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In NYC I go to a restaurant called Seven at eight.

When I arrive the duplicitous tycoon admits he’s invited others, a movie producer and someone who will ‘pop in’ by the name of Nicky Haslam. Everyone in England knows of Nicky Haslam, and since I was raised in the UK I know of him, except we’ve never met and I presumed he’d be tricky. Wrong again, he’s fabulous!

‘Caitlyn,’ the producer pointed with his chin.

Tycoon and I pivoted smoothly but when faced with a sequoia in a dress and kitten heels neither of us could agree with the movie producer.

‘No!’ we laughed.

‘I’m right,’ producer said.

I needed to know.

Not one for debate and better in action I slung together a plan and executed without hesitation.

Jenner and date were leaving the restaurant which meant a delay in a vestibule where a coat lady exchanges garbs for bills. In the vestibule the date was now at the door to the street with Jenner directly behind him. I exploded into the vestibule. It is now exactly the four of us. For no reason Jenner and date do not proceed out to the door. As if they are waiting?

‘Excuse me!’ I say, loudly, buying time since I never recognize anyone and I just couldn’t be certain.

Jenner Zens-out in profile, her face stoic and though she does not look at me, equally she does not flee, she is perhaps preparing herself, for interaction. She is dramatically tall, her decathlon legs are miles long and thin as an anorexic. Her hair is fabulous.

‘Are you…. ?” I said, dragging out my words, as Jenner ignores me meanwhile dawdling, waiting?

‘Maria?’ I spoke directly into the face of the coat lady. Jenner and date leave immediately and slam door. ‘Maria’ confirms the sighting was indeed Ms Jenner.

Instant later:

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ said Mr Haslam when he ‘popped in’.

‘I’m sorry you’re late,’ I said, ‘You missed Caitlyn by two seconds!’

www.johnmartini.com

Amongst many feats the Yellow Mockingbird can somersault as well as sing in a discordant way. He is the clown of birds. He is the largest of the warblers and easily mistaken for something else until you listen to him or watch him show off his tricks.

When I was in Panama going to the beach required traipsing a sandy path and cutting through someone’s property which included bulls and cows who were a little disconcerting but largely uninterested in me. And then a clearing through the palm trees opened to an expanse of beach and surf and endless blues and gulls and seashells and peace. Not a human in any direction.

Along the path and in the pasture with the cows grows a massive tree, tall and dark with wide spread arms, I have no idea its identity. On every branch sits at least one Yellow Mockingbird, all of them in shades of yellows and orange, and spinning around doing somersaults. I stopped and stared and watched and marveled. I gaped and I wished somehow I could transport what I was seeing. I knew no one would believe me. This was before the days when your telephone could leave the house with you, oh and shoot a few frames of film.

When I asked the locals the name of the bird they said, ‘Naranga’, which means ‘orange’: a great example of the simplification of language saying nothing, just noise in place of information.

Today, in two clicks I locate the name of the bird in question & can add a link for proof!

http://bit.ly/2rLF422

So glad am I the days are over of being forever told ‘You’re crazy!’

Enough to make anyone turn orange and perform somersaults on the limb of a branch.

www.leighvogel.com©️

Something needed finishing. A loophole needed closing. It was eons in the making already. Long overdue.

Sure there’s a master plan, a matrix with all the details sorted tidily, but just as surely there are variables, there are rips in the fabric, tears made from tears.

Human suffering paid forward forcing undue pressure on the now. So it bursts, it busts, combusts. Act of God? Even for unbelievers?

The conveyor belt of souls trundles forth, pistons fire, smoke blasts, the bells ring. Except now and again there’s a pile up, there’s a strip torn from reality and other dimensions tangle together.

Two people meet. They know far too much for the little time they’ve shared. They feel drowned in good fortune. Even if only for an instant. A desert plant who sucks up rarely sprinkled life-giving raindrops.

For all their good fortune there were irrational obstacles. This made no sense to these sentient beings, they were befuddled. You have to forgive humans, they are so naïve, so easily confounded. One question and the tremulous train tumbles off its track. Needlessly.

Answer or no answer the conveyor belt trucks along. Wait if you will, worry that sore until it’s raw. It won’t make any difference to the master plan. All moving parts moving along, irrevocably.

Even if you can, in one dimension create a bottleneck, through sheer will and through time, space and then place you can rumble things. Temporarily. Don’t take the credit. You’re not the boss of you, that’s a delusion, a sales gimmick.

Two people engage, seemingly without a single logical angle. Yet a heat moves them, uses them, drives the show. There was business needed fixing, the troubles of others, or themselves, from some other plight.

Every word they spoke were feelings conveyed, in codes unknown. These two vessels got used! It had to be done. Fate thanks them for their understanding. Balm is in the cabinet, look in the mirror and meet your cool self. You’re free.

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Yes, he saw her when he entered the bar but at thirty-nine he was stealth. He was with his crew. Mates from childhood. All American as they say. He wanted her, instantly.

She was there for business and sat alone on a bench near the window, listening to the band and considering if she even liked their music. For one thing the front man had a creepy vibe. To her sensibilities the music was undanceable but it had something and she thought she might interview them for the local rag.

Another man dies, out of turn. How many times did he invite me to join him at the bar so he could tell me stories. And I always said I would and of course I never went. There was a pathos to him, like an immutable sadness, and it was too febrile for me.

I justified this because I was sure I could guess the stories. I knew they would involve a lot of drinking and illegal mayhem mixed in with fairytale moments of sighting an albino porpoise or saving a sea turtle’s life.

Somewhere on the downslope of 50 he was rugged and his stringy hair ran in tails from under a faded ball cap and around his sun-cracked face. He was corpulent, from alcohol. That’s what they call the ‘Keys Disease’. One foot in the gin-gutter until you wobble over, and it’s over.

It was not always so. There was a youthful time in the hinterlands filled with hope. A time when goals seemed easy by mere dint of them not having yet occurred. He fronted a band, there were girls and it was the start of something; the spoils ahead in the mists of optimism.

Until the band broke up. There wasn’t much money but as it evaporated so too did the girls. With his guitar and a bag of guns he drove to the coast. Mostly working as a diving instructor he supplemented with a job at the Monroe County library for whom he restocked the five libraries from here to Key Largo. He loved to read. And he loved guns.

He insisted he wanted to write a book and he asked me to help. I said I would. He spoke like a writer so I knew he’d be good. Just a matter of motivation, I prodded him, pick up that pen I’d say. Instead we went to the gun range. The Glock was the smoothest.

Condolences and peace to friends of Biggy Rat. Your pain begins; his ends.

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‘Because you’re older than me you think I know nothing?’
‘Probably.’
‘You ever see a movie called To Kill A Mockingbird?’
‘It was a book. Did you know that?’
‘No. I saw the movie. Cary Grant right?’
‘Sure.’

Wasn’t that long ago she was feted for her looks. Men fawned. She knew what she had. Especially now it was gone. Reflecting on a life well lived she chastised herself. She could have done better.

Her demeanor was comfortably square with the rigid bun, nary a strand loose, roomy slacks covering long slim legs while revealing nothing. The top something floaty in a block of color; demure, elegant, feminine.

Until you see the inside of her house and then you learn who she is. An artist with no outlet, a lady with no love. She was a drinker and a painter and though she claimed she was not interested in selling her work she was probably lacking confidence. Her house was perfectly aplomb with demonstrations of her taste for lace on windows, hand painted finials and curious objects placed on every surface; rabbit holes down which to wander in fascination.

When the young man moved in next door she judged him, in a word, poor. She gave him chores, for money, and accepted his arm to escort her to parties. Faux attention is better than no attention.

She was highly controlled, even her smiles were tight. Her exterior severe except for the scoliotic hump near her neck, the rounded shoulder revealed pale skin and the onset of age she could no longer conceal.

A sunny morning and a turn of events.The news delivered to him by an aunt. His grandmother had died and left him a chunk of dough and property. Dawdling on the sidewalk, tears barely under control he blurted this update to the lady with the bun as she pruned her petunias. Dropping the clippers she confronted him.

‘How much did you get?’

Thoughts rushed him as words abandoned him.

‘Money is everything,’ she continued, smiling, prettily as she could.

He walked away.

image: www.leighvogel.com©️

In the words of David Wolkowsky:

Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams often fell out. One time they weren’t getting along Truman was writing stories for Esquire. These stories would become Answered Prayers, the indiscretions that would bar him from most of polite society. One of the stories was about a doctor at the Plaza Hotel and he had a hustler walking his dog, Tommy, meanwhile the hotel room was full of dog debris. The underlying implication being that this was Tennessee Williams. The truth, simply, was they weren’t friendly at the time.