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m.s. Noordam

The night sky at sea is so inky black the mind refuses, turning darkness into points of gold and green and red light where even the stars are silent.

I spend some time on deck alone each night. Sailing on a cruise ship -if you can stand to call it sailing without a single rig on the quarter-mile long boat -is quiet, the low hum of engines and the hiss of slicing waves the only constant. We were fortunate enough to sail under a full moon. The moonlight beckons across the water, a silent, deadly seduction while Sammy the piano man plinks away belowdecks in the bar, a man determinedly, cheerfully playing the same twenty tunes every American citizen knows by heart -The Pianoman, Hey Jude, Leavin on a Jet Plane, etc etc. On the upper decks, spotty-faced teenagers compare their designer clothes and poised apathy, while below their parents stare with glazed, neon eyes at the screens of five cent slot machines. Smiling Filipino men stand watch behind every one of the eight on-board bars; they teach us dirty words in Tagalog and top off our drinks late at night.

Every night they splash fresh water on the decks, enough for a Tanzanian village to drink and bathe for a year, but they miss the tabletops, and leave patches of encrusted sea spray salt on the deck tables. I would lick the tables, taste the salt burning my tongue, only it's not polite, and who knows what's been on these tables? If I did though, feeling the crusted salt dissolve on my tongue, tangy brine and krill scented, I would be swallowing the sea. I would be bringing it into me, and maybe feel the sudden urge to dive overboard. Maybe I already have that urge.

The tang of saltwater in your throat is strikingly similar to semen, and I have to wonder whether the sea truly is female as they say (tricky, a seducer and betrayer, changeable and monthly...). I wonder whether I might swallow enough brine to impregnate myself as in the old folktales, suddenly, unexplainably birthing a squirming fish child in a wave of saltwater. A meeting of sea and human -obviously thought of before, but what would it look like in today's cynical, metatheatrical world? Perhaps the moon's light would compete with florescent glare in the child's eyes, seaweed tangled in the child's perfectly gelled and blowdried hair. Perhaps the child would look perfectly normal, but smell always of salt, fish, brimming with emptiness. Perhaps he or she would just give off an aura, and remind one of a lonely cruise ship with nineteen hundred guests, silently slicing the seas night after night while Sammy the piano man crooned over his keyboard.

Ritual

When I was small and biddable, I would wake up before my mother, and scamper downstairs to the kitchen to plug in her ancient percolator coffeepot. The night before, my mother would have filled the tall, battered aluminum pot with water, and I would have tried to aim the long center arm into its hole, and balance the metal coffee basket on it, carefully filling the basket with grounds but usually spilling a few into the water. Our coffeepot was from another time, ready to go without pressing any buttons or flipping any switches. Its simple, thin-prong plug was flimsy even to my small hand. In the morning, I would plug it into the wall of our military whitewashed kitchen, and wait for the early morning's long shadows to fill with quiet light. After the coffee began to burble up into the glass knob top and the pale air to fill with its sharp, sweet tang, I would balance my mother's favorite coffee mug, a small cup with skim milk, a napkin and spoon on an old Coca-Cola ad tray. The tray showed an elegant woman with a wasp's waist and a pompadour enjoying a glass bottle of Cola, and the mug read "i luv u mommy" painted as if by a childish hand, purchased in one of the million Japanese tchochski shops. The mug was the first present I ever paid for.

After the coffee finished brewing, I would carefully pour it into my mother's coffeepot. I would carry it up to my her and crawl into bed, and she would tell me what a wonderful child I was, drink her coffee, and cuddle with me. It was our ritual, and coffee has always smelled like home to me.

I hated coffee, though, despised the taste of it until coming to college. Then I began to hang out at the coffeeshop, and noticed just how much money I was spending on triple-cream heavy-whip, choco-coconut extra unhealthy frappes and frozen chais. Also, I felt like a poser. Slowly, deliberately, I weaned myself off the ridiculous dessert drinks and drank mochas, then vanilla lattes. Two months later, I was down to coffee with cream and sugar, less and less each time, until one day, I just wanted a coffee. Plain coffee. Black. In a mug, of course, the true sign of a regular.

Finally I could taste the difference between good and mediocre coffee, understand the love affair America has with its coffee. The drink of the revolution, coffeehouses were signs of rebellion. Fuck you and your snobby British tea! we cried. No pansy drinks for Americans, with itty bitty sandwiches and pinkies flagging the air. We'll drink it in a MUG, thank you very much! Big, hearty, solid, just like us.

I borrowed a one-cup coffee maker when I moved to DC for a semester, and hopped from foot to foot while it brewed, waiting to grab it and dash to the subway, usually late. It was there, self-destructively sleeping five hours a night, that I developed a caffeine addiction. I threw back a cup every morning, then another once I got to work (horrid, bitter, corporate stuff), or I went through the morning glazed and irritable.

Back in Williamsburg, I found myself in a relationship with another coffee drinker. He wasn't the addict I was, but he spent most nights at my place, and enjoyed his cup in the morning, so I bought a cute little Mr. Coffee, exactly enough for one good mug each. He drank his coffee black, I took a little milk. I still do, most of the time. The first time I served him coffee, proudly bearing my fresh ground brew out to the livingroom, he sipped carefully, and grinned at me. "Ah, you've passed the final test," he said, winking. "You make a great cup of coffee."

It's all in the beans of course; they should be freshly ground, if not right before you brew, at least at the store, and they should avoid air -the freezer is best. Anything else is bland, lackluster, unacceptable. Organic, if possible. Fair trade, because who wants to drink slave labor?

Running late as I always tend to do, I ran out of time to make breakfast and coffee. Most mornings, the boyfriend would end up making coffee while I showered, leaving it on the dresser in his sweet way. I would drink half of it, and pour the rest into a travel mug to drink in the passenger seat of his battered red pickup truck.

I still use the black little coffeemaker, brewing four, five pots when my friends gather for Sunday morning brunch, one half for my travel mug to go most mornings, or a full pot when I manage to steal enough time to sit down to breakfast during the week. I like to sit and watch out the window, slowly pulling myself from sleep, my hands around one of my favorite mugs - the blue and white handmade or the brown and white, a retro style, overly cheery man on the front proclaiming "Coffee! You can sleep when you're dead!" Aside from the caffeine, an undeniably welcome hit, the luxury of sipping a cup of coffee prepares me for the day. This ritual gives me time to order my thoughts, plan my strategies, and muster enough energy to stride headlong into my crazy life, giving all I've got. Sometimes in the quiet mornings I even dip into a poem, and a poet's immortal words swim through my mind for the rest of the morning, filling every gesture, every look with reverberations of meaning.

Sometimes the coffee gets cold while I sit, so I pour more from the warm pot and fill back up the cup, finally gulping it down when I realize I'm about to be late. It happens more often than it should, but the mornings I steal are quiet and lovely and mine, perfectly mine.

Sunset Like God's Face

When I turned the corner of Monticello the other day, I was struck by the beauty of a graceful golden sunset, glowing around the edges of white clouds against a blue sky. I wanted to call someone, to share the beauty, at least take a picture of the spire-topped buildings against that gorgeous, wide sky. But I couldn't think of anyone to call in Williamsburg, and my camera phone didn't do justice to the buttery gold beauty.

I always want to share nature's beauties with someone -a friend, a lover, perhaps. I want to watch their face light up and know we're sharing that joy and wonder. I think it must be akin to the religious ecstasy some people can share, like what a friend described when he felt the Holy Spirit with a girlfriend.

I learned the habit of sharing beauties from my mother, although I'm a society junkie, and she is a woman of the North Country, who likes the quiet spaces between mountains and the emptiness of her ten point five acres filled with snow, and trees, and nothing else. She would take me out into the typhoons in Japan, to feel the raw power of the wind, and when thunderstorms crashed around the eaves and cut the electricity, we would giggle and dance around the dark house. When we're in the same locale, my mother and I still share the awe of nature's magnificence, but she lives far away now, and I only see her infrequently.

Most people can see the beauties I'm struck by, and they might catch their breath and whistle low in appreciation, but thunder and snow and wind and sunsets and moonrises don't seem to affect most people the same way they do me, striking a chord that leaves me quivering for hours after. I stop in my tracks, awestruck, and my friends say, "What? Oh, the moon? Yes, it's pretty." My reactions are extreme, dramatic, and more than a little silly, but I can't really help it. I'm very vulnerable to nature's daily floorshow.

Once, walking across campus, I noticed my friend Connor stop to smell a flower. He was barefoot, stepping softly through crowds of students rushing to class. Connor is a tall, broad-shouldered young man with squinting eyes that always seem to be grinning, even when his mouth is sober. He rolls his words together with laughter, too, and he gives big hugs that wrap around you and smell like clean laundry and musky sweat. That day, he circled a tulip tree heavy with pink blossoms, and peered into a flower's cup, breathing deeply, closing his eyes. He admired the trees loveliness from all sides, sighed contentedly, and walked on, whistling. I watched from a dozen steps back, hiding in a wall of people, but wishing I could give a secret sign, or simply shout out, "Hey! You're like me! We see the world the same way! You're like me!"

Capri 120's

It’s such a stupid, simple little thing. It’s such a tiny scrap of nothing-of-importance, but- it’s the first love letter I’ve ever gotten. It’s the wine that makes me care. It’s just the wine. It’s just Saturday night, and thank god, I’ve got a desk full of paperwork before Monday, important motions, motions for people with problems. Thank god I don’t have those kinds of problems. I’ve got it going. I’ve got things figured out. I’ve got a great job, a decent apartment, a good car. I bill more hours than any of the other associates. Third year out of law school, and I’ve got great cases, and I win them, pull in the end of year bonuses, and I know I’ll make partner before I’m thirty-one. I’m on the ladder to the top. I’ve got… I’ve got great legs. Lots of men say so. It’s the first thing they notice. “Can I buy you a drink?” they say in the nice downtown bars, and then, “I noticed you right when you came in. You’ve got great legs.” Job, apartment, car, legs, eyes. Slanted eyes that men seem to like, but no one’s ever bothered to write me a letter.

I’m not sure whether I believe it. I want to believe it, I want it real bad, but my stepfather once told me, “If you want something real bad, you’ll probably get it real bad.” I wanted to be the top of my class at Stanford Law, wanted it real bad. I got it, but I managed to avoid going past the third date with any one man. And now this letter, and I’m sitting on the edge of my bathtub with the door locked and the window open to let the smoke out.

Where’s my cigarettes? Fuck. Mother says ladies shouldn’t talk like downtown street-corner sluts. I should go back. He’s waiting. It’s not like it matters, like I have to hide. He smokes. We met on a windy afternoon outside the firm. My matches weren’t lighting, so he leaned over with his lighter and lit my Capri 120’s. I don’t know whether I like them or not. I started smoking in high school, and when my mother caught me, she said, “Ladies do not smoke these. They make you ugly.” I started smoking Capris, long and delicate-looking, and she didn’t say anything else. They break a lot, and leave bits of tobacco in the bottom of my purse.

I need to paint my nails. They’re chipped. The Koreans at the nail shop never do it right. Vietnamese are so much better at it. Fucking Koreans. People always think I’m Korean. I’m not. I’m a quarter Chinese, fuckers. Don’t swear.

Why did he leave this? Why do I care? It’s not even a real love letter. He picked up a picture postcard at an art exhibit and scribbled on the back. He didn’t even pay for it. The front shows a blurry white fireplace, ash and debris scattered on the floor, and a spray of red roses, perfectly clear, perched in a white vase on the mantle. The light fades across the picture, bright and clean at right, dark and startling at the left. “Trophy, Claxon GA” printed at the bottom, with an artist’s scrawl. The artists’ show dates, email, website, telephone, address, fax number, home phone, and permanent exhibit on the back. There’s barely room on the back for his letter –no, his note:

My dearest Kimmie,

I finally got you those roses
I promised. These reminded
me of you –startlingly bright
and beautiful, even amidst the
wreckage of this awful city.
See you tonight.

Love,

Truman

He said love. He said, “Love, Truman.” We haven’t said love before. I need another cigarette. Is this normal? Love. Two months. Is that enough time? Do men randomly leave love letters –fuck, no, love notes, damnit, notes –do they leave notes on their girlfriends’ desks? What does it mean?

I’m so frightened of this. It’s worse than barking dogs and airplanes and roller coasters. It’s worse than dark men following me down the street, making me lock all my doors and sleep with the pistol on my nightstand. When I wake up and he’s here I’m not afraid, but then I think he might leave and I get frightened again. Men leave you when you need them most. I’m so nervous. Love.

How many cigarettes do I have to smoke before the nicotine hits my bloodstream? Nicotine is a stimulant, causing relaxation, calmness, and alertness, but has addictive properties comparable to heroine and cocaine. Gladys Frankson vs. Brown and Williams Tobacco Corp, 2004. But that’s only one case. No one wins against big tobacco. Even though they proved it’s the companies’ fault, even though we know it’s ridiculously addictive. Why do I smoke these? When did I start smoking, high school? I wanted so bad to fit in. I wanted so bad to rebel against my mother, and to get the tall boys with the leather jackets to like me. I started smoking, and I started drinking.

My mouth tastes like red wine. Everything tastes like red wine. He brought over a Pino Noir, and we drank it straight from the bottle. Ladies don’t drink from the bottle, even soda bottles. Never wine bottles. I think I drank most of it, trying to get drunk and happy. Odd, I don’t feel drunk at all. Alcoholic beverages contain ethanol, a centrally acting depressant. He makes me feel drunk all the time. He wants to move to Portland and practice with a firm there. He got an offer for partnership. He hates D.C. I’ve never been to Oregon.

Sex is simple. Dates are simple. First date, dinner, bar-hopping, kiss on the dance floor. Second date, dinner at the restaurant you pick, Indian maybe, and you watch a movie at his place and you sleep with him and then you sneak out and smoke afterwards and drive home. Third date, you go somewhere with friends, but you avoid eye contact with him, and when you go back to his place you kiss him hard and wake up with a hangover. Then you go home, and he doesn’t call, or you just don’t answer. Home. But the third date was dinner at his place, he cooked it and had white wine and there was no hangover. And the fourth date was watching a movie here, and he slept here and I watched him sleep and wondered. And in the morning he got bagels and we smoked over coffee. I didn’t want him to go. I don’t want him to go to Oregon. Maybe he’ll go. Maybe he’ll stay. I want him to stay. I need him to stay. I should go back, he’s waiting. Fuck. I need another cigarette.

That Time of the Month OR Miss Cindy's Revenge

Miss Cindy endured the most crippling cramps
Each month right before the full moon.
Said, "I'm bloaty and cranky and achy, it's awful,
and I need some chocolate -and soon!"

But Johnny her co-worker, hated such talk.
"You dis-gust-ing female!" he said.
"All you do is complain, your work is inane,
it's probably why you're unwed!"

"Women can't work! They belong in the home!
They have babies and bleed all the time!
It's just one more reason," he added while grinning,
"The kitchen is where I keep mine!"

Cindy was thrown, her mouth hung wide open,
"You chauvinist asshole!" she cried.
"I'd like to see you bleed for five days and live.
Or try giving birth -THERE's a ride!"

"You're wimpy, pathetic, I'm stronger," said John.
But Cindy was pissed off -and how!
So she grabbed some scissors and slit Johnny's gut,
Said, "Who's whining about bleeding now?"

Édith

When her face is in that faraway place, I can't take my eyes off of her. She stares off into somewhere wonderful, somewhere with quiet music and sweetened lemonade and French chatter drifting in the afternoon sun. She's beyond the chipped reception desk and neon Open sign. Her eyes turn soft, and her mouth falls open just the tiniest bit, letting the tips of her perfect, straight, pearl teeth shine from the darkness of her red mouth. She's everything a fairy-tale princess should be -full lips, gold curls falling down her back, a petite figure, all the way down to her dainty little feet. Her name means "fortune and strife." It's horribly ironic. Édith. And Sarah means "princess" in Hebrew. What's the Hebrew word for gangly, crow's black stringy-haired, awkward, and mousy? "My little Saramouse," mother would say, like it was one word.
Édith came over from France to do a work-study program, leaning English and practicing her intergovernmental relations, but she got another visa somehow, and has been here for two years, now. Her English is perfect, but she can't be getting much intergovernmental experience working at Best Colonial Motel. Her visa will run out soon.
"I hate this fucking job," she proclaims regularly, "but it's better than paperwork in my father's office.”
Her father is a lawyer in a tiny town outside of Paris. “Where?” the manager asked her once. “I went to France for a vacation awhile ago.”
“Pithiviers,” she replied, pursing her lips and looking past him.
“Oh,” he said. “I don’t think I ever heard of that.”
“No,” she shot back, letting her accent pierce the word. “You wouldn’t have.”
The manager is the owner’s 35 year-old son. He lives in the f.r.o.g. above his parent’s garage, the Free Room Over Garage. He wears stiff white shirts and ties printed with golf clubs and flying screwdrivers, and he always seems like he’s about to gag on something. He’s constantly swallowing, clearing his throat, and wiping his cuff across his nose.
One day he came into the reception area even more fidgety than normal. Édith was staring off into space, slumped over a French novel, her chin cupped in her hand, lovely. The book had been open to the same page for the past week. The sign propped in front of her showed a smiling, pertly cheerful bellhop from the 1950’s, a speech bubble above his head proclaiming, “We live to serve!” The front door opened, its bell tinkling urgently, but Édith never looked, just stared off into space. The manager walked in, red in the face, his chest heaving and straining the buttons on his shirt.
“Édith, can I see you in my office?” he garbled out as he made a beeline for his office door. She sat unmoving.
“Édith? Please?” he shouted from behind the office door.
“Oui, Henry,” she said, still not looking up.
“Now?”
“Fine!” she shouted, slamming down her book and stomping into the office.
They tried to keep their voices down at first, but after a minute or two, they began shouting at each other.
“No! I won’t!”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want to, tu gros con!”
“None of that Frenchy French bullshit!”
“Je n'y crois pas!”
“You’re fired!”
“Va te faire enculer! I quit!”
The door slammed open, and Édith stormed out.
“Frenchy bitch!” Henry screamed at her back.
“Come with me, Sarah,” Édith said, reaching out her hand. Her grip was warm and tiny, but strong, like a clamp, and I stumbled after her, grabbing things as she steered towards the door –backpack, purse, French novel, law textbook. “See how well the emmerdeur does without us. Let’s go find somewhere that doesn’t treat its employees like shit.”
Outside the dim reception, the sun streamed hot onto the pavement.
“Sarah…” Henry warned. “If you leave, you’re not coming back.”
Édith winked. “We can make it on our own,” she said. “Together,” she added and smiled, lighting up the room.
A customer was walking through the parking lot, a woman dragging three screaming children behind her.
“Ok. Let’s go.”