The Winter's Last

A bantam extent of lyricism can indeed puncture the mind state of the one who reads it. In 1931, the acclaimed Dick & Jane books were introduced to the Depression that was America. It's impressive how a piece of literature can influence the mind of a child, even to the point of abandonment. I have always been prone to the gaffe depictions that children's books foretell of the life of a child in the Great Depression. If I were to accurately address the true life of Dick & Jane in the Depression it would go something like this: See Dick. See Dick dodge bullets. See Dick successfully dodge bullets—Good job Dick. But like any story, your success will later become your demise. Just watch as the bullets penetrate Dick, one by one, to the point that his physical identity is ghostly. We all find ourselves propped up between what is right and what is wrong. Nevertheless, we push ourselves forward with torus-linked chains weighing us down every step and every breath. Some would call it a first step towards insanity while others simply agree that it is the fundamental preliminary given by God—I continue to quarrel both statements rather readily.


Prologue*

Snow filled the streets, taunting me as it sluggishly stacked up to isolate us in the Café.
I had just buried my mother. Her face was of something I did not recognize. It was calm, of a weary peace that I was unaware of. Maybe it was the closing of her eye-lids. It has been at least twenty years since I last saw her walk along the path to a lover's abandonment, leaving me alone to wield unworthy air—a ten-year-old drifter. Twenty years since I hugged the warmth of her body and kissed the cherry upon her plump cheeks. Her pale face, her pale lips were all but a peaceful dream now. She rested. And as I dropped the bushel of dead roses over her new home, I fell to my knees and wondered.
"Sorry 'bout ya mother, Michael."
"It's quite alright. It was her time. If anything, she wanted this. Besides . . . you know."
I looked into my empty glass of dark water, craving the strong taste of a russet bean imported from a hidden distance, briefly appreciating the imagery it brought forth to me through those simple sips.
"More coffee?"
"S' more coffee, my good man."
"Something different this time?"
"No," I pushed the glass along the sleek countertop, watching it slide like skates along the chill ice. "The usual——thank you."
The man walked off into the kitchen of the Café, working his enchantment through the crushing and draining and stirring of the drink. The aroma was magnificent.
I slowly turned my head from left to right, looking at the people enjoying their tea and Chiffon pies, chuckling and smiling at the presence of their loved ones. One couple to the right of me, opposite from one another, were holding hands. The man rubbed his thumbs over the woman's knuckles as he expressed his overall devotion to her. Of course, she was glistening; for the serenade of a calm act of lyricism through conversation seems to impress more than that of a melodic tune.
Children ran around the Café, hiding under the tables of the unoccupied and giggling as they told their stories of undeveloped plots, taking turns, listening, for they knew that when they spoke, when they told their story, it was of something beautiful.
I listened to the first child. It spoke of a four-legged, running animal that played the flute for crowds of thousands. Although it was an outcast through voice, it was a glory through music. It stood amongst the crowd and whisked its melodies about the theatre like an everyday wind of a cool autumn day, knowing its escape was all but a hopeless venture, so it continued to run back and forth . . . blowing, ever so, pleasantly.
The second child began to speak as they finished their laughter. It giggled through every word. The story involved a man who had fallen in love; you know, the usual. His overall obsession with toys made him a hopeless romantic, therefore pulling him into a ruin unlike no other . . . loss. The child paused in a state of confusion, not knowing how to finish its story. It sighed.
"What 'a ya writing?"
I turned around to see the coffee enchanter looking over me. My paper had been filled with notes regarding the children's stories.
"Not sure. I suppose I'm being appreciative or strange." I chuckled. "Thank you for the coffee. Now, let me write, let me reminisce . . ."

i

The gaiety of the shining lights that beamed over the dancing crowd, if anything, can never amount to the dim, languor street lights that bowed their heads to the snobby stars; the snobby, snobby, sibylline stars that were indeed at higher standing. And under these street lights stood the dysphoric actuality that was a wool coat and a flat cap, bowing his head to nothing as his hands grasped onto the erupting air within his coat pockets.
But nearby, many a man stood firm as they whispered and mumbled accounts of silly calumny, unaware that every utter of breath was acknowledged by the wool coat and flat cap.
This was Matthieu Raymond Prideux.
It was once said that the moon shined brightest over Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when the winter's worst storms came to a cease-fire, leaving the ashen, lucid streets curious trails en route for El Dorado. I'd like to agree to this somewhat unsettling theory, but I have never actually witnessed such a night. At first I believed such a blather was an impractical endeavor at cajole, for I can be easily influenced by the simplest of conjectures, especially from my mother who would always tell me: "When you gaze at that glorious rock in the sky, from the Pfister's highest window, following the finale of an elegant landing by those minuscule flakes, you—you can't help but to cry."—"You would have loved it!"
Now at the Pfister—as you know if you have ever been there—the first pant, the first wheeze is far more than any other puff of ordinary air; it's the inhalation of an indescribable beauty that has lived on for at least a century. And each day a man will breathe in those ornate sachets as the pianist plays those uplifting melodies that yell: "Welcome to paradise!"
Outside of the hotel's everyday march past rolled the cool, bitter winds from the East's arch well, wending its way round the spiral waves, tossing back and forth the simple pleasures of an infant's playful splash. Snow gently completed its frivolous touchdown on the racing streets like feathers removed from a dove's garment, drifting along the blanketed sidewalks, just another destitute walking the city streets.
Above all the commotion that ran about the Pfister's lobby, the top floor remained separated from all. Crimson draperies swathed the rotting walls, ripped to a shred of a silenced bride, a blush beauty ever so similar to that of Nikola Frankopan. The hallway, dim, clouded with an array of ominous whispers that even the most attentive couldn't make out, silently recalled to itself the lost presence that was once a hushed appearance, pacing itself past into the solitary captivity hidden behind a wooden handle, crying as it gazes out the transom onto the flashing city below.


i.ii

The drafts were in place; a perfect alignment of a self-made play town round a limit of joyous valleys and skylines aimed at a windowpane outward. Dying roses perched themselves toward the cool, fading sun, hidden behind the catastrophe of rising towers, being clubbed by the falling leaves of a tree in the distance, but in the belly, all but an ordinary occurrence in Milwaukee.
On the top floor of the Pfister, Matthieu Raymond Prideux dazzled himself about a yellow divan, looking down on the city with a cigarette poking out his mouth and an empty bottle of whiskey fighting the simple grasp of his right hand. He peered through the transparent mirror of wishing wells, consuming nothing but a sense of failure, a sense of guilt; internally opposing the retch and barbaric fallout of a scapegrace.
Matthieu, expecting his sister, who would arrive at 30 past 2, glanced at his watch—25 past 2—and, in malice, threw his drafts off the edge of the divan. The papers scattered about the room, here and there, snapping at the popinjay behind the radio. Baffled, inebriated, Matthieu slowly glanced at the radio, listening to its mellifluous voice, throwing at his face opinion-after-opinion, pride-after-pride, and shame-after-shame.
With minor hesitation Matthieu pulled himself off of the divan, almost tripping on to the Grosfeld tables in front of him, and reached for his spectacles. Settling amongst his wits, he picked up one of his drafts, and, in tears, began to read it:

. . . Simplicity, the very damn trait we find ourselves grasping for. In the end we gaze at moons, only knowing that it will never shine when you want it to. Why? Because we hope for too much; and that is the simplicity of us all. We hope for, we want too much . . .

As Matthieu finished, Cherie Clair Prideux stumbled in and witnessed his tears. "My brother, my dear brother," she began, "What cloud of obscurity has left you this way?"
Startled, he creased the draft and stuck it into his back pocket, wiping off his tears with his handkerchief. "Life, Cherie. I sit; write! Write the lives of men but can't seem to shape a life of my own."
"Then remain here, my brother. Every fall it is the same thing; sitting and waiting in the corridors of your room, and, when spring arrives, you pack up and leave to—"
"Where am I going? San Antonio?  St. Paul? New York? I'm going nowhere other than a place that will keep me drinking and smoking until next year. "
"You fool," Cherie noticed the jumble of drafts scattered about the room and began to organize them onto a nearby end table, "You need to—well—you need to go outside, experience God's—-"
Interrupting Cherie, he tilted his spectacles. "Alone? I need to be seen alone is what you're telling me?"
"Yes, yes——Look at that man," she pointed to a man walking on the city sidewalk smoking a cigarette. "He's alone."
Starting to laugh, Matthieu took a seat on the divan and rested his right leg on his broad lap. "Don't be silly Cherie! That man is accompanied by his cigarette. His dignity is Old Gold! Much like the man——"
"Who is gracefully sitting on the yellow divan! You really need to——"
Cherie suspended movement; not in surprise, but in crystal-clear knowledge on how she would backlash a case Matthieu's way. Cherie was indeed a clever human-being; quick to dispute, but held in reserve sagacity that added to her virtue. Then eighteen, her beauty was more than a flawless advantage, for she lured in more men than a prostitution racket run by the mob. Her gorgeous locks shined like the sun on a summer afternoon and her figure mesmerized the faculty of a chap to the point where their eyes seemed unmoving. But her intellect—her intellect—was beyond that of Letitia Geer and Mary Walton.
"I suppose it is simple to gaze at a moon, avoid reality, and write nonsense on a sheet of paper"—she laughed— "Conceit your nonsense; for it is the foundation of your failure, especially if that arrogance is a neophyte, you remember that don't you? Hell, you wrote it."
Matthieu dropped his cigarette. Smoke rose from the ashen stick, surrounding Matthieu with an abstract halo, circling him. Stunned, he stood up and embraced his sister, "I love you. More than the pen that made my money, more than the paper that influenced so many, and more than the mind that worked the pen and paper."
Cherie walked toward the hotel window and looked down on the streets, the sand and water, watching the lovers hand-and-hand, speaking of love, thinking of love, acting on love. "It is not me you love, Matthieu,"—she turned and stared into his eyes—"You must find love, for you only care for me."
Standing from the divan, he walked towards the radio and began to tap it in a marching band rhythm, drumming off key every beat or so. "1920,"—Matthieu stopped suddenly, letting out a sigh of despair—"She'll do ya proud," Matthieu turned simply to discover that Cherie had left. "——She'll do ya damn proud!"
The written pelf that settled in the back pocket of Matthieu's trousers gazed into the abyss with chain gangs weighing it down to nothing but bloviate dust running in the autumn's storm. The spectacles on Matthieu's tender nose trickled with rain, racing to drift off the waterfall and onto the waterless lake. With nothing but an urge to absorb the counsel and passage, the man in the silhouette suit blanketed himself with a wool coat and strapped a pistol to his waistline. Briefly looking at the ordered drafts that relaxed on the end table, Matthieu fitted a flat cap on top of his slicked, tonic covered hair, slightly tipping it to conceal his tears, and escorted himself out of the hotel's chalet.


ii

"Catch it, Michael, catch it."
That is the everyday encouragement that comes out of a mother's mouth. Well, at least that is what I've noticed from time to time. You can never get enough from a mother. It is the words of disappointment, the words of pride, or the milk that is buried within her breasts . . . the words of nourishment.
"The snow; look at it fall, look at it run—Catch it with your tongue—Catch it."
I remember giggling as I had my head aimed towards the fog blinded sky, my mouth opened, a threshold, ready to let the snow settle within my warm, diminutive body. As if it were simple to grasp, I extended my hands outward in hopes of collecting them and putting them into my mouth. It melted in the palm of my hand.
My mother laughed. "That's right, Michael. Good—good."
I am only able to recall those moments, for it ended so soon. Her emotion, I remember. My emotion, I remember. But, the thing I recall most is her eyes; how they drifted from me to a man across the street, back and forth, from me to him, wandering lustily.
"Good, Michael, so wonderful."
The man had introduced himself as Dr. Raymond Feinland. He seemed nervous. His hair was slicked, slicked absolutely, with clear sky eyes under the humble abode of his clean fiscal stature. He extended his hand to me, expecting a somber hand shake. Of course, I accepted his invitation to greet, for it is a known fact that a mother's own love is more important than yours, or I am just prone to being polite. Either way, I felt it necessary.
"What a strapping young lad you got here," Feinland said brusquely.
Mother than gave me a look that I am sure translated itself into "say thank you."
"Thank ya—"
"He's about twelve years old now. I'm planning on sending him to Princeton in a couple of years to study Literature. His writing ability is splendid. Tell him, Michael."
My mind groaned. I knew my mother from top to bottom. This state of her ability to converse is at its minimum, because she has now found someone she likes. And when she had found an interest, she got giddy . . . too giddy.
"I'm a prodigy writer."
"Brilliant," Feinland began, "I myself write on my spare time. My main interest seems to be the moon. Have you ever heard the tale of the winter's storm? No—well, apparently, Milwaukee is known for snow storms that light up the moon like the sun on a summer day. It's amazing, absolutely amazing."
"Sounds——"
"You should run along now, Michael," my mother interjected, still full of feeble giddiness, "Raymond and I don't want to keep you down.  Run along now."

. . .
Walking, dragging the snow behind me, I looked back at their silence. She smiled at him as he gracefully quilted her with his wool coat. They kissed as they walked opposite of the street into the secrecy of his hotel.

ii.ii

In the darkness of the cavern of mischief and prose, they sat and drank, talking about the lack of flaws, the lack of writing, the lack hunger, the lack of normality, the lack of everything simple. The popinjay radio was blithering nonsense, depressing the very mood of the once smiling faces that stood in the chill winter air. Dr. Raymond Feinland was sitting on a yellow divan, smoking a cigarette, drinking a full bottle of whiskey, laughing and mumbling with the woman beside him. They were gazing out of the transom, eastward, toward the lake, smiling at its deep obscurity.
"You know, my love, my name travels from city to city, page to street. You know what I mean? I'm two people."
The woman's face was sparkling as she lie on top of his bosom, her head on his shoulder, rubbing his cheeks with her soft, tender hands. The light shined over them as she spoke pensively to him.
"You're what, literally egotistic?" The woman giggled. "I find that rather charming. Half man for the world, and one man for the woman."
"You are not at the least bit surprised?"
"Of course not," she began. "It's normality in literature for an author to tweak his forename. Look at my boy, Michael. He has done the same thing." She was laughing now. "He even almost went to the point of using Hemingway as a moniker. Oh, he is so silly."
Feinland chuckled, tapping a spark of ash off of his cigarette.
"I had a son named Matthieu Prideux Feinland. He loved the moon so much. It's all around ambiguity. I remember taking him round the city at night, trying to point out this and that. But, all he seemed interested in was the moon. He would just stare at it every time it had appeared." He began to shuffle his papers. "Drawings and drawings of personified moons. He was so curious. I called him inquisitive because of his behavior. I use his name as a reminder."
"Lovely. If only my son used me as a reminder. I try not to be selfish, it's just I think I deserve it. I raised the boy from birth; feeding him, nurturing him. But, he's always been so stubborn. When his grandfather died he continuously talked to me about how it might've happened; story after story, writing after writing about how he died."
"Look out the window,"—He pointed—"it's snowing."
"Did you listen to anything I just said?"
"Of course, my love; but look, it's snowing. There's hope for another lit."
She lifted her head off of him, standing over his inclination of a head as it bent toward the window.
"What? Who gives a damn about the moon? We are talking about my son."
Twirling the cigarette in his key fingers, he began grunting, in a sense, trying not to cry, as if her questioning was that of a deep lachrimosity. He spoke dreamily as he gazed at the moon through the falling snow. "Damn your son."
"Damn my son?" She fell to her knees like that of a penniless beggar, laughing as she began to cry. Her eyes twinkled as the only light that came from the hallway shined on her falling tears, creating gray-scale rainbows. "Please say it again. Please, oh, please, I want you to say it again."

"Damn—your—"
He grew silent. Staring at the Grosfeld table in front him; dazed, dazed through a content expression of self-pity. Was he guilty? Or was he waiting?
"Please leave, my love. You have deeply offended me."
The woman ceased her tears, wiping them off with the palm of her hand, mumbling to herself every word that created the silhouette of a single "damn". She picked her self up rapidly, speaking in a woman's serious tone.
"I hope you are buried with this building, sir. I really do."
As the woman proceeded to walk past the metal hinges and down the grotesque hallway of crimson, Feinland, Matthieu extended his hand toward her, for he had lost grasp and wanted it back. He leaned back in the divan, gulping down the whiskey beside him, whispering:
"1920,"—gulp—"she'll . . ."
It was snowing heavily; buried to the top of the automobile heads. Wind blew in an Easterly direction, pushing the final leaves of autumn into the dark lake beside the city. Everyone had been inside; sitting by the warmth of the chimney, both hands lengthened to feel the ray of heat comfort them. The top floor of the Pfister was empty. He had drifted off onto the storm drenched streets, looking for her, for he was done with himself. His overall devotion to a levitating rock made him nothing but a simpleton, a pathetic simpleton. So, he wandered along, searching.

ii.iii

I was sitting near the window, looking out onto the shady streets, waiting. Various figures twirled about the grain of the night in front of me, so ominous. I was content with the moment, although somewhat disappointed for my mother was not there. I looked toward the sky, past the snow's movement, seeing nothing. There was no moon, no clouds, just snow falling swiftly round the darkness of Milwaukee. In the corner of my dreary eyes, a running figure of phantoms from long an awaited morning stared.
The phone rang near me.
"This is Michael."
"Michael, it's your mother." She sounded happy for the first time. Not a sham of happiness, but a true sense of joy through her sniffles. "I just saw the moon. I'm coming home for good."—She paused—"I love you . . ."





Hands extended toward the sky above it. It lied in the snow, inebriated, for the moon had never come. Gibberish poured out of his mouth as he wailed in the snow, kicking back and forth as the snow quickly piled on top of him. His hand remained out of the snow's capture, allowing him to reach for the gleaming rock above him as the snow softly calmed, leaving the street a curious trail en route for El Dorado, a blind gold. It had ceased. Beneath the snow was a man, smiling, gazing, and only hoping for another chance at love; but, every time an act of loss as I sat in front of the fireplace, leaning my head on my hand, smiling, because I knew everything was going to be okay.


iii.iv

The Café remained still as I sat with a page-by-page letter of hopes. It was nothing but a desire to know what had happened, a desire to know why I had been dismissed from my mother, why I had been betrayed. My stories reflect my attitudes toward people in my life, therefore I will not stop.
The children were gone, running down the sidewalks, playing tag and hitting each other. The lovers were gone as well; most likely taking a stroll down the cold parks of Milwaukee, still speaking to one another of what they believe will be a two of forever.
I looked at the letters one more time, thinking to myself:

If only this was the case. Son of a bitch! If only, if only this was the case!

I crumbled the papers into the smallest ball I could create, tossing it to the back of me. It rolled briefly on the slick floor, coming to a stop as it rested between a gap of tiles. The glass of coffee remained on the table as I slipped the tip on top of it, for the beauty of the smokes avoidance of inanimate objects is somewhat entertaining. I fitted a flat cap atop my head, tipping it to conceal my tears, and escorted myself out the comfort of the café, my hands buried within my coat pockets, grasping onto the air within it, onto the cold, snowy streets, headed to the Pfister to shamelessly dream.