Picturing the Lyric

Eleven time zones later, Barry Hernandez was exactly where he wanted to be, in the midst of the market, each of his senses under assault by the new, the different, the alien. A kaleidoscope of sound, smell, taste, touch, color surrounded him just as he dreamed it would, nothing familiar, everything new as if he’d escaped the bonds of his existence, jumped into the time stream and popped out in another world, another time, a place that was perhaps of the past but definitely not his past, only his present.
The tour bus dropped him off. Accurately, the tour bus dropped all its passengers but Barry was not in a collective mood; he was living first person singular after forty years of living for everyone else. “An accident can do that to a person,” he told himself, “especially when the accident erases the people who mean the most to you.” Shaking his head didn’t stop the tear coalescing, it simply discouraged a greater flow.
His students saved him further embarrassment though he could not be certain anyone had noticed his emotion. If those college freshmen could see the trace of a tear, the force of their sarcasm would have shamed him into exile. “Hernandez crying?” they would ask as if such an event signaled the beginning of the Rapture. “Hernandez, the hard ass who spends his life teaching but never experiencing poetry? That Hernandez?”
“Is that where I am, in exile?” He dismissed the thought. “Exile is banishment, someone forcing someone to go away. No one forced me; I’m here because I want to be.”
The market refused to allow internal debate; it demanded attention. Hawkers insisted their wares held priority over his thoughts; fruit, vegetables and the occasional frying meat assumed control of his nasal passages, his throat, and his tongue; banners fluttered and people bustled into and out of his field of vision. The crowds surged around the mostly seated vendors, the buyer’s voices matching the frenetic energy of the sellers’. Barry stood in the midst of it all letting it wash over him, a ritual baptism in this different world.
But his mind could not endure the assault indefinitely. It did what it always did, took refuge in the familiar, slowly dawning on Barry’s comprehension:
“Round
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning
Running rings around the moon….”(1)
When he realized what he was doing, Barry smiled at the image of his students that again sprang to mind. “Funny,” he thought, “how the memory of my students all morph into three faces, Gene, Anne, and Caroline. I’ve taught thousands and yet when I try to picture my students, I see these three most clearly.”
He’d taught for thirty-five years, community college where the pressure was less and the caliber of students even more less. Universities demanded Masters degrees where community colleges didn’t. Universities demanded serious study and publication; community colleges were more interested in warm bodies. Universities catered to Harlans and Muriels and Carolines; community colleges were happy to get Gene and Anne and Jills.
“Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream…”(1)
Barry laughed, the sound startling those around him who ceded the few seconds to consider if he was dangerous but then resumed their shopping having decided that he was not. “Me? Dangerous?” but this time the laugh was internal. “”This stubby little man carrying fifteen more pounds than he ought, the hair thinning rapidly on the top of his head, the carnival shirt and Bermuda shorts incongruous over the black socks and loafers? I look like…I look like Peter Lorre would have looked if he’d had Hispanic forebears. Well, my voice is better. Imagine students having to listen to Peter Lorre for an entire year.” He chomped hard on the giggle that this image wanted badly to produce but he could not stop the smile that followed.
Later, he decided that it must have been the smile. No sooner did it spread across his face than he noticed her coming towards him as if she had suddenly sprouted from the crowd, brand new, created in that instant. Black hair, of course, black eyes that seemed to be lazy apostrophes, almost as tall he wasn’t, and beautiful. She walked as if she knew that every eye in the place tracked her progress which they didn’t. Folk were too busy haggling to notice one young woman in their midst. But they should have because she was unique.
Her dress was another riot of color that neither blended into the market background nor declared itself an island independent of its surroundings. The dress covered her frame but not in modesty. “See this hip,” the dress announced, “this is a strong hip tempered with curve to soften the harshness of the bone. It is the kind of hip meant to support itself and one other, the kind of hip that must perch itself above legs like these. See the way this fabric shimmers around the upper muscles tantalizing you with suggestions of the inner thigh. See this waist that rides above that hip almost detached, a new softness floating above the iron of the hip. Imagine that the stomach will feel as smooth as the dress is smooth. Let your eyes raise to the chest and suggestion of breasts. You’ll find no dugs beneath this fabric. Arms that fall from shoulders in delicate cascade, the dress stopping short at the shoulders so the skin can shine on its own, ending in hands strong but unmarked by manual labor.
She was smiling and Barry thought it could be in reaction to the smile he had held that now spread even wider in appreciation of her approach. He knew she was coming to him and the thought suddenly sent chills down his spine. “Why him? With all these people available, why him?” He was just one of the many, some people as brown as he but for most, their brown ran to lighter shades. They seemed stockier as if they carried a weight he did not. They lacked the grace, the self-awareness, the… Hammerstein came thundering in:
“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade…”(2)
He shook that off. He wasn’t afraid so much as….maybe he was afraid. Of what? A young woman smiling at him? Was he getting that old?
Before he could answer, she stood before him. Pain filled his heart. This young woman stood exactly as “Ita” had stood before him all those many nights. Manuelita of the fire and ice; Manuelita who mothered his sons who died with her in the crash. His heart wanted to cry but his mind said the young woman was extending a hand. His mind won the argument; he accepted her hand in his, the warmth chasing away the memory of pain.
A woman’s hand, strong in grip, promising the world without saying a word. “Think,” the hand sends, “if it feels this good just to share a touch, think what else awaits.”
The hand had a voice to accompany it, contralto, speaking English with the warp that comes with learning it late. “Come with me,” she said.
“Why?” came unbidden from his mouth accompanied by instant regret and the impulse to apologize but before he could make that mistake a new smile beamed back at him.
“You are why I am here,” she said. “I have my year because you are here.”
Barry still felt stupid, both from the foolishness of his first question and from the awful need to ask more questions. Of all the rational queries he might have made, the only one to escape his lips sounded more inane than the first. “Year?” he asked.
The woman had begun to turn, still holding his hand, tugging a bit to encourage him to follow. Over her shoulder, she laughed her reply: “The year of the cat.”
He followed her then finally able to keep the questions in the background of his mind, the foreground processing the passage through the market. She took so many turns, made so many stops and starts, the market became a maze in which direction became meaningless. Wrestling the thought that he knew there was no year of the cat in the Chinese zodiac, that this was, in fact, the year of the rat, Barry could not also commit to memory where they were headed.
“This is a man who thinks with his heart,
His heart is not always wise…”(3)
Was it just lately he began to think in lyrics? Or had he always done so despite what his students thought? He could not decide. On one edge of the market bounded by blue tile walls, she found a door that Barry would have never seen had she not opened it for him. Staring at the door, panic ensued. Adrienne Rich wheedled her way into his memory:
“Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
There is always the risk
Of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
And you must look back
And let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you
much will evade you
at what who knows?
The door itself
Makes no promises.
It is only a door. (4)
“Are you paying attention, my students? Am I not experiencing poetry as you thought I could not? Am I not living a poem?”
Barry followed her through the door.
The hallway led past doors left and right. The young woman, still holding his hand, walked past each without comment heading toward the end of the hall where she followed a right hand branch. This hall ended in a doorway which she opened. Following, Barry found himself in a simple room. The floor was bare earth, the furnishing an armoire, a mattress and comforter, and a small table on which rested a pitcher and two cups. The walls were bare of windows and everything else except for a scroll hanging above the mattress. The scroll was blank. The midday sun managed to work its way through the corridors, through the door, and into the room providing just enough light for comfort.
As if she knew he wanted to interrogate her, the young woman pressed a finger to his lips requesting or demanding silence, he wasn’t certain which. She closed the door, then turned to face him but walked past him to the table, her legs folding under her so that the weight of her body rested on the backs of her calves. Barry stared in wonder at the pliability of the fabric that permitted such a position.
“First, cha,” she said, gesturing for him to take a seat beside the table. Unable to duplicate her position, Barry sat cross-legged.
With a geisha’s artistry, she poured their cha, first his and then hers. She presented the cup to him with both hands surrounding the bowl, her head bowed. “Please, accept not only this offering from me, Bian, but also all else I am able to offer you.” With her head bowed, Barry could only sense the seriousness of her purpose but that was sufficient enough that he refrained from clever remarks and attempted to reply in kind. “I, Barry, accept this offering and all else you choose to offer.” He sipped from the bowl surprised to discover the cha just enough below boiling as to be potable.
“Offerings require no explanation,” Bian said as she sipped from her own cup.
“No, no, Bian, I’m an American; we cannot go more than two minutes without demanding explanations. You can’t ask me to not ask questions.”
The frown that now appeared seemed more ominous than mere irritation. “Offerings made and accepted require no explanation,” she said, her posture indicating the reply she expected. He thought of what she asked and what he thought he needed to know. A lifetime of analysis, a lifetime of examining alternatives, a lifetime of sane, rational, intelligent behavior coughed politely in the corner of his mind requesting he pay attention. He ignored it.
“No, no, Miss Anna, this is not scientific!’ (5)
He told Yul to be quiet. He sipped his cha in silence.
In time she rose, went to the armoire, and from within retrieved two candles, which she placed on the table. With matchsticks from that cupboard she lit the candles. In the flame of each, she lit strands of incense that found their way to plates on which the candles rested. Patchouli invested the room.
Bian invited Barry to stand, again pressing a single finger to his lips. With infinite care she began to unbutton his shirt while he stood there dumbfounded. This was really going to happen, wasn’t it? He didn’t know why but he knew that he wanted it to happen. Thirty-five years he had been faithful and now there was no one to be faithful to. Bian removed his shirt. Barry thought to take her into his embrace but her finger on his lips insisted on patience. His shorts and underwear followed his shirt into a pile in the corner of the room.
Bian moved him to the mattress pulling the comforter out of the way. When he was supine, she removed his shoes and socks. Standing above him, she removed her dress. That was all she had to remove.
Later, the candles burned themselves out, the incense followed suit. In the darkness, in a whisper, Bian said as if it was the most natural thing in the world: “The rat did not deserve a year; he took advantage. I deserved a year. My complaints were heard; we have one.”
Barry expected passion, lust; senseless, mindless activity. Barry found tenderness, compassion, healing, all the emotions he’d thought gone forever in the instant loss of his family came creeping back into that room as if uncertain of their reception. Bian was there, completely there, aware, knowing, caring. Life and energy and hope came clawing their way into his psyche. “So, that’s what it means:
“And their sex was a knot untying, a prolonged coming loose.” (6)
Sleep came and went, a welcome guest but not a need. Afternoon became a night that became morning. When the sun finally managed to pry its way into the room, Barry woke to Kipling:
“Dun and saffron, robed and splendid
Broke the solemn, pitying Day,
And I knew my pains were ended,
And I turned and tried to pray.” (7)
To who, though, was he supposed to pray? Did Yahweh arrange for Bian to appear? Was he supposed to convert to..what? A Chinese astrology that never existed? He decided to just pray and whoever listened, that was fine with him. He lay on the mattress, the comforter covering the two of them entwined, and listened to her heart pounding in measure with his.
“A year,” she said and Barry was certain she had been literal. “A year is such an impossibly long time and yet no more than a blink of an eye. We had thirty-five years and now we don’t have any. I have thirty-five years of memory and yet they pass through my mind in an instant. A year is short, then, isn’t it? But, a year is fine.”
Walking out from the door in the blue tile wall, Barry’s hands in his pockets suddenly discovered that his bus ticket was missing. He’d already missed the bus but now he couldn’t catch the next one. Well, he could but he’d have to buy a new ticket. He had his hotel keys and his luggage keys and his wallet. Bian, beside him, her dress as fresh as yesterday, her smile as breathtaking as yesterday, would be the same for the year to come. He supposed the time would come she would leave him or he would leave her but, now, this moment and for the moments to come today and tomorrow and the day after that, he’d stay. Decision made, his mind relaxed:
“As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind.” (1)

-End-



(1) Windmills of Your Mind, Alan & Marilyn Bergman & Michel Legrand
(2) You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught, Oscar Hammerstein II
(3) Something Wonderful, Oscar Hammerstein II
(4) Time, Adrienne Rich
(5) The King and I, Oscar Hammerstein II
(6) After the Argument, Stephen Dunn
(7) La Nuit Blanche, Rudyard Kipling
(8) The Year of the Cat, Al Stewart/Peter Wood