Read Part One
*****
I can still see the image of the shoulder blade of the bride yet today nor will I forget the interminable pace of the exit procession as the newly married half siblings descended from a pedestal upon a rise decorated to make them appear as two living wedding cake figurines. When I saw the bride's naked shoulder from the helicopter's windscreen I felt as if I were looking at a slide through a microscope, so intense and exclusive was the attraction it held for me. As she moved before the procession with slow painful steps her shoulder flexed in an effort to hold there the thin strap of her gown, and to prevent it from falling into the cradles of red between the craggy plates of her skin. The groom helped her to clutch the bouquet in her weak hands, preserving the dignity she might have managed alone through the pain had not the surrounding revelers been so seemingly ignorant of her condition, including Sinatra himself who was walking just behind them and attempting fitfully to hurry them ahead. I was grateful to have seen the groom's tender gesture, and I cursed myself when I recalled how angry I had been hours ago, stranded in New Jersey by the wrong train.
On the trip from the airport earlier that day I had come under the scrutiny of that particular sort of individual who regards facial expressions as equally public to the spoken word. Influenced by the accumulated delays of my trip and the darkness and rain of the early morning I looked at my bare wrist with a perplexed grimace. I never was one to wear a watch and the act of glancing at my wrist amused me because I realized how useful a tool it would have been to have a watch to peek at in consternation. It seemed like it would have been a simple way to alleviate or at least manage the frustrations of my journey. An old man noticed this activity and with the confidence of complete misinterpretation felt obliged to speak:
"Don't worry, we'll get there. The train only runs one way. Enjoy the down time. I know your generation came up without the slightest memory of inconvenience so let an old man remind you to take these moments of boredom as a gift. You know, when I was a child the first time I heard music that really moved me-- it was called bel canto then-- I heard the sound of neighborhood boys singing in an alley. Not the radio. I bet you can't remember hearing music that way. I can just imagine you sitting on the curb with your pals leaning over a plastic turntable playing those little records or walking around with your head in a dream plugged into a portable tape player. We'll get you where you need to go, if the train doesn't do it there are more sophisticated alternatives, technology is like that, it's one step ahead. Whether or not that's a form of oppression I'll leave to the judges. I only ask" 'what use is this thing?' That's all we need to know, not that a Pre-Raphaelite might have hated your Casiotron watch. Who makes these kinds of comparisons when we can all hear the bells from Mount St. Ursula counting through the day?"
The train swayed so widely as he spoke that I felt sick. The old man came close to me as I knelt down.
PART 3... |
