Oedipus Square Near the Palace

Oedipus Square Near the Palace
      by Dougler Reima

"My adoptive parents changed my name when they found that the authorities were after them and now I am forced to live with this false identity in order to protect them. I've told you some of this before. Why do I protect those who attempt to force on me what I do not wish? Simply, I love them. When I discovered that these were not my parents, Maryanne being not my mother but my nurse, and Philip not my father but my trustee, I disbelieved my ears and decided to go to some office, some officials, to determine the truth of the rumours. Let me tell you, since we are fellow travellers on this awkward road and so you will understand its import, my story as I recollect it. Could you reach me my cup? I forget where I set it down. Thank you! You are so good to me! May God grant you comfort and joy and long life!
        I adored my parents. I was eighteen at the time my troubles began. We--myself along with my parents, brothers and sisters, as well as the extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and godparents--gathered in Oedipus Square for Mayday celebrations, nineteen seventy-three, to give our thanks to God, of course, but simultaneously to send Antonia on her way. The wedding had brought many together. When the revels had got well underway, and during supper hour when most had gathered in the hall there around the board, a drunk called out suddenly in a loud voice for everyone to hear his toast. He slurred out a speech I've spent my life trying to forget. 
        'You, Eddy, you think that you're so fine! Living in comfort and wealth, with parents dotting on you their a handsome prince. But . . . these are not your mother and father!'
        The room hushed. I said nothing. I leapt up to challenge him but instead hurried from the hall. Later I confronted my parents. Ivory, thank you. Yes, I, am comfortable. Are you weary of this tale? No? Well, they assured me that the man was speaking foolishness and had no sense of things, that he was witless and that I must not give the slightest credence to the matter. I experienced great relief and believed them. I did, at least, believe them in word. My heart smarted with doubt and eventually I sent a servant to discover the truth at the Vroix. There my fate was sealed. He returned. I listened. I fell ill. I left home. The rest is a long, long story so fell and deep that you will hardly credit it. I had to remain apparently well and sane in order to survive. But really, inside I burned with fear for my future. You know of that yourself, Ivory, I have long gathered from the stories you tell me of your own wild upbringing. Your understanding of the ways of insanity makes my confession possible. 
        How does one live with the sort of prediction my servant brought back? How can one ever again trust oneself in the company of woman or man when it has been told to one by the gods that one will kill the very people one lives most, one by an act of physical violence, the other by one of infamy?
        I fled! Maryanne was not going to become my wife! Of that I felt certain. Though I loved her, I did so with utter purity of heart and mind! She was my mother! And as for Philip, nothing could have induced me to take up arms against that reverent head! So, I did what I had to do. O the cleverness of the gods, Ivory! O the depths of my horror! O the tyranny of youthful hope! I began a life on the road, as I am--irony of ironies--living on the road again all these many year hence. And do you know that I could not die? I think you have already guessed that, Ivory, have you not? That I wished to die then, many years ago? You knew because you have seen it in my eyes, seen that I have visited death and returned with a surfeit of it on my being. Death written on me.
        I had hardly left home when I encountered a group of soldiers on a narrow way. I stood to one side to let them pass. They ignored me and strode by. But one of them, an old, white-haired man, as he passed, turned and pushed me aside, raising his oaken cudgel to strike me. Enraged, suddenly, I wrested away his stave and swung it in an instant at his own head. I hit him harder than I intended, I think, though I have had second thoughts about that since.
        Nevertheless, he fell to the ground and eight soldiers rushed at me with swords in their hands. I still had the dead man's staff and with it I flailed about me. Before one could have said "Robinson Crusoe" all of them but one lay lifeless, the byway littered with their bodies. I had never felt fear, don't get me wrong. I wanted to die! I fervently wished that I had then been killed! But fate had other things in store for pitiful me. As you will hear, death was not my youthful destiny. Thirty years later I am still alive and well and, my blindness excepted, as capable as ever. I believe that I could still inflict similar devastation if need required. My strength remains undiminished over the years. Is that not remarkable, Ivory?
        The rest of my story will have to wait for another occasion. Tomorrow night maybe I will continue it. Do you know where I should relieve myself? Help me to a spot and then I will try to sleep, I think. I am the author of my own destruction, and I know it all. I congratulate myself not on my history but on my knowing. My knowing what I endured and what I must still endure before my long flight is done. You are not my mother are you, Ivory?

On Maryland Off Broadway

On Maryland Off Broadway

     by What's His Name

        Hitler had only

        Rommel had two but

        Himmler had

        But poor old Gooballs

I've just come from giving a lecture. I am fifty-five and divorced with two high school-aged kids I seldom am allowed to visit. Dandy sees me and opens the door. 

        "Really good play you wrote. It's great!" I say this coming up the steps. They creak. They are strong, nevertheless. The yards in this part of the city are thirty feet wide. Cops live on each side of Dandy and Filbert's. The eaves touch. The yard on the right sports a chopper without a motor. 

        "Really?" she says, emphasis on the first syllable. "Wow, I'm so glad," is what she means. Filbert shakes my hand, then she. Her's lingers, saying, "Remember when you thought these the softest hands?" 

       "Take the Martin in the warmth?" Filbert says. It is twenty-five below, not good for the preservation of an instrument. Filbert operates a skyhook. Off season now, he lazes. His father fixes cars in the country on his yard in a grey plywood Quonset, the chokecherry trees beside it tall and spindly. The fruit puckers the mouth. He hit a policeman and spent a full year in jail for it. He drinks now only under his wife's care. 

        Filbert likes his beer. He also likes Glenna. They sleep together now and then because Calvin doesn't anymore. Calvin drinks Guinness when he drinks Guinness because of his Irish roots. Filbert drinks anything but Guinness. Filbert can play a passable Vaughan lick with a few hours practice. Calvin says things at the dinner table, with adult guests and his mother present, like, "Mandy still makes me think of a giant ostrich," flapping his arms like short wings and springing his legs. He will say this twice with accompanying motions and emphasis on "still," once at the beginning and once in the middle of the meal. 

        Inside, three women sit on a couch without legs, low to the floor. One of them has swollen glands from wisdom teeth coming in. On each side of her a woman sits with her legs tucked under her and a mug in her hands. Steam ascends from one of them. I put the Martin down in the hallway and then move it a few feet, away from the warm air register. Around the boots the smell of damp, cut plywood. The fur of the cat standing on the guitar case radiates heat. Old oil in a hot cast iron pan. She squeaks when I push her and bats at my mitten. The look in her eyes grows mischievous. It is too hot in this house. The thermostat on the boiler can't be working. 

        Mandy wobbles towards me with arms outstretched. 

        "You must be thirsty," I say after I have lifted her and hugged her and spoken her name three or four times. She reaches out an arm and hand, fingers spread. I go to the kitchen and look for a cup with a spout. I pour water into a pint jar from the clean dishes rack and help her drink. She chokes, and when she recovers says, "Oh, oh!" I hug her and walk into the living room. I am forever hugging Mandy. I notice that the top of her head feels slightly feverish. After awhile I take off her sweater and stockings so she can run around in her Huggins and t-shirt. 

         "Mandy loves grandpa," say the women sitting on each side of Glenna. The three look at me holding her. When they have finished some silent and spoken congratulations, and confirm that Mandy will be well looked after, they resume their conversation. Filbert gives up the armchair in the corner for me. He leans forward out of habit more than to pay attention. His crossed legs dangle and his elbows rest on his knees. 

        I sit facing out from the corner of the room. Mandy climbs onto and off my lap with intense regularity and teeters always here and there among the jackets, books and household items on the floor. I go to the kitchen for a carrot. It has much garden dirt on it. I rinse it, rubbing with my palms till it looks clean. When I sit down again, Mandy comes, arms stretched, eyes on my carrot. I hold it to her lips but she pulls it, whining, till I let go. She sits on my lap while she eats. 

        I say, "Just a little bit. Don't take big bites. You might choke." She bites small bites and I am convinced that she loves me. She lifts it up to my mouth, watching my lips with cute eyes.  I nibble and feel the odd sensation of a lot of spit. Next time she gives it to me I wipe it first. 

        "Mm mm, good!" I say.

        "Mm mm," she says. 

        As I am leaving, after Mandy has also shared my toast and jam and a sip of the tea Glenna makes for me, getting up despite her unhappy teeth and throat, Dandy appears out of nowhere. Standing beside me above the stairs, with one arm around my shoulders, she says,

        "See you tomorrow night. We're working on strong endings, right?"

        "Yeah, strong endings," I say, squeezing her waist. "See you tomorrow."