7
The House
Tasma—was, was somewhat surprised to discover the tidiness of the house, it looked comfortable, with older-style furniture, but comfortable nonetheless; as if they had bought it new before Jill was born, and was supposed to last forever. It looked more akin to the l940s style couch and sofa chairs: rounded top with some wood smoothly fitted into the fabric; a long coffee table to put a number of items on should one wish to lounge about, for it was but three feet beyond the couch: a nice setup to use for eating or drinking at night while watching TV she thought. The walls were egg-white, except for the kitchen which was yellow from the top down to the middle, thereafter it was white tiles that went to the floor.
“How tidy,” she said to Jill as her parents went upstairs to their bedrooms to take a nap. Her mind was telling her it was not much different from her house in Minnesota, made of wood, glass and stone foundation.
—For the most part, everything was new for her. Her mind was filling up with free-stimulation, images and expressions, emotions, speculations all the intimidation she felt in the bar, the train, the walking out of her house uneasily, was fading similar to a candlestick burnt to the end of its wax. She would have pinched herself to see if she was dreaming, except for her shyness, or perhaps, inhibitions.
Above all things, she was unsure how she’d feel in time, but it would take time to mold her into the fabric of this new world she was trying to fit into.
—The thought crossed her mind: was Tommy a gigolo? she’d had read about them in those cheap magazines: short stories on how men become whatever the woman wants just to get them in the sack, and then their true identity comes out afterwards. She sat back in the soft chair, sunk into it like a tender doll, reminiscing of home a smidgen; it seemed so fuzzy now, perhaps less vague by the hour.
Tommy, now sitting on the couch—Tasma still in the sofa-chair, Jill now in the kitchen, the parents in their bedroom watching television, everything, and everyone seemed to be in place.
The television in living-room had on The Adventures of the Lone Ranger with his horse Silver, they were on a hill looking down upon the bandits; George Belmont liked the show also, had they walked by his room, you would have heard the same music, the William Tell Overture playing (the theme of the Lone Ranger), which he watched every week, when The Lone Ranger came on, as did Jill.
Tommy smiled over at Tasma—she seemed so helpless I suppose, he couldn’t help but want to nurture her, if not care-take her.
Smells now came from the kitchen, creeping in—into the living room, popcorn with butter. It all seemed a ting familiar now, like it used to be back home when they’d come visiting her for the summer. Jill seemed to be the old Jill she once knew, years ago: other than she had just acquired some adult features she never had before, along with some new experiences, she had gathered up in life: like we all do. She still liked Johnny back in Minnesota (had a crush on him yet), and now she liked Tommy in Seattle perhaps that can be considered normal: with a little confusion mixed in, she deliberated. She told herself: ‘…we all like cute boys, don’t we [?]’. Tommy was cute I suppose, gentle he seemed to Tasma, not easy to trigger his temper like Johnny, whom could be snobby, or angered, and quite easy to trigger especially when he was drinking and he liked to drink, and drink a lot, and fight: but he never hurt her, he never hurt Tasma or Jill, when Jill was in Minnesota dating him a few years earlier. Actually he looked out for Tasma, protected Tasma should she ever be around him and someone, some bully that is, try to pick on her, or even call her a name. Johnny would do a double take on the fella and he’d normally walk the other way. He was no one to fool around with. Surely Jill’s type, but what a surprise it must had been for Tasma to see her with Tommy, quite the opposite.
The outside now was as dark as the bottom of the sea thought Tasma as she glanced to the side window and back to the movie. The other surprise was George and Ann. Everyone knew they drank a lot back in Minnesota, but I guess it didn’t register with Tasma they were drunks. She was taken back a bit as she only saw them sparsely, that is: going to or coming back from the bar, and into the bedroom, or briefly to the kitchen.
This was a big step for Tasma, it was as if she was waiting for someone to kick her out: only to borrow her train fare back to St. Paul; I mean, what could she do if it was insisted upon. To her, she’d have no choice. This was the most daring thing she had ever attempted; and so she remained guarded.
She sat quietly succumbed in the big sofa chair in the living room, as if she was enveloped in it, and it hugged her just right. She was proud of her first step, it brought fear and anticipation, which led into adventure; she could not enjoy the moment by moment reality of it at first, not yet anyway, for she was too petrified, but it was coming she felt. But as she looked back—not in days per se—but hours, she had come a long way in a short period of time. It felt to her as if she was building a house on a fault-line [crack in the earth] and predicting it was going to explode, burst open, at any minute; but for some queer reason, it didn’t’. The earthquake was yet to come, should it come at all; but nonetheless, she had convinced herself she’d take it as far as it would go. It is always the first step she told herself (her father had told her something along that line) that mattered in life, that was the hardest, it was the motivating step.
“Here’s the popcorn,” said Jill with a smile from ear to ear, adding (in jest), “And I got a girlie-friend to talk to now, Tommy!” She had a tray with two bowls on it, one for Tasma, the other for her and Tommy.
To Tasma’s amazement, things seemed less complicated than at home, she was actually talking freely or freer, and didn’t feel as much watched over, not inhibited so much, not trying to please or feeling shameful or guilty for any unknown reason; not even feeling she had to take sides with anyone. Maybe it wasn’t right to bust out and run away, break out or whatever, so she told herself, but she did. If guilt was to be hung out to dry, then for now let it. She was actually talking freely about a TV show with Tommy and Jill. The TV was actually lulling her to sleep, whereas back home it would be paranoia just thinking everyone was looking at her, ready to use her to win an argument. She seemed to have had a close relationship with her father, but mom was always picking, needling her, and she’d grab the first chance she could to be with dad on the weekends and take long walks in Como Park, and visit the Zoo that was there. Mom would actually get jealous at her, tell her so, and tell him so. Although he didn’t take it personnel, but when dad was gone, mom would drill her. So this peacefulness was appreciated, if not for very long, for the moment it lasted, in any case.
Here at the present, no one seemed to have expectations, or asked for, or planted any; plus she didn’t have to restate what she meant (clarify), trying not to offend anyone. Normally at home she had to concentrate on how to say something at the dinner table, kind of edit her sentences; or at least so she felt she had to: lest she start or trigger a war.
—Jill had asked in a curious way, how Tasma’s family was, but Tasma simply said in a polite but brief manner, “As always, the same as they were when you were there years ago.”
8
Remembering Johnny
“How is Johnny, you know, the boy who had a crush on me, I forget his last name?”
“Oooo,” said Tasma, “Johnny Lemons you mean, he got married last year, right out of High School, got a kid also. I think his wife is on assistance, and he lives with her off and on. It’s not a good scene. I like Johnny but he’s just bad news most of the time.”
“Oh well, he shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. He was wild that was for sure,” said Jill taking in a deep breath. “I really liked him, but then I was just a kid, wasn’t I?”
“His older brother Dennis went into the Army, to Vietnam, he’s in Vietnam right now I think,” said Tasma.
(Johnny was more a Tarzan figure to Tasma, somewhat of an indescribable sort of fella. ((Handsome indeed, was what Jill recollected, but didn’t say.)) He had a healthy brain: a bull’s head and at times seemed even to snarl like one; so Tasma would have described Johnny.
On a similar note, I doubt anyone could read his thoughts or desires; but when he was in sight of Tasma he always was inspired; like a gracious brother to a younger sister. He was one of the great apes in those old Tarzan movies Tasma thought: oh, she liked him dearly, but he was too rough for her. She would have been ‘Teeka,’ had she played a roll in a Tarzan movie with him: a playful creature she remembered Teeka as, and a lively primate. They never had any, or retained any desire to frolic, they just grew up by each other, went to High School together, and knew one another, and often talked in the lunchroom, or outside before you’d go into school, where most of the kids hung out, around the steps and doorway, until the bell rang; or after school if he got into a fight, she’d support him with a smile, and he’d always win the fight.)
Jill continued to eat her popcorn, said with a precise entry: “Remember how handsome he was. He was built strong, weight lifting, and loved to fight, and seemed as he was always in some kind of trouble, but always got out of it. He was a bodybuilder with weights, right (rhetorical question, she looked at Tasma).” She remembered, as if Tommy was not present, and like Tommy who was kind of puny in the muscle department, was now a little embarrassed. He had auburn hair like Tasma, and deep Irish blue eyes, with a temper that went with it, but normally under control, more pouting than action. All the girls liked him; this is what filled Jill’s brain.
Tasma wasn’t sure what to say staring at the T.V.; Tommy next to her, “He was kind of a cute and a gallant sort of boy the few times I met him. Actually you fixed me up with him on a date once Tasma (said Jill animatedly); we were but thirteen-years old at that time, the last time I saw him, the last time I was in Minnesota. He used to write me you know, and then, then [a pause], he just kind of stopped writing.” She hesitated a moment, “He was a chatting kind of fella, not like you Tommy, you’re a little reserved.” Tommy looked a trifle tarnished, if not kind of see-through, or thin for the moment.
In unthinking haste, Tasma answered, “Yes I remember,” trying to change the focus on Tommy, he gave her a glance of relief. The silent dark had blackened the windows from outside in. Tasma would have liked to continue on with the subject, but it would somehow bounce back to Tommy, and he’d get wounded somehow again, she suspected. She was surprised she, on one hand had said anything about Johnny, and when she did, made it obvious she seemed to still have a crush on him, was this not better left in the back of one’s mind she concurred with her second-self. But maybe that was just Jill, she was if anything, unpredictable.
[Sleepy] She was now unpacked and was given the guestroom on the second floor, down the hall from Jill, on the south side and across the hall, and around the stairway, away from those two bedrooms where the Belmont’s bedroom where it was a bit more quiet for the elder couple. Tasma’s room was about half the size of Jill’s but cozy nonetheless. Both Jill and Tommy noticed her face seemed a little more relieved. Jill pulled out a cigarette from her coat pocket and Tommy a stick of gum,
“Take your pick,” they both seemed to say in harmony, chuckling a minute.
“Oh! the gum, I don’t smoke.”
“Of course you don’t,” remarked Jill, adding: “I only smoke when I get surprises, or when I’m drinking or under stress— (Tasma looked nervously at her). Today it is for something new and good; you know good stress.”
[In the bedroom] With a soft-focus Tasma watched Jill strike a match to light her cigarette, and said, “I would guess Tasma, you’re a bit surprised at my parents, Tommy and I, living all together?”
Tasma hesitated, a long pause, looking downward to find her right emotions to this whole scene, “Everything outside of my house is strange and surprising for me.” Jill then turned off the lights and caught Tasma’s smile at the same time.
—It was now dark in the room, and in some corners shadowy dark, her eyes adjusting to the one window in the room, and the one door, the four walls, and the, the light shinning through the window, the one picture on the wall of the room she couldn’t see now, but she knew it was there and of a sailor in a boat, escaping from a ship with her lover. It reminded her of the story by Jack London, ‘The Sea-Wolf.” The ship looked something like an 1872 Clipper, with three huge masks, and sails galore and enough rigging to tie the ship up into a ball of string. The young lady in the boat was being saved; this was the makings for a good dream night she thought. Or was she already dreaming. All in all, this just suited her fine, for she was feeling as if she was escaping, running way. It was a bold looking picture she told herself.
Tasma had read a lot of Jack London, Faulkner’s short stories on New Orleans, Hemingway’s travels in Africa, Fitzgerald’s Europe and The Jazz Age, along with poetry of: Sylvia Path and Dylan Tomas; as well as, the story: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and a variety of other readings. She remembered Jill did not take too much to reading, kind of a tomboy. But she was always fun.
She twisted about in the bed to find the right place to sink her head into the pillow—then hovering over it a minute, she twisted her toes back and forth, feeling the cool sheets and the warm quilt she had over her, then like a rocket, her head fell into that exact spot she had selected. Then suddenly the door opened (she took in a deep breathe (inhale) as if to say upon exhaling, ‘now what?’ but didn’t say it), and there was Tommy with an apple and two slices of bread on a plate. He said speculatively, as if written on paper, “Thought you might get hungry in the middle of the night,” he put the dish next to her on the night stand, and quickly left her room. She had barely poked her head out from under the covers, noticed him and then he was gone. If anything, the gesture told her she’d not have to worry about starving in the morning, that might help her sleep better, and when she woke-up, she’d find food, ‘How strange for him to think like that,’ she told her second-self.
She did not want to appear to him, or anyone as trivial or sensational, but rather adventurous. I suppose as a man would like to not to be seen as ‘Peter Pan,’ so she thought as she moved her head back into that little spot: I am learning how to be adventurous.
9
Tommy
The night went by slowly for Tasma, and again Tommy came to check on her [2:00 AM], just opening up the door a bit to see if she was doing well. She seemed so helpless, almost lost when he last seen her at the bar (the ‘Due-Trop-Inn’).
“Come in, if you wish,” said Tasma unexpectantly. I mean, she had never asked a person before to come in to her bedroom, it was strange for her to be so brave and trusting, if not down right stupid, so her mother would have said.
“Do you mind?” said Tommy— [a pause] then added, “…of course not, you said it was ok,” and so he did, stepping from the lit hall into the darkroom, with only the reflections of the arc-lights across the street and by the corner, shinning through the window slightly, and seemingly precautious. Unknowingly, or so it seemed, he sat on the edge of the bed, Tasma’s head peeking out from the covers you could only see her head and two hands as they held the covers, gripped, as if to hide should she need to.
“What do you do?” asked Tasma.
“Do, you mean, work and so forth?” she nodded her head ‘yes.’
He answered, “Well, I write poetry, some short stories and I’m finishing up my degree at the University in Psychology, and I’ll need to go on further to get my license for counseling; I’m also finishing up a poetic epic, I call it ‘The Age of Light,’ a poetic revelation of Hell. I will show it to you sometime. I also work at a hamburger joint, on call on the weekends, and at the bar as you already know, and the Belmont’s let me live here. I used to date Jill strictly platonic, and we still do of course date that is but not platonic; on the other hand we seem not to agree lately on a number of issues: in particular, on where we want to go with our relationship.”
Tasma looked surprised, “Oh—” she said with a follow-up, and pause, “that’s great.”
“Oh yes, don’t I look like a counselor?” He responded quietly as not to wake the household up.
“Not at all,” she answered.
“I’m going on twenty-one in November,” said Tommy, as if it was to inform her that he was older than he looked.
“Are you now,” said Tasma with somewhat of a surprised lack of interest to her tone of voice. Having said that, Tommy excused himself and left the room to rejoin Jill whom was fast asleep in her bedroom.
[Ukulele] As Tasma dosed off in slumber, she could hear the noise from the car tires outside her window, it sounded as if it had started to rain a little also, the wet on wet tires gave a winding sound to them. A few horns sounded, different tones, it was a busy street thought Tasma, unless the horns were coming from the main street up the block by the bar, that went north and south by the bar, instead of east and west, outside her window, it was hard to tell.
There was headlights reflecting by the curtains; and you could hear the old mantle clock in the living room downstairs as it would hit the half hour and then the hour with its ring (or dingdong) as loud as the car horns, and somewhere down the street you could hear drums and a ukulele being played, and people singing, it most likely was at the bar (they often left the door open and the sound would come running down the street).
See Dennis′ web site: dennissiluk.tripod.com dennissiluk.tripod.com