HOLD ON TIGHT

HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. ~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot Monday, January 12, 2009 94 dean drive, tenafly these two weeks, his dad has been slowly moving out of tenafly, putting 20 years of life and marriage and fatherhood away in boxes, closing the deal and trying to work out the divorce. it's like inducing a sure, but steady atrophy of one's life. i remember the night the boys finally got to meet up--chris, the marine, had flown in from florida; gershon was home from penn state; terry and yim drove in from the city to tenafly; the two justins were back in tenafly for christmas. at triple a, the godawful korean bar, everyone was making both of us drink shots and margaritas, and beers, and shots, and justin got completely and stupidly drunk, passed out on the couch while the boys planted post-its all over his butt and face. i had a little some to drink, but i usually i don't go crazy, so i was printing out flight schedules for the singapore trip, sitting in another room listening to his dad talk about the divorce. let's go, he said. now? i said, yes, now. so me and his dad, we drove me to cvs to get my mom earplugs at 2 in the morning, even though his dad had to wake up at 5 to send us to the airport and later go to work. driving half-drunk through tenafly at 2am with my boyfriend's father, listening while stanley talks about the places where he'd wait for his wife, the bookstores he went to, what justin was like as a kid. "what was justin like as a kid?" i ask. "smart, full of questions, but--" "always distracted," i complete the sentence for him. "i don't understand why he is so distracted sometimes," i say. "he's like that," stanley says. when justin and i got back from singapore, stanley was still moving stuff around the house. "i have a secret," he said to me the morning after we arrive, "i'll show you in the basement." so i followed, and watched him open a plastic bag next to the laundry. it was full of milk bottles, there must have been 20 of them. "you can't throw this stuff," he says, "it's our secret," he said. a bit like the time he spooned bonito flakes into his potato dish although justin doesn't like it that way. "our secret," he also had said then. the weekend we got back from singapore, when the house had been turned inside out like an old rag. his dad asked me to ask the son to pack, because he'd given up asking. justin poked around his room, kept some dinosaur things and pogs. "this is too much," he said, "i wasn't prepared to do this." after tofu soup at the corner korean restaurant in fort lee, his dad drove us to penn station. he thought justin would be taking the amtrak back to baltimore, but justin wound up staying an extra night in brooklyn with me. that was the night we both fell asleep in the car while his dad drove, talking about i-ching philosophy. "what was i saying," he said, "something about i-ching," justin mumbled. "no that wasn't what i was talking about," he said, and then the car became silent. tonight he called me, hysterical and incoherent, about justin's stuff, about how michelle was calling in all these chinatown movers to systematically throw everything into garbage bags, about how we had to move my car soon from the garage, and then he said could he hang up please because michelle was calling. at little india in singapore, i picked out bundle of gold and blue bangles for her as a gift from justin. when i got off the phone, i called justin, and blabbered out the whole secret of the milkbottles. and then i told justin to get gerschon to collect all of justin's stuff and put it in his house for safekeeping. i told him to get well soon, and study for the exam, that we'd be in the house on wednesday to take the stuff for the both of them. "i love you," he said, "i'm taking the panadol you gave me." "i love you," i said, "be nice to your dad." on monday, all of florence's gifts and things--books, a ship made of paper, "that woman who gave it to her, she smoked all the time and was the one who asked her to divorce me" he told me--were left in the garage for her to come to collect. on wednesday, all of justin's things will be in gershon's house. on thursday the house will be emptied, incapable of any more tears, ready once more for other lives. posted by dawn # 8:36 PM Comments: Post a Comment << Home		[publishing] Publishers Weekly . Dystel & Goderich . New York Center for Independent Publishing . Association of American University Presses . Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators [people] clarisse . nurul . aunty zarina (ummi's bakery) . jeremy . pak . cyril . softblow . karen & kenny (booksactually) . eric . joel . [other loves] digitaljournalist . ballet dictionary . poetshouse . urbanwordnyc [me] dawn, singapore, new york city, ithaca. 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HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot

Monday, January 12, 2009

94 dean drive, tenafly

these two weeks, his dad has been slowly moving out of tenafly, putting 20 years of life and marriage and fatherhood away in boxes, closing the deal and trying to work out the divorce. it's like inducing a sure, but steady atrophy of one's life. i remember the night the boys finally got to meet up--chris, the marine, had flown in from florida; gershon was home from penn state; terry and yim drove in from the city to tenafly; the two justins were back in tenafly for christmas. at triple a, the godawful korean bar, everyone was making both of us drink shots and margaritas, and beers, and shots, and justin got completely and stupidly drunk, passed out on the couch while the boys planted post-its all over his butt and face. i had a little some to drink, but i usually i don't go crazy, so i was printing out flight schedules for the singapore trip, sitting in another room listening to his dad talk about the divorce. let's go, he said. now? i said, yes, now. so me and his dad, we drove me to cvs to get my mom earplugs at 2 in the morning, even though his dad had to wake up at 5 to send us to the airport and later go to work.

driving half-drunk through tenafly at 2am with my boyfriend's father, listening while stanley talks about the places where he'd wait for his wife, the bookstores he went to, what justin was like as a kid. "what was justin like as a kid?" i ask. "smart, full of questions, but--" "always distracted," i complete the sentence for him. "i don't understand why he is so distracted sometimes," i say. "he's like that," stanley says.

when justin and i got back from singapore, stanley was still moving stuff around the house. "i have a secret," he said to me the morning after we arrive, "i'll show you in the basement." so i followed, and watched him open a plastic bag next to the laundry. it was full of milk bottles, there must have been 20 of them. "you can't throw this stuff," he says, "it's our secret," he said. a bit like the time he spooned bonito flakes into his potato dish although justin doesn't like it that way. "our secret," he also had said then.

the weekend we got back from singapore, when the house had been turned inside out like an old rag. his dad asked me to ask the son to pack, because he'd given up asking. justin poked around his room, kept some dinosaur things and pogs. "this is too much," he said, "i wasn't prepared to do this." after tofu soup at the corner korean restaurant in fort lee, his dad drove us to penn station. he thought justin would be taking the amtrak back to baltimore, but justin wound up staying an extra night in brooklyn with me. that was the night we both fell asleep in the car while his dad drove, talking about i-ching philosophy. "what was i saying," he said, "something about i-ching," justin mumbled. "no that wasn't what i was talking about," he said, and then the car became silent.

tonight he called me, hysterical and incoherent, about justin's stuff, about how michelle was calling in all these chinatown movers to systematically throw everything into garbage bags, about how we had to move my car soon from the garage, and then he said could he hang up please because michelle was calling. at little india in singapore, i picked out bundle of gold and blue bangles for her as a gift from justin. when i got off the phone, i called justin, and blabbered out the whole secret of the milkbottles. and then i told justin to get gerschon to collect all of justin's stuff and put it in his house for safekeeping. i told him to get well soon, and study for the exam, that we'd be in the house on wednesday to take the stuff for the both of them. "i love you," he said, "i'm taking the panadol you gave me." "i love you," i said, "be nice to your dad."

on monday, all of florence's gifts and things--books, a ship made of paper, "that woman who gave it to her, she smoked all the time and was the one who asked her to divorce me" he told me--were left in the garage for her to come to collect. on wednesday, all of justin's things will be in gershon's house. on thursday the house will be emptied, incapable of any more tears, ready once more for other lives.

posted by dawn # 8:36 PM

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