Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     When he arrived at the airport, there was no one there to greet him. He’d expected his colleague and equivalent, Sam Fagel, to be waiting at the gate - he’d know him right away, by his smile, his clothes, his age - surely Sam, also a scholar of the Elizabethan Age, a tenured prof, would look just like Walter himself - right?

     Wrong. As Walter took a careful look about, a man at the side of the crowd became his focus and moved forward as if on an invisible string, moved toward Walter. True, he was smiling, not true, he was wearing an old jacket and a pair of jeans. But this man was not even twenty. Possible? Impossible? How could anyone be tenured, have any experience, and look like - “Walter,” said the other man, putting out his hand. He had a firm handshake. You don’t get a handshake like that overnight, thought Walter. What’s become of college life? thought Walter. “Sam?” he said, feeling foolish. “Of course. Glad you could come,” he said, smiling that toothy, academic smile which had no surfactants to it. What did he expect, thought Walter, a velvet suit? The men moved down the tube-like hallways toward the baggage room. Sam was half-a-head taller than Walter. “How’s the –“ they both began, at the same moment. “Just –“ they both said, and smiled at each other.

     and he turn and he moof (do yu hear?) and zo elegant zo intelli - he had survived it. What else mattered? No longer did he seek being blamed for his part in it. The guilt, once useful, hung now like a limp prick between the halves of his brain. Those leg-like columns that served to get him from here to there, at a dead run. Thus I banish you, thus and thus, he snarled, staring sideways at himself in a shiny-covered advertisement for Finlandia Vodka. That the young among us shall inherit. They can eat rare meat and reproduce the species. And they analse it to death. Not a move made without someone writes a paper on it, he thought. Good day for flying, said Sam.

     Sho’ ’nuff, said Walter. What? said Sam. Oh, just - nothing. Wow, just in time, he thought, that could’ve been nasty. He knew about Sam’s marriage, I mean, everybody knew, not something people could leave unsaid. They didn’t talk about his age - no, of course not - married a bush-bunny, he had, was the way they put it. Even when they said it to Walter. Well, what else could Sam Fagel do? After all, she was trafe. He’d done everything else right, hein? Walter walked, considering breaking into a little buck-and-wing right there in the airport. Do all folks marry their mates in direct proportion to how angry they still are with their parents? he wonders, or either in amelioration? He could hear it now, both couples: how’s this sound to you, babe, sort of the hot fudge sundae with vanilla ice cream -Christ. And think of the papers one could get out of it. Hey, babe, would you mind talking to me about . . . your point of view on . . . the way you people look at . . .

     They reached the baggage-claims section. A mixed bag, said Walter, pointing to and grabbing his scroungy duffel and his brand-new leather-trimmed garment bag. Sam smiled. What do you think about having dinner with us? Oh, just the three of us, he said, the kids’ll be asleep by the time we get to town, and I haven’t invited anyone over. Then I could drop you at the Inn. Figured you’d like a good meal, after such a long trip.

     Very kind of you, Walter smiled, but I -- Good, it’s settled. I told Xenia she could go ahead if I didn’t phone, so I don’t even have to call. It’ll be ready by the time we get there. Fine, said Walter. Who could expect to be allowed to finish a sentence? He needed to be alone now. At least until tomorrow, when the meeting -- Damn. He would have to impress her. Dangerous stuff.

     She was not as expected, for sure. Very pretty, a damn good-lookin’ woman, tiny, stacked, something silky slippin’ off her round boobs, and everything in him started to purr. But the martinis were very, very dry and Zeeny, as Sam called her, very sly indeed. She say, man, this a good thing, I haven’t seen anyone from the City in so long, feel like - And Sam on the alert. Never you mind, Sam. Walter wanted to say. I know this game.

     He crossed his legs over his rising cock and sipped at the martini. O, that Shakespeherian rag, it’s -- she had set out Jarlsberg and Triscuits. You one fahn womans. He knew his own wife was in the room. She be the first to volunteer to share this sort of scene, right? Or how much was Sam getting?

     If I understand you correctly, Zeeny was saying, it’s a conglomeration, they were eating the dinner now, Sam had mixed the Hollandaise sauce for the asparagus and had left them for a minute while he did it up in the kitchen. Everything else being ready. All other things being equal. So long as it don’ curdle is the secret. Yah. He would be impressed with the sauce, with the just-right very rare roast (in fact - how’d she do it? Too smart. Must’ve learned from -) His fork slipped, a whole asparagus slid from his plate, caromed off his lap and landed on the dining-room rug. O, don’t you pay that no never-mind, she said. Rushing over, bending over, picking it up, managing to brush his leg with her shoulder, managing to let him have a full view of her cleavage on the way up and the way down. Talk about hearty appetite, Walter thought. It all rat, she say; no, it not, he think.

     How the hell old were they. The question still floating for Walter. Ways to find out. Ask about the kids. They two, and then almost a year. The boy is the baby. Sam elaborated. So that means you’ve been married -- Well, actually, Sam said, we were living together a while when we began Nora. So that means you aren’t married but two years, said Walter. Right? thinking -- no clue there, could be a second marriage…It’s the second marriage for both of us, said Sam, and we both figured we knew what we wanted to do, this time. Jesus, Walter thought, what was the first one like? You must be wondering, I mean, about my being a full prof with tenure and all-- Yes, I was, sort of, said Walter. I’m older than I look, said Sam. You better be, said Walter, and they all laughed, or else -- I finished here at Columbia when I was not quite nineteen, and I got the job here pretty soon after that, Sam said. Which puts you at a ripe old twenty-nine? Well, thirty, said Sam. You are one fast mover, said Walter, meaning it. How do you like it here, is it a good school for you? A little too much pressure on publishing, Sam said, and too much committee work, but other than that, it’s all right. I like the town a lot. And Zeeny’s job keeps her out of -- Walter faked a surprised look. Job? Woman, how you hol’ down a job, make them babies, and still look like that? I work at the University, too, she said, rather primly, I work in the English Department. Walter waiting. I’m a professor, too, she said. Oh by Jesus and Mary. Walter thought, miracles never cease. That’s fine, he said.

     They were up to coffee now. You want to see the kids? she asked, I want to check ‘em and you might as well. But wouldn’t we disturb -- Good, it’s settled, she said, y’all come right along, they sleep pretty good and if we jes’ move on through real fast, they -- The three of them rose. Walter noticed at that point that they had not asked one single question of him. Not where he’d gotten his degrees, not whether or not he was married (he wore no ring), not one damn -- well, all right. All right. That was part of the number. The babies were pretty enough, he thought, what you get when the ice-cream and the fudge melt and you stir it around with your spoon. Or whatever. You stir things up with. Nice, he said, and other appropriate noises. His middle name is Joyce, said Sam. I don’t believe you ever said his first name, said Walter. O didn’t I? It’s Stearns, said Sam, smiling in the dark. Nice ring to it, said Walter, Stearns Joyce Fagel. Well, it will be, later, Zeeny said, but we call him Curly. The other is a little bit heavy for a tot. O, I agree, said Walter, being agreeable. Jesus, what did they have to do all that for?

     Thought back to the to-do when he and Elaine were picking out a name for their first, which turned out to be a boy. She’d pushed for Dylan. Double-Dylan, he’d teased her, and No, she’d laughed, not Bob, I meant Thomas. I know, he’d said, and I don’t like it, either way. So it had been Walter and the hell with her family, who would be outraged, but could be bought off with a middle name after them: Gold. And they were. It was the idea that counted…so he’d been Gordo when he was fat and little, and then when Walter didn’t yet fit they took to calling him Junior, and that stuck, because he then looked more like Walter, withal, than like Elaine -- they decided he could have the options that way. Three choices. If he decided to be some Harlem pimp he call hisself Gold, is what. He be some straight middle-class yaller dude, he be Walter or Junior. He move in business, up and up, the sign say Walter G. on it. Nice all ways. You takes some options away from the kid, you gots to give other. At night in bed one night, stoned, he and Elaine riffed on it. Made sense. Be okay, Elaine said, if we can keep Momma shut on it. But her Momma be bought off after a while, tho she not so sure she take to that baby till end of year one, really. Back then when he more Gold than other.

     Sam got his trench-coat out, it had begun to rain. Can I loan you this? he asked Walter. Good, said Walter, I’ll bring it tomorrow when I see you. As they left, Xenia flashed again, maybe unable to stop it. Now don’ you forget, sleep tight! she smiled, visions of sugarplums, he himself coming up forty-five soon and therefore a dues-paying cardholder for sure, right on sweet mama, this one tough night ahead and don’t you doubt that. Nor are we out of it. You two cuddle-babes gettin’ it on fahn, me somewhere down the road and it a long road . . .

     They rode back through the suburb and into Center City toward the hotel section. I’ve never stayed here, Sam said, but Alex in the Department says it’s nice. Old, but substantial. (There it goes again, Walter thought, the age thing, no way to get around it . . .) Has he stayed there? Not lately, but it’s-- He parked and they went in. A reservation for Professor Willett, Walter said, Walter Jones Willett. The woman behind the counter was fat, too much makeup, pasty pimply skin and slovenly. Two blacks were doing some conversation in a corner, another two emerged from the elevators and strutted past the desk, looking like they didn’t belong with each other or weren’t happy about it. The walnut veneer panelling had begun to peel and was scratched with long whitish marks. I think I’d better have a look at the room, said Walter. The desk-clerk looked at him. Her eyes appeared to be blind, a film over them, snakelike. She handed him the key, sans tag. He took out his glasses to see the number embossed on it.

     Sam waited. Walter went up in the odd elevator. Like being in one of them bad dreams, he thought. The only other person in it was a beautiful, lanky white faggot whose profile could've been Hamlet’s. So what does that make me? wondered Sam. I’m not up for-- O fuck it, this is a bad scene. Smells like urine. Down the long hall, the key stuck and then turned rustily. The room small, done in baby blue, the rug stained and dirty, that smell of old urine again. Walter shut the door and fled.

     No way, he told Sam. Who had the grace to be embarrassed. You know, said Walter, one of my friends says, for $10 more you can go first class, and if you don’t believe in reincarnation, that’s the only way to go. I’m sorry, said Sam. Let’s go over to the Holiday Inn, how’s that sound, ‘no surprises' Don’t worry, the school foots the bill. I’d pay for it myself, said Walter, just to-- I know, said Sam. I’m really embarassed. Think nothing of it, my man, said Walter. I just can't wait to meet old Alex tomorrow, though. He’s the Chairman, said Sam. Imagine that, said Walter.