The Last Night of the Earth Poems (27 page)

 

I suppose Jr. High was the worst.

my friend Teddy began going to

various dances

and talking about it all.

his father loaned him the car

for these

functions.

 

he also had a new wrist watch.

it was still the depression

era and few of us boys

had wrist

watches.

 

Teddy kept lifting up his wrist

and looking at his

watch.

he did it 3 or 4 times

within a ten minute

period.

 

“why the hell do you keep

looking at the time?

you going

somewhere?”

 

“maybe, maybe…”

 

“well, go on then…”

 

“she kissed me at the

doorway, I can still feel her

lips!”

 

“whose lips?”

“Annabell’s, she kissed me

at her door after the

dance!”

 

“listen, Teddy, let’s go down to the

lot and get up a

baseball game.”

 

“I can’t get her out of my mind.

her lips were soft,

warm…”

 

“Christ, man, who

cares?”

 

“I bought her a corsage for

the dance, she looked so

beautiful…”

 

“didn’t you slip her any

turkey neck?”

 

“what?

listen, I’m in love!”

 

“well, that’s what you do

then before somebody

else slams her.”

 

“don’t talk that way, I’m

warning you!”

 

“I can take you, Teddy,

with one ball tied behind

my back.”

 

he looked at his watch:

“I gotta go now…”

“gonna go play with yourself,

Teddy?”

 

“look who’s talking!

you don’t even have a

girl!”

 

“you don’t know what I

have.”

 

“you’ve got nothing but

your hand.”

 

“I’ve got two hands, Teddy.”

 

I grabbed him by the shirt and

pulled him in

close.

 

“and just for laughs I just might

kick your ass, real

good.”

 

“you’re just pissed because

you’ve got

nobody!”

 

I let him go.

 

“get out of here…”

 

Teddy turned and

walked off.

 

he’d gotten off easy that

time.

next time I’d kick his ass

from stem to

stern.

it was 1935.

I was standing in my parents’

back yard.

it was a Saturday

afternoon.

my father was in the house

listening to the radio,

the Trojans were playing

Notre Dame.

my mother was in there

doing something and

nothing.

 

I walked in through the back

door.

my mother was in the

kitchen.

 

“Henry, I saw Teddy

leaving.

he’s a nice

boy.”

 

“yeah…”

 

“I saw Teddy

all dressed up to go to

the dance.

he looked so

nice!”

 

“yeah…”

 

“Henry, when are you going

to get a nice girl to take to

a dance?”

 

“I only dance with them in

bed!”

“YOU DON’T TALK THAT WAY

TO YOUR MOTHER!”

 

it was my father.

he had been standing there.

it must have been half

time.

 

“don’t bother me,” I

said.

 

“I’LL BOTHER YOU, I’LL BOTHER

YOU SO YOU’LL NEVER TALK THAT

WAY AGAIN!”

 

“is that right, old man?

come on then, bother

me!”

 

he stood there.

I stood there.

 

nothing happened.

 

“ALL RIGHT,” he screamed,

“GO TO YOUR ROOM!

NOW!”

 

I walked past him, on through

the house and out the

door.

 

I walked down the street.

I had no money, I had nowhere to

go.

I just kept

walking.

 

it was a hot summer day

and I just kept walking,

3 blocks, 4 blocks, 5

blocks…

 

then I passed a mongrel dog

going the other

way.

 

his fur was matted and dirty

and his tongue hung out of

one side of his

mouth.

 

I stopped, turned and watched

him trot

off.

then I faced the other way and

continued my

journey.

 

I have no idea how it began.

as a boy I believed that classical music was

for sissies and as a teenager I felt this even

more strongly.

 

yes, I think it began in this record

store.

I was in my booth listening to whatever I

listened to

at that time.

then I heard some music in the next

booth.

the sounds seemed very strange and

unusual.

I saw the man leave his booth and

return the record to the clerk.

I went to the clerk and asked for that

record.

she handed it to me.

I looked at the cover.

 

“but,” I said, “this is symphony

music.”

 

“yes,” said the clerk.

 

I took the record to my booth

and played it.

 

never had I heard such

music.

unfortunately, I no longer

remember what that

piece of marvelous

music was.

I purchased the record.

I had a record player in my

room.

I listened to the record

over and over

again.

 

I was hooked.

 

soon I found a 2nd hand

record store.

there I found that you could

turn in 3 record albums and

get two back.

 

I was fairly poor

but most of my money went

for wine and

classical music.

I loved to mix the two

together.

 

I went through that entire

2nd hand record

store.

 

my tastes were strange.

I liked Beethoven but

preferred Brahms and

Tchaikovsky.

Borodin didn’t work.

Chopin was only good

at moments.

Mozart was only good

when I was feeling

good and I seldom

felt that

way.

Smetana I found

obvious and Sibelius

awesome.

Ives was too self-comfortable.

Goldmark, I felt, was very

underrated.

Wagner was a roaring miracle

of dark energy.

Haydn was love turned loose

into sound.

Handel created things that

took your head and lifted it

to the ceiling.

Eric Coates was unbelievably

cute and astute.

and if you listened to Bach

long enough

you didn’t want to listen to

anybody else.

there were dozens

more….

 

I was on the move from

city to city

and carrying a record player

and records along was

impossible

so I began listening to the

radio

and picking up what I

could.

 

the problem with the radio

was

that there were a few standard

works they played over and

over.

I heard them too often

and could anticipate each note

before it

arrived.

but the good part was

that, at times, I heard new

music that I had never heard

before by composers I had

never heard of, read about.

I was surprised at the many

composers, fairly unknown,

at least to me, who could

produce these wondrous

and stirring

works.

works that I would never

hear again.

 

I have continued to listen to

classical music via the radio

for decades.

I am listening as I write

this to Mahler’s 9th.

Mahler was always one

of my favorites.

it’s possible to listen to

his works again and

again without

tiring of

them.

 

through the women, through

the jobs, through the horrible

times and the good times,

through deaths, through everything,

in and out of hospitals,

in and out of love, through the

decades that have gone so

swiftly

there have been so many

nights of listening

to classical music on the

radio.

almost every

night.

I wish I could remember the name of

the piece I first heard in that

record booth

but it evades me.

for some odd reason I do

remember the conductor:

Eugene Ormandy.

one of the

finest.

 

now Mahler is in the room

with me

and the chills run up my

arms, reach the back

of my neck…

it’s all so unbelievably

splendid,

splendid!

and I can’t read a note of

music.

But I have found a part of

the world

 

like no other part of the

world.

it gave heart to my

life, helped me get

to

here.