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Order this writing in the collection book Breaking Silences available for only 1650 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue of cc&d magazine.
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Old Bookends
Pat Dixon
Barry Bramlett’s heavy fingertips rested on his keyboard. He stared into unfocused air three and a half inches in front of his computer screen.
After forty-three trance-like seconds, he shook his head, drew a deep breath, and double-clicked the e-mail titled “Was ist neu mit du Vii?” Then he scrolled to the bottom to estimate its length, rescrolled to the top, and began reading his second wife’s latest message:
Dear Vii, Four longish moons ago when I wrote you how I wanted to write my Memoirs (to be titled KEEP ROWING!) you suggested I could maybe get over my writer’s block by buying a tape recorder and talking my story into it as if I was telling it to a close friend. Co-inkie-dinkie and thanks to you I already have a tape recorder.
I purchased this some years back at your suggestion as you must have forgotten.
I was experiencing those verbal attacks from “Frankie Fang” who was determined to unseat me from my position at Witherspoon’s alumni office.
I had it in my jacket pocket when I sat in his office for a “fireside” type of chat with him to try to amend our “soured” relationship.
Forgotten? I don’t remember it now even when I’m reminded, he thought. I remember all sorts of crap about that asshole Frank Adams, but not the tape recorder—but—it sounds just like the kind of advice I’d give—oh—twenty-two, twenty-three years ago. He read more:
At one point FANG seemed to be amenable to the idea, but he hardened at one point.
And he made it clear he would not rescind.
Naturlich I found that confusing but I was prepared to record it.
Thanx to you. Now here is the follow up. As time wore on I began to realize that Frank was someone’s toady. But that’s not the point.
HE should never have allowed himself to be persuaded to be an axe man because of someone else’s ego.
Shall I clarify that statement?
I was devastated that I was facing the prospect of losing my job because of this idiot.
Not only that, but it would mean severe consequences on my retirement benefits.
The plan the employees were in was making money hand over fist . I started with a meager two thousand dollars investment and within 3 years it had grown to fifteen thousand and was growing, growing, growing.
I estimated that if I stayed with them for five more years, I would have an annuity worth 4 times that amount in a retirement account. Then suddenly FANG redecribed my position
and classified me as part time worker.
I worked eight hours per day still, but two shifts as a part time worker! Therefore did not have the benefits of a full time worker.
And as a part-time worker was not entitled to health or annuity benefits. As such my salary would be reduced by $10,000 per annum. And that’s why I left the place.
Now here’s the reason behind all of this.
The Chairman of the Witherspooners Committee (Dom DelSesto - 1957 graduate) was hot on the trail of my bod.
As were at least half a dozen others, he thought. This one’s news to me—but why would you tell me everything that happened—after we split? Nine years together—six good years.
He plied me with some very nice presents and sweet talk.
I regarded it as “harmless flirting.” This man who was highly regarded in the business world, a millionaire, with a wife. Surely he wasn’t serious!
He smiled, he cajoled, he was very pleasant.
And Tom Vickers my first boss there had a high regard for him.
(One of the reasons I was always especially pleasant to Dom.)
As a payback, I bought Dom an exquisite Italian silk necktie as a thank you for all the nice little favors he bestowed upon me. And like a sappy, high school mentality boy, he showed it to everyone he met.
Wore it for every publicity picture that was ever taken of him, and sent me the clippings.
With a little note saying, “There you see, I’m thinking of you.”
He even wore it to Scotland when he golfed at St. Andrew Golf Course and attended the banquet. I guess I just did not connect the dots.
In my mind, I thought he was just a nice fellow trying to be nice because I was Tom’s Administrative Assistant.
Here was a man who was involved with million dollar breakfast fund raisers. And I, in my naiveté, responded to his question, “Is there something I can get for you when I’m in London?” saying, “Well, I do like Yardley’s Lavender spray cologne.”
And what do you know, when he returned I had SIX huge bottles sitting on my desk. He would accept no monetary re-imbursements. I never offered more than that. At one point, however, he did ask me out to dinner.
But his request sounded more like a casual flirtatious remark and so in my mind I dismissed it as just that.
(After all he was a pillar of society, with a wife who enjoyed the prestige of his position.) Not for a minute did I think he was really serious, I honestly felt he was only indulging in a mild flirtation and was not serious. Subsequently, he made it clear in an encounter in my office that he was indeed serious and meant everything he said and was intent upon having a relationship with me. And told me flat out, I would be sorry for not taking him seriously.
Sensing where Ava-Lynn Bramlett’s narrative was going, Barry Bramlett felt his cheeks begin to warm and his mouth draw tight. He had always tried to be protective of her, the woman who had rescued him from the horrors and fallout of his first marriage.
If you’d told me about this asshole at the time, he thought, I’d have broken his freaking face for him—like I did that punk’s that got rough with you in Philly right after we split. Barry squinted at the wall behind his computer. Maybe that’s why you didn’t tell me. Wonder where this fat turd is now. I bet I could take him—even at my age.
It was shortly after this that Tom Vickers retired and “Fang” replaced Tom as my boss and began to give me a rough time.
I still did not connect the dots. At one point, I called Dom and told him of the situation with Frank and asked him if he could he do any thing about it, being the big honcho, etc., his comment was “Did Frank bring up my name in the conversation?”
BINGO!
A month after I left Witherspoon to work at St. Stephen as asst. minister’s secretary, I received a nighttime call from Dom.
HE consulted his records and looked up my phone number. He told me he was so sorry I was no longer an employee.
Perhaps we could get together and have dinner? I hung up the phone.
Never heard from him since, thankfully.
What’s your take?
In your mind, wouldn’t this story make a short magazine piece on its own merit - as human interest?
No. No, it would not! he thought. It needs some justice—some vengeance—revenge—in it.
In my mind, maybe I’m just a very stupid, don’t want to be obligated to anyone, am not a bed bunny, or a slab of beef on a hook type of mentality. If I had let go of all that rigid type of thinking and had a bit more compassion for a deprived type of mentality, willing to supplement me with all kinds of goodies, maybe I wouldn’t be at the bottom of this heap I’m living with. Nes pas? Tell me your thoughts. Am I really retarded? ELLEVEN
Sometimes—on some topics—including French spelling, he thought, fully aware that her spoken French was infinitely more fluent than his own had ever been. But so am I, he added.
It took Barry nearly two minutes to locate the e-mail he had written to her about taping one’s thoughts to avoid writer’s block:
dear e11even,
i think you should buy a cheap ($25?) tape recorder&talk to it about life—even when driving (but not on the golf course driving). then transcribe what you say. pitch it to some people like your daughter in your mind (what would you tell them?). then you can always edit it for polish&coherence.
Ava-Lynn Hein (Massingill) Bramlett, whom he had met at Witherspoon Academy’s library one spring evening, had a daughter, now in her mid-forties, by her first marriage (“My first husband—well—he was just a big douche is the whole story”). Smitten almost instantly by Ava-Lynn’s V-shaped face, honey-blonde hair, athletic body, and saucy tongue with its cute “Chermin” accent, Barry had begun courting her with the nickname Eleven—partly a pun on her name but chiefly his wannabe-witty answer to his own question: “If I were rating you on a scale of zero to ten, guess where it would be?”
Still good advice, he thought, staring at his own words and recalling how he had often broken through his own writer’s block when putting together his many conference papers, his professional articles, and his textbook on inorganic chemistry. He paused and smiled at his e-style of using chiefly lowercase letters—a playful pretence that he thought and typed far too rapidly to use shift keys for conventional uppercase letters—and then continued reading his own prose with genuine pleasure:
“good” writing doesn’t just come out of the first or 2nd draft—it takes (usually) many drafts with lots of cutting&filling and moving around of the parts. but getting the FIRST draft down on paper is the hardest part. that’s what blocks most folks. do that&then edit what you have.&it will gradually get easier as you go along—but you have to start.
how ‘bout i buy you a little tape recorder as an advance birfdee gipht?
se7en
In instant response to Barry’s new nickname for her, which she was delighted with, Ava-Lynn nicknamed him Seven—solely because it was a number that rhymed with Eleven. Barry had been quite disappointed with this, taking it partly as her subconscious ranking of him on a scale of ten, but he had never imparted his feeling to her—before, during, or since their years of marriage. After more than three decades, it still annoyed him, but he had used it, or several variants of it, to sign every one his writings to her.
He pondered how to respond to her latest message. After slightly more than five minutes, he decided it would be best to sleep on the matter.
In the early afternoon of the next day, Ava-Lynn, freshly showered after nine holes of golf, opened Barry’s reply to her:
dear e11even—
i’m going to comment on a couple of points by copying&pasting some of your words into this e-note.
YOU: What’s your take?
In your mind, wouldn’t this story make a short magazine piece on its own merit - as human interest?
ME: only if that heap of horse turd gets bumped off—or some other happy ending is there. readers/editors would probably not like an unhappy ending.
YOU: In my mind, maybe I’m just a very stupid, don’t want to be obligated to anyone, am not a bed bunny, or a slab of beef on a hook type of mentality. If I let go of all that rigid type of thinking and had a bit more compassion for a deprived type of mentality, willing to supplement me with all kinds of goodies, maybe I wouldn’t be at the bottom of this heap I’m living with. Nes pas? Tell me your thoughts.
ME: i think we’re both ‘retarded’ or out of sync with how the greedy skunks work. it’s called ‘having good moral character’ (in aristotle’s ETHICS&a hundred other places). in retrospect i’d say it was what tipped my first wife over the edge so that she kept me up past my bedtime berating me for 6 or 7 hrs on several hundred occasions. i just wasn’t ‘a team player’ (my first dept. head’s phrase, said to me about 42 yrs ago). in different ways we both have ‘been true to ourselves’ (to paraphrase the bard) in the workplace&it has cost us—but ask instead, ‘what would I think of myself IF I did x,y,z as requested?’ back in the army i was asked to falsify reports&declined—as punishment, I got chosen to fill a slot post headquarters had—and it turned out to be in the MPs. that one worked out okay, but many others (as when i refused to help another dept. head squeeze a senior colleague out) cost me several hundred thousand bucks from ten yrs of promotion delays. would I be happier having got paid to do that? would you have liked me better or worse? anyway, if it takes being a ‘dick’ or a ‘XXXX’ to succeed financially, then maybe some of us don’t want to play. okay?
Always the long-winded repetitious professor, she thought. I have heard these stories at least two hundred times!
did i mention yet that jack dolan my former dept head has prostate cancer? or that his wife’s breast cancer has returned? that has to be a double blow that hurts. if i were superstitious i’d be wondering if he is being punished for his many sins against humanity. i was tempted to phone&offer to run errands if they needed a driver to pick up stuff or drive anyone anywhere, but I decided (given the hostile nature of some conversations we had) just to leave them alone.
Always polishing your own halo, she thought. Why be telling me what you almost did?
best,
se7en
p.s. i was writing a note to my godson lawrence yesterday&(since he is working retail this summer vacation) i thought i’d tell him about some of my summer jobs&college jobs. i don’t think i ever told you about them, e11even, so i’m going to paste some of my note to him in here—BUT FIRST LET ME SAY VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY, ‘GOOD WORK WITH YOUR WRITING! YOU CAN USE THAT LETTER YOU WROTE TO ME AS PART OF A CHAPTER OF YOUR MEMOIRS!’ anyway, here’s what i wrote to lawrence:
i also had a huge number of weird jobs during most terms&summers. pay was very low back then (LESS than a dollar an hr usually) but things cost less (a good used car might only be $200&gasoline was about 25 cents per gallon). working in the campus libraries (plural—some specialty branch libraries were in different bldgs) was fun&useful as far as learning off the wall facts. in the chem library, I read several ph.d. dissertations about failed attempts to synthesize hydrocarbon compounds: imagine getting a doctorate just for showing that you can’t make something by using a certain technique?! (one prof here in my dept got HIS ph.d. for just such nutty research!) i also worked for buildings&grounds one summer, drilling holes around elm trees to pour fertilizer into (nearly broke both wrists when the auger caught a stone&kept going down, while the shut-off switch wouldn’t shut off—no one was nearby&i had to hold it till the electric motor burned out). most of the older b&g employees were concerned that I was ‘working too hard.’ they wanted to punch in early&punch out late but do as little work as possible—hanging out in the ‘equipment barn’ for at least 30 mins. before starting any work&leaving the work an hour or more early to ‘get the equipment back to the barn.’ (‘slow down, son,’ said a tractor driver with the ironic nickname of SPEED. ‘you’ll work yourself out of a job!’) weeding a millionaire’s corn fields&building hay stacks for his little herd of cows was another great job i had. the chief weird thing was one day he&his wife were trying to decide which of their four cars (3 caddies&one buick) to drive into town,&it was decided by the fact that three had dog hairs on the front seat&one was clean.
Funny, she thought. I’ll tell him it’s funny. She scrolled to the end of his long letter and scrolled back. Not much more to go.
here’s what may be a murder story, e11even (i’m pasting this on from an earlier note i sent to lawrence about 2 months ago when he wrote me about taking zoology&working with lab mice (I THINK IT ALSO PERTAINS TO WHY SOME BAD STUFF HAPPENS TO NICE FOLKS WHO ARE SQUARE):
back in 1953-54, when I was in 7th grade, our teacher took us to the biology dept. of the univ. of okla. (where my folks worked in other depts.). we were all offered white mice by dept.,&I took 3 after I’d built a 4-room 2-story cage with a ramp&tiny sliding doors for them. they got along fine together, so I got a 4th mouse a week later. the newest mouse, which was slightly larger than the others, had a peculiar, tipsy gait. the others stayed away from it all day long, actually moving far out of its way whenever it approached. the next morning, the large new mouse was dead&showed signs of having been bitten in many places. i have no idea what really happened, but i assumed they had all jumped it&killed it in its sleep because it was ‘different’—probably i based this partly on similar ganging-up behavior i had seen in my grade-school classmates—& have seen scores of times since, everywhere i’ve worked. (if i’d had true scientific curiosity about biology, i’d have hurried back for another defective mouse&watched more closely what the home team did to welcome it.) of course it’s possible that it was sick&died of natural causes&was merely tasted by the others, but I like my other assumption better. a few yrs later, when i was a college freshman, one day i was looking out of my dorm at other students walking out of the dorm in various directions to classes or wherever&thought of myself&them as being very much like the lab mice, living in cages&being subjects for some unknown beings’ experiments—& i wrote a 4-line poem to that effect, which the campus lit. mag. printed. it was my one&only attempt to wax poetic. i guess we could say i’m a sort of one-hit wonder. here it is:
man or
all day long ‘they’ test our skills
in different kinds of mazes.
by night a few of us are killed,
the rest returned to cages.
(quoted from memory, since my 2 printed copies went the way of all flesh, so to speak. i know it doesn’t exactly rhyme, but my english teacher came up to me in the library after it was printed&told me HE thought it was really good.)
Ava-Lynn frowned slightly and glanced from her computer screen to the neatly typed and framed poem Barry had given her early in his
courtship:
