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The First Time I Heard The Future

Don Kunz

The first time I heard “The Future“ sung by Leonard Cohen I was sprawled across the broken springs of a faded white love seat in our living room. Leonard Cohen seemed clear about the future. I wanted to be, too, but I wasn’t. I understood vaguely that I was going to have to deal with the past first. My present was a pile of crushed Miller High Life cans on a three-legged Formica coffee table, an orange shag rug that smelled like a mildewed shower curtain, an embarrassed lover in the kitchen, and a fresh copy of The Providence Journal Bulletin in my lap. I read the paper, studying the past of others for clues.
According to The Journal Beatrice Delgado, eighty one years old, of 221 Gano Street in Fox Point had been beaten to death with the cast-iron frying pan she was using to cook pork chops when someone kicked in her back door. She had been found lying on the kitchen floor by her twelve-year-old granddaughter who had been doing homework in an upstairs bedroom when she heard sounds of a struggle. The kitchen floor was littered with the contents of Ms. Delgado’s purse-cosmetics, receipts, family photos, an empty wallet. I drank to the memory of Beatrice Delgado and thought about the effort it must take to lift a cast-iron skillet over and over. From my own kitchen I heard a plastic spoon being slammed repeatedly against the edge of a stainless-steel sauce pan. Leonard Cohen’s husky baritone was insistent:

And now the wheels of heaven stop.

You feel the devil’s riding crop.

Get ready for the future.

It is murder.
I kept reading. Angel Washington, four years old, of 362 Foster Street, Apt 7 located in the Tonomy Hill housing project in Newport had died of bullet wounds she had suffered yesterday about four in the afternoon. She had been playing on the jungle gym in Turo Park when shots were fired toward the basketball court from a black van westbound on Pleasant Street. Witnesses noted that the young man firing from the van was wearing a red bandanna on his head. Police suspect that the Bloods, a Los Angeles’ street gang are trying to move into the Tonomy Hill area, home of the Latin Kings. I popped open another can of beer and thought about buying a handgun. Farther down on the page D & B Guns on North Main Street was advertising a fall special which included a free hunting license. Leonard Cohen sang:

Give me absolute control

over every living soul,

and lie beside me, baby.

That’s an order!
I read on. Phrith Sanaugnn, 37 years old, of 779 Irving Street in the Armory district had died in his sleep of unknown causes. An accompanying article on the Op Ed page written by Gail Armonson, a physician who worked with the local Southeast Asian community, noted that such unexplained deaths were common in Cambodia. They believed one could die from a curse; an enemy could invade ones dreams and transform them into nightmares. The victim died of fright, or, alternatively, of the belief that such things could occur. I rolled some Miller Highlife around in my mouth slowly; after the first six pack, beer tastes mostly like yeast and dreams. I tried to think what I believed in enough to die for. After seven years I knew it wasn’t the sanctity of marriage that Father Mellor was always yammering on about. Leonard Cohen understood more than my priest:

There’ll be the breaking of the ancient western code.

Your private life will suddenly explode.

There’ll be phantoms.

There’ll be fires on the road.
I read about Andrew Williamson Jr., 11 months old, of 46 Pitman Place in Hope Valley, who had been brought to the emergency room of South County Hospital in Wakefield by his father around one am. The infant was unconscious and upon examination by the physician on duty was discovered to have twenty one broken bones. The father reported that the boy had been crying excessively, could not be restrained, and had fallen from his crib around midnight. Andrew Williamson, Sr. was being held for questioning by Rhode Island State Police at the Hope Valley barracks. Leonard Cohen had seen it coming:

I’ve seen the future, baby:

It is murder.
I noticed that Sojourner House in Cranston was seeking escorts and safe houses for battered women. Their facility (at an undisclosed location in the city) was filled to capacity. The director, Shirley Mckinney, referred reporters to the work of Sociology Professor Richard Gelles of the University of Pennsylvania, a nationally recognized expert on family violence. Gelles’ research indicates that a woman is assaulted (beaten, raped, murdered) in the United States every six seconds, and 96% of those assaults are perpetrated by a family member. The article ended with an 800 number that could be called by victims of family violence. They called it a hot line. I memorized it for future reference. Leonard Cohen sang to me:

You’ll see the woman

hanging upside down,

her features covered by her fallen gown.
    Somehow my clothes had gotten all twisted beneath me on the love seat. I twisted, too, trying to fit into them better, but I couldn’t get comfortable. So, I straightened up and folded the newspaper as neatly as I could (there had been arguments about this in the past). I could hear water boiling over and turning to steam on the coils of the electric stove, the splatter of hot grease in a skillet, and my spouse muttering. Some parts of the news wouldn’t lie flat. I laid them to rest carefully on the empty half of the love seat. Then, I swallowed the last of my beer and tried to stand up. It was harder than I thought. Part of my body seemed numb, like it had fallen asleep a long time ago. I rose up stiff and went into the kitchen sore.
    My “domestic partner“ (a term I remember from therapy) wouldn’t look at me, just asked, “how’s the eye?“ then turned back to the stove and stirred the stew boiling furiously on the front burner.
    I didn’t say anything. I’ve learned it’s better not to. My hand touched my face, swollen and tender. I looked down, squinting through the soreness at a plastic cutting board beside the sink. Its surface was badly scuffed from years of rough treatment, and it was deeply scarred in the center. A chef’s knife rested there. I read the fine print on steel: “Gerber Legendary Blades.“ I thought of the toothless Gerber baby smiling on the label of the baby food jars. I wondered if they were part of the same family. Then I watched my hand skitter across the cutting board tracing the scars, hunting for what would come next. Leonard Cohen already knew:

Your servant here, he has been told

to say it clear, to say it cold:

It’s over.

It ain’t going any further.
There wasn’t much blood. The wound opened like a smile between the first and third ribs where I stuck the chef’s knife into my husband while he was standing in a cloud of steam. He seemed surprised. He must have thought that by feeding me he was earning my forgiveness. I guess it wasn’t the future he had imagined. But he might have, if he had listened. It’s just like the past.

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