I’m figuring today is a twenty-second day. Already the tingling like an on-the-town fancy sweater, chenille sliding over my head, smoothing up my arms, behind my neck, grazing my chest, and in just a moment, silk panties. My skin shimmering in the sweater, I forget all about the silk underwear because that’s how I am, and today I’m taking it easy. Life’s been rushing me around lately, how I long for a lazy morning on my bathroom floor, wherever that may be—there having been so many bathroom floors in my life. I want to take my time with this tale, no ramming cock on this one.
Although Sharon was with me, I remember only myself, a country kid in the big city. Where are the elevators? What floor? No one is at the information desk in the main foyer. Students are checking out second-hand text books set out on long wood tables. Taped to the wall beside the elevators, set at the rear of the main entrance in a small foyer of their own, is a piece of white foolscap with Lifespace 504 written in red magic marker. At the second floor, the elevator doors open. I exit and rush back into the full elevator before the door slides shut. Cast out onto the fifth floor, I look ahead, right and left. On the wall is a sign with numbers and arrows. I follow and search for 504. There is no 504, not in this direction, nor in the opposite. I return to the numbers and arrows and see I was right the first time. I refuse the offer of a name tag.
Barbara Forest is a plain woman in polyester brown pants and an orange and brown rayon blouse. Her hair is to her chin, gray, and the ends brushing her cheeks have been set in kiss curls. For forty-seven minutes she talks about the separation of mind and body, the failure of traditional therapy, cherry picking, the felt sense, and takes sips of a viridian liquid. Everything revolves around the felt sense, she says. Sharon sits in front of me, looking at her watch, out the window, turns the pamphlet over, folding and unfolding it, taps her right foot, then her left, then both. There is a master’s degree affiliated with some university out east or a two-year certificate option, a practicum, and a five-page reading list. After the break, the woman, Barbara, will give a demo and are there any volunteers? Eyes shift down or to the side. “I’d love to,” I say, and rush out to call Garth during the break.
“I’m not sure about this, I don’t know why. I mean there’s Sharon fidgeting away because she can’t sit through a lecture and Barbara—”
“Who’s Barbara?”
“This scrawny woman, you’d call her ugly—you know how those witches look like they have no teeth so their mouth is just a slash?” Sometimes Garth is good to talk to, he just gets things. Descriptions really work with him. “Anyhow she’s got this quivery voice and huge seventies’ glasses, and she’s even more verbose than I am, if you can imagine that.”
“No. No, I can’t.”
“Well, it’s true. And get this, she’s so week she couldn’t even open her thermos, she had to get this guy sitting next to her to open it.”
“You mean she’s more pathetic than the women you train?”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but yes.”
“What about the course?”
“The course?”
“The one you’re there for.”
“It’s really spiritual, she talks about inner piece and finding god inside you, something about on this earth, but not of it. I told you about the creative visualization Caroline’s therapist did with me on Bluffwood Drive?”
“I think you should stay.”
“Really? But it’s all this hokey spiritual stuff. Wait! It’s like you, but you lift weights, so it’s different.”
“Look, you asked for my opinion and I gave it to you.”
“And Garth?”
“What is it now?”
“I volunteered to be her demo subject. She’s going to try it out on my, I don’t know why I did that.”
“Well, you better get going then.”
“But why did I do such a thing—offering myself like that?”
“You like to show off. And you want to try it first hand.”
“Like doing research you mean? Hey, that’s pretty smart of me.”
“So go.”
“You really think so, huh?”
“Why do you do this? Why do you ask for my opinion and then question me?”
I laugh because I don’t want to fight and he’s reached his limit although I’d like to ask him a few more times, with different wording, of course.
“Thanks Garth. I’ll go now. I just want to say thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says and hangs up.
Two metal chairs facing each other are set in the middle of a circle of orange plastic chairs. Barbara sits down and places her feet slightly apart. On her thighs, her palms sit like open oyster shells. Barbara’s a straight line of a woman, but if you look at her, really look, she fills out, you can see there’s a bend in the road, a curve here, an angle there.
“Shall we begin with a relaxation exercise, and if you don’t mind, the circle can experience this too, just as I think I will, and do every time. Does that feel right for you?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“You can keep your eyes open, or closed, whatever feels right for you, so you know you can open or close your eyes as we go along.”
My eyes closed, she goes through the entire body: grazing the floor, soles grow stabilizing roots; she circles the ankles, spreading to calves, behind the knees—I’m wild about behind the knees. There was a girl at Camp Manitou-Wabing with a sensitive spot just below her right ear. Guys were always coming up, "hey June, wanna hear a secret?" and she’d flutter her eyelashes, “sure,” she’d say every time. It wasn’t because she was so gullible, she was just hot same as me. Naturally I’ve got that soft spot on the side of my neck, especially when I tilt to the side which is why I draw women with their heads in oblique angles, inviting. She skips the groin, but that’s alright, I’ve got it covered. By the time Barbara reaches the top of the skull, I’m radiating, flowing, simply glowing.
“Is it alright if I talk?” I say.
“Whatever is. Let it come.”
“I feel, a lightness. Radiating. So bright really. There’s a glowing.”
“A glowing. Radiating.”
“Yes . . . from the inside out. No, it’s inside to out, but inside—there’s no line. It’s amazing really. A part, yet part of.”
“Yes. Part and whole.”
A paper rustles, someone shifts in a chair, the legs scraping the floor. When I get home, I’m going to give Garth a blow job even Linda Lovelace would envy.
Although Sharon was with me, I remember only myself, a country kid in the big city. Where are the elevators? What floor? No one is at the information desk in the main foyer. Students are checking out second-hand text books set out on long wood tables. Taped to the wall beside the elevators, set at the rear of the main entrance in a small foyer of their own, is a piece of white foolscap with Lifespace 504 written in red magic marker. At the second floor, the elevator doors open. I exit and rush back into the full elevator before the door slides shut. Cast out onto the fifth floor, I look ahead, right and left. On the wall is a sign with numbers and arrows. I follow and search for 504. There is no 504, not in this direction, nor in the opposite. I return to the numbers and arrows and see I was right the first time. I refuse the offer of a name tag.
Barbara Forest is a plain woman in polyester brown pants and an orange and brown rayon blouse. Her hair is to her chin, gray, and the ends brushing her cheeks have been set in kiss curls. For forty-seven minutes she talks about the separation of mind and body, the failure of traditional therapy, cherry picking, the felt sense, and takes sips of a viridian liquid. Everything revolves around the felt sense, she says. Sharon sits in front of me, looking at her watch, out the window, turns the pamphlet over, folding and unfolding it, taps her right foot, then her left, then both. There is a master’s degree affiliated with some university out east or a two-year certificate option, a practicum, and a five-page reading list. After the break, the woman, Barbara, will give a demo and are there any volunteers? Eyes shift down or to the side. “I’d love to,” I say, and rush out to call Garth during the break.
“I’m not sure about this, I don’t know why. I mean there’s Sharon fidgeting away because she can’t sit through a lecture and Barbara—”
“Who’s Barbara?”
“This scrawny woman, you’d call her ugly—you know how those witches look like they have no teeth so their mouth is just a slash?” Sometimes Garth is good to talk to, he just gets things. Descriptions really work with him. “Anyhow she’s got this quivery voice and huge seventies’ glasses, and she’s even more verbose than I am, if you can imagine that.”
“No. No, I can’t.”
“Well, it’s true. And get this, she’s so week she couldn’t even open her thermos, she had to get this guy sitting next to her to open it.”
“You mean she’s more pathetic than the women you train?”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but yes.”
“What about the course?”
“The course?”
“The one you’re there for.”
“It’s really spiritual, she talks about inner piece and finding god inside you, something about on this earth, but not of it. I told you about the creative visualization Caroline’s therapist did with me on Bluffwood Drive?”
“I think you should stay.”
“Really? But it’s all this hokey spiritual stuff. Wait! It’s like you, but you lift weights, so it’s different.”
“Look, you asked for my opinion and I gave it to you.”
“And Garth?”
“What is it now?”
“I volunteered to be her demo subject. She’s going to try it out on my, I don’t know why I did that.”
“Well, you better get going then.”
“But why did I do such a thing—offering myself like that?”
“You like to show off. And you want to try it first hand.”
“Like doing research you mean? Hey, that’s pretty smart of me.”
“So go.”
“You really think so, huh?”
“Why do you do this? Why do you ask for my opinion and then question me?”
I laugh because I don’t want to fight and he’s reached his limit although I’d like to ask him a few more times, with different wording, of course.
“Thanks Garth. I’ll go now. I just want to say thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says and hangs up.
Two metal chairs facing each other are set in the middle of a circle of orange plastic chairs. Barbara sits down and places her feet slightly apart. On her thighs, her palms sit like open oyster shells. Barbara’s a straight line of a woman, but if you look at her, really look, she fills out, you can see there’s a bend in the road, a curve here, an angle there.
“Shall we begin with a relaxation exercise, and if you don’t mind, the circle can experience this too, just as I think I will, and do every time. Does that feel right for you?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“You can keep your eyes open, or closed, whatever feels right for you, so you know you can open or close your eyes as we go along.”
My eyes closed, she goes through the entire body: grazing the floor, soles grow stabilizing roots; she circles the ankles, spreading to calves, behind the knees—I’m wild about behind the knees. There was a girl at Camp Manitou-Wabing with a sensitive spot just below her right ear. Guys were always coming up, "hey June, wanna hear a secret?" and she’d flutter her eyelashes, “sure,” she’d say every time. It wasn’t because she was so gullible, she was just hot same as me. Naturally I’ve got that soft spot on the side of my neck, especially when I tilt to the side which is why I draw women with their heads in oblique angles, inviting. She skips the groin, but that’s alright, I’ve got it covered. By the time Barbara reaches the top of the skull, I’m radiating, flowing, simply glowing.
“Is it alright if I talk?” I say.
“Whatever is. Let it come.”
“I feel, a lightness. Radiating. So bright really. There’s a glowing.”
“A glowing. Radiating.”
“Yes . . . from the inside out. No, it’s inside to out, but inside—there’s no line. It’s amazing really. A part, yet part of.”
“Yes. Part and whole.”
A paper rustles, someone shifts in a chair, the legs scraping the floor. When I get home, I’m going to give Garth a blow job even Linda Lovelace would envy.
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