Morning Thanks--Grapefruit

Just one of the bizarre attributes of Poe's short fiction is the grotesquely upholstered rooms in which his characters have their being --think "Fall of the House of Usher" or "The Cask of Amantillado." Poe's stories take place in rooms that feel very much like coffins, not that I've been in all that many. But then, well, that's Poe, who wanted us all in his ghoulish nightmares.

All stories create rooms, metaphorically at least, open spaces in which, oddly enough, we now and then stumble on ourselves--and not necessarily because we've been there either, but because something of us is already there.

Take as odd a yearn-spinner as Jack London, in a brutal tale like "To Build a Fire." I've never been that cold or that close to death, never been anywhere near the frigid wilderness that is the "room" that story creates when my eyes run over the page. But when he takes me there, somehow, oddly enough, I'm not a stranger. Some undeniably human part of me knows its way around.

Some say our love for stories--we're hard-wired with it, methinks--derives from little more than a hungry ear for gossip. Maybe so. Who doesn't want to know at least something of the latest?

But then gossip is penny-ante sin. If there's going to be some iniquity in our passion for stories, let's hike it up the register to pride, the first of the seven deadlies; because it seems to me that one of the great human joys of an accepting story is finding ourselves in a high-minded New England town, adorned with a scarlet letter. Lo and behold, we're there. Thank goodness. Maybe there's something sort of arrogant about that, finally, somewhat egocentric.

The joy of my night last night was "Yurt," by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, in the 2009 Best American Short Stories. I've never been a young, female, and treasuringly naive grade school teacher, but that wonderful story of miscreant passions creates an oddly familiar place where, somehow, I live. I don't think it a sin, either, because finding myself in a story--I don't care what flavor--still feels to this old fart like bona fide growth.

And then there's this slight poem slipped into my in-box this morning from Garrison Keillor's friends:

Grapefruit

by Ted McMahon

My grandfather got up early to section grapefruit.
I know because I got up quietly to watch.
He was tall. His hairless shins stuck out
below his bathrobe, down to leather slippers.
The house was quiet, sun just up, ticking of
the grandfather clock tall in the corner.

[Neither of my grandfathers ever cut me a grapefruit, and the house where I grew up didn't have a grandfather clock, but I'm here somehow, in the kitchen in the morning.]

The grapefruit were always sectioned just so,
nestled in clear nubbled bowls used
for nothing else, with half a maraschino
centered bleeding slowly into
soft pale triangles of fruit.

[I've seen such grapefruit in restaurants, but I've never had one. I don't even care for marashino cherries, although my granddaughter loves them on her ice cream, so we have got a jar full in the fridge. That cherry bleeding into the fruit--that's nice, isn't it?]

It was special grapefruit, Indian River,
not to be had back home.
Doves cooed outside and the last night-breeze
rustled the palms against the eaves.
He turned to see me, pale light flashing
off his glasses
and smiled

[Just a smile, nothing more. I hope I'm that grandpa. Maybe my wife and I ought to have a sleepover, take some pressure off our daughter. Oops--there's no end punctuation]

I remember as I work my knife along the
membrane separating sections.

[It's a memoir, of course. I should have known.]

It's dawn. The doves and palms are far away.
I don't use cherries anymore.
The clock is digital
and no one is watching.

There's just a nip of bitter herbs here to avoid sheer sentimentality, but I don't know that "no one is watching" is meant to be a downer. Who cares, really? What sustains this guy is the sheer joy of memory, a yesterday conjured by sectioning grapefruit, at dawn, alone--but really not so. There's still a grandpa there. I like that.

What I'm saying is, I'm in the room. Been there, done that.

Somehow I'm in the room. Somehow I find myself right there. He's wrong--someone is watching: me.

This morning, peanut butter probably, and honey, on toast. I've already had my grapefuit.

_______________________________ 　
"Grapefruit" by Ted McMahon, from The Uses of Imperfection. (c) Cat ‘n' Dog Production, 2003. Reprinted with permission.