It rained during the night. There are puddles in the yard and everything is damp.
We got to the writers meeting at Barnes and Noble early last evening and I was surprised it had already started. A woman named Betsy, who had been at a previous meeting, was there. And a man and woman I didn’t know. It turns out she is the wife of the man. Because mid-meeting I turned to her and said “what do you write?” And she said “I don’t write anything, I am his wife.” I said “well being a wife is harder than being a writer.” And to my surprise everyone at the table turned to me as if that was an unusual thing to say. I said “sure writing is just one hour in the morning, you make yourself laugh or tell a story, but being a wife means having to keep your mouth shut, and other things too.” Betsy said “O like ‘stifle yourself Edith.’” I said “yes.” And she said “is your husband like Archie Bunker?” I said “no, my husband is a man.” I didn’t want to elaborate because I saw Bill just a few feet in front of us at the section of “Fantasy and Science Fiction.”
He is enjoying the Hobbit books so much, he wanted to see what else is written in that genre. And on the way home he said “they have ‘Dracula’ there, it is only $6.95.” I said “get it, that is the price of dinner in the restaurant, we can afford that.” And when we had supper very late at night (when house turned quiet after the big thunderstorm) Bill told me the start of “Dracula” which he had read while I was at my meeting.
Apparently a man in Transylvania goes to a castle and when he arrives there is no one there. However he is expected, because a nice plate of paprika chicken is prepared for him with a nice vegetable side. That is as far as he got in telling me the story. Because all of a sudden I remembered that this morning, when I was on the web looking up Sally’s address so I could send her thank you card for making me the beautiful bracelet, and Layla’s address so I could send her happy birthday card, yesterday was her birthday. When I saw how easy it was to look up someone’s address, and I was copying all these addresses into my address books, I thought “why don’t I look up Michael’s address too.”
Back in the days when I was first living with Bill our best friends were Teresa and Michael. Bill was working days and going to school at nights. And Teresa and Michael arrived every evening and I’d sit at kitchen table with them while Bill was at the big desk in other room studying. Teresa was a modern dancer and Michael was a modern artist, and that’s actually how I became a writer. Bill said “why don’t you write.”
Bill, Michael, and I had all met at the Paradox, a macrobiotic restaurant on 7th Street in East Village, Manhattan. Bill was working there, and Michael and I used to eat there, and it was a hang-out place. Michael and I spent long evenings there at the long tables in the backyard garden. He was in love with Dino, one of the young men who always hung out there. But Michael was always upset at him, and when he got very upset he would say “I am going to call immigration and inform them Dino does not have a green card.” I think Dino was from Greece. Which is what eventually happened to Dino. Someone did get very very upset with him and informed immigration on him and he was sent back to Greece, but it wasn’t Michael who did it, maybe it was one of his other boyfriends.
There are no words for how close and happy Michael and me and Teresa were, and what happy evenings we spent at my kitchen table, and when Bill wasn’t studying we went into the other room and joined him. But it turned out Michael’s total devotion to me-- I was one in a series. Before me there was the lovely Diane, and after me was the girl who was the poet, Arlene, from New Jersey who was friends with Patty Smith. And after Arlene that wonderful girl who had lived in Vancouver and been the girlfriend of Mark Roberts, who lives in the Canadian Rockies. The last time I saw Michael she was still the one, and for all I know she may still be the one.
The tremendously close friendships ended when there is a fight about something, and then Michael moves on to a new woman. It is quite a shock when it happens, because while the friendship is taking place you think ‘this is a friendship of a lifetime.’ But it’s not. You spend every single day of your life, almost all day, with Michael for two years, and then you never see him again. He is at Arlene’s house, in Arlene’s kitchen, and he is spending every single day of his life with Arlene. And when you bump into him in the street he tells you all about Arlene. But when Michael had the big fight with the one who came after Arlene, and bumped into me on the street and took me out to lunch and said “I am never going to see Lisa again.” And I thought ‘O poor Lisa, she doesn’t know, she has had all this devotion for two years and now it will disappear.’ But the last time I saw Michael, he had taken me to Lisa’s apartment on 7th Street, and of course Michael had done all the work on her apartment, and they were still totally close, so I figure he found the one girl he didn’t want to move on from.
Michael was also living on 7th Street at that time, altho I never visited him in his new apartment, but I had his phone number and address in my address book. And one year, a few years ago, when I wasn’t in the mood to send out Christmas cards that year, and wasn’t going to do it, Bill got out the box of Christmas cards we had bought together, found my address book, and when I woke up in the morning he told me he had sent out one to everyone “even Michael Zebrenski.” I thought “wow!” Michael had actually called me one time while I was in Tucson, he had heard from someone I moved here. We had just moved into the house so we were here one year. And he said “why did you move to Tucson” and I told him, and then we got off the phone and I never heard from him again.
But the Christmas card came back a month later saying “moved, new address unknown,” and I kept it in my drawer a very long time. I planned to find out Michael’s new address and send a note to him. And then out of the blue yesterday morning, when I googled Sally’s address and Layla’s address, I typed in “Michael Zebrenski New York City,” and there was only one listing, and it was way out in Queens. ‘Queens,’ I thought, ‘Michael has never even been in Queens, can that be right?’ So I retyped “Mike Zebrenski,” he likes to be called Mike, and got the same address and phone number.
So my Higher Self said “if it’s 9:30 in Tucson, it is 12:30 in New York, Michael won’t be home, but everyone has answering machine these days, call and listen to the message and see if it is Michael’s voice, it won’t cost very much for long distance for 30 second call.” So I called but the message was so short, “I’m not home please leave a message.” It was a man, well obviously it would be, it was a strong clear voice with a hint of a New York accent. It didn’t sound like Michael, there was a trace of a New York accent and Michael is from Indiana, but Michael has now been in New York long time, he would have picked up New York accent. I wanted to redial and call Bill and have him listen to the message so he could say if it was Michael or not. But my Higher Self said “no, that’s silly, forget about it.”
But before Bill started to tell me about “Dracula,” he had said his friend Dave is Polish but not Catholic, and I said “I don’t think Jan is Catholic either, her parents belonged to a sect.” "The Polish are very nice people," Bill said. "I agree." And talking about our friends who are Polish made me remember Michael. So even tho I was very interested hearing about the man who arrived at castle and no one was there but he was expected and the paprika chicken was prepared for him and the vegetable, and as Bill started to wax eloquent about what the vegetable would be, my mind went back to Michael.
And I said “I tried to call Michael Zebrenski today.” He ignored my interruption, the way he always does when he is in the middle of telling me something which interests him and he wants to finish his thoughts. And I like hearing Bill’s stories, half the time when he describes a book to me, Bill’s telling of it is more interesting than the book itself. I like the way his mind meanders around certain details, and then he supplies the details he imagines should be there. None of my interruptions ever interest him in the slightest, but this one did. And after he finished saying what vegetable he thought it would be, he said “you were saying about Michael Zebrenski.” And I told him, “do you think Michael is living in Queens now?” “Could be,” he said. And we went over my research on google and what the man on answering machine sounded like.
That was really the happy note the evening ended on. We were both sleepy after that and went to bed. I was in suspense about what happened to the man after he ate his paprika chicken in the castle where no one was there. And I had a hunch we’d never figure out where Michael is living now. “I could try New Jersey” I said, “it’s more likely he moved across the river to Hoboken than he would move way out to the far reaches of Queens.” “Yes,” Bill said, “Manhattan rents are so high now he might have moved to New Jersey.”
“Back to the Meeting”
Steve wore an orange Hawaiian shirt, a faded orange. The seat to the right of Steve was empty so I took it. The woman’s husband took the seat at opposite end of table facing Steve. The wife sat next to her husband. And Betsy sat next to the man, who was her friend. Steve seemed relaxed and happy. He greeted me nicely when I arrived and I shyly returned his warm greeting.
The man did most of the talking, he had written many books but there was a hiatus when he didn’t write at all and he told us what got him back into writing. His books are at Lulu.com whatever that is, and he makes a little money from that, dribs and drabs, and he would like to make a lot of money from his books. His questions were about how to get published by mainstream publisher. His last book was a how-to book and I am not very interested in how-to books. Altho Steve told us the biggest market is for romance, mysteries, and how-to books. All of us at the table agreed we don’t like romances. Betsy pointed out every book has some mystery, some romance, and I now realize some how-to.
At the end of the meeting when Betsy said, “is this an on-going meeting which meets every month?” Steve explained he sees his role as wagon-master, at each meeting he gives out the same information, how to get started in Tucson, what is happening here, who to connect with, how to start writing, and how to get published. He expects to have new faces at each meeting, he never intended to have groupies. Which I just ignored since I like showing up every month. And so does Maria. The reason she wasn’t there is because she is in Poland visiting friends and family. So Betsy said “will you be here next month?” And Steve told us his wife needs him now, he is going to back to LA, and he is retiring from Raytheon, and Andrew will have to find someone to replace him. As for next month there is a chance he will be here, but he doesn’t know.
I’m not sure he wants to live in Los Angeles again, he had said Tucson has now gotten too big. But he has his boat there and his airplane there. “My boat has been in storage for 7 years, I have been paying rent on it, it will be nice to be on the water again.” And he has also been paying rent to keep his airplane in storage. So I guess Steve has been here for 7 years.
When Steve said Tucson has gotten too big now and we all have to think about moving to Benson, I said “what about Ajo?” And his face lit up. “You know I recently visited Ajo” he said. I wonder if he flew there in one of his airplanes because all he talked about was the runway at the Ajo airport. He loved the runway, it is so huge. Apparently that airport with its huge runway was built that way in WW2 for some reason. And Steve said he met a man in Ajo from Border Control and raved about the runway to him, and the man said “does Ajo even have an airport.” Even tho I have never been to Ajo, it is the place I secretly dream about moving to if I leave Tucson. And I am braced for Ajo jokes. According to everyone in Tucson, Ajo is nowhere, has nothing, and no one lives there. Which is not the exact truth, I looked Ajo up on the web and learned a lot about it. But I can see why it is a place where a border control man lives and says “I am surprised Ajo even has an airport.”
Steve said the reason he may still be in Tucson when the writers meeting takes place next month, is because he wants to show his oldest daughter Tombstone, she has never been there. “She is 35” Steve told us.
So Steve is going back home. His long sojourn in Tucson is over. I had a sadness. Bill said when we were leaving and I told him, “maybe the new person will have new information and you can gain a lot from the new person.” And I knew that was true, but it never occurred to me Steve would leave. He’s such a fixture here. He is at the meeting every month at Barnes and Noble when I show up for it, he is at the Southwest Authors Luncheon at the Plaza Hotel when I show up for that. He is a bedrock of the writers community here in Tucson. And he is the one who got me back into writing. Whenever I drift away from writing now, I just show up at Steve’s next meeting and the next day I am writing.
When Betsy had asked “are these meetings on-going” and Steve said how he expects new people to show up each time because he is wagon master, I said “me and Maria come to every meeting.” And Betsy said “who is Maria?” and Steve said “a friend.”
It is to Steve’s great credit, when he does leave Tucson next month, every person who has come across him here, will miss him very much. I have never met anyone less imposing than Steve, and with so much to offer.
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