Seeing them with Music and Memories
She stood in the rain, crying. each tear was telling a story but she was too engrossed in her sorrow to hear a single story at all. the rain diluted the salt running down her face until all the stories were washed away, leaving only sorrow to comfort her.
she drove in the slow, heavy traffic near Alameda in the falling rain and wouldn’t have noticed the billboards even if she had been able to look up at them. just past the end of cell signals “Is Growing Nuts Wasting Water in the Grapevine?” this campaign — when did it start, with whose backing? where are the nut trees on the I-5?” she hadn’t noticed….
The return on his investment had paid uneven dividends, some years being more profitable than others. but when her performance became consistently unsatisfactory he had to cut her loose and take his losses. And withdraw every means of her solitary survival.
….that no other cars had their wipers on. eventually she pulled to the shoulder and waited for the deluge to subside. no other wipers were making time but hers but she wouldn’t have known, not even if she had been able to see through the downpour of her eyes.
she had always thought of him as a big fish in a small pond. but today as she sat pondering his career over her breakfast bar at the wheel of her car, it struck her that he was not a big fish anymore. just a small townie snake oil salesman: old, flabby, bald. married to some woman for whom he was a sixth husband.
small town sainthood and celebrity had defined him and maybe he still saw himself that way, although no one else in his small family believed that of him any longer, especially and most certainly not the woman who had stayed steadfastly behind him, no room to be beside him, had birthed and raised his children in solitary confinement.
for a man with no organizational skills, his breaking her was methodical, systematic and complete. i can’t live on $500 a month in Los Angeles she wrote, her pleading bleeding into her words. you cost me $10,000 a month, I can’t afford you any more. she read his email, uncomprehending, sitting paralyzed in a puddle of her own piss.
the cancer of remembering her childhood was eating away at her, every new memory hitting her like a wave at the beach, catching her freshly unaware, knocking her down as she drowned in the undertow, till she could no longer surface or breathe. she did not know then that what one man had done to her as a child had allowed this man to obliterate her to near extinction, although the two had been mortal enemies and competitors for her love when first they had met decades ago.
the sky was overcast in Oakland. the air moist, a welcome change from the heat she had left in LA. she sat in her car parked in a driveway, the arms of the tree above her spreading to give her shade and solace and bird droppings.
a drive marked at 5 hours and 15 minutes according to her browser map had taken her over 8 hours to complete as she listened to music, cried, pulled into the rest stops at Buttonwillow, Kettleman City, Los Banos, and cried some more. rested, recovered, and marveled that she had survived her life to have this new Life, sitting under the tree in her daughter’s driveway, beginning to write the story of her life.
Chapter 1
Apprehension has turned to anticipation, fear is now felt as excitement, anxiety is marching on as enthusiasm. Driving and singing with the Hindi music station on my radio, taking back the soundtrack of my life, from the the clutches of entanglement with a man who did not see me did not know me did not love me. I have turned the volume on max, ignoring the passersby…
dil kholey seena taaney ban besharam = With my heart open, with my chest proud, I am become shameless, shame free, unashamed!*
I had been gone to India for four months: four months in which to recover from his betrayal and abandonment to find succor in the embrace of my birth family. It was many decades later that I discovered what greater betrayal lay in the embrace of those who I had depended upon.
I lost almost 40 pounds, began my periods after a year of neglect during which they went missing in action, and returned to Southfield to win back a man who was not worth my while. Barry took me to his nephew’s bris, both our arms in slings for completely different reasons, turning up the volume on the radio in his convertible. The Doobie Brothers were dropping some knowledge. What a fool believes. And that’s you, he said softly, you’re the fool who believes he sees, and you’re the wise man who can’t reason it away. because I had told him that i had come back from India to win my husband back.**
at Tracy i hear What a Fool Believes and with my head spinning i have to pull over to the shoulder of the freeway to give thanks for my recovery, for my survival, for my healing. for having failed in winning my husband back thirty years before. for being alive despite the efforts of those who had tried to kill my spirit and who threatened to declare me incompetent to keep their own ugly secrets hidden.
Next up, from the movie it’s That thing You Do, the title song from the soundtrack…sitting in the darkened theater watching Jonathan Schaech, the twinsie of my long lost crush Ashok, crying because Guy asked Faye “When was the last time you were truly truly kissed. I mean good and kissed.” And my own answer, sitting alone in the dark theater had been under my breath NEVER! Not Ever! visions of Jonathan Schaech dance through my head and sweet bitter memories of sitting in the attorney’s conference room saying softly, oh so softly, but of course they all heard…I’ve wasted thousands and thousands of kisses on you. Shame on me for kissing you with my eyes closed…How could someone with a memory so shot full of holes like mine find exactly the right words to say from a 15-year old movie in her attorney’s office, to a man who could not hear them?
Skitch, How did we get here? I led you here, sir, for I Am Spartacus!***
I AM SPARTACUS! Here under the spreading elm of my daughter’s driveway, and I have led myself here. Driving through the tears in the rain, singing.
*Besharam…don’t be fooled by the gold jumpsuit. Such meaningful lyrics!
**What a Fool Believes. Doobie Brothers 1979.
***That Thing You Do. Actual dialogs from film 1996. Repeated in 2011
©JkMansi Juhi Kalra 2018. All rights reserved.
Thanks to DiAmaya Dawn and A Maguire at Lit Up
