WASH ME ON HOME, MAMA - Pete Najarian

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convent of her dreams. Her life: for ever longing. Like the deer, symbol of longevity, long-lasting and yet never filled, always moving, looking for home. She heard her self in music, the deep reed and light step of strings, seeking to fill the space beyond like undulating curls of incense in the home coming light through the woven curtain. Music, or painting and the time inside a canvas, forever pulsing, lambent upon the areas of darkness, time as seen by light or was it light itself that mysteriously moved in measure, was time light and light time in the faces and landscapes of her private museum? Play its theme upon the loom and do not think, but shuttle and pedal as if playing keys, fingering the bright wool in counterpoint to breath and memory. There are no answers, only needs: to be, to fill, make hole, consummate. But not to talk about, her own private wilderness, entering it like Sacajawea leading two men up river, father and brother into the green mystery of her secret treasures, the deep seclusion of fern and moss, soft rain from the compassionate sky, earth fed by paternal clouds, grey to form green, father on top of mother, fecund love. From inside the window she watched the light through the avocado tree accompanied by the forest lullaby of far eastern music, the morning of the world. Oh her world is rich here inside her womb, her loom room overflowing with colors like stained glass. Come and see, come play with her and and she may open if you are gentle the door to her … home, what happened to it? Is it this now, with delicate china and cockroaches and a courtyard of marigolds and garbage? How could she make it glimmer and reflect the dreams of her yearning? Home, yes, but oh could it not be more of a temple than a fort?

      For Sam however, all that mattered was that his wife Marian love him. “Please love me,” he wanted to say. Instead he said, “Okay, we’ll move in and have separate rooms.” It was either this or separate apartments. But after so many years he couldn’t let go of her, nor could she tear herself away from him. It took several months before she finally moved into her own room.

       MARIAN AND SAM

      Rearranging her life, she put her bed in one corner, desk in the other, rocking chair by the desk, bureau by the bed, books next to the bureau, plants next to the books, Durer’s Rabbit over the bed, and all the knick-knacks neatly in place, the fine oriental cloissone case of Zuni jewelry, the Dundee Marmalade jar of freeze-dried wildflowers, two tiny ivory elephants, a wicker box of sewing stuff, her special saw and hammer she did not want in the tool shed because it was always getting lost, her work-boots and sandals, dresses and overalls, all in proper order, all the elegant and precious, funky and second- hand talismans and mementos gathered and gleaned from friends, flea-markets, forests, and the sea, an agate here, a handblown vase there, an ancient tin Murad Cigarette box full of old postcards, a pewter cup of bleached bones from Baja, all the remnants of her history that each year she kept shed ding and growing, every scar and spoil, studied and adored with her own desperate yearning for something permanent and real, and then recycled by garagesale and potlatch, her life as an antique shop, everything now dusted and straightened and fitted and smoothed and folded and tacked and readied in a new room, a new space. She hung the woven curtains, nailed the tapestry next to the window, lit a stick of frankincense, and stood in the doorway picking her nose: HER SPACE.

      He would enter tip-toed. He would speak softly in this sanctuary of her tears and solitude. He would respect her pride and be gentle and considerate to her hatred and understand her anger and let her cut his balls off. Because he was afraid of that room. Because he liked it, he thought it was beautiful.

      She came out of the shower naked, springing on her arches, with an imaginary string holding her head high and her back straight, her hair in a snood, droplets beading her body, beautiful body, lovely breasts, soft shiny hair on her cunt, Apollonian next to his kinkiness. He wanted to fuck her from behind as he studied her buttocks. He would ask her to crouch on her bed and let him hold her breasts and raise her cheeks to his cock and he would come up from underneath. Instead he said:

      — Hey!

      — What?

      — Is there any hot water left?

      — Sure, there’s plenty.

      Her soft purple and red panties dangle on the doorknob. He put his nose in the crotch of the smooth nylon. Ah, sex! He stepped into the shower with a hard-on, his golden key that would open the door to her paradise. She didn’t want it anymore, and he watched it shrink back into all the rejections of his life. Water would soothe them away. He stared at all the different plastic bottles on the shelf of the communal bathroom. Herbal shampoo, Dr. Bonner’s 100% natural cocoanut-olive-peppermint oils, Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Ivory Soap, glycerin soap, oatmeal soap, lavender, strawberry, and avocado to wash away all the shame of every time he knocked on a door to ask: Please let me fuck you. He lathered his balls, asshole, and armpits, and from deep in his longing for every woman he ever wanted to enter he yelled Che ha detto ii Medico from LA Boheme: Mimi! Oh, Mimi!

      Meanwhile Buster. Buster always meanwhile, the in-between friend who hides behind the wrinkles of his phony smile. He moved in too because why not? The rent is cheap, and in one of the garages he can build a workspace and make believe he’s an artist. Here with the others he won’t have to be alone anymore. And yet he’s always alone, trying to hide from the angel of death on his shoulder.

       BUSTER

      Three duck eggs scrambled gently with a little dill, a baguette of sour dough and a heavy cup of strong French Roast as he looked over the garden and enjoyed himself. Indian summer a dominion of weeds, the tall broccoli sprouting yellow flowers. The first cigarette of the day rumbled his belly toward the pleasure of the john. He shat a big rich brown heap of yesterday’s life, yawned a great bone-cracking cosmic sigh, and stared in the luminous mirror:

      — Hello, Meatball!

      Flesh the Great Beatie would one day roll into a ball of dung. And now what should he do with his life? Be could enjoy himself, or he could get a job. The Venerable Bum, a big mound of hair on top of bulk. You want to hug him as if he were a friendly bear, gentle strength swaying softly barefoot across the garden to his garage next to the duck yard and the chicken house. He poured himself a second cup of coffee from the old gray porcelain percolator on the pot-belly stove and then settled into the raw clean-smelling ply wood desk and the pleasure of freshly sharpened pencils. And once again mesmeric doodles flowed from his nimble fingers, the enormous talent and prodigious indolence like twenty pounds of dictionary flowing patiently with the soft refrain: it will all work out, it will all work out, it will all work out. And all the tears behind the twinkling eyes were held inside by little pleasures that locked his heart.

      Later on he decided to do a little work. Tacked to the old gray wood of the tool shed smiled a print of a Chinese scroll, two Sung monkeys playing in the branches of a juniper tree. Buster grabbed the shovel, the pick, and the machete, and went to the duck yard. Clearing the blackberry bush for the ducks he loved he thought of settlers in wildnerness. With his arms bleeding in the sun he thought of Berkeley as a wilderness, the heart of the Beast. And thinking of Guevara he transformed his work into an adventure. Sucking delicious blood and sweat from where the thorns had cut his arms, he whacked at the bramble and with each whack of the machete he imagined a jungle: whack for Guevara, whack for satchidananda, whack for everybody, and whack for the ducks.

      Enough bush in the back for plenty of berries, and clearing this one in the center would leave space for a pond, the big pool of duck happiness. But the bramble was tight, woven with generations, and no end or beginning to untie the knot, no way to clear it except by slicing, slicing vine by vine like a pioneer in a forest. The butter flies applauded with a ballet over the fence. Finally he had it all down and rolled it tumble by tumble to the truck. Now with the pick he ripped into the white pulpy roots that gripped tight to the soil, generations fat from their undisturbed sucking. He smashed and killed them, his hands burning, biceps swelling. He sighed:

      — Ah, it feels good.

      The two mallards, the muscovy, and the six white Pekings stared at him not with curiosity but fear, their steady unblinking eyes wide like lunatics tortured with paranoia.

      —It’s for you guys, you quack-quacks.

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