Fruitless Search For Red Paper Poppies

A guy gets on the train. His skin and body have a settled-in drunkenness, as if he spends most of every day in a pickled state. He carefully staggers down the aisle and tries to sit down on a seat that isn't there before finally coming to rest, closing eyes that never really opened and laying his head in his hand.

He makes me think back to men lying drunk in Balboa Park in San Diego many years ago. They were my age, Vietnam Veterans by their clothing. In my head I would say to them: Get up and do something worthwhile instead of wallowing in self-pity.

Today I read an excerpt from an American soldier's Iraq war blog. He talked about coming back to the U.S. and getting thanks, appreciation, comfort. He said he didn't know, with all he had been through, if he could have handled coming back to "Baby killer!" and being shunned, being ashamed.

My thoughts wandered farther back to a boy in my neighborhood, in my high school class. He went to Vietnam, came back and shot himself. Because of something someone said, because of what he saw, what he did? I don't know. I'm just remembering all these complicated thoughts on Memorial Day, 2007.

A Sketch

I'm looking at a face on the train, full of wrinkles and crevices and a little pursed mouth. I see people glance at her and look away with a sniff. The adding up: too many cigarettes and beers, not enough dental work.

Her face takes me back to the small dirt-road town of my childhood and a woman like her. A laugh made raspy with too many packs of Camels, a pursed up mouth with chewed off lipstick and teeth that don't quite fit. She holds my face with one soft hand, looks deep in my eyes with a huge frown and then nods once, satisfied by whatever she sees. The children belong to everyone and must endure this communal weighing up and clucking over. I probably ran off to jump on the pile of corn cobs with my friends which meant a phone call to my mother because everyone knows about that child that was suffocated that way . . .

The door of the train opens and she is gone.

Ahaj 1994-2007

He always met more people in the neighborhood than I ever did, every time we moved. Years later, former neighbors still ask after him, "What's Ahaj up to?" He was social and affectionate, always ready to stop for a chat and a bite to eat. If you needed cheering up, he would sit by you, eyes closed, a little smile on his face. You felt better in his presence.

Cancer got him in the end although he had already used up quite a few of those nine lives: kicked in the side by a horrible old Hungarian woman, hit by a car and crawling home with a dislocated shoulder, cat fights here and there.

Now I think I see him everywhere: a flash of orange out of the corner of my eye, the jingle of his collar, a small "meow", a thump as he jumps down from the kitchen counter with stolen food.

Here's to Ahaj, Maharajah, you were the best.

Rabbit Runs

I would like to have a dream where I go wandering down my rabbit runs; the little paths in deepest memory where plans were made, fears put aside, decisions made this way or that. I might need a map, it's been so long. Or I could fly in my dream, like a bird whose eye can see everything in a telescopic grid pattern, see the places where I sank down in mud of my own making, or ran a parcours of joy, or trudged along unwillingly. From up here I can watch myself, dreaming about meandering, following that hand-lettered sign that says "Snow Peas for Sale" down a shady dirt road.

Bonnie Bean's Birthday

I am riding in a car with a man I am sort of in love with but maybe more inclined to be friends with. It's a late summer evening in Milwaukee and we have been circling the same four blocks for twenty minutes looking for the "House of Felafel", where we have dinner reservations. There are three more cars with seven more people. We keep passing each other and putting our hands up in the air and shrugging. This is in the days before cell phones and pretty soon we will just have to give up. I don't even know what felafel is but if it feels awful maybe it's just as well we can't find it.

This is my second visit to Milwaukee and I think it elegant with gangster-built mansions and breweries standing together on the shore of Lake Michigan. This is not a city where culture speaks loudly — a native guide is needed to explore its hidden treasures. This particular one seems more hidden than most.

My eye is caught by a burger stand that we are passing for the third time. I stare at it because it is ugly in such a simple way: just a block of unpainted concrete with a slab on the top. Around the narrow edge of the roof are painted words: "Shakes, Burgers, Fries" followed by "Abu's Golden House of Felafel". I yell and my friend skids the tires of the car into the tiny parking lot. Everyone else follows. Someone gets out and goes inside, quickly coming back to say there are only two small tables and four bar stools at a counter and who the hell recommended this place?

That person turns out to be conveniently not here. We are moaning and groaning our way back into the cars when, from around the corner of the building, a small, dark, plump man bursts into the parking lot, waving his arms and shouting "You cannot leave! You cannot leave!" Well, obviously we cannot leave and all nine of us follow him around the back to what turns out to be his own home. It seems we have reserved the living room. The furniture is in charge: a bright green sofa has commandeered the room with two overstuffed chairs hunched over it. There are pillows piled on top of beautiful rugs. A low, glass-topped table has claimed the rest of the small space. Religious icons and family photos cover every piece of wall, all slightly tilted as if the room has been gently shaken.

Once we are comfortably seated, Abu (for it is himself) and his wife serve us what can only be called a feast: course after course of delicious food, wonderful and strange, inspiring hushed and reverent tones and blissful moans and bringing a smile of pleasure to the face of our host. To this day, I'm not sure what I ate: I know there was lamb and eggplant, warm and puffy breads, enchanting sauces. It's all wrapped in exquisite spices and fresh herbs and presented to us as if we are visiting royalty just in from the desert. After the meal, we are allowed to rest with steaming cups of mint tea and strong, black coffee. The women pour hot rosewater over our hands and give us lemon-scented towels to dry them.

Finally, we get up, leave a generous tip on the glass-topped table and thank our host profusely. He responds with shots of vodka from his private store for the men and a rose and a kiss for each of the women. Soon after this meal, Abu opened "Abu's Jerusalem Gold" in downtown Milwaukee and, of course, we all followed him there. I don't know if his food was the best but I do know that he believed it was and, for me, that meal will always be the standard of excellence and graciousness.