The End or ###

There comes a point when you're writing a story when the ending becomes inevitable. The sensation is a little sexual. At least that's the closest sensation that comes to mind. The last few nights while working on a story that I've been working on for at least three months I've had that feeling. You suddenly realize that the scene you're writing is going to be the last scene in the story. You see right where the end is going to be - maybe not the exact last sentence, but it's in this scene. That much is clear. Except the characters won't stop talking. One or another just has to get another word in. And so you let them talk, at least for a little longer. Who knows, maybe they'll say something interesting. Even if they don't, you're the boss, and you can always go back and cut. It's a little like being God. God and sex. And hope it works out in the end.

A Poet Looks at Family

I'm sure for all of you well read readers this doesn't need repeating, but I was thinking about the rather dour British poet Philip Larkin today. Below is his poem about families. It's perhaps a bit harsh.

This be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself

Where the Thumb Takes You

The other day at an on-ramp to the Kennedy, I saw a youngish couple waiting for a ride. They had a sign and they had a dog and the sign read, "Texas". I was trying to remember the last time I'd seen a hitchhiker and I couldn't. I used to see them all the time especially out west, especially in California where at on-ramps in Berkeley and Santa Cruz and San Francisco the lines of folks waiting for rides were ten or twelve deep but the rides usually came quick and off we went. The same in Boulder. The same in Eugene.

The first time I hitchhiked any distance was from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale. I was fifteen and I was with a girl a year older. Call her Mary, I think that was her name. We had less than five dollars between us and less than a full pack of cigarettes. We didn't have a whole lot of sense and only a vague idea how to get there but people picked us up one after another (later I learned it's easier with a girl plus they're nice to have around) and two or three days later we found ourselves on a bench by the beach eating from a bag of oranges that someone was kind enough to leave behind.

The trip wasn't an entire success. The girl we'll call Mary neglected to tell me she was on antibiotics and she neglected to read the instructions where it would have told her to stay out of the sun. I still don't understand the chemistry or is it biology that made her puff up after a day in the sun. She didn't look good - she looked like an over-inflated balloon person and this made her cry and it frightened me and we were a long way from home. Plus, our cigarettes had run out.

She called her mother (collect) and her mother and big sister who didn't have much to do and who didn't feel all that favorable about me decided to drive down and retrieve us. I should have stayed behind. They were nice enough but the mom had a plan and I hadn't yet learned how devious and mean people can be. When we got back to Chicago (I say Chicago but really it was a suburb - but who wants to hear about a suburb) the mom made us something to eat - and while this Mary and I were feeling good about eating a nice home cooked meal, mom was calling the police to let them know she knew right where a runaway was sitting and could they come by and pick him up.

While this didn't end our relationship (at the time we wouldn't have used a word like that) but it probably opened up a crack that eventually tore us apart. But what it didn't do was turn me off from hitchhiking. Hitchhiking with other girls and with guys and even alone - but, you know, never once with a dog. That might have been fun. Folks seem to like folks with dogs. Speaks to their character.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The answer to that question has never been difficult for me to answer. The answer has generally been go. The last couple of days I've been trying to do the math - if it's been a gain or a loss. Clearly if I had stuck it out in one or the other places I would have more security than I currently enjoy, but in other ways I'd be poorer. Poorer for all the people I would never have met, the different cultures who let me in and in some cases embraced me.

Yesterday AC, an old friend of mine in Santa Fe, sent me two Cuban cigars. He and his wife had recently been down there and he was able to smuggle out a couple of boxes. He thought I might enjoy one. AC is something like 5th generation New Mexican whose family traces its roots back to Spain. We became friends when we worked together at The College of Santa Fe and
he and EG showed me the deep Spanish side of Northern New Mexico that I never would have found on my own.

Later I became close to an Indian from San Ildefonso Pueblo and because I was close to her I got closer to her people than most Anglos are allowed. I spent Christmas and Thanksgiving on the pueblo where we ate turkey and posole and green chile stew.

To a lesser degree the same was true of people I met in Northern California when I lived there. It was the natives (and in California they are harder to find) that I wanted to know. To know what they know. An 80 year old woman who worked for me became my friend under the pretense of inviting me over to help her with her computer. What she really was was lonely and she soon had me over for dinner. We ate in her dining room from where we could look out the windows and see across to San Francisco and out the others to the hills of the East Bay.

I guess writing this down is my way of doing the math. One of these days - maybe when it gets cold again, I'll light up one of those cigars AC sent me. I'm hoping the smoke will smell as sweet as the pinon that perfumes New Mexico's winter nights.