One More Stop (2 page)

There he stood, all four-feet six-inches of him. He was a short man. His silver hair was slicked back like a postmodern teaspoon: fair skin, thin lips, and eyes such a deep-sea blue that I wanted to dive right into them. The blue surrounded the blackest dilated pupils you could possibly imagine. The whites glistened, you know, over easy, no butter, no oil, no blood vessels … no humanity.

‘Welcome, Loli.’

‘Hello’

‘Are you feeling sad?’

(pause)‘Yes.’

‘Having trouble sleeping at night?’

(deep breath) ‘Yes.’

‘Nervous?’

(heart pounds) ‘Yes.’

‘Confused?’

(how does he … is he reading my mind?) ‘Yes.’

‘How long have you felt like this?’

‘A long time I guess.’ How ’bout my whole fuckin’ life?!

‘A very long time. Correct?’

‘Yes.’

He squints. ‘I can see your black pain. It surrounds you. Terrible … Terrible … I see it, sucking all of your energy … killing you. My poor child. I have rarely seen … oh no, I have never seen anything like it.’ He cradles his face in his hands, makes a
high-pitched
whimpering sound. I freeze in
my
psychic sludge. Sweat pours from his noble brow. ‘Will you let me help you, Loli?’

(Bite lower lip. Draw blood, swallow hard, lips parched, lips make sound.)

‘Say yes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

She whispers, ‘
Yes
.’

‘Now, Loli, let me place my fingers on your neck.’ He places hot fingers on jugulars. Hell hath landed in a blaze throughout my body. I erupt like Vesuvius. ‘Good. That’s very good. Now say the word … music.’

‘What?!’

‘I can’t hear you, Loli … The demons can’t be released until you say the word … Please … don’t be afraid … Say the word music and you will get free.’

I say, ‘Music.’

His fingers shake, rattle and roll as my head shimmies like a newly charged vibrator. He lurches backwards, nearly falls on the shiny vinyl floor. He moans.

(moanin’) ‘Loli.’ (moanin’ again) ‘Loli.’ (moanin’ low) ‘Loli.’ He smiles his satanic Pepsodent smile. ‘We have succeeded. For the moment, you are free of the demons.’

‘I am?’ Then why do I feel like shit?

‘Yes, you are.’ Silence. He stares right through me. I shiver. He cocks his head like a dog having its first idea. ‘Come back next week. In the meantime, if you feel the demons return, feel free to call me at this number.’ He hands me a black and white checkered vinyl refrigerator magnet card. ‘Place the phone on your neck and say the word “music” out loud three times. I will be able to release them over the phone. Now don’t forget to call. If I’m in session, just wait by the phone. I’ll get back to you right away. Are you clear on the procedure?’

‘Absolutely.’ Place phone on neck, say the word music three times, and let demons be demons. Look, Ma, I’m free …

‘My ass, you are, little girl … You’ll never be free. You’re my little girl.’
 

‘Patience is a virtue.’

Lovely advice from the departed.

O’Hare airport is to flying what Forest Lawn is to dying …
large and lonely except for the bodies. It is snowing again … We land two and one half hours later than our ETA. After sitting in between a four-hundred-and-fifty pound
computer
suiter playing Nintendo and a seventeen-year-old
Hispanic
transvestite listening to syncopated salsa, I can’t wait to deplane. I sprint to baggage, like Jim Thorpe in his heyday, wait forty-five minutes until my ruined, red, torn bag arrives.

The bellman ushers me up into my brown room. Brown couch, brown rug, brown curtains, brown bedspread, brown bureau, and drip … drip … brown tap water.

‘I can’t do this room!’

‘Is something wrong, miss?’

‘It’s brown. The entire room is brown. I’ll die in here. Don’t you have any other color room in this hotel?’

‘The hotel is being renovated. Some of our new rooms are beige.’

‘Are there any beige rooms available?’

‘Oh no, miss, the renovation won’t be completed until next fall.’

I tip the doorman, bolt out the door. On Rush Street I spot a massive Marriott Hotel. I roll my bag right
into
the revolving door. With all of his brute strength, the doorman stops the door so that my bag and I squeeze neatly between the glass panels. He maneuvers the door. It moves. I move with it. He is not impressed with me or my rolling.

I’m in the lobby … a successful transition. Next stop front desk! ‘How much is a … look, just give me a room whatever it costs.’ Ryan (his name tag pinned neatly over his Marriott pocket) is more than Midwesternly courteous.

I drag myself into the mirrored Marriott elevator, stumble toward the room. The plastic key slides right into the slot. The
room is four by four, the size of my sister Dina’s SUV, which is parked in her Park Avenue garage. I sit down on the edge of the miniature bed, pick up the phone to chat with young Ryan.

‘I need more space. I’m a yogi. I can’t even stand in
mountain
pose in this room.’

I make one more stop at the front desk. Young Ryan hands me the new holographic plastic key for room 711. ‘Thank you.’

My new upgraded room is adjacent to the elevator. I can do yoga, I can lie down on the floor, but I can’t hear myself think.

I reappear at the front desk. Ryan acts as if he truly cares about the noise problem.

He hands me the key to room 1956. He promises that I will be exceedingly happy…1956 …

The year of my birth. The gala event, I am told by my sister Dina, went something like this. Granny was sleeping in the easy chair in the living room. At six a.m. my sister appeared, bewildered. She awakened Granny, asked her why her mother and father weren’t in the bedroom.

‘Your mother,
thank God
, is at the hospital. Your father is with her. You have a brand new baby sister. Isn’t that just wonderful?’ No reply… ‘Her name is Loli. You just wait and see. It’s all going to be different.’

My sister went back to bed, possibly suspecting that her position as the focus of absolute adoration was in jeopardy.

Ryan ushers me into my birthday room. He opens the door and very slowly strolls with me around the ten by ten space. I listen for noise. A hum … It’s the florescent light in the
bathroom
. I’ll close the door at night. This is turning out to be a good day after all.

I hand Ryan a five-dollar bill. He refuses. Instead, he stands
there, sinks his hands deep into his pockets. He gazes longingly into my eyes. Don’t tell me … Here it comes …

‘May I come back later? After my shift is over.’

Does he want to help me unpack? ‘Why?’ He moves closer. Should have slept in the elevator.

‘I thought …’

‘Ryan, I’m old enough to be your mother.’

‘So?’

Wonder what it would be like with this pretty windy city boy who hardly knows he is a man? Probably like not worth it at all. ‘I … I’m sorry, but …’ Think fast … much faster than this. ‘I’m married.’

‘You’re not wearing a ring.’

Why not just fuck him. A front desk clerk at a Marriott Hotel?! You’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

‘Look, Ryan, I’m exhausted.’

‘I love my mother.’

‘I loved mine too but … but …’ Stand perfectly still. Wait for the next move. He looks down at the floor, rocks from side to side. He’s waiting. I could let him fondle my breasts? Not tonight.

I open the door. He looks so forlorn. Men are such boys, such babies. Maybe that’s why we love them. As he exits, my clitoris quivers at the thought of what might have been.

I unpack, shower, get into bed, and masturbate. I imagine young Ryan writhing underneath me, pounding his organ into my private property. Imagination is a wonderful thing.

… The next day: another school day on the road.

‘Come on boys and girls.

Everybody sing along with the Mouseketeers

M- i- c- k- e- y- m- o- u- s- e.’

Welcome to the Walt Disney school or duck and cover in Chicago.

(Don’t forget about the five-year-olds.)

The road is an unpredictable place, especially when you are working for a bankrupt theatre company. I am almost always met with unexpected surprises: six a.m. wake-up call (always difficult for a nocturnal menopausal woman); seven a.m. shower (after a brief visit to my yoga mat and an even briefer visit to my mindful meditation); seven forty a.m. leave hotel (green tea in hand), eight a.m. arrive school …

Nobody is at school … absolutely nobody. How is that possible?
How?
Why, it’s the road. I walk around the Mickey Mouse school compound three times, sit on a stone-cold, almost-shovelled school stoop, stare at my bold red tightly woven Nikes. They are still with me. That is a comfort. They are soaked. That is not a comfort.

I yell to an obese, elderly woman trying to shovel her car out of a snow bank. ‘Miss, oh miss! Why no school?’ She shovels with a vengeance. Pays no attention to me. ‘Miss!’

She stops. Catches her breath. ‘Holiday, holiday, Poloski Polish day!’ She mutters, ‘Idiot.’ Continues the dig out, as if I weren’t there.

Not a Polish holiday? Another Stuart Manly travel blunder. I want to go home so badly.

My father always said that I was a quitter. Damn him! I’ll show that bastard a thing or two.

‘Oh baby, your father loves you so much. He only wants the best for you. Why can’t you try to understand? He had nothing when he was growing up. Poor like dirt. You have so much, so much. He works so hard for all of us. Tell him that you’re sorry. Please, for me.’

All right, I will return. Just for you, Pop.

‘What about me?’

You too.

‘Thank you, honey. That’s my baby girl.’

The following morning, there I am, administering in a thirty-minute duck and cover drill; K through 12. After much ado, the five-year-olds with their teeny hands on their tiny little heads face the wall. They look like multicolored marshmallows with arms. They look frightened, as if the drill is a reality.

Back when I was their age, during any drill, I was convinced that my mother could protect me from anything. Even though she didn’t make my breakfast, fill my lunch box, or send me off to school. She was a p.m. kind of mom. Night-time was our time together. We both loved the moon. During my early years, I believed that she hung the moon.

My third day in Mouseketeerville. I am having a nervous breakdown teaching eighth graders. This is not my chosen grade. I remember specifically telling Stuart Manly: ‘Stuart, I don’t do eighth grade. I do tenth, eleventh and twelth.’ … As a last-ditch effort to reach the unreachable eighth graders, I decide to risk my life. I will teach the interview technique … but how? Engage … Encourage … Energize.

‘Let’s form a circle.’ Could they move any slower? ‘We don’t have a lot of time.’ After ten minutes, they have formed the perfect circle. I pull up a chair, squeeze myself between two sleepy boys; eyes closed, foreheads on desks. I turn to the cherub on my right. ‘What’s your name?’

He turns his sleepy head in my direction. ‘Me?’

‘You.’

‘Phillip.’

‘Nice to meet you, Phillip.’

Phil is stunned by my tactics. Lifts head, looks into my eyes, replies, ‘Nice meeting you too.’ Forehead returns to desk.

Begin. ‘Sometimes, when I’m stuck … working on a
particular
character in a script, I’ll interview the character as if he or she were a total stranger. Are you with me?’ Heads nod. ‘Good. What happens can be absolutely fantastic.’ I am fired up here. Think I’ll stand. ‘So, what we’re going to do in this class is pair up and interview each other … Ask questions … probe … listen to what your partner has to say. Write it down. Let one question stimulate the next question. Think of yourself as a cub reporter who’s trying to uncover something that you genuinely want to know about your classmate … your friend … even your enemy.’ Phil’s up! Paper in hand. Unbelieveable. He’s writing. Way to go, Phil … ‘There is always something we
don’t
know about a person. We think we know each other so well. But, people are full of
surprises
.’ Damn! Do I have to answer a question now? ‘Yes.’

Shy girl with braces, pigtails and a zillion freckles asks, ‘What if we don’t want to do the exercise?’

Never fails. ‘In my class, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But you might want to try this exercise … You can have a lot of fun working with each other. Honest.’

‘Maybe I’ll try.’ She smiles. Her braces glisten.

‘Great … Be sensitive. If your partner doesn’t want to answer the question, move on to another question. And remember, you want the truth. The truth is what matters … Let’s go … Pick your partner, write down your questions, five minutes each interview. And most important of all, have a good time.’ Look at them move. Yes! They get it!!!

During the final interview exercise, Sophia is without a partner. I volunteer.

‘Name?’

‘Sophia’

‘Age?’

‘12’

‘What event has changed your life?’

‘9/11 … I lost two cousins. I realized that life is fragile.’ She turns away, wipes her eyes. So young. She’s so young. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be … What do you love to do?’

She looks at me as if no one has ever asked her a
question
before. ‘Write poetry. Read.’ She thinks for an extended moment. ‘I love to observe the world around me.’

‘Tell me about your family?’

‘My mother’s a single mom. My father lives in Verona, Italy. I don’t speak to him. My mom’s a lawyer. I have one brother. He’s older. I don’t like him much. Men are stupid. Women have all the power.’

This girl is twelve? ‘What’s your worst trait?’

‘I don’t forgive. Oh yeah, and I have a short temper.’

‘Do you like school?’

‘It’s fine. But, people are jealous of me because I’m a good student. I’m different from most of the kids.’