All the Views Fit to Vent...
..One of my twelve Multiples has been clawing at my skirts for days, begging to be heard. Desperate, I guess, she finally E-mailed one of her usual convoluted tales. This entity seems harmless enough, but one can never tell..
"Dear Maxine,
I know you asked me not to contact you directly because you don't believe any of the miraculous things that happen to me. Oh yes, I know you think I make them all up. But, this time, hear me out, I beg of you. After years of searching, and caring for, and eventually discarding, I have, at last, found the perfect replacement. Here's how it happened...
This man sprawled on the bench in our new vest-pocket park looked like a collapsed weather balloon. Incidentally, I never bought the government's explanation that those beat-up balloons are often mistaken for UFO's. Not that the whole UFO thing isn't a crock, especially the abductions, and probings of human orifices; to my mind, that's in a league with recovered memories of child molestation, a convenient invention of people who can think of nothing but sex, sex, sex, and want to talk you to death about it, but in a trendy, socially acceptable way, don't you know? In idle moments, I wonder what Freud would make of this, as well as other positions I have taken.
This person I was looking at had an enormous head, one might call it leonine in the case of a man with a more prepossessing appearance. Quirkily, a small black beret--or perhaps it only looked small on his bulbous head--was perched over one eyebrow in some kind of ridiculous fashion statement, or it had merely slid down when he hunched over and folded into himself.
I liked the cast of the man's shoulders; he had done some heavy work in his life and, slumped over as he was, I could still see he had a fine neck. A sign of superior breeding. I hoped he would be on the bench tomorrow for I knew I couldn't guess his shoe size, though it had to be close to the right one. I would need to remember to bring along a tape measure.
When I came back the next day, he was still on the bench, but semi-collapsed on one end; I could smell the liquor on his breath ten feet away. But even in his disreputable condition, he reminded me of my Jim, my poor lost Jim, who had turned his head to the wall and died seconds after I had left the room for the hospital cafeteria. Coffee. All I wanted was a cup of coffee to keep me from falling asleep at is bedside.
I sat down next to the man, about three to five inches away, and took his hand in mine. There was not the mildest curiosity in the look he gave me; it was as if a gnat had settled on his flesh, and he was too tired to swat it off.
"Stick out your foot," I said. "I'd like to measure your shoe."
We might have been at a shoe store, that's how easily he obliged me. He wore a 9 1/2. I knew it. I knew I didn't have some stumbling peasant on my hands; I knew he would wear the same size as my Jim. A civilized shoe size, the shoe size of a gentleman.
After I rolled up the tape, and stuck it back in my pocket, I said: "I want you to come home with me."
He had good diction, despite his words. "No money, and you're too old, anyway."
"No sex," I said. "I want to take care of you. I want to get you back on your feet."
"So you don't want to steal my shoes, after all," he said, and a slight smile flickered, came and went like a blown-out match.
"I told you what I want," I said. "I want to change your life."
He had pale blue eyes. Jim's had been a shade or two darker blue and of course not reddened, and with crust on the eyelids.
"The last woman let me sleep in her garage," he said.
"You will sleep in the house, in your own room, in your own bed," I told him.
"Where's you car?" he mumbled.
"Walk," I said. "I live across from the park." I was becoming telegraphic myself, breathing hard as I led him along by the hand. Like my Jim, he was a big man. As he lurched after me, I felt like a child leading a grownup.
When he heaved himself into a chair at my kitchen table, I tore the beret from his head, and threw it in the trash. I wondered at my terrible need for him not to look so absurd, but he didn't seem to notice. I hadn't any milk in the house, so I gave him Campbell's Tomato soup, mixed with water, soda crackers, and big glass of orange juice.
He made a face at the glass of juice and asked if I had some wine. Any wine, cooking wine would do.
"No vino today," I said, and pushed the glass toward him. "Drink this. Have some consideration for your poor body."
"Fuck my body," he said.
"We don't talk that way in my house," I told him.
The man crumbled a cracker in his soup. "Sorry," he said.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Jim," he answered, around a mouthful of crackers.
It was an omen. He not only looked like my Jim, he had the exact same name. My Jim, who had shut me out by passing away while I was gone from the room, cheating me of my last moments with him, when I might have held him in my arms.
I had him try on a couple of Jim's nice coats, and they fit like they were made for him in Saville Row. I opened the drawers in the bedroom and showed him the neat stacks of clean white t-shirts, boxer shorts, golf socks and linen handkerchiefs with the initial "J" embroidered on them
He extended one of his big, surprisingly clean paws, and rifled through the hankies, tracing an initial with one finger. "Hey," he said, "I'm all set up."
We watched some TV during the evening, and he sat in my Jim's lounge chair; he even fit into the hills and valleys made by Jim's body over the years.
He started to fall asleep in the chair so once again I had to lead him. I let him lie down on top of my good candlewick spread, (which was something of a concern), still wearing all his soiled clothes, and covered him with the afghan I keep at the end of the bed. He slept with his mouth slightly open, and with a little half smile curving his lips. Perhaps it wasn't a smile at all, and one side of his face was somewhat paralyzed from a small stroke or tic doloureux. I thought about my Jim as I wiped just a hint of spittle from the corner of his mouth. In any case, I could see his teeth were his own, and his gums looked pink and healthy.
I am sure he never knew what hit him.
I gathered him up in my arms as best I could, considering his bulk, and when at last I rested him back on the pillow, he was still smiling.
11:47:15 AM 
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