A Moveable Feast by Stanley Jenkins
And me? Well, up late on this early-morning-feeling day and
body
aching for coffee and long sit and sip at cafe across from church of
Peter
and Paul, which is brown and old and founded on land given by Irish
immigrant in 1836 from his farm where, no doubt, he was still living
when
he died, and the plaque says the year of that death was 1848--when
revolution came to Europe (and do you remember?--in that year we had
nothing to lose but our chains, like Dylan Thomas who drank himself to
death over there across the East River at the White Horse while time
held
him green and dying).
And me. I'm eager and impatient to drink my coffee and sit
outside
and watch the comings and goings of the parish of P and P--but all the
outdoor seats are taken and I'm a little annoyed and try staring at cafe
sitters until they know they are in my seat but they don't notice and
their
dogs are eating bits of bagels and look so companionable so I figure, Oh
what the hey, and go across the street and sit on curb of church with my
coffee in hand and watch the goings on from opposite side. And so here,
the brown stone church is behind me like a big football-shouldered
brother
who is just a little old to be showing me, little brother, affection in
public, but nonetheless feeling protective, and on this sunny afternoon
he
loves me and would feel my absence like a window left open on a cold
night,
if I were to suddenly stand up and go away and leave the family to find
my fortune across the great and wondrous Bridge. Brooklyn.
And watching the goings on. And I'm beginning to wake up
now--and
feeling good. And believe you me the parish is popping. And doors are
open. A big sports utility vehicle pulls up and I watch the door spill
out
gulumphing rhythms of big large old woman. Out she pops like last
chunks
of vanilla milkshake poured from cold metal glasses and she has a cane
and
pauses to steady herself and her face looks up eager to get to where she
is
going and a dark face from the back seat leans out and says, "Goodbye,
Abuela!" and the church swallows grandma like a warm bath.
(Incidentally, out of the corner of my eye, I notice as the
Sabbath
scrunches a little closer to her lover (maybe me!), like snuggling up
and
pressing deeper, knees into knee-backs, hip to haunches. Mystical Lady
Day: she is the Queen and the Bride. And before the sun goes down
there
really ought to be dancing just like there used to be every Saturday in
August right there on the street in front of Jessel's Fish Market on
Southside of Chicago with big blues band and even the cops are
smiling....and uh oh, I expect I'm falling in love....she is so
beautiful.
My Sabbath. My Queen of the Day....)
And so anyway, there is a thin nervous bird-like woman in her
late
60's leaning against the gate smoking a cigarette. And I'm feeling
adventurous, maybe take the long walk through shadows into the church,
and
me, I sez to her, "Is there a Mass now?" And she laughs and she--she
sez,
"Naw, it's Bingo." And I'm laughing too. So happy to be sharing the
day.
And so I say, I sez to her, leaning in real confidential like, "Well, I
hope you win." And she laughs and sez, "Me too!" And we share a nod
just
like old compadres in the Bingo Wars of Liberation. No pasaran! And I
bow
to her formally. And she to me. And yet have to admit, just the
tiniest
bit relieved not to have to cross shadows and meet my God in strange
church
where I do not know when to bow and genuflect or even if I should be
dipping my Protestant fingers in Catholic holy water.
Still, there really ought to be dancing.
O but I am sad too. And O but I'm nervous in love and feeling
naked. I am not Jew, Catholic or any perceptible flavor, just poor boy
Puritan washed up on these shores, still looking for New World, still
looking for Peaceable Kingdom, though my people have been here forever
and
just long enough to forget what made them flee anonymity and conformity
in
other older homelands. My people. Pilgrims to the New Jerusalem. So
far
from home. And now I remember my gold Celtic cross is lying on the
window
sill so I would remember to put it back on and not lose it after it fell
off in bed 'cause the clasp is broken. And I'm missing it and wishing I
hadn't forgotten it, 'cause somewhere there are graves engraved with my
old
family name underneath this sign, like passport, like license to be
here,
and not there, in cold ground where the bones of my people still await
Resurrection Day--but there's a kid with the most beautiful golden hair
dressed in camouflage with a skateboard and he is riding up and down the
street up and down the street and I guess I've been watching him for the
better part of a half hour now, but no time for that now 'cause suddenly
my
ancient ones are calling to me with great tenderness from across
ancestral
Welsh lands and coal fields and cold seas and they say to me, "Go on
kid,
ask her to dance," and so trembling just a little and gathering courage
against the shadows, I approach the Shabbos Bride, who does not care
if I
am a foreigner--and she has come to gather the scattered.
And she is so lovely--until I am weak in the knees. And she says
nothing
but takes me like a Queen. And when we dance our American waltz, to the
Celtic keening of Days and the khlezmer song of strangers impossibly
touching, we do not even notice the sidewalk's applause. I am in love
with
the Day in Brooklyn (and Man! you shoulda seen us--cutting a
rug--tripping
the light fantastic--and twirling in 3/4 waltz time like real-genuine
king
and queen of weddingcake-hill--me and the Shabbos Bride). And the
lampposts are keeping time and the boy on the skateboard claps out the
rhythm of wheels. And somewhere, somehow, I know all God's children are
shouting "Bingo!" like gulping scalding coffee and piling scrambled eggs
on
hot toast and so happy in pockets all across our Americas. And, O yes,
somewhere somehow, I just know volunteer fire departments are washing
their
engines and blocking off traffic and we will have a parade and boats in
upstate canals will pause and there will be cheers. And people will
hold hands. Today in our Americas.
She curtseys. I bow. Head to Bergen Street feeling flush.
Cobble Hill. Brooklyn. Court Street on early Saturday
afternoon.
Across the street at St. Peter's and St. Paul's the doors are open for
business (just as night before, synagogue doors were open on the upper
westside and a minyon gathered to sing welcomes to the coming Sabbath
Queen). Me? I'm up late on what feels like an early morning.
Shabbos
for some. And indeed she has come like a bride. Her gown is deep
Brooklyn
blue with cheerful patches of cloud-white like the friendly gasp of
coming
through the Michigan meadow and--O gosh!--happening upon a deer bed, the
grass matted in circles and fur tufts and the smell of recent sleep so
strange so sweet. The Shabbos Queen is laughing.
O but I am sad too. And O but I'm nervous in love and
feeling naked.
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The Blue Moon Review, All Rights Reserved.