
and who the evil spirits thought I was.
With the world in turmoil, my mind sharpened,
effectively becoming a destructive weapon.
One – Christopher
Sailors, soldiers
and veterans without optimism
on warships
headed to those mountainous beliefs
a thought away from a fall.
Both
commitment and rage
gave a sense of camaraderie
to the blood-doused euphoria
of
redemption.
A word without meaning
to those without meaning.
After a war party
I undressed an ageless goddess in my bedroom
and smelled the aromas of comfortable past entrances.
The eager men and the women before me
now, just melancholy ghosts
reflecting their regrets from colored liquor bottles.
Impatient from our liberation from conformity,
uncomfortable with delusion,
but in harmony with the obvious,
I licked the sweat from her breasts
and legs and turning her gently around.
There are many impulses
but the foremost crime of humanity
is to waste hours
longing for a continuation of life.
I said
simply to Marlowe,
“I am passionate about my ambitions.”
His grin became Faust’s smile, “If she’s a goddess, shouldn’t you spread her legs wider?”
Exceptions more than expectations are forgiven
when unwanted expressions are spoken.
Devoid of boundaries,
I never considered any alternatives
to succumbing
once again.
As per usual
at the trial, I was found guilty
of loving
of living
and of loving and living with a lion’s roar
convicted by a jury with venom in their eyes.
In the nightclub next to the crematorium,
friends’ wives with the scars they bear from trysts
recalled times when we were thought to be
mythical models
with a hated impetuousness for life.
As the power drained,
the lights dimmed, and we gave an icy toast to the exultation
of man’s counterfeit concern for his fellow man.
Foxes and flies entered from the back door.
I heard drunken eagles swoop down on doves dressed in corsets,
their plumage more golden than cinnamon-red
and their nakedness
open to the pampered
but
never to the dreary day laborers
who thought themselves tortured martyrs.
I listened as those in lines of their own making
cried when the whips
struck their backs.
How repetitious,
their
self-serving stories
about the holiest of nights
in the most dank and dreary places
where death played with the horrors of existence
was little more
than a morsel of
marshmallow self-forgiveness.
Never be fooled
by the
pungent mistrust of thoughts
thinking about thoughts
and being
misled
by thoughts
unthought.
I left Marlow in the last booth of a
celebrated pub
with Diana, the Huntress
where I knew he would strangely
disappear.
Two – Charles
The wedding ceremony was incidental.
Attendees formed a stairwell of disbelief.
An armistice of sorts
for those who thought
freedom
was a consequence of lethargic behavior.
My ashen date, a scholarly Norsewoman, Sigrid
believed
Orpheus should travel to Hades once more
but
this time with the Minotaur
to save Eurydice.
I was asked to come along
but I suggested Marlow,
a storyteller
who believed in reaching
for something incredible
and missing
was better than playing it safe.
Of actions unfathomable,
he considered it ludicrous
to invent tragedy
when it was blatantly a
portrayal of reality.
But he was sometimes found to tell lies to preserve
the perception of individuals as noble;
shielding the listeners from any disturbing truths.
Lying in bed
with a nymph,
high on the Oracle of Delphi’s appraisal that
wealth prolonged adolescence
I realized
if you dream,
if you wish
then make promises, the end becomes the beginning
and the promises become
an unquenchable serpent around your neck.
Faith is always in the distance, and though you are amazed
you are dwelling in lore,
prayers, like gratitude
get trampled.
The privileged passed, whined, and reflected on the enigma of monetary sorrows
as being the reason
Grendel’s mother went mad,
not the murder of her son.
With tears of surrealism,
I became what I was before I became what I could never be.
Passing the Asphodel Meadows,
Orpheus recited Hamlet’s soliloquy
to Hecate.
She stripped, and both dissolved into a myth of their own making.
The Minotaur
decided to kill Perseus before
he beheaded Medusa
and
Marlow approached Teiresias,
the blind prophet
and asked how to
return order
to a chaotic world.
He petted the vicious three-headed dog Cerberus
and smiled,
“Why?”
I realized despair had no wings.
Against the grain, against the turmoil, against the odds,
seeking the self-portrait behind the mirror,
I leap
through diamond-shaped crystals
that
irradiated irises
so, whatever there was to see
I would see
without penance or absolution.
A woman forever in a prism, bathing in infinite beauty,
dripped from shadows of memories I had forgotten.
Hearing church bells,
I ran to the line between life and death,
where Eurydice lovingly opened her arms
to hide me.
I glided into her
resting upon all the effeminate
virtues.
Horror and absurdity
abound
beyond the satyrs’ chorus
in the souls of the
ravenous.
I revealed myself
to Eurydice
as being
who I am
because there was no one to follow.
I exited,
without a kiss
landing uncomfortably
in the dark
where Marlow
began the story.
Three – Philip
Language is raped every day, and the rapist goes unpunished.
There are prisoners inside puzzles, trying to locate characters lost in scenes.
I see their disappearing trails through the maze.
Restless accusers scorn me for exploring
among the split tongues of war
and the fortune found in the asylums of women.
Craving that smell of feminine power that wafts from between their legs,
cubist women curl their hands around my neck.
Laughing at sanity,
I remain searching
where time and fate ride
that line of horizon and sea.
If I needed someone
she would be found here
where curiosity
tempts virginity.
Prophets say that tyrants triumph as meanings disappear from words.
Though the wind has no enemies,
it never rests.
The wind
and the seekers
of the wind
live in a world without
ultramarine and vermillion.
They question whether a life is worthwhile
without color
or ignorance.
I, though, have no quarrel with those who question
their crucifixion
without
hope or fear.
Relentless in my pursuit to find where I stand
I call Marlowe,
who always
plays hunches in emotional landscapes.
Crafting experiences and perceptions
he tells me,
“Darkness only remembers pleasure’s smile.”
I follow him
down the paths of confusion and madness
until we set sail
for places without boundaries
where
convention is extinguished from conviction.
We watch as language is blundered, ravished, and tossed aside
to rot and die.
Marlowe,
who sees beyond the big sleep,
preaches that
you can never take back what you have heard.
Still, some find comfort in nevermore
disguised
as evermore.
But we adventurers, always on the fringe
of knowing
of finding
of believing
are strangers even to the ones we love.
We understand the violence of our own feelings
and see beyond
the visible appearance of the world.
Epilogue
Days later – not yet now,
but far from then.
I sit in a comfortable leather chair at the workplace
of
Marlowe, Marlow, and Marlowe.
While my mind is unraveling a myth,
an unrelenting myth
a beautiful woman
with straight, long red hair,
cold-piercing green eyes and black business attire
states smartly,
“The playwright, the narrator, and the detective
will see you now.”
Alfonso Reyes and Poetic Consciousness: Dreams as Revelation
Cesare Pavese stated, “We don’t remember days, we remember moments,” and Heidegger reminds us that “man acts as if he were the shaper and master of language, while language remains man’s master.” These two ideas can illuminate the work of Alfonso Reyes, a writer whose poetic exploration is not only an exercise in memory and conscience, but also a testament to the relationship between language, dreams, and revelation.
For Reyes, the habit of poetic consciousness is the meeting point between word and idea, between thought and feeling, between life and reason. His fascination with Greek tradition led him to understand poetry as the origin of human existence. In his view, reason and hope were not opposites, but complementary, as evidenced in Platonic philosophy. Reyes, in agreement with María Zambrano, seemed to understand that in classical Greece there was no sharp separation between thought and feeling, between poetry and reason, but rather both elements coexisted in vital harmony.
One of the most interesting aspects of Reyes’s poetry is his conception of dreams as a space of revelation. He understood them not as a simple escape or manifestation of the unconscious, but as a path to knowledge and poetic creation. Just as Heraclitus saw dreams as a place of absolute individuality, Reyes perceived them as a form of wakefulness, an intermediate state where language and image illuminate each other.
This vision is present in his poem “Pesadilla,” where dreams are not only a refuge, but a stage where fear and memory converse with history, with the dead, and with time. In these verses, Reyes shows us a world where spirits and memories blur, suggesting that dreams are also a form of truth, a way of reconstructing human experience through poetic imagery:
“Through those houses I visit in dreams,
confused galleries and halls,
staircases where fear wanders
and darkness rolls in tremors…”
The same experience can be had again and again in the dream of returning. Ideas follow one another over time in a vital and luminous way, making it almost impossible to reconstruct the remnants of thought without taking into account the energy to which it leads us, the desire to return to that dream, to those houses visited in dreams, since dreaming is not conceived in Reyes’s work as the simple wandering of the unconscious. This sensation, which causes the discourse of the encounter with existence in Reyes, is repeated until it provokes the desire for an eternal dream, which is both origin and consequence in a given moment.
His poetics is a constant journey toward the mystery of being, an attempt to reconcile vital cosmology with poetry. For him, writing is tracing a path that begins with intuition and emotion and leads to the light of understanding.
Awakening, dream, and vision are a provocation in the depths of time. Their timelessness is the original awakening and therefore the birth of Alfonso’s history, consciousness, and thought. In this angle of poetic vision, the antagonistic tendency established by the poetic image of the theorist, of the instant in subordination to the contextual world, and on the other hand, the influence of the same world, within the artistic system of Alfonso Reyes, who, beyond the mimetic relationship between reality and vision, dream and configuration, life and word, highlights the deference of real contexts as an incitement to creative activity.
This poetic awareness that Reyes develops between the extratextual and the textual, from external and internal perspectives, between the objective and the subjective in Rey’s literary invention, produces an artistic effect, which is developed throughout his own artistic feeling, in which the writer’s balance and personality play a relevant role, defining the objective and the impersonal from a new perspective that concerns his own expectations and from a particular point of view.
Reyes seeks to make his vital thought an astral, eternal, and uniform inclination. It is possible for him to transit in and through life, even in the manner of the stars, which is not proper to man. And Reyes certainly recognizes that this image has something of a frenzy, since it is an image of an empty time, without beginning or end, of an absolutized time; devoid of scope. Yet if space is described by creating it, then it is an effigy of life in its purest state, of life as an existence both chosen and free.
If Heidegger proclaimed that language is man’s teacher, in Reyes we find a concrete application of this idea. We can see in him that the poetic word not only names reality, but creates, expands, and transforms it. As in Plato, in Reyes, poetry is a way of knowing the world, a journey that seeks to wrest its hidden truth from existence.
His writing moves between intellectual rigor and imagination, between clarity and reverie. His verses and essays reflect a ceaseless search for meaning, a desire to transcend everyday experience to reach a broader dimension, where thought and poetry intertwine in an unquenchable radiance.
In Alfonso Reyes’s work, dreaming is not simply closing one’s eyes and escaping, but opening one’s mind and expanding one’s consciousness. It is searching in the depths of language for those sparks of truth that illuminate the world and restore our breath in the true dimension of what we have experienced.
This short story appeared in Freedom Fiction Journal.
More than Me
1
Henry glanced down at himself, saw the threadbare white t-shirt with the food stains and where he’d brushed his teeth that morning and dribbled toothpaste onto the fabric. He spied a stray cornflake from the breakfast he’d choked down, and brushed it away like an errant moth. He frowned. He hadn’t realized he’d slipped that far into the shadows, into oblivion.
Henry recalled decades earlier, when in the flower of his youth he’d spied aged men sitting on the green-painted benches in the park — much like the one on which he sat this afternoon — silently and motionlessly fading away. He’d wondered, who or what had left these forgotten souls so bereft? Hadn’t they any family, any friends, any keepers?
Now Henry sat alone on the park bench. He had no family, no friends. No keepers. Aging was not as easy as he’d thought it would be. With nothing to occupy their time or thoughts, people lapsed into dissolution. Henry was, he realized, an old man. It struck him hard, like a clenched fist.
Henry wasn’t impoverished, despite appearances. He had, as the actuaries at his old firm like to say, accrued a substantial estate. He’d toiled hard all his working life, set on achieving all he could in the way of material gain and political power. But, to what end? he wondered now. He had no heirs. His wives and children had predeceased him, abandoning him to an emotional chaos for which he never forgave them. Why had he worked so hard to be a provider when there were no remaining beneficiaries? There: he sounded now like the estate lawyer he’d once been. He smiled briefly, like a flickering candle, and then his face turned blank again.
2
“I love you, Beegie,” said Henry, stroking his new wife’s slender hips.
“Maybe I should go by Barbara from now on,” she suggested. “Whoever heard of a lawyer’s wife being called Beegie? It doesn’t sound serious. It might hurt your career,” she suggested.
“Don’t care, Mrs. Schafer,” replied Henry. They were on their honeymoon, following a modest civil ceremony at the courthouse that afternoon.
She sighed. “So, let’s get down to brass tacks, Mister,” she went on. “How many children do you want?”
Henry blinked. “Do I have to decide now?” he asked with amusement.
“It’s good to anticipate the future,” cautioned Beegie. “That way, there are no surprises.”
“Maybe I like surprises,” said Henry.
“We need at least two sons,” said Beegie. “An heir and a spare,” she said very seriously.
Henry laughed. “We’re not the British Royal Family, darling. And why do they have to be sons?”
“You’ll want them to follow in your footsteps and become attorneys,” asserted his wife.
“Why can’t daughters become attorneys?” asked Henry.
“Women make up what, one percent of practicing attorneys in New York City?” Beegie pointed out.
“And who said they have to be lawyers?” asked Henry. “Maybe they’ll want to become school teachers or nurses — or doctors!” he cried. Henry had attended a venerable Eastern law school and was bursting with liberal ideals that were emblematic of the1960s.
Beegie blushed. “Oh, stop it. There are even fewer women doctors than attorneys, as if you didn’t know.”
“Sweetheart,” said Henry, “I don’t care what our children turn out to be, so long as they’re healthy.” She held him close, deeply in love.
& & &
But the first Schafer child turned out not to be healthy. Darla was born with a shortened limb and would always walk with a limp, the doctors said. Beegie was not happy. She felt like she had let her growing family down.
“How can Darla argue a case before a jury when she’s leaning on a cane?” she lamented, near to tears with dismay.
“Baby,” said Henry, “Darla needn’t even be a lawyer. She can be a businesswoman or a news reporter, or she can hang wallpaper, for Chrissake. Dammit, she’s my daughter, and she’s perfect!”
Beegie held her husband close. “Yes dear,” she said.
Darla died in her crib, aged 3 months.
Almost two years later, Beegie’s womb bore fruit a second time. Angela was the apple of the Schafers’ eye. With raven hair and a pink complexion, she was, her parents agreed, utterly perfect.
“Beegie,” said Henry with love, “you did good!” Beegie squealed with delight. Any guilt she felt over the tragedy of her previous childbirth was more than atoned for by the arrival of her beautiful daughter Angie. So it was with profound disappointment and heartbreak that the Schafers’ daughter of 9 months quietly passed away in her sleep, another victim of crib death. Henry was beside himself with grief.
& & &
The untimely passing of Beegie and Henry’s children served at first to bring the couple even closer. They cherished each moment together, as if it were a gift from God. Life, they felt, was just that precious. They deferred having more children until October of 1969 when Beegie approached her husband and tentatively told him that he was to be a father once again. While Beegie had anticipated that Henry might have misgivings, he was anything but dismayed.
“Baby,” he said, “I’m so happy!” And they kissed.
But, the child experienced congenital respiratory distress, so severe that Henry and Beegie both quit smoking. And Phil was a preemie. However, Henry, now entertaining an offer to become a junior partner, could afford a full-time nurse, and Phil made great strides toward a complete recovery.
“Maddie,” Henry addressed the nurse, “the only thing that matters is my son’s well being.”
“I understand, Mr. Schafer,” she said.
And Henry and Beegie’s first son did prosper. Henry, now a partner, maintained Maddie’s employment for almost five years, far longer than Henry’s similarly prosperous colleagues did. But, Henry told himself, there had been no nursemaid or governess with the first two children, and they had suffered keenly for it. Maddie wasn’t let go until Phil began school. Henry had begun to have grave doubts about Beegie’s fitness as a parent.
Henry had read a recent book of nonfiction about a woman who systematically murdered her children, owing to a psychosis of some sort. Henry was no psychologist, but he subconsciously fitted his wife of seven years into that very category of infanticidal sociopath. Henry was careful to tell Maddie to let no one, outside of himself, be left alone with his son. At about this time, Henry began devoting more time than ever to his career, and to become involved in conservative causes, both professionally and otherwise. Less empathetic now, he became emotionally distanced from his wife and sought out company elsewhere. Beegie began to drink.
“Maddie wouldn’t let me take Phil to the park,” complained Beegie one day, slurring her words a little.
Good! thought Henry. “What did she say about it?” he asked aloud.
“She said the doctor said he had some kind of ‘itis’ and advised against visiting the park,” replied Beegie. “I don’t recall any such diagnosis,” she said unhappily.
“Oh, I do,” said Henry. Beegie shrugged and frowned and said nothing more. She poured herself a bourbon.
3
Henry and Beegie’s relationship became more and more remote, until which point they hardly touched one another in affection. They began sleeping in separate bedrooms. One night, however, after marking their 15th wedding anniversary, a celebration accented with the consumption of a magnum of champagne. the couple wound up in the same bed. 12 weeks later, Beegie returned from the OB-GYN with news.
“I’m pregnant, Henry,” she announced with dead, listless eyes.
Henry didn’t know quite what to say, so he said the first thing that popped carelessly into his head: “Is it mine?” he asked.
Phil, ten years old, greeted the arrival of a baby brother with great fanfare.
“What are we gonna name him, Dad?” he asked.
Henry, having secretly determined by way of blood tests that the child could well be his own, had come to accept it. He shrugged at his son’s question.
“We’ll name him Harry, after your father,” declared Beegie determinedly.
Harry Schafer came into the world on New Year’s Day, 1980, and was the first child born in the city hospital that year. He thus received his first of many rave reviews.
No further anniversary celebrations, and so no more children, were forthcoming. The Schafers, man and wife, grew even more distant. Henry spent many nights “working late.” But, that fate was not ordained for the couple’s children: they prospered from love and devotion, both from their parents and from one another. Man and wife found little to discuss, but for their sons.
& & &
Trying desperately to find some basis for a reconciliation, Beegie asked Henry one Sunday, as she had many times before, “Do you want to attend mass with me this morning?”
Henry grimaced. “You know I don’t fancy that shit, Beegie,” he answered, annoyed with the question.
“But, you appear on Jesus Lives every week,” she said, mentioning an Evangelical Christian television program from which Henry received a substantial retainer. “What’s that all about?”
“That’s work, Beegie,” he remarked gruffly, tying his necktie. “I perform a service and I take their dough; it’s business, that’s all.”
“But,” she said, “what do you really think of the organization?”
“Same as all religions. Bunch of damn holy rollers,” he said dismissively. “I’ve got an appointment,” he muttered, and swiftly vacated the apartment.
An appointment? Beegie thought. At 7am on a Sunday? She knew damn well who it was with. She worried her rosary beads.
& & &
“What happened to your face, Harry?” asked Phil one afternoon.
“Kid called me queer,” said 7-year-old Harry resentfully, dabbing with a tissue at a split lip.
“Why’d he do that?” asked Phil.
Harry was silent for a moment, then replied, “Because he saw me holding hands with another kid — another boy.” Phil, now 17 and wise beyond his years, said nothing. “Does that mean I’m queer?” Harry asked his brother. Phil, he knew, had never lied to him. In fact, Phil was a defacto father figure to Harry. Henry, increasingly preoccupied, played a diminishing role in raising his younger son.
“Doesn’t matter what it makes you,” answered Phil. “It’s who you are. You’re my brother, Harry. I love you and I don’t care what you are or who you hold hands with. Okay?”
“Okay.”
& & &
Henry marched into Harry’s room and snatched a spinning platter off his12-year-old son’s vintage turntable. He smashed the album into bits on the side of the machine.
“No more of this goddamn fairy music, Harry!” shouted Henry angrily. He had been hired as lead counsel for another alt-right organization dedicated to forestalling legislation allowing for same-sex marriage. This was the hot button issue facing both sides of the gay rights movement. His son’s “oddness” would only garner criticism and reflect badly on Henry.
“I love Queen!” Harry shouted back. “Freddy Mercury is the best singer, if you don’t count George Michael.”
“What’ve you got against Springsteen?” asked Henry in a surly voice.
“Nothing! He’s just not Freddy Mercury!”
“That faggot died of AIDS!” said Henry harshly. “Is that what you want for your future?”
“Is that why you don’t love me, Dad?” asked Harry petulantly, “because I’m queer?”
“You’re not!” snapped his father. Henry saw red every time such a suggestion was made. “Either you straighten out or I’ll put an end to this music thing you’re into. I got you your guitars and the lessons and the keyboard and everything. You don’t want to lose that, do you?”
Harry grew pensive and seemed to turn this over in his mind. At length, he sighed and gave the pragmatic response he father expected. “Okay, Dad. No more Queen.” As Henry stalked triumphantly from the room, Harry stared balefully at his father’s departing back.
& &&
“Phil is starting the conference championship game on Saturday,” said Henry with a smug smile, referencing his son’s acclaimed ability to accurately toss a football 50 yards down the field to a wide receiver. Last year, Phil had been selected Division I Second Team All-American for his football prowess at the medium-sized college he attended. He was foregoing the NFL draft to enroll in a prestigious law school and would thereby follow in Henry’s footsteps. Phil was all man, thought Henry proudly.
“I’ve already got tickets,” said Beegie, looking up. Are you going with Harry and me?” she asked hopefully. “Or are you…”
He shook his head. “I’ll catch a ride with Carol,” he replied, referencing his long-time paralegal from the firm. Beegie said nothing.
When it was Harry’s moment to shine, he did so in other ways. He attended Julliard, majoring in voice, for two years, before dropping out to become frontman and lead guitarist for his grunge rock band. He filled bars, auditoriums, arenas and, eventually, stadiums. One night, Henry paid an unexpected — and unprecedented — visit to Harry backstage at a concert venue. What he discovered there left him positively jubilant.
“Who’s this, Harry?” asked his father, nodding at a stunning African American woman standing in Harry’s dressing room.
“This is Toni,” said Harry. “Toni, this is my dad, Henry Schafer.”
“Ooh, hello, Mr. Schafer,” cooed Toni, extending her hand. “I’ve seen you on television.” After hesitating for just a beat, Henry enfolded her slender fingers with his own. The three engaged in meaningless small talk for a few minutes before Henry took his leave, satisfaction written all over his face. He had gotten what he came for.
“I’ll leave you now, Harry,” said Dad, smirking. “I can see you’re in good hands.”
When Henry had left, Toni turned to Harry and said, “Your Dad seems nice.” Harry merely stared at the door through which his father had passed.
That night, Henry told Beegie, “I think maybe Harry is finally coming around.” Beegie glanced at him inquiringly. “Had this hot chick in his dressing room before the concert,” he went on. “I think he was going to make her.”
“What was she like?” asked Beegie.
“Black,” said Henry distastefully. “Toni something, but she had a nice ass.” Beegie, who knew Toni and many of Harry’s other friends, didn’t have the heart to tell her husband that Toni was in fact a transgender woman.
Harry became a rock and roll phenom, filling in the minds of many the role left vacant by the death of Freddy Mercury 3 years before. So, when Harry died of a heroin overdose at 24, the music world was beside itself. But no more so than his family. His mother’s reaction was to drink more, while his father’s response was to devote more energy to the alt-right causes which had become so paramount in his life.
Phil, now 35, felt Harry’s loss more acutely than anyone. Now a partner in the law firm that Henry had retired from only the year before, he sought but gleaned little comfort from his parents. He tried to talk to them, but found it almost impossible. He came upon them in their living room, a few days following the funeral.
“Mom, Dad,” he said, “I’m thinking of creating a foundation in Harry’s name.” He looked at them, sprawled over the sofa, but their faces remained turned away. “I’d like your input: what form should it take? How should I fund it? Who should be the beneficiaries? I’m thinking of scholarships to Julliard.” No response. “Do you even think it’s a good idea?” he implored. Still nothing.
“Fine,” he muttered, turning away and exiting the room. “Thanks for the advice.”
4
Ten years had passed since his brother’s death, and Phil, now managing partner of the firm, was an outspoken LGBTQ rights activist. Married and with a gender dysphoric teenager of his own, Phil was often questioned on the reasons behind his speaking out on behalf of the non-cisgender community.
“I believe in equal participation in society by all people, regardless of their sex, gender identity, race, ableness…” was his stock answer.
One day, he spoke of his late brother. Asked point blank whether Harry Schafer, as had been rumored for years, was LGBTQ, Phil replied, “It’s true, he was. He suffered in isolation, in agony, in loneliness, for 24 years, and I’m speaking out and speaking up for him and everyone like him, because,” he said simply, “it’s the right thing to do.”
“I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with that boy,” lamented Henry that morning, after seeing his son address the press conference on an initiative to legally validate same-sex marriages at the state level. Moreover, Phil had officially outed Henry’s younger son.
“He’s not a boy, he’s a man,” retorted Beegie, who had been viewing the same news program. “Why don’t you give him his due, Henry? He’s right about LGBTQ people, and he’s right about Harry.”
“My son was not gay!” he spat, slamming down a newspaper and laying heavy emphasis on the last word.
“He was,” she intoned relentlessly. “He was so intimidated by you and your macho persona and your radical causes that he hid it, except from me and Phil and a few friends. He tried talking to you.”
“Harry always was weak,” he snarled, aiming a venomous glare his wife’s way. “If he was gay, then you made him that way!” Henry snapped viciously. Beegie rolled her eyes.
“Why do you think he took his own life, Henry?” she challenged.
“He didn’t! It was an overdose. It was accidental!” shouted Henry.
“You are so fucking blind,” she said with disgust. “He wanted to talk to you, to explain why he was the way that he was, since he was 12 years old, but you’d never hear of it. It was always, ‘Did you score with this chick, did you make it with that bitch?’ ” Henry stared at her. “Do you remember the time you bought him the DVD and all those porn discs and told him to sit in his room and watch them until he felt like a man? He was 13 freaking years old, Henry,” she cried with despair, her voice breaking. “But then,” she continued more softly, “I bought him Thelma and Louise, so he could watch Brad Pitt.” She laughed sadly, remembering.
“Oh, have another drink,” he said dismissively, and Henry stormed out of the condo, slamming the door and leaving his wife by herself once more.
5
Phil Schafer’s final words were broadcast six months later, on a Sunday morning public affairs program with a nationwide viewership. He was discussing his storied career as an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community, of which his beloved brother had been a part. Since confirming his brother’s sexual identity, Phil had received many death threats, some from the same organizations which were represented by his father. The two men hadn’t spoken in months. Phil’s appearance was in conjunction with a recent Supreme Court decision to sanction same-sex marriage. When asked to what Phil attributed his tireless commitment to serving the under-privileged, the downtrodden and the marginalized, he replied cryptically that “I owe everything I am to my father.”
Seven hours after air time, Phil Schafer was found dead in a men’s room in Union Station, with a gunshot wound to the brain. His wallet, containing $400, was untouched. The perpetrator was never found. Henry, who was in Oslo, where he was receiving the latest in a score of honorary law degrees, was asked for his reaction.
“Naturally,” said Henry, “I am shocked and dismayed. My son didn’t live the life I’d hoped for, but of course, I loved him. My thoughts are with his mother and his wife.” Unmentioned was Phil’s 19-year-old transgender son, whom Henry hadn’t seen in so long that he wouldn’t have recognized him on the street. Henry then excused himself for a golf date he’d previously scheduled.
Beegie, unable to cope with the tragic news, sat alone in the Schafers’ condo for months and binged on chocolate and bourbon. Grown over the years to a bloated 300 pounds, she eventually collapsed with a stroke and spent the next 14 months hospitalized, in a coma, before finally passing away in her sleep at age 66.
6
Following his wife’s death nearly 10 years before, Henry became increasingly reclusive and unresponsive to the efforts of others to get him to connect with society. When asked by reporters what he thought, as a cultural warrior, or as an elder statesman of note, of this or that, he would curtly reply, “Don’t know, don’t care,” and he’d slam up the telephone. As a long-time spokesperson for the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ and anti-DEI movements, he would address the issues only fleetingly, speaking of the “recidivism of the Negro,” and touting the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case. And he reiterated that his favorite Supreme Court justice was Roger Taney, followed closely by Clarence Thomas.
At length, one of the Big Five New York publishing houses tried to entice Henry Schafer into penning a much sought-after, agenda-driven autobiography, but he wouldn’t bite. At 80, Henry unexpectedly wed his long-time personal assistant, Carol Moseby, his unacknowledged mistress of forty years. But, tragedy was visited on Schafer once more when Carol died in their honeymoon suite on their wedding night. Foul play was not suspected. Two days later, Henry played in a foursome at Pebble Beach.
& & &
Still seated on the bench, Henry thought indifferently back to when he’d last seen his first wife — or her desiccated remains — vegetating in the so-called recovery center that cost him $1,000 a day. He sniffed. He could well afford it. He couldn’t remember now the last time they’d made love. Beegie had died from a massive hemorrhagic stroke, the doctors had said, an indirect result of her long-term alcoholism and malnutrition. He shook his head in disgust. The medical examiner never had discovered what caused Carol’s death, he remembered with a little smile. At any rate, there would be no tell-all book now. He glanced at his cell. Time to get home, he thought. Henry phoned up his driver and told him to bring the car around.
Henry tried to stand up, but he fell back hard onto the wooden bench. His head swam; he felt lightheaded and confused. He slumped and didn’t move when Edward, his driver, arrived and touched him on the shoulder. Henry remained unresponsive, so Edward punched in 911. In seeming no time, the ambulance rolled into the park with the lights flashing and the siren blaring. Alighting from the vehicle, two paramedics rushed to Henry’s side and immediately began working on him. They were very professional. A small crowd of the curious gathered around the scene.
Working their first responder magic, the EMTs soon had their patient breathing regularly again and his heartbeat restored to somewhat normal. Henry was aware of what unfolded around him, but he couldn’t speak. He had a terrific headache.
“Patient locked in,” said one of the EMTs into her radio, which squawked back with a burst of chatter. “Roger that,” she said. As they placed Henry on a collapsible gurney, they secured him with wide leather straps, fitted him with an oxygen mask and one of the first responders talked to him. He found her soft voice very calming and reassuring.
What if he were to die? thought Henry bleakly. He knew, intellectually, that some day he must pass from the earth, but had given little thought to what came after. His wife had been Catholic and Beegie raised the boys in the faith, but Henry had never spent much time in an actual church, other than for an ill-advised reenactment of his wedding on his 20th anniversary. Beegie had adamantly refused his overtures of divorce, for religious reasons, but in the end it didn’t matter; he had enjoyed his freedom just the same.
They folded the gurney into the ambulance and off they streaked. “I think you’re gonna make it, Mr. Schafer,” said one of the first responders happily. The one with the nice voice. He turned his head to look at her. What he saw gave him pause. She was a 20-something Black woman, in a navy blue uniform, on the collar of which was affixed a colorful rainbow pin. Suddenly the woman with the nice voice spoke again, but in a deep, masculine voice.
“Funny you should get the likes of us, huh, Mr. Schafer?” And she laughed aloud. The laughter seemed to swell and then echo through the vehicle. Henry thought he smelled burning sulfur.
As the ambulance raced to the hospital, Henry wondered, not for the last time, if he were already dead, and in hell. Or was it heaven? Did it even matter?