by David Araki
He usually woke up from a fifteen minute power nap just north of Ossining as the train blasted past the big overflow pond on the inland side of the tracks. In February it had been a white frozen mass, but now in the late fall it was a big open wetlands, cattails swaying lightly in a breeze that wrinkled over the surface of the water. Snowy egrets and herons hunted, their snake necks poised for the kill as they patiently stalked through the swamp. Loons popped up from their dives, looking self satisfied regardless of whether they held a hapless fish in their beaks or not.
When Steve first looked at it, he wondered if it was skate-able, was it thick enough ice to walk across? He wondered about the turtles and bullfrogs that lay slumbering deep in the cold mud dreaming what crocodile dreams in their crude brute brains. He thought of the fishes swimming around under the ice, their world something totally alien to his warm blooded mind. Was the water cold to them who are cold blooded by nature?
Then the season changed, the trees still barren at first, the first green a longer time coming that year. Surprisingly, the parasitic ivy was dormant even with all their sun hungry greed. How could we understand that fungus-nurtured relationship, we who secretly looked on each other as competition, even for a little sunshine. The food chain, the birds, the trees, quickening to summer pace, skipping past the Spring days missed from the overlong Winter. Then, all too quickly, the afternoon sun gets lower, blasting through the riverside windows. And soon enough the five o’clock train will travel through a greying dusk, arriving in the city finally, in night.
Uncle Bennie was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In no uncertain terms they said, nine months was it. Not enough time to do anything, too long a time to live out the days in a bucket list panic.
“I don’t want to spend all the money your Aunt Sally will need,” he announced one day.
Nine months. Enough time to make a baby. Enough time to learn a whole grade of grammar school. Enough time to get a tooth implant with bone grafting. Enough time to grow a pineapple plant. Pineapples, the symbol of welcome! Enough time to die.
“What kind of word is that?” Bennie said, pointing at the side of the truck. “Plahundr? Is that a name or something?”
Steve glanced over at the passed truck, he’d missed it, “I don’t know, playhunder?”
“Or plow under?” Laughed Bennie. “What language doesn’t use an E in the right place? Don’t the Japanese have a letter than sounds like hnn.” He grunted.
Steve smiled, Uncle Bennie was feeling good. When he kept up his sense of humor it was better for everyone, especially Aunt Sally, who was not holding up very well under the strain of her husband’s illness. How could she, he thought, It’s not like there’s any hope. Only a time table, and one as long enough as it was far too short.
“On his death bed,” Bennie said to Steve, “Richard Feynmann said, I’d hate to have to die again, it’s sooooo boring.”
Aunt Sally hadn’t laughed with the men, having already heard the joke told many times before.
“That’s too long to do anything except spend all the money your Aunt Sally will have, can’t very well do that, can I?”
“Not even one final vacation?” Steve asked.
Aunt Sally frowned in the background. “You go on and have your jokes. It’s me who’s gonna have to clean up the mess in the end, bury you, you old fool. I’ll have to go through your stuff. Find yer old secrets. I’m not looking forwards to that.”
“Heyyyy, it’ll be me who’s dead!” Bennie retorted, pulling her in for a hug on his lap, one reluctantly received. “At least you won’t have to pick up after me for much longer,” he said cheerfully, looking up into her face.
“ .” Aunt Sally muttered.
Steve smiled, the pang of hurt pushing at the top of his throat.
Deep summer, sitting on the banks of the Hudson in Poughkeepsie, not fishing because Uncle Bennie wants nothing to do with harming other creatures, instead he’s making paper boats, an armada, writing on each one a name, making a grand to-do about each launching, christening the little folded paper floats. The UB (Uncle Bennie). Cynthia Newman, “My first girlfriend.,” he said.
“Oh yeahhh,” says Steve, laid out, his eyes closed behind dark sunglasses, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. “How old were you?”
“Seven.”
“And you remember her name?”
“Sureeee,” Bennie drawled, “and the first kiss and I think only one. Holding hands. Terrible break up. Montague and Capulet style, parents forbade us to see each other.”
The UB Margo Sanchez. Bennie launched another paper boat.
“Miss Sanchez was my third grade school teacher. Loved that woman. A real lady. Classy.” He laughed. “She taught me my manners.”
“Your impeccable manners. And you taught me mine,” Steve said, smiling, “so by association, I loooove that woman too.”
They both laughed, and the boat floated out into the river.
“Does it still bother you much?” Steve asked watching his uncle folding the next boat.
“Still?” Bennie said, not looking up.
“I mean, uh, I don’t know. How ya doing?” Steve said. Sniffing, he tossed a stone out into the water. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” said Bennie softly. He stopped folding the paper boat, and looked over at his nephew. After a moment he took pity on the silent young man and said, “I know, I know. I joke around, but it’s been hard. It’s not like I’m going to just wake up and it’ll all be a dumb existential dream I had.” A mischief coming into his voice, he said, “Or one that your Aunt Sally is having…”
Steve laughed, and looked at his uncle. Familiar again. Uncle Bennie who taught him how to fish. Uncle Bennie who showed him how to tie knots, and to sail a sunfish. Uncle Bennie, who when Steve’s parents got divorced and his father had fled to Europe, had taught him how to shave, how to cook fried eggs, how to play stud poker, and on a day of fitful anxiety, how to drink cheap beer. And how to make a barf bag out of a paper shopping bag and a kitchen trash can liner.
“I just still can’t believe it.” Steve said quietly, and knowing that this was no good.
“Kid, you don’t need to believe it.” Bennie sighed, “Life doesn’t actually care if you believe it. Or not.”
They sat a while longer in silence, then Bennie scribbled out a new boat name. “Rick Gardner best friend in college. Your Aunt Sally’s boyfriend before I stole her away from him. Don’t tell your aunt I said his name aloud. Verboten.”
The long summer days, making peach ice cream in a soccerball ice cream maker. Each Saturday whisking by in lazy activity, household chores, cleaning up his mess so Aunt Sally wouldn’t have to. For every big item tossed, they’d find the fair market price on the internet, and place the number on a lined sheet of paper, working the sum on the side.
“I need to get credit for some kind of good up there.” Bennie said, “I may need proof, ya know?”
“Up there?” Steve replied.
Every week, back in the city, Steve lived his life– friends, dates, work. Just booked up Saturdays, don’t even ask. In early on Friday night to get up early on Saturday. Grab a dozen bagels at Zaros, a couple pints of cream cheese, plain and scallion. Catch the 645 express off peak, first stop- Tappanzee. Then sit with a vente coffee, looking out the window thinking about nothing as the eternal Hudson sits motionless outside. Pulling back into Grand Central, fourteen hours later, mind racing with thoughts, memories, ideas fresh with a bit of Uncle Bennie.
Then slowly life takes over again. And again.
Snow was falling gently, like an old Hollywood movie, like Zhivago. Uncle Bennie liked old Omar, thought Steve. They’d seen a lot of movies together, the Pooooo-Kipsy revival house was a favorite outing, with their 10-Pack movie ticket deal if you went at noon on a weekend day. When Steve was nine, they’d seen Zhivago, then later that summer, Lawrence of Arabia, and some time some year, A Day at the Races. Steve cried at the one, sat mesmorized at the other, and laughed until he fell off his seat with the last. He loved those movies best among the hundred or so that they’d seen.
Quiet snow, falling now over the fresh pile of dirt, people moving away to their cars. He couldn’t even hear their footsteps.
Steve said aloud, softly, “What a pretty place to stay.”
The pond was covered again in ice and snow. Steve pulled out the envelope Aunt Sally had slipped into his pocket at the station. Inside was another envelope simply addressed in familiar handwriting, Kid. Steve looked out the train window. A boy was walking on the ice, sliding a little every few steps. A black furred dog ranged ahead of him, turning and barking, then bouncing onward. Steve tried to guess how much the kid weighed, and prayed silently to the gods that the ice would hold. He tore open the envelope and out dropped a paper boat. Steve.
theKnob 