I figured if push came to shove I could always call in sick. God knows I'd used up my inventory of other excuses -- viruses were all I had left. I could always blame a virus. I didn't care what they thought; I just wasn't interested in spending an afternoon with Althea Dryden. It wasn't that I had a special distaste for poets, or poetry for that matter, it's just that...well, in most cases I'd rather read them than listen to them.
I knew why they wanted me there; it's because I was a part-time reporter for the Westlake Village Guardian. They were playing suck-up to the paper. Everybody's got their own agenda; everybody's in it for themselves. Although when you consider the Guardian and its standing in the fourth estate, you've got to wonder just how low a poet will stoop to peddle jingles.
Then, to put the icing on the cake, the Westlake Village Library had the unmitigated gall to schedule the reading on a Sunday afternoon. Yes! The very same afternoon the Jets were playing the Buffalo Bills! Althea Dryden, indeed! Who the hell does she think she is? I can just see her in her low-heeled shoes with her strawberry hair in a bun tapping the microphone to make sure it's turned on. Probably carrying an emaciated volume of verse with tabs of yellow paper sticking out to mark her place.
I remember seeing Dylan Thomas at the 92nd Street "Y." That was different. Brendon Behan, too. Dylan's agent finally found him in a bar downtown. He was an hour late and listing ten degrees to port. Didn't even bring his book with him...the words were branded into his brain. He poured those unseen words right out there into the stuffy air of the old auditorium, and it was like the opening of a door to the north wind. His whiskey-tenor voice would mellow and deepen, the Welsh lilt of him would turn those words to gold, and all I'd read of him and failed to understand would suddenly make sense. A great poet and a drinker of extraordinary capacity.
I read Althea Dryden's "What Matter Storms," and it was no "Under Milk Wood" nor was it "A Borstel Boy." She had no sense of time or place. She lived in the ether, and the ether is an equal opportunity habitat...anyone can live there, but no one would think of calling it home. It has no voice; it is a place, she said, "...where fragile dreams fray out in worthless naught." I ask you, would you want to spend a fall afternoon there while the Jets are playing Buffalo?
So I called and the phone rang three times ... once more and I'd get the answering machine. In that case I'd hang up. But Stacey picked it up on the pause between three and four; she had probably been in the middle of a record-breaking bubble gum bubble and never heard the phone.
"Good afternoon, this is the Guardian, Assistant Editor speaking; how may I help you?" Lucas Crosby and I had spent long hours rehearsing Stacy, and now, after a year, she had it down pat. I hand-lettered a sign with those words in bold magic-marker and pasted it on the wall by her desk and she rarely had to use it now.
"Hi, Stace, it's Edward R. Murrow, how y'doin?"
"Hi, Mr. "B"... how come you ain't here?" She could ask questions that would cross a Rabbi's eyes.
"I am ill with the flu, my dear...sick unto death. I will not be able to attend the poetry reading at the Library on Sunday. Would you please pass along that information to Mr. Crosby?"
Lucas had been listening in as usual. "Flu, my ass!" he thundered, "I know what you're up to...what about that oath of goddam allegiance to the fourth estate yer always mouthin' off about?"
"Oh, Lucas, fancy you eavesdropping on the phone. I have 103 degrees, rectally speaking that is. I'm afraid Sunday's out of the question. You can't imagine how crushed I am; I had so wanted to hear Althea Dryden."
"Look partner," (I had 10 percent of him now) "It's important to Muriel, see?" (Muriel, you may remember, is Lucas' bird-watching wife) "She's paid $500 to get this yo-yo to read her crap at the library. If I don't run a review, my ass'll be in a sling."
"Why don't you go, Lucas? It might be good for you."
"You outta your friggin mind! --- 'scuse me, Stace ... the Jets are playin Buffalo! Look, partner, if you can't make it Sunday don't make it Monday. You know the rule."
"You can't fire me," I reminded him, "I'm your partner."
"I'll make you wish you wasn't," he shot back.
"I already wish I wasn't." It was not exactly a snappy comeback, so I added, "Nice talking to you, Stacey; keep those bubbles coming."
Well, it was only Friday, I knew I'd be better by Sunday. What am I thinking of, I reminded myself, I don't have the flu in the first place. Such is the innate honesty of the press! Even when you lie to yourself you believe it.
Sunday came and still no flu. For the hell of it I took my temperature in the morning and I couldn't get the damn thing above 96.5. Didn't I once read that draft dodgers used to hold banana skins in their armpits to drive their temperatures upwards? (How did they hide them from the doctor?) I had a banana with Special K this morning so I fished the skin out of the trash and tried it...96.5.
Well, at least I could exhibit my rebellious nature by being late. That would give me a small measure of satisfaction. I'd wait 'til half-time. Althea might be almost done by then, and I'd sit through a jingle or two and make it back by the fourth quarter.
By half-time the Jets were down 14 points; the quarterback had been sacked four times and had a concussion. It looked bleak for the boys in green. I was in a mood equally bleak as I pushed my way noisily into the library meeting hall. Muriel Crosby was up on the stage introducing the most beautiful, heart-stopping, ash blonde poet I had ever seen. I was her adoring slave from the moment I saw her. Could this possibly be Althea Dryden? Where was the brown tweed suit, the stainless steel bi-focals, and the flat heeled shoes? One look and the Jets/Buffalo game had been erased from my mind.
Althea was late too. Great! I hadn't missed anything. She wore a black vinyl mini-skirt, and her ash blonde hair hung just below her shoulders. A tight white louse, low cut, was partially covered by a black vinyl jacket. Her spike heels were fully four inches high and forced the calves of her legs to reveal a slight musculature. She was not wearing a wedding ring. Never...never had I seen such a poet!
It seemed, as she read from her work, that our eyes caught and locked at times, particularly in moments of purple poetic passion. In retrospect I must admit that the reading was sparsely attended (there were only six of us, and I was the only male). Yet I will staunchly maintain that a laser-like electrical bond flashed between us when, in her rich seductive voice she read:
How well I know the feel
of your strong hands, grown gentle
as they steal across my breast.
I was putty in hers when she read of "swollen turgidities" and "sheathing my length with your chiseled hardness." Old valves and switches, long rusted shut, were suddenly flung wide open. Bats flew out and blind beetles skittered about in panic. The word without the person was less than nothing, and perhaps the person without the word was equally nothing -- but together they were dynamite.
I fingered her book, "What Matter Storms," as she read her poems to us. I held it so she could see it and in such a way as to reveal that I was a devoted fan of hers. She seemed to recognize its purple and lavender cover, identical to hers. I fervently hoped it would cement our relationship or at least give promise of one. As she read she seemed to gain in confidence and animation. I thought I could detect a slight glow of perspiration on her upper lip, and did I detect the spicy scent of an expensive perfume? Perhaps it was one of the other ladies, but I preferred to think it was Althea.
Time flew and her final poem was finished all too soon. Its closing lines were:
Clasped tightly in your arms, my body fain
would sway with yours.
I could not have said it better myself! I rose to my feet and applauded loudly and could barely restrain a two-fingered whistle. My enthusiasm, however, was not matched by the five ladies whose reaction was more subdued. Muriel asked if any of us had any questions, and a rather nervous silence followed with some of the ladies looking at each other and shaking their heads. I think Althea's "burgeoning tumescences" and "swollen turgidities" might have put the ladies off their feed. Their husbands were at home burgeoning and swelling as they watched the Jets/Buffalo game and overdosing on Cheese Doodles.
It was hard to say goodbye to Althea Dryden; fifty years ago it would have been impossible. It was a restless night, and I tossed sleeplessly. She had been kind enough to autograph my copy of "What Matter Storms" and I studied her flowing signature as though it had been an exercise in creative calligraphy. I finally rose around four and took the cover off the old L.C. Smith and wrote my review for the Guardian. I look at it now in print and wonder if I went too far in my praise. I was writing in response to the woman, not her work.
It's been two weeks now, and the woman is fading fast from my memory, just as stars may fade with the coming of the dawn, but her words remain. Without her to read them, they are as empty and idiotic as they ever were...maybe even more so.
Such was not the case with Brendon and Dylan.
(Copyright 1998 by Harry Buschman - No reproduction without express permission from the author)