WHAT IS LOVE... by Michael Joseph

We left the perch that overlooked the amazing vista. More like we were chased off by the turkey vultures with their eight-foot wing span and clawed feet. In anger and silence my wife walking marriage distance from me.

You see, there are distances I measure by relationships. First date distance is an uncomfortable closeness, unsure of each other. Six month relationship where the couple locks arms around their backs, leaving no room for separation. A year, where you hold hands together. And marriage distance where couples walk seeing each other, but plenty of space between them. So we were in marriage distance plus room for our anger. Her anger at me and my anger that she is angry at me.

We continued to hike through the trees knowing that conversation was not an option. Although looking back, her Brooklyn strut was adorable. My pouting did not allow me to enjoy this, because I was committed to being more upset than she.

We hiked. When you hike there are hills. If hills are what made her mad, well I’ll show her and be more mad.

Breaking our bond of silent aggressive warfare was a rustling of leaves and sticks in the not so distant trees. The sound was of a beast running. We stopped. My son was on my back in a carrying pack. We stopped and the sound got louder and faster, faster and louder and louder. Then we saw it. One of God’s creatures. A majestic stag. It was old and looked wise with large horns, six or more points on each side. A rack that took a lifetime to grow.

When he reached five to ten feet from us, he stopped. He stared. It was a curious stare. His look was a mirror of our puzzlement and curiosity. The stare lasted twenty or so seconds, but a long twenty. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi. You get the idea.

I reached for my camera that was on my belt in a case closed by a strip of velcro. The sound of the velcro echoed in the woods. He vanished, vanished like water down the drain. Returning to his mystical existence.

My wife broke our silence with a question, “Who is he running from? What was chasing him?”

I dismissed her question with a roll of my eyes, saying to her with my face, an attitude of that’s as stupid as asking to go on a hike that has no hills, but she was right. We both knew animals don’t run unless they are being chased or chasing something. But before fear and strategy to protect my family came in, I celebrated. Celebrated  my little victory. She broke our silence first. I could stay mad longer, thus maybe she would apologize for ruining our Sabbath hike.

Those were her last words for awhile.

My heart was pumping and my head on a swivel because she was right. There could be danger beyond the trees. Looking and on the alert for the largest beast that lives in these woods. A black bear.

After two miles of trekking, we came across a lean-to. We stop to share some water and have our last smoke together. Posted on the walls and throughout the camp grounds were signs warning of bears in the area. We both knew this, but did not acknowledge it. I said, “Ok, let’s go.” Hoping she would not process the dozen or so signs.

My son, who was now walking, stopped at every watering hole. There were many. Fascinated by the tadpoles and frogs, his enthusiasm and curiosity was annoying and slowing our pace to a crank.

Our silence, marriage distance, utter despair for each other had grown to where we’re not even looking at each other now.

I placed my kid in the pack and started to forward march back towards our house. There was only about ten minutes of woods left before we would be back at the end of our block. That is when she saw it and said, “Is that a bear?”

Somehow she used her grandfather’s shaman powers and quickly placed herself behind me, using me as a human shield. Then I saw it. Softly I said, “Yes, it’s a bear.”

It was about a 100 feet from us, moving left to right across the trail, which was turning to the left. I quickly calculated if I needed to, could I fight it. It wasn’t big really. And growing up I got into some fights, enough of them to know I didn’t like to fight. It really hurts to get punched in your face or punch someone. Your hand stings for days. But I knew I had a shot.

The bear continued on its path and went across the trail into the woods. About five seconds later -- one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi -- there she was. Mama Bear. She looked 500lbs of beast.

I started clapping and shouting, because that is what the book says when you see a bear. Make noise. My three-year old son was having a blast, clapping with me, yelling and laughing away. The bear turned her head and looked right down the trail at me. She looked pissed. I picked up a nearby stick and tried to make myself look bigger and more threatening. My legs were shaking.

Then she took off on the trail, directly towards us. Her hind legs pushing and her forward legs reaching, stretching, pulling, the middle of her body acting as some sort of leverage, gear. The front of her body twisted one way, while the back of her body twisted the other. With each thrust and turn she increased velocity until when she was just ten-fifteen feet in front of me, my wife and child, she stopped.

She stopped short and kicked up the loose dirt and rocks, making a cloud of dirt. Then she disappeared into the trees, into the mystical world of existence.

ANSWER by Cheryl Corson

On Christmas Eve, the Capitol Hill pot luck group I’ve been part of for twelve years had Secret Santa after dinner. The wrapped gifts were as usual, gender neutral, food-related, and cost no more than twenty dollars. We all picked numbers from a basket and did the gifts with dessert.

This year, you could take someone else’s opened gift from them instead of opening a wrapped one. But a popular gift could only be stolen three times. I think the limit came about after a pair of triple bladed herb scissors kept getting stolen the year before.

This year, Laurie Siegel and I swapped the gifts we got. Mine was a copy of a political humor book that was recycled from the previous year’s Secret Santa. I recognized it as being the one my husband had contributed at the time. Laurie had a gift bag from South Carolina that included a stainless steel wine opener, a set of round cork coasters with black line drawings of old fashioned bicycles on them, and a jar of pineapple and hot pepper jelly made in South Carolina. Laurie said her husband Alan would like the book, and I thought my husband would like the corkscrew. So we traded and no one stole our stuff during the rest of the game.

I do like the corkscrew and the jelly is still half-full in the fridge. The coasters might be okay for the Maine house. But answer this: how can the jelly still be in the refrigerator but Laurie is dead? How can you not outlive your edible Secret Santa gift?

Surely there’s some mistake, like that jelly is ten years, not seven months old, or Death will wait politely, sitting with legs crossed in the hallway, hat in hand, maybe flipping through a back issue of People Magazine while his intended visitor goes about finishing all that is left undone.

All the yarn in the cabinet that has not already been eaten by moths is woven into scarves and rugs and knitted into sweaters. All the handwritten notebook pages are digitized and patched into one or more complete memoirs. The tear in the green flannel sheet is neatly stitched back together. Old family photographs are labeled. 

The brother and sister finally talk about what it was like growing up with that mother and that father, and how it came to be that their paths diverged while still bearing the indelible thumbprint of their street address and apartment number. The husband and wife let go of their hurt feelings and weep for each other’s early and great pain. Then kiss. 

Death starts tapping his foot on the hallway floor.

The wife sends out one last Facebook post to 250 people near and far: I loved being in the sixth grade with you; in high school with you; in bed with you; in business with you. I loved the sound of your voice. I loved laughing until our stomachs hurt.

Death stands, impatient, “Leave the fucking jelly, it’s time to go,” he says.

BACK TO BALTIMORE by Victoria Hall

I arrived at the B&B on East West Street in the heart of Federal Hill, weary from the 12- hour drive up from Atlanta, filled with trepidation. I thought how apropos that even the bi-directional name of the street accurately proclaimed the state of my bi-polar, biochemically confused, bi-directional life.

I knocked on the door of the red brick 14' wide Baltimore row house, on the narrow cobble-stoned street wide enough for passing horse drawn carriages and not so much for my white stallion of a SUV. The proprietor opened the door. Her heavily creased, sun-worn skin, the sound of her whiskey-soaked, cigarette-raspy voice was so comforting. That and her "Baltimorese" was, well,  just perfect. I was at once home.

She took me on a tour of the 3 crowded stories – not the top floor, that was her private quarters. The thick dark red carpet, a cacophony of Tiffany chandeliers, floor lamps along with the many pieces of Victorian chairs, chaises and love seats, immediately claustrophobic, gave the feel of an antique store. The only things missing were the price tags.

The proud owner stopped for a moment in front of what was clearly her "piece-de-resistance,” a walled glass encasement of her very own collection of Martini glasses. Some chipped, some, I swear, with a hint of hot pink lipstick still on the rims. "They are from all over the world," she announced with such astonishment, as if they had somehow magically appeared one-by-one over the years without any participation on her part. By the look of her face, there probably weren't many short- or long-term memory cells left in her brain and the glasses were the result of one too many brown- or black-outs, from one too many Martinis.

A book about the various types of Martinis one could concoct, on the table of the second floor landing that I would be using, seemed to accurately describe my hostess's life, "Stirred Not Shaken.”

The tour continued, with great detail about how to prepare the coffee, what setting to leave the air-conditioning on, how to run the dishwasher. It just so happened that she was leaving to spend the entire month "down de-Oshean," on the Eastern Shore of  Ocean City where I'd spent every summer as a child with my family. If you were from New York or Jersey you went "to da shore," or if from DC "to the beach," but if you were from "Balamer, Murlin" Hon, you went "down de-Oshean.”

And so trustingly she gave me the entire B&B to myself and seemed to be puzzled by why a girl who lived in Atlanta would what to spend the most miserable month of the year, when everyone was vacationing, escaping, as far away as they could, in Baltimore.

There had been books written about her's, that very South Baltimore twangy dialect that actors would try to imitate unsuccessfully in films. A sort of half-Irish and British Cockney, lower Bowery, with many long "O's.” I loved listening to her masterful command of it. "How bout them O's!" she proclaimed as if she was reading my mind.

Linguists and scholars have tried without success to determine the derivation of "Baltimorese.” "You like baseball?” she asked. “Yeh know, the "Oryuls" Stadium is right down the street, yeh can even walk to it!" she said, and then paused as if she'd just calculated that she should have charged me more than the $1200 for the month due to this incredibly close proximity. Then shook her head and continued my tour.

She also seemed to be in a sort of time warp, forgetting that the by-gone Memorial Stadium had been replaced for the past decade with the Wrigley Field-like - covered in brick and ivy - Camden Yards. Still, I loved the Orioles and thought this was a nice bonus.

I had not inherited the language of my home town, but instead sounded like my mom who had been raised in the horse country of Western Maryland with a more gentle, softer "Proper English" dialect according to  my British friends, now with a hint of Southern, as my Yankee friends duly noted. My dad and brothers, however, had it down pat.

She continued, "Here's yur baffroom and make sure yea don't put anything down the "zink,”  it'll ghet stopped up end be jest "harble" to clean out.” 

What I didn't tell her was that I actually had returned home for the first time in many years. It was August of 1999. I felt like a sort of Rip Van Winkle who had awakened from a 17-year slumber and that I was kind of having a "harble" time of it myself. And that Federal Hill on the Inner Harbor was where I was hoping to reboot my life, where my hiatus would begin.

The new Millennium was approaching at mock speed, with forecasts of Apocalyptic, Armageddon, Y-2 K mayhem and end of times madness loomed. I was plagued with an all-consuming, couldn't quiet the voices, desire, longing, visceral need to come home!

Home to the place that I had left so many years ago, home even if it was for just one solitary month, home to do what I knew I was supposed to be doing, something I did in my head every day, something that was so compelling, something that left me feeling empty, tortured because I wasn't doing it, home to write.

SECRETS by Debra F.

It was early summer of 1960 and I would be 12 in September. Still a tomboy who loved to ride my bike, sit up in the tree fort I built myself with some saltine crackers, carrot sticks and my current book, probably Nancy Drew, or the Black Stallion, or one by Albert Payson Terhune, about dogs.

It was the summer that one day after my father came home from work as an office manager in a salt and chemical business he had a gift for me. A real transistor radio! Left behind in the desk drawer of a young man who had been working there. A young man who fled to Canada rather than go into the Army. My parents were both Army veterans and couldn’t quite understand his actions. For most of my childhood we didn’t have a TV, so I didn’t know about the war our country would soon be involved in, or much else of the world, unless it was in the Weekly Reader.

But, the radio! I felt so lucky to have my own radio. Every night I lay in bed, finally in my own room, just that year, a small, sloped part of the attic that my father had insulated, put up wallboard and painted. My own room, although the first moments in that room were those of anger. My sister, Jennifer, had hidden under the bed and when I fell to my knees and full of emotion, said out loud something like: “Thank you, thank you, finally I have a room of my own,” she started to giggle. I was furious and drug her out and screamed at her never to come in my room again. And, she didn’t.

Every night I listened to my radio, crying along with the tragic love songs like Teen Angel and Running Bear or dreaming of boys who might someday love me and who I might someday love. The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, the Drifters, Dion. I was full of yearning and deep passions, all of course, that I kept secret, even from my brother, who was my best friend.

My family was Mormon. My father, the hold-out and the parent I loved most, had recently gotten baptized. I felt it a sort of betrayal, because I did not like this church and I was “with him” in not embracing it. My mother however, was immersed in her beliefs and very serious about them. Even with 4 children, no dryer or dishwasher, a very small house with long red curtains made from Nazi flags, minus the swastikas, she did service for the Missionaries.

The Missionaries were young men around the ages of 19 to 21 who came in pairs, usually from Utah to convince other people to be Mormons. They were often invited to Sunday dinner and my mother washed and ironed the white dress shirts that they had to wear while out trolling for new Mormons. Many times, about the only thing in our refrigerator was a huge bundle of damp shirts rolled up in a cloth and waiting for ironing. I did learn to iron properly, watching her and listening to her instructions about collar first, then the shoulder area, front panels, or was it sleeves next and how to do the cuffs on both sides, and then the back.

On this particular Sunday, we had a TV. Someone in church must have bought a new one and gave our parents their old set. The missionaries were there for dinner. One of them was Elder Andrus and I liked him. He was handsome and friendly and I felt drawn to be around him. There was a movie on that the entire family was going to watch with the missionaries. Probably a Biblical story.

I felt very lucky to get to sit in the dark on the floor, leaning against the sofa, because Elder Andrus sat right next to me. Before long, I was amazed and happy to feel Elder Andrus touch my arm in a very soft and thrilling way. For the entire movie, he touched me, very gently, moving up and down my right arm to my shoulder, to a bit under the sleeve area of my sleeveless top. And also he stroked my upper right leg and a bit under the rim of my shorts. It felt wonderful. Better than when we kids would get our father to tickle our backs!

I couldn’t believe this was happening but I was not thinking so much as feeling and probably is why I have no idea what movie was on. I felt euphoric, like I was floating. The movie ended and the lights went on. Elder Andrus moved away at the same time. But, I was still happy and feeling full of all the attention and connection I had just received.

Everyone was soon dispersing. Elder Andrus moved in close to whisper something to me. Shy and excited I leaned in to hear what he would say to me. “Nice girls do not let men touch them like that. “

Shame, shock and disbelief roll over me. I tell no one. The best I can do is every time I see Elder Andrus is to look at him with the purest hate I can muster. And it is huge. I can tell he feels it and I hope it will kill him. Even after he leaves to go find new Mormons in another area or go home to Utah, my mother speaks of how much she misses him, how inspirational he was. And I know she would not believe me and I know not to tell. Thirty-some years later I notice she still gets Christmas cards from this pervert, who is married and probably a grandfather by now, or considering Utah, a great-grandfather. I fantasize about sending my own Christmas card. I mention the incident to my mother when noticing one of these cards. She tells me I must have been mistaken. I drop the subject. To this day there is no arguing with my mother’s reality, which has no room for anyone else’s, especially mine. The black sheep. The One who left the church.

SECRETS by Merryman Cassels

“How are you like a tree? Do you have arms to reach out and grab something yummy, like the tree has branches to reach out to the sun?”

“Do you have feet that keep you firmly planted on the ground, like a tree has roots that keep it firmly planted?”

Does blood flow throughout your body carrying nutrients as the sap travels through the tree?  You are very much like a tree!”

Tiny, second grade eyes sat criss-cross applesauce and always stared up with awe at Miss Twiggy the Talking Tree as she shared how we couldn’t live without trees!  Even photosynthesis, when Miss Twiggy explained it, made good sense. Recycling, too!

Miss Twiggy’s costume was the most elegant tree suit you could imagine, a burqua of soft stretchy brown velvet with green felt leaves, roots that dragged behind as she walked, and pockets filled with every imaginable animal that might live in or food that could come from a tree. Miss Twiggy, like any proper hardwood, never left the house without a bird’s nest perched atop her head.

Close to the end of the program, when Miss Twiggy would ask her future young environmentalists if they would like to reach into one of her pockets, they would line up reverently and dart a hand into Miss Twiggy’s pocket to retrieve their jackpot of nature. Each year at the Christmas Parade, Miss Twiggy would march down Franklin Avenue, only a few feet in front of Santa himself. “Miss Twiggy, Miss Twiggy! Remember me,”  the children would call out.

For eight years, I was Miss Twiggy the Talking Tree and educated every second grader in Gaston County about trees. At first, I would go to the classrooms with my baby Foard in his carseat, never doubting for one second that he would sit quietly and be every bit as mesmerized as every other child. But, as the years passed, sometimes, Miss Twiggy would have a little headache...at first only occasionally, then pretty regularly.

Drinking a bottle of wine a night will do that to a tree. At first, it was just fun, friends gathering with their kids to swim and for dinner, but Brett didn’t like people in his house and didn’t want to spend his money entertaining them. He was a doctor, and I needed to respect that. So as nights with friends began to dwindle, I still enjoyed some of that fun with a bottle.

Brett would always angrily demand I go to bed exactly when he did and perform my wifely duty every night. Wine helped me turn it into a game, “O.K. Big fellow, what’s it going to be tonight?  A, B, or C - Handjob, blowjob, or sex.”  After the ABC’s, Brett would begin snoring, and I would sneak back downstairs, drink more wine, and create ornate birthday party invitations or valentines for my children to give.

As the children got older, I got stronger. I didn’t want Bess or Foard to see me so marginalized. Brett would say he’d be home and want supper at seven, then he’d show up at eight. If the children had already been fed, he’d be furious. When we’d all wait and sit down together, he’d throw down his fork in disgust. “Pigslop!”   A glass or two of wine while cooking dinner, created a lovely haze to laugh off silly daddy and usher the wizening not so little ones off to bed.

Mornings became unbearable, as well. Brett would get up at 5:45, turn on every light, bang around the room, slam into the shower, and then scream for a fresh towel. I started running the golf course at 5:30 am, and would return 45 minutes later, peaking from behind the holly hedge, to be sure he was leaving so I could slip inside as he pulled out of the driveway.

As the years progressed, I managed to drink well and live well. Most would be surprised to even know I had a problem. But, when I went to my husband the spring before I discovered his affair and asked for help, he looked at me in disgust and said, “You are so self-centered. It’s all about you isn’t it?  Everyone enjoys a glass of wine.”  Then he surprised me with a case of wine the next night.

When I discovered Brett’s affair, and the verbal and sometimes physical abuse set in good, five o’clock couldn’t come soon enough. The night I truly began to plan my escape, was a night I cooked a nice supper while sipping wine. Brett was late, and when we sat down, I was stunned to discover, I couldn’t speak. But, I could slur very well. Brett barked at my children, “Look at your mother. She is a pathetic drunk. This is why I had to have an affair.”

Recovery has been a rocky but fertile path. I have been gifted with so many truths and visions along the way. On a recent meditative journey, an oak leaf landed in my hand. I asked the little leaf, why did you come to me?  She said, “Because you are like an oak tree. When there is too much wine, you have shallow roots and are easily toppled.”  I remembered the 150 year old oak that had fallen during heavy rains the summer before. It landed perfectly between my neighbor’s house and my own. The the leaf told me, “When you are strong and your life is balanced, you have deep roots and cannot be toppled.”  I saw myself as a prayerful light rising up through the tree and shooting out of my branches to the sun, and I saw my roots growing deep into the earth. “Thank you wise, little oak leaf.”

I am a tree.

Excerpt from MY SAILOR by Susan Micari

I had come to London in 1972, with the thought of losing my virginity at 19, a long wait I’d had of it too. My comrades gay or otherwise engaged, and nothing ever seemed to come of my come and get it attitude.  Now I was in Italy, Genova, to be exact, waiting for the ocean liner I was supposed to take to NY but which was in dry dock, busted.  I’d taken a train to the center of town and wanted a place to stay.

I looked around for a bar where I could have an espresso and think.  Of course there was one on the corner, open, gleaming with marble and I began to ask in halting Italian if there was a hostel for girls anywhere around.  The waitress behind the counter said, “Si, un hospitale per le raggazze.  Santa Maria Stella di Mare.” And she drew me a map. Meglio e meglio!

I hobbled across the piazza dragging my pink suitcase over the cobblestones, and found the place, guarded by stern nuns. 

The nuns showed me to a cot in a room full of Italian girls who were in their underwear, playing records and lounging around in curlers, talking about home or about boys. They were all virgins too, I hoped, and their parents had them here while they worked as secretaries, and sent money home. There was time to explore the city that day, but the girls warned me that the nuns locked the doors at ten.  I decided to explore the town a little bit, and went out walking, climbing high in the hills to see the top of the ancient city.  Walls so old and colored, such I thought as didn’t exist in America, set there before my country existed, before my ancestors were born in Sicily.  A city as old as time, it seemed.

What I noticed very quickly was a tall, blond, handsome, muscular man with a charming mustache who smiled at me when I looked at him.  "Who are you?" he asked, and I told him about my year in London, my longed for acting career.  

"Come," he said, "I will show you the city and you will be my mascot.  See here?  This is the picture of my girlfriend in South Africa. No don't look at that picture, see this one."  He quickly hid a photo of a girl with naked breasts and showed one of the girl and him hugging.  "She loved me, I was there a long time.  Now I work again. I am first mate on a big ship.  I have five languages.  I am a big man, from Yugoslavia!"  He smiled again.  "I will entertain you!"  

And he walked with me all over town, fed me, met up with other sailors he knew. "Look at this girl.  She is an American.  She wants to be in movies.  My mascot.  We look after her."  And they all drank coffee together, and the men bought me sambucca and anisette and many rounds of drinks.  I trusted the sailor: he was built just like my grandfather in all his old boxing pictures.  I didn’t think he would harm me.  I had no strength left to fight if he did.

I didn't touch any of it.  "I don't drink," I said, and the men were amused.  They tried to get me to take the liquor in my coffee but I made such a face that they all laughed again and drank my rounds for me.  

"I walk you to the nuns, and you rest.  Tonight, I will take you to see the town." He wrapped his arms around me.  "I am on leave now," he whispered, and the rough blond stubble on his face tickled me and made me instantly wet.  He studied my face, "I see you.  You have very pretty lips, pretty girl.  Nice to kiss you now, I think."  His kiss was so soft, and it tickled, and I loved the way his face was so angular and weathered, yet his kiss was so tender.  "How old you are?" he asked. 

"Nineteen, twenty soon, really soon."

"Ah, I am 29. I am long time a man."  

That night he called for me at the hostel, took me to the waterfront, to the New York Bar.  It was under the ruined walls of the ancient fort that faced the bay of Genova.  Leaning against the sides of the wall were women, fantastic women in kilts, in gowns, in bathing suits.  All leaning languorously against the ancient stonework. "Who are they?" I asked. The handsome sailor laughed but didn't answer.  Inside the bar was dark and there was a dance floor already filled with people.  He ordered champagne.  A woman came forward in a low cut gown with the bottle and poured us two glasses. The sailor tasted it and spit it out.  

"Watered!" he growled. "Bring better."  He stood up menacingly and the woman retreated.  Better wine appeared.  I was watching the dancers.  They were strangely tall, muscular, feminine, made up...

"Look," I said, pulling on the sailor's arm, "What's wrong with them?"  The sailor looked up. 

"Transvestites, Jesus Christ," he said sternly.  

"Oh, like Lindsay Kemp?"   I offered the name of a famous drag actor in London I’d seen.

"Who?  Never mind, let's go."  And the sailor threw bills on the table and took me on to the next place.  

"This one is very classy," he said.  It was a private lounge somewhere in the hills, up a private elevator.  Everything was white and sleek, and there were many people, in elegant clothing, draped over sofas and sipping cocktails. 

"Have something," he urged.  

"I don't drink." 

“You must try anisette, then.”

"All right."  The sailor looked lost for a moment as I made a face at the coffee beans floating in my drink.  “This is disgusting,” I said.  “What is there to do here?”  

His face softened, and he smiled, shaking his head.  "I will take you to the nuns for the night."  He took me back to the convent in a taxi that went directly to the gate, no funny business, but the door was locked.  

"It's eleven! Oh, I'm locked out," I tried swearing.  The sailor looked aghast.

"It's ok. You stay with me.  You will be safe."  

So the sailor took me to his hotel, and gave me his toothbrush and a big shirt to sleep in.  I reached inside my bag when he was in the bathroom, and rummaged around for my condoms, moving them on top of all the junk in my bag so I could reach for them if, when, if...

"Hey," the sailor shouted, returning to the room as he wiped shaving cream off his face, "I saw you.  What did you put in your bag? You stole my money, you little puttana?" 

"What? No!  Those are my, my..these!" I reached into the bag and pulled out the box of condoms.  And then I was frightened, "Aiuta mi!" I cried loudly, "Aiuta mi!"  The sailor fell on his bed, laughing until he had tears in his eyes.  "What's so funny, you big ape!" I stared at him.  

"You said, 'Vieni qui, vieni qui!' Ha, ha, haaa! You said, 'Come here!"  The sailor wiped his eyes.  "I can do it to you, you know," he leaned toward me.

"I know you can do it you big ape, but you better not because I’ll hit you right in the nuts, BECAUSE I want to go home!"  

"No," he said, "I said I canna do it, I cannot hurt you."  

"Oh," I said, "Well I still want to go home."  

"Please stay," he said.  "I just got out of jail..I..I am afraid of the dark."  I looked at him in wonder.  "I am afraid of the dark.  Could you, just stay, hold my hand?"  And I did.  I sat fully clothed on the floor, holding the big sailor's hand.  Something hurt badly, and so I cried.  

“What is it, cara?” he said. “You are afraid of me?”

‘Yes,’ I thought,  ‘but, see, I’m a virgin, and.. and…when I was 16, a man I worked with, he scared me..he hurt me…in his car.  I try to be brave all the time, and I want to make love someday, but I just can’t.  Nothing is going to be all right, is it?  It will always be a big mess like this.’  I thought again, ‘I’m tired.  I’m tired.  I can’t be brave any more…I quit the church and I hate all the boys at school, and I can’t understand what everyone is talking about anyway.  Sex with boys looks just awful to me…I loved only a girl.’

What I said was, “I hate my mother!”  Who hadn’t protected me, who had blamed my beauty and sensuality for the attack.  Who wanted me to think she was ungainly, unredeemable, who hated me.

“All right, baby, no one will hurt you while I am here. I will hate your mama, too.”  And he went to sleep holding my hand.   

I watched him sleep, so handsome, so handsome... He cried out once in his sleep, so I stroked his forehead, and whispered, “Shhh.”   At dawn I got up, and he watched me sadly as I stretched and got ready to go back to the nuns. "Goodbye," I said.  He stared at me from big blue deep haunted eyes.  I was still a virgin.  I was exhausted.

WHAT IS NOT THERE? by Hans B. Hallundbaek

My childhood is what is not there.
I had a childhood of course, we all did. But I have spent most of my life running away from it, faster and faster the older I got; like seeking the pot of gold at the end of the ever escaping rainbow.

If twenty years ago you had asked me about my childhood, I would have tried to convince you that it was great, just like I had succeeded convincing myself.

But one day in a silent retreat at Mohonk Mountain House mediating and reminiscing I finally realized in a flash that I had a lousy childhood.

I was born in the height of the depression of the thirties on the flat, poor, windswept west coast of far away Denmark. A typical weather forecast would say: Tomorrow rain all day, possibly interrupted by heavy showers. I do not recall that we had umbrellas in those days, so I guess we just got wet.

But of course the weather was only a small part of the issue. We were occupied for five years by the Nazis, who had decided to build the largest military airport five miles east of our house. That was not a problem until the allied forces three years into the war got their act together and with much determination bombed the airport with scheduled regularity, first by the cover of night and later in day time raids.

They would come in from the west over our house on the way to the airfield. Brigades of flying fortresses B-19 or was it B-23’s, cruising in tight formation at 15.000 feet on their way to the target. Five minutes later these flying bird-machines would lay their strings of eggs over the airfield. They would drop from the opened bomb bay and they would whine demonically as they hurled towards their targets. There in rapid succession they would explode with large thumps. The vibrations shook the ground for miles and reached all the way to our house where we huddled in the basement. I was five and I was scared. My parents prayed and tried to comfort me as I struggled to be brave.

In retrospect the bombing raids, were not the worst part of my childhood, for I was told the Americans were there to liberate us.

The worst part was that I was convinced I was a mistake. Technically I was, for I was born the youngest of four children, and 9 years after my next sibling, when my parents were in their forties.

This meant that they must have had sex at that ripe old age of forty, which was not well thought of in a old fashioned Lutheran church community where each Sunday morning the priest assured ignorant poor farmers and children alike that they were born sinners heading  straight to hell unless we were washed in the blood of Christ.

I do not know how the others took that idea, but for me it was a disgusting thought and the supposed light of Christ’s love never illuminated my childhood darkness.