TRIPTYCH
by
Glen Phillips
April 28, 2008
The
Introduction
I am by desire a storyteller, and my stories
tonight focus on what we want. Not on what we need, which is minimal, but on
what we want, which is as numerous as flowers in a meadow. Some may want love;
others may want happiness; a few the exuberance and foolishness of youth. Thus,
the stories you will hear present strengths and weaknesses in human nature, the
what-we-want equation.
Now all stories benefit from a context; it
stimulates recall and imprints the message. A mother’s lap is a context as is a
kitchen table. In the dawn of humanity a shaman told stories to tribesmen
huddled around a fire, afraid of the dark, but more afraid of what moved in the
dark. Through stories he explained Nature’s ways and established rules for
coping with the known and unknown.
For tonight’s context, imagine you are
walking onto a theater stage. The house lights are off; even the Exit signs are
not visible. The only illumination is an overhead spotlight highlighting a
table down center and an object on that table. The aura of the beam shows you
the stage is otherwise barren. As you approach the table, you see that the
theater’s seats are empty.
You are now upstage of the table and close
enough to examine the object. It is a triptych. The three panels are
Roman-arched at the top, identical in size, and are made of heavily grained
wood. Each contains a picture. The first is a man in his mid-forties, the
second a teenage girl, and finally a frightened young man. Below each picture is a brass plate.
You lean forward to examine the man in the first panel and are drawn to the arrogance in his eyes, a hammer in one hand, and what appears to be a gold coin in the other. Then you notice the word of want on the brass plate: SUCCESS. Perhaps it is a slight shift in the light or the effect of the wine you recently drank, but as you stare, the man winks, and his story begins.
The hammer head descended and, with a crack, exacted judgment on the nail. Gus grunted, stepped off the chair, and stared at the cardboard, hand-lettered sign tilting like a drunk above the roadhouse bar’s mirror:
No Mexican beer
No Mexican music
No towels for wetbacks
Yessir, he thought, couldn’t make it without their business, but, by God, not gonna bend over for ‘em. Steal my balls if they could.
Gus turned, placed his hands on the bar, and surveyed his kingdom: La Casa de Las Almas Perdidas, the Home for Lost Souls. There, ahead, was a door of grey, splintered plywood with a square of scratched Plexiglas, the single source of natural light. In one corner a jukebox containing nothing but Oldies, in another, protected from drunks by wire mesh, a TV only turned on for Friday night football. Fans clattered overhead, doing nothing to dispel the reek of stale tobacco, vomit, and sweat. Behind Gus stood pyramids of beer, whiskey, and scotch. Gus didn’t serve wine; wine was for homos. He nodded in appreciation. He had his health, money in his pocket, and sex when he wanted it. Life was good.
Born in
His daddy had patted him on the back and said, “Good luck, son. Make me proud and watch your back. Don’t let some Mexican pick your pocket.”
Six years later,
with no knowledge of running a bar but sick of being called a “dumb redneck,”
Gus bought La Casa from the Alvarez sisters with money saved from driving oil
rigs and part-time border guarding. This
adobe roadhouse was on the outskirts of
Gus opened at 2:00 pm; at 5:00 pm a freak snowstorm snarled traffic. Salespeople and truckers, who would have ignored the motel, decided to stop and spend the night. Once they checked in, there was nothing else to do but have a drink or two or three.
Gus’s denim shirt and black pants smelled of cheap whiskey. He deliberately worked alone. “You work harder, but you work smarter and make more,” he told the few people he shared insights with. And, of course, there was that little business he ran on the side.
Gus’s appearance stimulated tipping: six feet, rangy, blond crew cut, sympathetic eyes, and Marlboro face. He hummed while he worked; someone had told him it was a Zen thing that eased stress. At the moment he was into God Bless America. He had a cross tattooed on the back of one big hand and a flaming sword on the back of the other. Seeing those symbols, a woman once asked him if he was a religious man. “Yes, ma’am,” he had replied. “I was a Baptist. Now I know better.”
Around 6:30, Gus went to the end of the bar to check on TJ, a gray-bearded, wrinkle-faced regular and the closest thing Gus had to a friend. “Still sober, TJ?”
Older than Gus and
given to long anecdotes about years in
“Just bar talk, things people say when they’re in a bar with people they don’t know. Tryin’ to impress the other guy with how much money they make, who they’ve laid, or what they’ve done in their lives. Just talk, doesn’t mean anything, but makes them feel good.”
“Waste of drinkin’ time is what I say,” TJ took a sip and looked upward. “Haven’t seen that sign before.”
“Put it up today. Whatta ya think?” Gus hooked his thumbs into his belt.
“Probably be funnier if it was in Spanish.” TJ brushed his beard aside and took a large swig. “Whatta you got against Mexicans? Seem like nice people. Quiet. Take care of their kids. Mind their own business.”
Gus
drummed his fingers, placed his forearms on the bar, and leaned toward TJ as if
confessing his sins. “I’ll give you a ferinstance. Back in ‘
TJ, who thought God was a white, middle-aged
man with a dry sense of humor, said, “We had guys from the
“Told ‘em it wasn’t for sale. Well, they wouldn’t let it go. Day after day, it was Jorge or Alfredo naggin’ me to name a price. I coulda said a thousand dollars, and I bet they woulda found the money. Anyway, it didn’t matter. About a week after the whole thing began, Alfredo caught one while we’re out on patrol. One minute we’re walkin’ through this patch of trees, the next Alfredo’s on the dirt with a round through his neck. We nailed the gook but that didn’t do Alfredo no good.”
“The next morning
Alfredo’s in a body bag. Jorge requests leave to accompany the body to
TJ sighed and moved back on his stool. As if his motion were a signal for change, a hospital intern put some money into the jukebox, and Springsteen started belting out Born in the USA. At first there was a hole in the middle of the crowd, but then a nurse grabbed a trucker and pulled him onto the floor. Her friends joined in, and the party was on. When the next song began, Gus reached under the bar and pressed a button. Three minutes later a woman entered the room from the passageway leading to the motel.
Linda had her share of wrinkles but her legs looked good. Her straight black hair and tawny skin said Mexican, while the blue in her eyes spoke of other heritage. Her black dress hugged abundant curves. Slapping TJ on the back, she said, “How they hangin’, cowboy?”
“I don’t care
what others say,” TJ said as he slipped an arm around her waist, “You’re the
second best whore in
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, honey. That’s for free.” Turning to Gus looming over her, “Looks like a busy night. Sure could use a beer before I got started - throat’s scratchy.”
Gus pressed her hand down on the bar, not too hard, but hard enough to cause pain. “Get to work.” Smoothing her cheap dress over her fleshy hips, she weaved through the mob - a lioness tracking a dying zebra - and brought down the loudest drunk. Gus could see the guy couldn’t believe his luck. It was a slow dance, and he clung like wet wallpaper. As the crooner belted out, “Aint’ that a shame,” the happy couple strolled toward the passageway and the motel beyond.
When Linda returned, she gave Gus $100. He counted to be sure and nodded to the woman in the passageway entrance. She was young, nervous, exquisitely Mexican. Gus glanced at her and then at Linda. “Alright, you get ten percent of her share. First timer?”
“Yeah, but Isabella’ll be OK. She needs the money.”
“Well, so do I. Put’er to work.” Gus turned away, forgetting the matter as Johnny Cash told the crowd
I keep a close watch on
this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
Around 1:00 am the crowd was down to TJ and five truckers, one a woman, huddled at one end of the bar. La Casa’s door opened. A young Mexican stomped in, shaking snow off his overcoat. He draped it over a table, revealing a white lab coat over green scrubs. Glancing at the group, he smiled and strolled to a stool at the other end.
“Sir, could I have a draft?” Gus ignored the request and made the wet glass in his hand squeak.
Nodding, the Mexican pulled three cards out his lab coat pocket and placed them on the bar. He bent each of them, forming three arcs. Next, using both hands, he changed their positions. Finally, turning over each of the cards, he either smiled or frowned. Then he did it again and again.
The novelty of his act attracted the woman. Too old and too lonely to care about the color of the man’s skin, she left her group with a “Gotta see this.”
“Whatca doing, honey?” She leaned a breast against his arm.
“A game my grandmother taught me,” he replied with a boyish grin. “See, I have the ace of spades, the king of hearts, and queen of diamonds. After I choose one, I turn over the cards, mix them, and then guess where the card I selected is placed. Usually I’m wrong.”
“Can I try?” the woman asked.
“What card do you want?”
“The queen.”
He showed her the three cards face up and then face down. “Where’s the queen?” She pointed to the middle card, which he turned over with a flourish. “You’re right! You have the eyes of a hawk.” She was too drunk to catch the sarcasm. “Now I’ll mix them as my grandmother showed me. Watch closely.” With the slowness of a turtle he altered the positions. “Where’s the queen hiding?”
“I think it’s in the middle again,” she slurred.
He turned over the queen. “You’re amazing! Would you like to try again? Perhaps bet a dollar you’ll be right?”
She banged the bar with a rheumatic fist when she won. “Hey,” she shouted to her fellow drunks, “come down here. You gotta play this game. I just won a goddam dollar!”
“No, no,” the Mexican protested. “Gambling is against the law.” And he moved to pick up the cards.
The woman’s voice went up two notches. “No one’s going to arrest you, baby. Just leave those cards alone. Bartender, give my friend a beer on me. What’s your name, brown eyes?”
“Miguel, senorita.”
“I like that name. Yep, bring my amigo Miguel a beer, senõr bartender!” She giggled.
Gus took his time opening a warm bottle and taking it to the Mexican. He rapped it down in front of the man and didn’t offer him a glass. Miguel didn’t ask for one. “Thanks,” he said to the woman. He took a long pull and shouted to the back of the retreating Gus, “Muchas gracias, senõr.”
By now the others had formed a semicircle behind Miguel. TJ picked the king, bet $5, and watched the Mexican’s hands shuffle the cards. He was too drunk to win. But he did, and the group, including Miguel, cheered.
Gus watched with resentment and appreciation an artistry his hands were incapable of. The Mexican was playing a piano the way his hands moved those cards. There was a rhythm, a beat, Gus could almost hear. At one point Gus yelled, “Hey, TJ, ask him if he’s got a cousin named Jorge. Better yet, see if he’s got a gold medal around his thievin’ neck.”
About 2:30 a.m. Gus’s tolerance snapped. He slapped his towel down on the bar in front of the Mexican and said in a quiet voice, “Can I try?”
Miguel looked up and smiled. “What card would you like, senõr bartender?”
“Ace,” Gus replied. “And I’ll bet all the money you have in your greasy pocket.” The drunks gasped, but Miguel smiled again, started the ace in the middle, and began to shuffle. His hands were a blur for this was to be a virtuoso performance. Gus ignored the movements, picked up a glass, polished it, and hummed The Battle Hymn of the Republic. He especially like the line “Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel.” When Miguel stopped, he clasped his hands as if applauding himself.
“Choose, senõr.”
“Well, Jesus, I’m goin’ to need a little help in makin’ this decision.” He pulled a silver-plated, snub-nosed .38 out of his back pocket. No talking now. No motion except a single blink of the Mexican’s eyes.
His finger on the trigger, the barrel pointed at Miguel’s stomach, Gus touched the muzzle to the top of the right card and said, “Not this one.” He touched the top of the left. “Not this one neither. Well, this one in the middle must be the ace. Don’t even have to look. ‘Course I could, just to prove that you didn’t slip in an extra king or queen. But you don’t look like a typical thievin’ Mexican, so this must be the ace.” With that he set the gun down on the middle card, rested his hands on either side of it, and said, “Just put the money on the bar, Paco.”
Miguel’s hands were also on the bar, near his wonderful cards, near the gun. No breathing now. No piano playing. No Zen songs. This was I-tol-ya-I-was-gonna-be-special-daddy time. “Ah, senõr, I wish my young eyes were as good as yours. To be able to see through a card is a remarkable thing.”
Gus sneered. “Do what you’re told, amigo.”
Given the speed with which Miguel’s hand moved, no one could say where the scalpel came from. Perhaps it had been in his sleeve, perhaps that hadn’t been a pen in his pocket. What was obvious was that a deadly piece of silver was thrust upright next to the revolver’s trigger, through the face-down card, and into the bar. “Jesus H Christ!” TJ cried as the instrument quivered in the light.
Gus stared. That blade could have gone through his hand, it could have severed his wrist; hell, it could have sliced his throat. He heard TJ say, “Back off, Gus. Ain’t worth it. You only got one gun. If he’s got anything else, you’re a dead man.” Gus slowly leaned against the mirror, folded his arms, remembered the day his momma died.
The Mexican sat erect, arms folded, an Aztec prince. “You know, Gus, this is a nice place; not exactly sanitary and civilized like across the road, but nice. My friends and I could really have a good time here if we felt welcomed. Nothing fancy. Maybe just a ‘Howdy’ when we walked through the door. In exchange, you get thirty percent of my winnings.”
Gus put his hands in his pockets to hide his shock at being given a business proposition by a Mexican. His pulse at normal now, he paused, rocked on his heels. More and more Mexicans working at the hospital, he thought. Money’s money. “Fifty percent.”
Miguel touched the scalpel and grinned as it vibrated. “A new girl, Isabella, started working here tonight. She’s my cousin and is not suited for that life. Forty percent, and she becomes a waitress.”
Gus smiled and turned to TJ with open palms. “We’re all driven to do good deeds, TJ. OK, Miguel, forty percent. See you and your friends tomorrow night.”
Miguel rose from
his stool, leaving the scalpel; those behind him parted as if he were royalty.
At the door and draping his coat around his shoulders, he said, “This was your
lucky night, Gus. You picked the ace. But I’ll keep the money; consider it the
cost of keeping a hand.” Looking at the sign above the mirror, he added, “By the
way, my name is Mike, and I drink
Gus disappears from the triptych, but the
gold medal remains. The brass plate becomes blank. The picture of the teenage
girl in the adjoining panel glows; the wood emanates warmth. You are aware of
innocence here. As her eyes are downcast, you cannot see her fears and dreams.
But her fists, which extend toward you, grip a pencil so tightly that her knuckles
are white. Her word, etched in brass, is ACCEPTANCE, and this is her story.
During that lilac summer when Claire was ten, and the air tasted like her mother’s apple pie, she always rose earlier than necessary, wakened by a desire to grab as much from her day as possible. She depended on instinct; setting an alarm clock was beyond her. She then sat on a white wicker chair at her upstairs bedroom window, watching freight trains creep across the distant prairie. Clad in panda-speckled pajamas smelling of fabric softener, she swished her long hair from side to side in tempo to the speed of the trains. Her imaginative eyes saw multi-colored snakes weave through the tall grass, and she clapped her hands exactly four times when she thought the engineer was waving to her. If the air was especially clear, Claire counted the cars, though she couldn’t go higher than thirty-nine. From pictures in a book, she knew that a caboose signaled the end of the train. But since those cars had disappeared before her time, it was always a surprise when the train ended with a tanker or a flatcar. It was as if someone had forgotten to put a period at the end of a sentence.
Back then Claire thought the best part of a freight was the sound the locomotive made approaching and then receding into the distance – a mournful, beseeching wail evoking an image of wolves drawing near and then flowing past her as they pursued a panicked deer. Not that she had ever seen or heard wolves, only pictures, but she was sure that this was how they howled. There were times when she longed to be part of a pack, surrounded by rushing grey-black fur smelling of dirt and brush. She wondered what it was like to hunt, to bring down and kill an animal. What did animal blood taste like?
Once, while sitting at the farm’s breakfast table, she told her parents, “I like to hear the train go by in the morning. It makes me feel good. I’d like to ride on a train someday.”
Her mother replied, “Don’t recall the last time I heard a train. Never rode on one myself, but maybe someday we’ll all do it together.
Her father said, “Hearin’ things that ain’t there, Claire. We’re too far from the tracks. Rode on a train when I was about your age. Not much to talk about, just one wheat field after another. Now eat your toast and go collect the eggs. And be careful, last time you cracked one.”
Mentally Claire aged another two years and then stopped, as if a white-haired crossing guard had put up her hand and said, “That’s far enough, Claire. There are too many cars, they’re moving too fast, and you’re in no condition to step off the curb.” And so, being part but not part of her family, she led an uncomplicated life and didn’t hear her father, Tom Berksher, a struggling Nebraska farmer, when he frequently complained to his wife, “Ain’t right, Fran. Ain’t right. Little land I have starvin’ for water, and I kin barely afford to irrigate what with the price of water and what I get for my crops. Shoulda sold when I had the chance. Hell of a mess”
“Now, Tom,” Fran invariably answered, “you been a farmer all your life. It’s in your blood. What would you do without your tractor? Weather just wouldn’t be the same without you complainin’ about it. What you do is important. Next year’ll be better. Now help me with the dishes.” Fran, married on impulse to her high school sweetheart, took her vows seriously and figured this was the poorer part of the married life she had promised to live through. Good Lord knows, she often said to herself, this ain’t the Bible’s seven years of plenty. She, sparse in frame and outlook, had adapted to her cage.
If Tom had had a beer or two, the argument continued. “Not getting anywhere. Not what I dreamed of becomin’. Not a happy man, no ma’am, not happy. Don’t even have someone I can leave this place to.” Then, if Tom continued drinking, he’d eventually slur, “She ain’t worth spit. Lives in some make-believe land. Thank God you didn’t bring more like her into the world.”
When talk veered in this direction Fran usually turned her back to her husband, sometimes she left the room, but if she’d spent time that day talking on the phone with her overbearing sister, the one with the above average son, she’d say, “Claire’s happy even if you ain’t. If you spent less time drinkin’ and more time talkin’ to her, maybe some of her joy would rub off on you. And don’t worry about more kids ‘cause your body ain’t worth spit, either.” Days of hardness followed.
Her mother noticed that, whatever her limitations, Claire could draw detailed pictures of the objects around her; perhaps not with the talent of the truly gifted, but well enough to be remarked upon. One, a pen and ink sketch of her father, was taped to the refrigerator door. In it he was smiling.
When Claire was seventeen, she was a special needs high school senior with short red hair, dark blue eyes, and dimples that cried for attention. A boy new to her school once asked, “Hey, Claire, wanna go to the show with me?”
“Oh, I can’t. I’m afraid of the dark.” Puzzled by the response, the boy asked others about Claire and then never asked her out again.
In a setting where clothes screamed to be noticed, Claire wore drabness: white or blue blouses, dark, knee-length skirts, loafers. “Mom,” Claire once complained, “why can’t I dress like the other girls? At least let me wear jeans.”
“Honey, why draw attention to yourself? No good ever came of showin’ off your body to a bunch of teenage boys. The time’ll come when you’re ready to dress like a woman should. Just be patient.” Dutiful, pliant Claire obeyed.
Because she had a modicum of artistic talent, and because the Nebraska State Board of Education mandated that special needs students be placed in the least restrictive environment, Claire did have one regular class: Art Appreciation 301 with Miss Esther Ward.
On a Friday in
October Esther bused her class to the
After lunch the students assembled in the first of a series of galleries containing a traveling exhibit of modern artists. When they gazed upon a Warhol soup can, whispers circulated, even a “Cool” was spoken. Here was something clearly unambiguous, something from their kitchens. Esther sensed that the day would be profitable after all. Emboldened by the realization that ordinary objects could be made artistically significant, they quickened their pace, the tour becoming a scavenger hunt for the commonplace. Claire was the first to find treasure – a two-foot-square oil of an old steam locomotive, a coal car, and a boxcar.
This miniscule freight rested on weed-infested tracks receding into the background and moving forward into a wood frame distressed to resemble railroad ties. Vines entwined a wheel, yellow dragon lilies formed a backdrop, rust blotched the tracks and the box car, and the seventy-two on the smoke stack faded into invisibility. The piece was entitled How the West was Won.
Claire did not understand the title, but she knew this was a train from her childhood. She saw the wheels inch, she saw a wisp of smoke. And she heard the whistle, she was positive she heard the whistle. She sighed in response to the remembered sound and felt herself returning to a simpler time. Impulsively she leaned forward and tilted her head to the right; the better to hear the iron beast. Her arm touched the rope separating the viewer from the painting. Instantly a guard shouted, “Hey, kid, stay on your side of the rope!”
As Claire didn’t know that she had sinned, she continued to lean. But then the guard was in front of her, blocking her view, repeating his demand. “Stand back. Do not touch the painting.”
Claire flushed. She clasped her hands and looked around for Miss Ward and the others, but they had moved to another gallery. “I’m sorry. I won’t hurt it.”
“Sure, kid. That’s what they all say. Just back away.” Six-foot, three-inch Dave, the name etched into the plastic shield on his chest, folded his arms, widened his stance, and assumed a blank expression on his fifty-year-old, bald-headed face. His white shirt stuffed into black pants covered a stomach ample enough to hide his belt, and his black tie was tight enough to add some color to puffy cheeks. The only incongruity was his headset microphone; it belonged to a technological age Dave was uncomfortable with. If Dave were a portrait, the work would be entitled G.I. Joe in His Later Years.
Dave’s childhood was as real as Claire’s was fantasy. The youngest of three boys, Dave survived brotherly torture and a mother addicted to alcohol. She had become fast friends with vodka after her husband decided he really didn’t like having children around all the time and never came home from a business trip. Afraid of further abandonment and trying to survive in a brutal world, Dave scrounged. At the age of five he snuck leftovers from his brothers’ plates and devoured them under his blanket at night. When he was ten, he had a grocery bag of canned goods hidden in the basement. His size in high school allowed him to intimidate; he was never hungry or thirsty.
The cheers that swaddled Dave as a football hero evaporated when he left the locker room. As one girl said, “Gotta be careful with Dave. Just look at his eyes; he’s therapy material.” Teammates, while respecting his on-field ability, acknowledged him in the halls with brief nods; they didn’t invite him to parties; they didn’t talk about him - ever.
Dave’s mother
said, “Good idea,” when he wanted to enlist immediately after high school
graduation. And she was right; Dave and the Army were a happily married couple.
Dave contributed strength, obedience, and no desire for a command position. In
return, the Army fed, clothed, and sheltered him and provided security -
warehouse detail in the
His sergeant, career Army and a good judge of character, replied, “I dunno, Dave. Could be tough goin’ out there for you. Nothin’ personal but you ain’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, hell, what do I know? You do what you think best.”
After a visit to his mother’s grave, Dave discovered a society not anxious to hire old, overweight, low-skill men. For a while he was a bouncer at a strip club, then a day laborer, then a bagger in a grocery store. Desiring something of value, he turned to his oldest brother. “Ed, you gotta help me. Can’t you do find somethin’ for me?”
Ed, a retired farm bureau executive, said, “What do you want a job for? Your pension is damn good. Travel; find a woman to take care of you. God knows we all die soon enough.”
“Ed, I just can’t do it. I’m not a take-charge guy. I just need somethin’ to fill my days. You know people. Please.”
As Ed was a member of the Joslyn’s board of directors, Dave became one of the museum’s security guards and was put on a six-month probation. Three months into the probation Dave met Claire.
Claire stepped back from the rope but did not move otherwise. Neither did Dave. Then, in an attempt to see the painting again, Claire moved two feet to her right. Dave moved the same distance to his left. Claire, who had been denied many things, was not going to yield. She feinted to her right and then with the agility of youth moved quickly to her left. Dave, not used to such defiance and lacking physical dexterity, froze. Claire was rewarded with another glimpse before Dave, truly red-faced, was all that she saw.
Dave squinted at her and in frustration said, “Are you crazy? You’ve seen the picture, it’s nothing but a crummy train, now get outta here.”
Claire, who had never defied anyone in her life, answered, “No.”
Dave knew he dared not touch the girl. Doing so, especially these days, would cost him his job and possibly some jail time. Hell, if she even started crying, he could be subject to a sexual harassment suit. He thought about using his headset and calling for help. But he didn’t really know how to use it. He could end up talking to himself, and wouldn’t that look great. So he did the only thing he could think of. He did nothing.
Claire might have left at this point if Dave hadn’t said, “crazy.” A small word, not worth much as words go, but to Claire it was a slap in the face. So she, too, did nothing.
Now there was quiet, no one else was in the gallery, and they gazed at one another. At first their looks were of anger, then resentment, then understanding, and then acceptance of each other’s role - one the art patron, the other the protector. Suddenly, as if the gods had decreed that the contest should begin, Claire and Dave reverted to that most ancient, most true, of art forms, the dance. Their bodies moved back and forth and side to side in patterns that harkened to those performed by all the tribes that ever were. Unknowingly, Claire, bending and leaping, Dave, shuffling and stomping, told stories of the changing seasons and the travels of people across the deserts and plains of the earth. Claire was a feather, and Dave was a great oak, both swirling in the same variant wind. They expressed themselves through their actions and reactions, and a truer story was never told. Backward, forward, bobbing, weaving, rising, falling – hearing only the music compressed in their imaginations – this hapless couple performed a timeless ritual.
The dance ended when Miss Ward, standing in the gallery entrance and seeing the movements, called, “Claire, what are you doing?! Come here now!” The heavy-breathing guard looked dangerous. Why was he moving like that? Should she say something to someone? Had Claire done something to provoke him? She used her teacher voice, “Claire, it’s time to go.”
Their reverie broken, Dave returned to his position in front of the painting, and Claire defiantly facing him, gripped the rope. “I’ll be back,” she whispered.
“I’ll be here,” he retorted.
Claire hurried toward Esther but stopped at the gallery entrance. She pirouetted and fixed on what she had danced for. Then she gazed at the old man, arms folded, still protecting his art. She curtsied and smiled.
Dave moved so as to afford her a better view and then had the wisdom and good grace to put his hands at his sides and bow.
Claire and ACCEPTANCE fade from the triptych, leaving only her pencil for you to contemplate. The spotlight shifts to the third panel. At first you think the man’s eyes are missing, but then you realize that they are completely black. He seems to be howling; perhaps the wax dripping from the burning candle he clutches causes pain. His clothing is curious, a hooded cloak. But the word on the brass plate is plain enough: WEALTH. His story, formulated as an ancient rhyme, unfolds.
To
Wizened with age, stooped in his frame.
Garbed in tatters, ribbons, and bells,
He smelled of primrose from the dells.
Winds blew him to this city’s square
On May the first, a day to share
Both old and new religious creeds
And talk of glories now in weeds.
When rich and poor were gathered round
He doffed his cap and paced the ground.
His lute was cracked, as was his voice,
But his true song was good and choice.
List you people, hearken to me,
Sit by my side, my words are free.
Heed my tale of a youth so bold
He spent his life in search of gold.
Jack was his name, rugged his build,
Ruddy of skin, his face untilled.
His hands were large, his muscles taut
From plowing fields that yielded naught.
Jack’s hazel eyes were clear of guile,
His mouth a simple peasant’s smile.
His knowledge of the world was dim.
His only friend a fool called Tim.
One autumn day midst leaves half green
They glimpsed a sack of velvet sheen.
A bell they found, a jeweled book,
A candle burnt, a sleeping rook.
“These are wizard’s things!” Tim exclaimed.
“Touch them not lest ourselves be maimed.”
Jack saw an end to his bad luck,
To body pain, to barnyard muck.
He snatched the bag and hurried home
To pry gems from the dusty tome.
But not a ruby could he unloose,
Despite deep cuts and vile abuse.
Two days did pass, and Tim came by,
A dismal sight did he espy.
Anger sore, Jack had built a fire,
Placed that book upon the pyre.
Then seizing Tim by shoulders tight,
Jack said, “Now see that I am right.”
Smokey flames did writhe, did roll,
But when they died, the book was whole.
Jack cursed his fate and struck his friend
And hurled the book that would not bend
To his blind lust for easy wealth
More prized by him than precious health.
Until Jack’s death he was greed sowed,
Lost his soul to the cloven-toed.
This foolish man in Hell doth bleed,
He’d cast the treasure all men need.
That old Book was the Word of God
Which is as sound as is our sod.
Attend therefore to its intent
Read it daily and be content.
Ponder people on its commands
Love each other as it demands.
We mortals have so short a span,
Do good to all as best you can.
The morals of this story three:
Seek not riches where none there be,
Use your wits to discover truth,
Abide the law of love in sooth.
Now that my simple tale is done,
God bless and keep you everyone.
Remember, please, this minstrel’s song,
And may your life be bright and long.
Jack fades from the triptych as does the
word WEALTH, but the candle still burns. Then, from the wings, two stagehands
enter. One takes the triptych, folds it, and walks off stage. The other starts
to push the table, stops, and snaps his finger. The stage lights come up. He
says, “You can ask them one question,” and exits with the table. Puzzled, you
look around at the empty stage and then out at the rows of seats. And there
they are, Gus, Claire, and Jack, sitting in the middle of the theater, waiting,
expressionless, almost mannequins.
You step to the stage’s edge, think about
their stories, and feel you want to ask something significant, some question
that will get at the message of each. With the spotlight, your tribal fire,
illuminating your face and hands, you say, “What did you learn?”
One of the triptych, the one you least
expected, stands and…and…
But that’s another story.