"Gene"

"Desert View" by Layla Edwards

"Gene" July 3 2006 Tucson AZ

It’s not my favorite weather. But if you get up early enough, there is a kind of pearly beauty to the overcast desert. Clarity is gone, but all the green merges and shimmers. It doesn’t quite merge, it’s like an impressionist painting where nothing has definition. O a little birdie whistled. Now it whistled again. It is an encouraging sound.

Bill took me shopping yesterday which was a lot of fun. All the pretty skirts which used to be fifty dollars were now 10 dollars. I chose 3 and a pretty top to go with them, also an attractive zip sweatshirt for walking Lulu in winter. I am wearing the pretty top now. It is fun having a new top. Then we went swimming at Fort Lowell pool. The water is deep there but it was warm as bathwater. I didn’t care. Their clock broke and they haven’t replaced it but I noticed the lifeguards are on 15 minute shifts. After 4 shifts I went and took my shower. I had bought magenta nail polish the day before, and it was fun painting my fingernails and toenails after my shower this pretty shade of magenta. When weather is so oppressive, an inferno in the afternoons, and heavy dense air at night and early mornings, you do anything you can to keep your spirits up.

Two weeks ago when we were leaving Fort Lowell pool, Bill recognized Gene arriving and stopped the truck so we could say hi to him. We had first met Gene his first summer in Tucson 3 years ago. He was driving his friend Natalie’s sports car convertible then. Gene had not moved to Tucson yet. He was from New York City and staying with his friend Natalie.

We saw Gene at public pool a second time, and when autumn arrived and public pool prices went thru the roof, and we joined the club, fairly soon afterwards we discovered Gene and Natalie at the club. And I began to schmooze with Gene a lot in the Jacuzzi.

He wasn’t really a swimmer. Bill became friends with him first and told me Gene is a cartoonist. Gene had lived in his loft in Chelsea for 35 years until the landlord figured out how to get it away from him. Gene said he was born in the South but went to college in Miami, where he met all the New Yorkers, and knew New York was the place for him. And he had lived there his whole life before Natalie invited him to Tucson.

I don’t know why he came, maybe originally because of the problem with his hip. Also his stuff was in storage, altho he has been with Marty for 35 years, he could have lived with Marty. We did see Marty a few times, both at public pool and at club, because Marty is a swimmer. He is same as me, he loves to swim and he swims for long time. And I bet it was because of the joy of swimming outside in winter that Marty agreed to buy the house in Tucson. Gene has no money but Marty has very good job in New York City.

I don’t remember when it was that I heard from Sally, Gene is making his decision now, whether to stay in Tucson, move here, bring his stuff from New York City, or go back. I knew Gene would stay. Even tho Gene was every inch a New Yorker, as I had been when I moved here, and even tho Gene had no intention of moving to Tucson when he arrived, I knew what was conscious for me was below consciousness for Gene. That he loved Tucson and New York City was over. Then we stopped seeing Gene at the club. Bill was the one who noticed it, “we haven’t seen Gene in long time” he said. But I had heard from Natalie he and Marty bought a house. So I figured that fixing up the house was occupying all his energy.

Finally last year we saw Gene at public pool for first time after very long time. He told us all about the house. He had really lucked out. The son of a prominent Tucson businessman had bought a dream house up in the foothills when he got married. But the marriage didn’t work out, she moved to Oregon, and he sold the house at a bargain price to Marty and Gene. They have a whole acre and most beautiful house in world, and views so great, they can see Benson off in the distance. It is in the country, up in the hills. When we saw Gene 2 weeks ago he said “it is just me and the bobcats and the rattlesnakes.” Bill told me that night “what a change for a boy from Chelsea to be up there with bobcats and rattlesnakes.”

We had seen him at end of last summer and he said he had landscaped all of it, put in a million plants, and miraculously saved all of them even tho we had heat between 113 and 120 all month of July. I knew Gene was genius landscaper because when he lived with Natalie he had planted 100 rose bushes for her. Plus he had gotten chickens and they had fresh eggs every day and gave eggs to their neighbors. There is really nothing Gene can’t do.

When we saw Gene at public pool last year he said he is very lonely. I knew all about that 3 year turning point. I said “this is when your friends from New York City stop calling and every time you call them they are busy.” “Yes” Gene said “yes.” And before he has made new friends in Tucson. “All I can suggest Gene is watch old movies, that is what I did, day and night.”

When I saw him two weeks ago, he said it has gotten even lonelier, now Nat won’t speak to him, and Marty has not come out for a whole year. I forgot about that. When your New York City friends stop calling and each time you call them they are busy, you still have your first friends in Tucson. Then they all move away or break up with you. That is what is happening to Gene now, his first friends in Tucson are moving away, and his closest friend Natalie won’t speak to him.

But I looked at Gene’s face and he is a transformed person. His eyes are completely clear, his face is completely clear, he is perfectly beautiful. He was a mess when he first arrived from New York City. It is a long purification process Gene is going thru. If he can make it thru the boredom and the loneliness he will be new man. He is already a new man. And when that is completed he will find friends in Tucson naturally. It all happens naturally. He needs this time now, altho he doesn’t realize it.

The solution which emerged for me was to get interested in the news, and go on internet. But that solution won’t work for Gene because it is what he did before he left New York City. That was his New York City life, that, and schmoozing with his friends on the telephone all the time. My life in NYC was being a writer and schmoozing on the phone all the time. So Gene and I exchanged places. I became interested in news and got on internet. And Gene has become a writer. “I have already written 465 pages” Gene said. I think it is wonderful Gene found writing.

It’s funny because when I was in the exact same place Gene is, my NYC friends had stopped calling, my Tucson friends either broke up with me or moved away, I did meet a girl at Udall pool. We chit-chatted in the lane as we swam back and forth. And I knew she was a perfect friend for me. We talked about books, and she said “Angela’s Ashes, that was great,” and assumed I had read it. I had heard of it, so I said “it is great.” I finally did read Angela’s Ashes last week and it is great, just as great as she said it was. And I knew I could have made a move to make her my friend then. It was before I was on internet or email but I could have offered to exchange phone numbers, or made some move. But I let her slip thru my fingers. That is when I realized I wasn’t ready for friends yet. That secretly I liked this big space in my life without friends. And I think that is what Gene is going thru now.

Because when I told him about the writers meeting at Barnes and Noble for free on 3rd Wednesday of every month, he really wasn’t interested. And last summer when he was so desperately lonely I reminded him everyone at the club loves him, but he said he doesn’t have the money. Bill enjoys Gene’s friendship and always hopes Gene will be at the pool so he can have someone to talk to, but Gene never shows up. And I noticed in the parking lot two weeks ago, as overjoyed as Gene was to see us, it didn’t occur to him, when I said “I have gone back to my writing,” to say “let’s exchange emails and send each other our new writing.” He let me and Bill slip thru his fingers, just as I had done with the wonderful woman I met at Udall pool, even tho I knew she was the perfect new friend for me.

my Tucson friend Layla put her paintings up for view and sale on the web
I copy some of my favorite ones to this blog

if you want to see more of Layla's paintings go here http://laylaedwards.com/

if you want to purchase one and want friends' discount

tell Layla you are my friend (Anne from Tucson) or that you found her paintings on my blog