MARCH

As you enter The Station there’s a feeling that everyone, even those leaning closely in rapt conversation, are waiting for someone, for something. Students chewing on pencils gazing into text books; cappuccino connoisseurs watching sidewalkers and themselves through a film of glass that serves as a street wall; couples splitting carrot cake/muffins/creamcheese-on-a-sesame-bagel but hesitant to share much more; newspapered latte lovers scanning for something extraordinary…the sound of steam and the smell of coffee beans.

The Station is plastered with the metro maps of London, Paris, Hong Kong, Boston, New York, D.C., San Francisco, Moscow, Sydney, Tokyo…along the poster paneling there’s a wall-length walnut bench echoing some distant depot. A forest of fern and potted palm adds silhouette and a shadowy foreignness. Cast iron steps sprout out of the foliage and rise in a circular ascension to a second floor seclusion and a ceiling of stars.

The overall first impression of The Station is that the customers might be on their way to somewhere else, but they choose to stay here because here is enough. This is the rendezvous. That need for travel and adventure, to see new things, to experience beyond routines, The Station provides such an outlet. It is a place for meeting, greeting, leaving, and constant mystery.

It is also a place within the confines of my head. The café I want to open, to run, to expand, to build. It came in the dream that had me stuck in a station and unable to buy a ticket. No one seemed to mind that there weren’t any tickets at the station; people were completely content with just being there going nowhere. It was thrilling enough to be in a place of potential, on the edge of possibility.

I keep a sense of ‘potential’ for emotional equilibrium. No one person will drag me down –- spread the feelings (genuine affection) among a select few and this helps to always be ‘in-love’. Well, this worked, most of the time. But not now. I am alone, really alone and no formula is going to right the immediate wrongs I’m experiencing.

I’ve told Karen about The Station. She wants in. She wants to open a café and put her Liberal Arts B.A. to use. Thinks it romantic. We can do it.

Romance is illusion. Putting a ring around it intensifies the illusion but kills off the spirit behind it. Once the illusion is found out, there’s not much left to see. This confirms what maybe was suspected – romance is escape – from a relationship that isn’t working, from work that needs incentives, from a life that needs distraction. With six billion people in the world, the odds of finding someone to romance will always be on your side. You’ve just got to get out of the house. This is the basis for The Station.

Anyway, in the park there are strollers being pushed along by proud, tired pushers. Can’t tell if it’s the mother, child sitter, aunt, neighbor, sister… Children use up an enormous amount of supportive energy, spread that around too and make it less stressful.

I am alone. First time in a long while that I really feel it. Everyone who was important has vacated my premises. There’s definitely something missing. Friends and lovers are distractions from the big nothingness that remains without them here to distract it. When the sharing starts the nothingness ends.

Spring is raising its green budding head. Things that looked desolate and dead last week are spouting to life. People must be the same way. We must go through cycles in order to understand and appreciate our plight here. 

The sun is bright and glaring; the temperature is heading toward shorts and tee shirts. But I am cold and numbed and hiding in the most secluded part of the park.  Peter is gone. He was the most compatible mate I’ve ever had. A good couple develops a kind of GPS that can always locate each other. We had that.

But he won’t leave Gwen, she needs him.  He likes to be needed, it’s in his character. He knows I’ll survive without him, that the woman sitting propped up against this oak tree scribbling journal notes about emptiness and being lost in the forest will be okay. In this he is wrong.

I don’t want to need anyone. Spreading my emotional life around to Brian, Sy and Yogi was in direct response to the possibility of losing Peter. It hasn’t worked. When he cried over the … that is when I knew. I knew how close we really were and that I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. This is an inconsolable reality...

The building Karen and I have decided on has a dilapidated brick façade. Inside there is disillusionment. The walls and ceiling are peeling out like pages of a giant warped novel. The floor is cracked and crumbled like dried drought earth. The piping and electrical wiring are like the circulatory system of a 120 year old smoking alcoholic. It’s an ‘historical’ building with good and bad times etched in its boarded-up windows. For a ghost-seeing divorcee and a romantic x-librarian who’s having a break down, The Station will be a place of refuge, recuperation and rehabilitation. Perhaps it will be a resurrection for the three of us.

The building is tied up in legal messes and won’t be ready until the zoning, licensing, and contactors say it is. Karen handles these issues and these people. I’m more into the planning, the dream of it all. Reality is an ongoing problem for me.

The Grand Opening is set. Next September. The café is divided into four sections: Euro, Pacifica, Americana, and Asiatic. We’ve themed the four corners with appropriate attire on the walls and tables. We’ll rotate from section to section and never get bored. If boredom does creep in we’ll set traps with special events.  That’s the plan.

We’ll celebrate special events like New Year’s, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, Spring Equinox, Ides of March, St. Patrick’s Day, Passover, Easter, International Women’s Day, International Worker’s Day (May 1st), Cinqo de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Summer Solstice, Fourth of July, … and so on. There’ll be a celebration at least twice a month, and that is what we’ll build our good tidings on. We’ll track customer birthdays and offer a free drink on their big day. We’ll have a message board, a free speech forum with markers to use on freshly tacked-up butcher paper for all who want to leave a mark. We’ll take the best message (as voted on by the owners, well, me actually) and give that commentator something for free.

We’ll have a free internet access computer for customers. Five minutes only when others are waiting. The screen saver will feature photos of customers.

We’ll… I get manic with ideas while Karen handles practical details like putting the contractors together. I tend to obsess, Karen tells me. Crazy obsession stimulated by repressed desires – that is the sum of me – the need for something new, the need for escape from routine, the need to fulfill fantasy’s like romantic love and family -- These needs drive me…Crazy.

Reality is such a problem. There’s a chasm between what’s in the brain and what’s on the plain. Walking across the beautifully balanced Brooklyn Bridge bronzing in the twilight, I realize how to get away from this paralyzing pattern. Jump.

I tell this to Karen and the next thing I know it’s March 31st and we’re on a last minute flight to Hawaii.

 “It’s like this,” Karen explains harshly into her cell, “As I said, we connected in Oakland with flight 477…” Jared telecommunicates something that sends her eyeballs to the ceiling.  She stares as if waiting for an oxygen mask to deploy, then continues, “Aloha Airlines was supposed to depart at 10:15 p.m..”

We are waiting for a minor repair. Is there anything minor in a 737? Because of the delay they’ve allowed us to use electronic devices in the cabin. I’ve opened my laptop and begun to write about someone else’s problems, (i.e., Karen’s).

She looks at me for understanding, and complains, “Kryst, I don’t believe this.” Karen’s reaching a breaking point with her controlling husband questioning her every childlike move. But how many kids take off for Hawaii on the spur of the moment? she’d like to say but hasn’t.

“How about the seats, want that too?” she challenges him, “10 A & B. Want the pilot’s direct number? Our flight attendant’s name is Constance; she can be reached on the bulkhead extension. The air traffic controller is sending us in a south-by-south west direction. Then it’s best to contact Matson Lines – they run Pacific cargo freighters back and forth below the flight path should the need occur for rescue and spot checking of runaway spouses. The ship manifest must be on their website, Matson dot com.” 

Karen listens but doesn’t hear what she’s wanting to hear. Jared’s not understanding.  “Airport security doesn’t allow spousal check-ups after check-in,” she continues her provocations. An older couple seated in front of us, strapped in and ready to fly, lets out a muffled laugh.

“The nice people in 9 A & B,” Karen leans over the seat and asks, “Excuse me -- your names?”  They’ve been listening to this in-flight grounded entertainment and now Karen is making them pay the price. There’ll be no innocent bystanders.

The 9A henna haired woman smiles and doesn’t appear to have the least bit of trepidation for talking with a totally strange, total stranger. She tells Karen, “I’m Dorothy, and this is Herb. Not very private, is it?” She’s alluding to the cell phone use in the cabin, of using it to vent frustration and humiliation, of using it to entertain strangers on vacation. 

Karen plops back down into 10A and continues, “Dotty and Herb will gladly confirm I’m here, if you want to call seats 9A & 9B. It’s a bit dangerous though, as we are about to depart.”

As if on-cue, Constance announces, “Hello again, looks like we’re almost ready. The FAA requires that we stow away electronic devices at this time in preparation for departure. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Karen cells forth, “No, I’m not being sarcastic; I’m being very public. Even Dot says so.” She cups the phone and leans forward toward Dorothy, “Thank you for validating my existence.”

Constance, FAA rep / flight attendant, announces, again, “Please put away all electronic equipment, fasten seat belts, and place tray tables and seats into their upright and locked positions for takeoff.” 

I’m guessing cell signals could interfere with air traffic control and send us on a completely different trip, into the blackhole of San Francisco Bay.

But Karen continues, “Still there? … I’m happy for you… I’m not to the point yet. Once in Hawaii airspace the big concern is whether the fucking volcano will blow and knock us out of the fucking sky. If so or if we come up a little short on the runway you can patch into the Hawaii National Guard or the Hawaii Highway Patrol. Or call Jack Lord or Tom Selleck 999-9999! And the morgue is an 800 number, a freebee for cheap, never at home, control freaks who manage to smother all the good things around them. That’s the point!”

I’m squirming, nervously nudging my seatmate to get off the phone before something really bad happens. She probably shouldn’t have had three drinks on the continental crossing. And the two margaritas while waiting for this connection.

Karen tries to slam the phone off on the armrest, punishment for connecting her to misery and misunderstanding. Instead the Nokia has slipped and slithered down onto the cabin floor; I can hear Jared’s voice, as if he’s outside on the runway begging for one more chance, ”Karen ? Karen?...”.

Constance is upon us; we are back in the second grade. Miss Constance coldly passes looking to see of anyone’s cheating on the takeoff test. We are incredibly innocent and good at faking at this advanced age.

 I’m not too certain Karen has made her point. The nine nine nine sounded German for no no no, but the morgue allusion is a bit vague. I’m watching Jared in a bright red neon jacket running along trying to keep pace with the plane and its swirling flashing disco lights.

9B Herb turns around and hands 10A Karen her cell phone, “Someone’s calling for Karen.”  Karen grabs the cell like a baton in a mad dash relay. Outside Jared stops to plead but is sucked into the fanjet as Karen hits the off button. Chunky puree squirts out red onto the black skid-marked runway. BW gasps and chuckles.

Constance appears out of nowhere, stops and glares. She lets her face do the reprehensible reprimand. It’s a staying-after-school, extra-homework, get-your-butt-to-the-principal, parent-teacher-conference-needed type of non-verbal scolding.

Well, I didn’t do a damn thing wrong, but I’m not about to tell on my friend. My only, and best, friend.

Karen and I are taking a short, five day / four night trip to the Big Island. She’s stopped seeing marriage (and the ghosts disappeared).

Karen’s withdrawn silhouette is strangely mute during the taxi and take off as we climb above and beyond cloud shrouds highlighted by our moveable feast of colored lights.

“Good take-off, huh?” I prod. Herb turns and gives a thumbs up.

Karen stares up into outer space which looks to be a mixture of black and blue. Down below amber fields of grainy city lights slowly disappear. I whisper, “You know if you step back a bit, what you just did -- that was pretty funny.”

Karen starts giggling, a girlish giggle, the kind we’re trained to hold in in public, “It was, wasn’t it?”

Maybe it’s the altitude, or the near scorning-to-death by our FAA enforcement officer, but everything seems funny. I can’t bear to look at Karen for fear of convulsing into hysterics, not appropriate behavior on a quiet flight to paradise. I’d die happy right now if the plane should suddenly… What the hell am I saying? Why’d she mention morgue? No, I would not die happy -- a horrific plunge -- thirty seconds of screaming prayers-denial-bargaining-cursing terror followed by slow motion smashing into a shark-infested rock solid, deathly dark ocean. I hate flying. And large, teeth-filled fish. Cruel oblivion.

Karen has D & C’d her husband. It hurts and is going to hurt for a while. She has been complaining of ulcer-like pains for a week. Her fruitarian & alcohol diet isn’t helping. We’re going to Hawaii for therapy. Sun, swim, snorkel, and hiking to molten lava and dripping rainforests. Then we will reclaim and resume our abandoned, hopeless lives at The Station. At least that’s the plan.

Karen rubs her stomach while searching the void outside.

“You know what it is,” I say, offering her a fruity TUMS, “You eat a lot of fruit right? Apples, pears, plums… It’s all of those made-in-some-other-country stickers. I’ll bet you’ve eaten too many stickers.” She doesn’t laugh, or smile. I’m not much of a comedian, obviously. But the sporadic Bubble World gets it.

Her hand reaches out for the TUMS; her head can’t be bothered to turn away from the deep unfathomable universe. 


 "March" excerpt from "The Station" © 2005 by John Kirkmire, © 2013 Kirkworkshop. All rights reserved.

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