The Moment Gatherers

APRIL, REMEMBER ME? Hi there, remember me? Bushy blond hair with green chlorine streaks from sneaking swims in your parent’s pool, I sang beneath your veranda, remember? Last year, or the year before, I lived next to you; the arboreal blue tree house, red room, a yellow India print bedspread canopied my makeshift futon on the pinewood floor. A Mexican blanket covered my spongy bed, which you called soggy, remember? No? Oh, well, never mind, but what about here and now, the 23rd of May 1966, 11:46 pm? A 6’10” West Indian doorman, in satin green pajamas, rainbow reflective dark glasses and gold turban, stoically greets the guests. He checks for party crashers and false invites, then, with a nod of his massive turban-topped head, permits the guest to pass under the ornate marble pediment into the spacious pink and grey Chelsea townhouse. Entering the foyer the guests face ten gnarled, cocoa-colored feet painted on the foyer’s walls. Beneath the feet and its jungle motif of palms, ferns, vines, orchids, and other tropical flora, both potted and painted, silky haired Vogue models and Biba girls strike poses, saccharine smiles and salacious sulks, velvets and velours. In the foyer’s crowd a flower-breasted Ajanta princess, in for the weekend, and I, Roger Bey from Bombay, chat about snake charming, cobra taming, and mongoose hunting. We chat with such fervor that it must be obvious to all we are the most perfect of strangers. The old oak is drawn. The party spreads to the elegant but simple breakfast nook. Uncle Samuel, friendly Dublin gangster—whiskey with a tear and used car deals—paces, shaking his Irish green child-headed cane and demanding a chair for his dear old mother back in Cork. His face turns the color of a baboon’s ass, but he never forgets to smile. No one knows him well enough to tell if he’s serious or just another mischievous paddy on a lark. The Lace Morning lass floats around the glass table. The Oklahoma cook and the Louisiana maid are yet to be seen, as everyone awaits midnight and the commencement of the First Annual Grand Pumpkin Eat & Feast. Countless forks and knives surround a moonlit haystack outside the morning room’s French windows. Pampered bulging bellies anticipate the coming feast with twitching navels. Tin and glass beads in the shape of puckered lips are strung on the French doors’ beaded curtains. The lips play a tingling melody of suspense in the evening’s mounting breeze. “Hi there, remember me? Lei mi vede, the girl on the windowsill in the old district above il porto. I hung my family’s wash on molto sovraccaricare clothesline three stories above the narrow hillside alley of Genoa, I kept the shutters open all that night, si, caro. Ti voglio moto bene, remember? Faccia presto!” “Ah, si, ora mi ricordo. You were always singing ‘Volare’ to your cat.” “Si, ‘Volare.’ Mi aspetti qui.” “D’accordo, crepi di guppy.” Boyhood memories of a Slapton Sands summer holiday dance in her blue eyes as she kisses me on both cheeks and departs through the French windows, running towards the haystack: Sandy beaches, sandy sandwiches in salty sandy hands, we naked children played with cries and teases around the bulbous thighs of rosy blue vein age. We pushed and pulled our sun-dazed guardians along like Nepalese boys herd their weary buffaloes toward a drought-shrunken stream. We urged the elders on to see our mighty castles. But while our backs were turned, our sand fortresses had fallen. Where once our proud castles stood, defying seafaring raiders, shallow puddles remained. Our hours of loyal defensive labor toppled in seconds by the sneaky surge. Golden holidays on gaudy billboards. Distant sails on the silent sea. Myriad miniature circus tents erected by passing bathers’ feet and rubber soles. More food for more food—and not a thought—wrapped, neatly stacked, and unwrapped. Sudden gusty breezes raised the litter to rebellion. The soiled papers, serviettes and such, escaped their blankets and baskets to fly across the sand. We, under mothers’ shrieking orders, gave chase before the million sparkling eyes of the late afternoon Channel’s glittering sea; urinal for every body. Uncle Samuel jabs me under the table with his child-headed cane, rudely shaking me from my beachside nostalgia. Your Louisiana maid enters with a silver serving tray which holds crab delights in white bread wedges and her own Suicide Lemon Meringue in petite slices. I fake a giggle at your grapefruit as your uncle jabs me again, and you hold a half a crown over the heads of the guests. I see sand dab bubbles in the wet, chocolate colored eyes of the elder Latin guests; the horror of existence reflects in their gaze. They view villas built on clay cliffs swaying to Poseidon’s play, as their dreams crumble beneath them and the tide retreats with their time. What a party! You jump up and down on the mantelpiece, sipping on a Blue Moon and calling for spring fertility rites. You throw the night into a C-grade horror show. “Boo.” Everyone says, “Boo!” The pygmy plays a sitar, wiggling on your lap and brandishing his lewd flute. London sits outside on the roof and street. Bridges go up and down, waving to the bloated bodies of Dickens’ tales, our Victorian relatives afloat upon the Thames. London Times, grey. You take an even fifty fat ladies, your favorite adopted sisters with five pointed stars on their busty bosoms, and you lift them to the mantel from the purple Persian rug. Now there’s more room for dancing and a real knees-up all around. The balloons go wild in the chatter. The rock & roll stars, long-faced and snickering, toss licorice sticks to not-so-pretty girls shaking in their baby fat and threatening to sacrifice their hymens to their heroes. They scream, cry, and faint behind the footlights as the timeless meter maid stands watching in the wings. A rose, true love, and Da Vinci promises feed the electrified gum machines in the Tad’s Steak lobby décor of the main floor’s back hall─ten bob and a baked potato, too. The albino gibbon, master of the cloakroom, takes hats and coats forever. In the spot-lit garden faux Grecian marbles ignore the May breezes as you lay me on the moist evening lawn. Al Pope prunes the hedges, snipping in his off-white, ankle-length duster and watching the streetlamps in amazement. The public wonder disarranges his warfare wit, but his thoughts rest on Lucy’s pubic locks, or maybe on the ginger hair of Marion, the townhouse’s new chambermaid from Mansfield. Marion knew a thought or two herself. You reveal total galaxies in your private conservatory that leave Al Pope but a fond memory. You feed universes to your Oriental poppies and tall tales to your common garden peas. Your Black Angus bellows from Carnaby Street, stranded in his stall, lost in the lanes, or ostracized for accent insults by the green grocer. While from a deep corner in my trousers’ front pocket an anxious asp calls for you to take the blame and leave him alone in his darkness and his sin. I really can’t deny him such humble wishes, and he doesn’t really eat much at all. The guests at the breakfast nook’s table nod and chat congenially while all eyes watch the Irish green child-headed cane slide up Mlle. Pamela Tiffany-Trendie’s pale thigh. Under the glass tabletop, the emerald child’s head disappears beneath T.T.’s black leatherette miniskirt. A crying shame but who’s to blame in God the Almighty’s surrealistic-slapstick game? ‘You’ as the asp says? ‘Uncle Samuel or the cane,’ as your latest Zen master might say? Flashing cufflinks, the eyes of winking dolls, blind while everybody dances, trying to get a good position in front of the final departure. Although there is never a doubt among the guests and the hosts that the staff is bound to get there first. What a party.