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“VISITING TENNESSEE”

Mark Blickley


Just before noon on Monday, Paul Dankin kicked off his comforter and stretched his six foot three body over his six foot cot, yawning. He instinctively clicked on the tiny clock radio.
Thick fingers clumsily spun the selector dial. It angered Paul that no matter how hard he tried he could not gracefully blend one program into another. His spin of the dial ripped into many stations, creating a garbled static that he hated.
After many seconds of fighting with the dial a clear voice spoke to Paul. He withdrew his hand and placed it under his pillow, smiling. The smile turned to a frown when the staccato bursts of a typewriter indicated that it was one of those twenty-four hour news programs and not a talk show. Paul pulled his hand from under the pillow and was about to attempt another station change, but thought better of it and instead placed his hand on his stomach, kneading a loose roll of flesh.
The newsman finished the last sentence of a story concerning laboratory animals and was recapping the headlines while Paul’s fingers crept down his stomach, playfully slapping at his penis.
“Meanwhile, here in New York, the body of Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tennessee Williams is attracting hundreds of friends and admirers. Williams, noted for his plays “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” died here late Thursday night of asphyxiation. An autopsy revealed that the playwright had a swallowed a bottle cap. Williams’ body will be at Campbell Funeral Home at 81st and Madison Avenue until Tuesday. Hours are ten a.m. till eight p.m. Internment is scheduled for Saturday in St. Louis.”
“Yeah, that was a great movie,” said Paul Dankin as he cracked his knuckles. “Brando was great.” He clicked off the radio. “Tennessee Williams. I just seen that name somewhere.”
Paul lay in bed trying to remember where he had seen the name. His hand automatically returned to his penis. The playful slaps soon gave way to a more determined motion. Aroused, his erection pointed him towards a plastic milk crate full of magazines. Dropping the Newsweek and People magazines back into the crate, he returned to the cot with an issue of Puritan. It was not a current issue but it was his favorite porno magazine.
Thumbing through colorful closeups of male and female genitalia spitting at and swallowing each other, Paul emptied himself.
“That’s how you spell relief,” he grinned, “P-U-R-I-T-A-N. No wonder those pilgrims gave thanks.” His laughter ricocheted off the walls of his efficiency apartment; the echo made him nervous.
He flipped through the magazine a second time. Its images bored him. Halfway through the issue a full page photo of a bearded, round-faced man in a large hat smile up at him. Paul stuck his finger on the page to save his place. The article accompanying the picture was an interview with Tennessee Williams.
“Tennessee Williams! Christ, I knew I seen you somewhere. You’re alright, Tennessee. No . . . no you’re not. You’re dead. Choked. Brando’ll probably cry. I wonder if he remembers me?”
Paul threw down the magazine, walked over to the door and slowly opened it. He darted his head into the hallway and lunged for the day old Sunday News lying on his neighbors welcome mat. He quickly bolted the door.
Paul opened to the obituaries. His forefinger turned black as it slid down a column of names under Death Notices.
“Watson, Wilhelm, William,B., Williams, M., Williams, T. That’s it! 1076 Madison. Till eight. Great!”
Paul stepped into the shower. As he lathered up the shampoo his thoughts turned to his finances. He knew that Tuesday was the first and that his check would be in the mail,but the only cash he had was in coins. He needed a dollar-fifty for a round trip bus ride.
Wrapped in a towel, Paul grabbed at the coat flung over a kitchen chair and shook it over the cot. The clinking of coins on the sheet made Paul smile. There was a good deal more than a dollar fifty splattered across the cot.
The smile still felt strange. In the six years since Pooh Bear Lennox down the hall knocked out three of Paul’s teeth, Paul seldom smiled.
Pooh Bear Lennox, who was half Paul’s size, claimed that Paul rubbed up against his girlfriend in the elevator. Onlookers were surprised at the beating he gave Paul in the hallway, but Paul’s size was a disadvantage. Nobody ever challenged him so he did not know how to defend himself, whereas little Pooh Bear Lennox learned early how to destroy an opponent and nothing pleased him more than to tear into a big man like Paul Dankin.
The neighborhood was amazed at how frightened Paul behaved on the streets, even though he towered over just about everyone around him. Paul reasoned that if little men could beat him up anyone could, including women. In fact, women did. His mother slapped at him from infancy to puberty as did the woman he called Aunt Amy, his mother’s lover.
Paul rolled his tongue across the space in his mouth, licking his gums. His face twitched nervously as he stood in front of the closet, rummaging through his clothes, trying to pick his most impressive jacket and tie. Pants were no problem. All he owned were blue jeans.
Paul’s eyes lit up as he pulled out a slightly wrinkled, slightly stained gray sports jacket. Beneath its left breast pocket was a frayed yellow patch that stated WTC SECURITY. Embroidered under the letters WTC and above the word SECURITY were the Twin Towers. Paul took a thick red striped tie out of his underwear drawer and dressed.
After parting his hair in the middle and plastering each side of his receding hairline with tonic, Paul brushed his teeth. This was a painful process. Stained a bright yellow by years of neglect, each morning Paul spent ten minutes rubbing his teeth as hard as he could with a brush overflowing with toothpaste. His tooth enamel disappeared years ago but the yellow remained.
Without enamel protection the slightest pressure on his teeth - by his tongue, liquids, or the air - filled his face with pain. These painful facial contortions gave him the look of an idiot, and coupled with his great size, a threatening idiot. He was unaware that he frightened people as much as they frightened him.
Paul grabbed his raincoat, triple locked his door and dropped the newspaper back onto his neighbor’s welcome mat. Outside the housing project sat Martha Poseagle from 12 K, clutching an umbrella. She was leaning against a metal sculpture that looked like a frozen game of pick-up sticks.
“Where you goin’ Paul?” she asked as he walked past.
Paul stopped and fingered the WTC emblem. “Hey, Martha. A good friend of mine died and I have to see him laid out. Name’s Williams.”
“William who?” asked Martha Poseagle. “I didn’t know you had a friend.”
Paul continued walking.
“How’d he die? Somebody kill him?” Martha yelled.
“Choked,” Paul called. “Choked to death.”
“Goddamn neighborhood,” muttered Martha Poseagle. She leaned back on the work of art and patiently waited for another visitor.

***
Before entering Campbell Funeral Home, Paul Dankin groomed himself by looking at his reflection in the glass door. He squinted at a young woman sitting at a desk next to the elevator. She’s beautiful, thought Paul as he turned the large doorknob and walked inside.
The woman’s head was bowed over a stack of papers; she heard his footsteps. “Good afternoon. Who do you wish to visit?”
“A, um, Williams. Tennessee Williams. From the movies, you know, with Brando.”
The woman looked up. She studied Paul’s face. “Just a second, sir.”
“Yeah, sure.”
She disappeared into an office behind her desk. When she returned a man was with her. The man looked at Paul, nodded to the woman, and went back into his office.
“Second floor, sir,” she said.
The female elevator operator asked Paul for a name.
“Williams. Tennessee Williams, please. I told the other girl that.” His face started to twitch. When the elevator doors snapped shut behind him he hear the operator laughing.
“They sure got some great looking girls working here,” Paul said to an elderly man standing in the second floor lobby. “Seen him yet?”
The old man nodded.
“Look okay? Jeez, what a way to go. Think it was suicide?”
The old man shook his head and shuffled over to the elevator. Paul started to walk into the room but pivoted and signed his name with capitals in the guest book. He leafed through the book trying to find celebrity signatures. He was glad Marlon Brando’s was not scribbled in it. He had not missed him. Paul wondered if Brando would remember him.
Stepping inside the room felt good. The thick red carpet soothed Paul’s feet, relaxing him. The room was huge.
There were many couches and chairs of soft crushed velvet and Paul was determined to sit in them all. The coffin was mounted at the far left of the room. Paul decided to explore that part of the room last.
In the middle of the room was a percolating coffee urn and styrofoam cups. Paul walked over to the coffee, intentionally scraping his toe into the carpet. It cut a line that pleased him. He thought of it as a trail that others would follow. A trail that would eventually lead people to Tennessee.
The annoyed usher standing guard at the wake asked him to lift his feet.
“Yeah, sure,” answered Paul.
The coffee was good and hot. Warmth spread throughout his body. He sipped the coffee while surveying the room. Two dozen people were loitering, many of them were crying. Paul watched a fat middle-aged woman swiping at tears with an index finger wrapped in a handkerchief. She moved the finger across his cheeks with the same rhythmic motion as a windshield wiper, causing Paul to wish he had a driver’s license and a girlfriend to take for a drive.
Imagining the wind sweeping through his girlfriend’s hair as he gunned his convertible around narrow curves, Paul was unaware of hot coffee dribbling down his chin. His delayed reaction to the burning pain was a shriek as the cup dropped out of his hand, splattering coffee across his shoes, socks and the panty hose of a smartly dressed woman fixing her own cup .
The usher walked over to the coffee urn and apologized to the woman. Paul, afraid to look at the woman, mumbled. She squinted at him and walked away with a snarl.
“Please be more careful, sir, “ said the usher. “We expect to have quite a few quests and we’d like to maintain the room just as it is.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Paul.
“And I’d appreciate it if you would continue to lift your feet when walking on our carpet. Please behave yourself, sir.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Paul.
The usher returned to his position at the far right of the room. He stood at attention with his hands solemnly cupped in front of him, watching Paul.
As soon as the usher turned his back Paul marched over to a couch. Paul lifted his feet up so high that it looked as if he were marching in place.
An attractive blonde sat on the far corner of the couch. She giggled and Paul felt warm again. He plopped down beside her; their knees brushed. The blonde’s lips became a tight line as she looked straight ahead.
“Did you know Tennessee Williams?” Paul asked.
The woman ignored him.
“Excuse me, Miss. Did you know Tennessee?”
She turned towards Paul. “No. I admire his work.”
“You’re beautiful. Are you an actress?”
The blonde coughed.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No . . . thanks.”
“It’s too bad he’s dead but we all have to go sometime.” “Yes. Me, too.” And she was gone.
The couch became a frightening experience for Paul. It was so soft and formless that his body sank into the plush contours, swallowing him. He struggled to free himself but his stomach muscles were weak. He could not lean forward. Pushing against the back cushions for support only made him slip further down the spine of the couch until he could not move at all.
With his body trapped within the couch and no one nearby to help him escape, panic seized him and a high pitched whimper, like the whine of a punished dog, cleared his throat.
The usher hurried over to the couch. With his hands on his hips he glared down at Paul. Paul looked up and sighed; he was rescued.

***
At nine-thirty a.m. sharp, Paul Dankin was dressed and in the lobby awaiting the mail. Leaning against the mailboxes, Paul traced the WTC jacket emblem with his finger. Martha Poseagle, who was rumored to have a crush on the mailman, joined him.
“Good morning, Martha,” said Paul.
“Did I miss him?” asked Martha.
“Miss who?”
“Furfante. You know, our mailman.”
Paul shook his head.
“You’re all spiffed up,” said Martha. “Where you going?”
“You’ll never believe this, Martha, but I’m meeting with Marlon Brando today.”
“The movie star?”
“Yep.”
“Good. I’m glad to see you getting out more.”
“You look pretty spiffy yourself, Martha.”
“How do I smell?”
Paul shrugged. “Okay.””You sure?” Paul nodded. “Yeah, sure.” “I thought so. New perfume.” They waited together in a nervous silence. When Furfante arrived Martha smiled, as did Paul when Furfante handed him a check.

***
After cashing his check and eating a leisurely breakfast in a Tenth Avenue diner, Paul returned to the Campbell Funeral Home. He walked past the woman sitting next to the elevator and pulling on a thread of his WTC emblem instructed the elevator operator to drop him off on the second floor. Before re-entering the room Paul thumbed through the guest book.
“Still no Brando,” he said.
Paul felt comfortable. Everything was familiar, including the usher staring at him. Paul waved. Everything was familiar. Everything except Tennessee. He walked a diagonal line, pausing at the head of the coffin.
“He’s as little as a doll,” Paul said to a woman kneeling at the prayer stand. Paul studied Tennessee’s fleshy face. It had a rich tan that Paul admired. His admiration turned to amusement when he spotted the uneven line between Tennessee’s forehead and widow’s peak where the makeup ended and his hair began. Paul felt that the makeup could have been stretched, pulled up a bit further to cover the gap. It reminded him of the many cold nights in his apartment when he tried to pull his comforter up over his head, but it was too short and would expose his feet to the cold.
“His feet must be cold but they’re not exposed,” he remarked to the kneeling woman.
Tennessee’s mouth fascinated Paul. The dry lips had begun to part. A thin crack separated the bottom and upper lip. Although Paul leaned over the corpse to get a closer look, he could see no teeth behind the crack. The mouth was opening but Paul could only see a dark empty space. Staring down at the blackness inside Tennessee’s mouth, Paul remembered that Tennessee had swallowed his death. He brought his hand up and traced a line across the dead man’s lips.
“I got black spaces inside my mouth, too,” he whispered.
Paul quickly withdrew his hand and spun around. No one had seen him touch Tennessee. He walked over to a couch, and taking the ashtray from an end table, placed it next to him on the couch while lighting a cigarette. A scolding from the usher prompted Paul to remove the ashtray and place it back on the table.
Paul took long, deep pulls on his cigarette, exhaling so much smoke it made him squint. He was squinting when he saw her enter the room.



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