Letter to Francisca:
wombat_part - third book of a letter to Francisca.
Living to find the right letter to write.
Finding one to love.
wombat_part_04

That’s in case the readers ever wonder if Franny ever wrote back. No. She wasn’t expected to. Why write so much to her then? When we’re older, with things all behind, then people can bump into each other and say, ‘hay did you know?’ There’s many people I’d like to see in a couple decades. See what’s up. Like what ever happened to Gary Burrows or Heather Michalson, or Jose, or Kim Krause, or Brentie, or Catherine - I never knew her last name - or Greg Stage, or Dean Welcome, or Peter Lunick. The list could go on but who wants to read a list?

Oh. I forgot to tell you. It’s sunny and warm today. The sun is leaving the belcony on account of a large tree. And it’s after 6.

One other things is, we’re getting married 08:30. Jumping Jesus. And weather providing, all day, all night celebration out of the city.

How ‘bout another poem? Do you like poems? I wrote a poem, three actually, to Shona and the third was out of hand. She sent me a how to write poetry book.

It was good that we didn’t hit it off. It would have been trouble. Also, I met Wiebke shortly after that.

Oh, the poem. Start with a simile.
Like a festering open sore on the back
of a lame sea lion,
Picked at by pestering shit hawks in the
blazing sun on a scorching day,
You dig at me with your pointed
burning stick of sarcasm
Until my guts, like maggots on a dead
raccoon come out to play.

How’d you like it? Sucks the small one. It was strained. There was never much hope for it. I need a hair band now. I stopped cutting my hair and it’s getting into my eyes. Okay, enough for today. I must find some food and decide what my next project is. Kids book, first book, get a job. Thanks for staying tuned.

_bunnie stop_

Wait, just one more thing. You have great tits. No. That wasn’t it. I hope that didn’t offend you. What do you think of sex? Before marriage. With farm animals or a dog. That wasn’t it. It doesn’t seem so important now. Can a sense of stupidity evolve into a handle on humor? Fried rice. That’s what I’ll have.

_bunnie stop_

I still haven’t found my sun glasses and today I want to be mad. The guy that rented half the garage that’s beside our belcony, pisses me off. He bullied the landlady into agreeing to fix the garage door so it would lock. He didn’t want people steeling his tires. She could have easily found someone else who didn’t care about the lock, but because loud men rule old women, she’s spent several years rent pissing about with the big heavy steel doors that she can barely close because she’s nearly 90 years old and isn’t as strong as she might have been ten years ago.

But seriously, that’s not what is bothering me. Everything is bothering me. Obviously because I’m about to bitch senselessly. Or I might not.

The birds are chirping. And why don’t people think? The dumb woman keeps throwing more and more money at those dumb doors when she should have not even thought of them. I was also thinking I’d like to be an insane creative genius, such as Beethoven. Not like the Rafial guy who did that Bolero thing I’m so sick of hearing. It’s a song that spends the whole time starting, then suddenly it’s over without having gone anywhere. Maybe that’s why it pisses me off; it’s too much how I feel. Over 30 years and I don’t feel I’ve started and I suspect when I’m on my bed, or snow drift, dying, I’ll think the same thing.

_bunnie stop_

Now what about the metal on the balcony. It’s rotting away.

I’m frustrated. That I’m aware of. Seems I’m struggling and I don’t know what against. I have to start making money. That could be one problem. I might miss Canada. I spent the morning thinking of people that had been in my life. Some for a short time but for an impressive time.

I was going to rave about something else but now I forget. I have to function. I don’t want to. It’s preferable for me to fall into a vacuum.

I absolutely have to function and support my habits. Eating and sleeping in a house. I hate that. 5 weeks and we get married.

Let me try one poem then I’ll leave you alone.
Jumping Jesus Christ, I don’t know where to start.
Ranting and raving has always been my part.
I’m sick of it and all the other shit as well.
I don’t even want to say fuck off and go to hell.
I just want to fade away into a sleeping bliss.
Float on thin air and breath the morning mist.
I don’t want to make the grade or have wealth.
I don’t want for anything, not even mental health.
I want to adopt madness, close the world out.
I want to be rid of sadness, whisper and not shout.
I’ve had it with everything from asshole to Zen.
I want to stop this fucked poem and never again begin.

_bunnie stop_

That didn’t last long. It’s the 21st of June jetz. The most awful thing has happened. I have to find work. Today, I finally forced my reluctant body to go to a few places. They were all a lost cause. 1st wasn’t in. Home office. Over grown and uninviting. Second was a house. Third, no longer there. I saw no one. A big waist of time. And what I hate most is the terror of having to ask someone to let me work. But I shan’t waist ink on it.

My intention today is to see if I can’t, or can, remember a story I wrote years ago. While I was still in my 20’s. Ahh. I’m 34, Franny. I’m virtually unusable and my only credits are my knowledge, which is questionable, my wisdom, which is childish, my woman, who soon’s going to suspect I’m a bum, my good friends, who are on another side of the world, my health, which is credited to nervous energy, bla bla bla.

I hope Bryan comes to the wedding and fires me up. The wedding is my wedding.

But it was the sound of the planes that sent me to this pen and paper. We live close to an American air base. The sound of their planes are quite disturbing. Not just the bother of the noise, but the apocalyptic ring to the roar.

-The roar of the jet engines shook me from my restless sleep. I sat up to look out the window at them taking off. They were always taking off. They never went anywhere. They just take off, roar around the stratosphere, shatter a few windows on the way back, refuel and do it again. There’s always a smell of death in the air from the burning fuel.

It was just this morning that I realized I didn’t like them. Like a nice box of cigarettes, like a nice shiny car, like a nice colour TV, like a nice box of beer, like a nicely rapped chocolate sugar bar, like most of the nicely presented garbage, inhumanity to man and death, those pretty planes with their nice big engines and their nice supersonic speeds . . .

"Honey."

"Yes, Love."

"Are you brooding again?"

"I’m sorry. I thought you were still sleeping."

"How can I sleep while you stare out the window and look most miserable?"

"I should rather look at you; you are most beautiful."

"Thank you, Sweetness. What’s that noise?"

"The planes."

"No, the other noise."

"Lucindy preparing breakfast."

"She doesn’t normally make that much noise."

"Maybe she wants a raise."

"You just gave her one and she hadn’t even asked."

"I’ll go check."

I left the bedroom to follow the noise.

"What the hell!"

"What is it?"

Black birds were flapping about and pecking at my new teak table I had just received as a gift from the president.

"Hey!"

They all stopped to look at me for a second, then continued frantically knocking things off the table onto the floor.

"I hate everything," I said and sat down on the stairs.

My wife phoned the police. I wondered if they could arrest birds for illegal entry and willful damage. I knew they could arrest most anyone they pleased because that was their job.

I noticed that I felt very tired and wonder if the stress I had lately was taking more out of me than I suspected. Though we had a very nice house, that was a present from the president, I missed the country side or even the bare ocean. What I wouldn’t give for a quiet home, not any size, next to the ocean. No neighbors. At least none with jets.

"Police! Open up!"

My wife went to open the door but they had already shot the lock and handle off and kicked the door down. Lucindy never locks it when she comes in the morning so I wondered why they hadn’t tried using the handle.

Four of them ran over my wife, past the stairs where I was stationed and toward the flapping black wings. Many shots rang out before the screeching stopped and all was quiet, except for the roar of the planes.

The cops ran around the house looking for more birds. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice and survey the damages. The furniture, dishes, pictures and walls were destroyed. That didn’t bother me so much. None of it was really mine. It could all be easily replaced. I’d just have to mention it to someone and there would be a crew . . .

"Doctor."

"Yes, son."

"I think we got them all."

I looked at all the feathers and blood about the room thinking it quite strange that only minutes before, there were live birds in my dining room. There was one more on the balcony staring at me. It was a little unnerving.

"You were very thorough," I said.

"Yes, Sir," he said and saluted. "If you have any more trouble, you call us."

"Thank you."

They all bid me have a good day and left out the front door, past my wife who was still on the floor. She was all red.

"You shot my wife."

"Sorry, Sir. We’ll radio an ambulance."

One good thing about living on a military base was that help was never far away.

I sat on the front porch and tried to think. Mathematical, theoretical problems were all I could picture. I wondered if it bothered me that our breakfast had been so frantically disturbed.
The ambulance raced up to the front and skidded to a halt. I imagined they’d come and pick me up but when they stood looking at me, one of them noticed the front door and looked in.

"It’s his wife. In here!"

They quickly put her on a stretcher and bounced her to the ambulance. They shut the doors then looked at me.

"You can come with us, Doc."

"I’m fine."

"To be with your wife."

"Oh."

I walked to the ambulance and got in.

"I don’t want to die," she was saying.

"No one does, Dear."

I found a feather in my house coat and ran it over my wife’s nose. A very pretty nose. All of my wife was pretty. She was a present as well. I’m sure she wasn’t told to marry me, but she was sent to my room when I was in Washington to talk to the president to discuss the long term effects of the project. I tried to explain to him about mutation and reproduction no matter how sexless the little things were made. But he gave me an unlimited budget to work so that I could find something that would eat the first crew.

My wife sneezed.

"Bless you," I said.

It seemed I had been dreaming for days when the ambulance arrived at the hospital.

"I don’t want to die."

"That’s why we’re here," I reassured her.

She was quickly wheeled away. I tried to follow but they were too fast. I decided to wait in the lounge area.

Today was the day, I thought. While in the western world all was a state loosely classified as normal, the enemies of democracy would be fighting an enemy they couldn’t see. It still bothered me that there was no way to isolate the effect to humans. I was sure if I had had more time, I could have refined it to that purpose. But there was no time.

"There’s never enough time to do all the things you want to do," I said.

There was an old woman looking at me. I hadn’t realized she was there and wondered if my speaking had offended her.

"It would be a sad life if there was," she said.

I reflected on her reply until I couldn’t bare the thought of myself. I needed to stop thinking.

"Maybe you are right," I said.

I got up and wandered the corridors until I chanced upon the cafeteria. I picked up a tray and sled it along the steel rails. Nothing seemed to be behind the plexi glass. Everything was plastic or cardboard. I chose one that was a chocolate milk.

‘Hot Food’, a sign read.

"Fries," I said to the sign.

Someone handed me a paper plate full of warm and greasy fries. I put them on my tray, selected a green Jell-O and a piece of lemon yellow pie.

When I got to the cashier to pay, I learned I had no money. I was still in my robe.
"I forgot my wallet. Can I sign the bill and pay it later?"

The cashier looked at me for a minute. I told her my name and she phoned somebody.
She hung up the phone, wrote something on the receipt and put it in the cash.
I took that as a cue to sit and eat my things.

As I sucked the green Jell-O through my teeth, I made calculations. I drew out formulas with my feather.

A black bird crashed against the window. The old man at the next table stared at me and nodded his head. Since the fries were unbearably greasy, I decided I would throw them at the old mans nodding head. Before I could, he stopped his nodding, pulled out a gun and put it to his head.

"No!" I shouted.

He hid the gun in his lap and looked away while everyone in the room looked at me.

The bird crashed into the window again.

The old man looked at me again and grinned, showing all his unhealthy teeth.

The silence was uneasing. I decided to find out what happened to my wife.

After many inquirers, I found her room. She had just been brought out of surgery.

"She’ll be fine," a nurse said.

"Thank God," I said.

I sat by her bed and looked at her peaceful face. She was very beautiful.

"She will need to sleep for a while, you should go home and come back later."

"Okay."

I kissed my wife and walked to the front door. There was a black bird trapped in the vestibule, flapping frantically.

I don’t know, Franny. It goes something like that. He is driven away by a young military woman who takes him to her father’s beach house. Less than a month from now I’ll be married.

_bunnie stop_

Just an idea for 3rd novel here on June 29th. The business of belief.

_bunnie stop_

I’m married now. It’s August 19th/94. I was just wondering if it’s common that people fancy themselves as an unknown legend, like a Marlboro cigarette add or the lonely wise man who doesn’t know what else to think about. I’m already preparing my psyche for a lonely winter. In a way, I may long for it. It’s a safe lonely feeling, I suppose, since I know Wiebke loves me unreservedly. I take some comfort in that. I’ll try writing her love poems while she lays in the sun of south Spain on the open ocean. I suppose my lonely feelings are a little surreal since I have many dear friends who I know love me. Of course they are mostly thousands of kilometers away.

We’re going to get a computer, second hand likely, and I’m going to try to get a book or three out to publishers. I also want to write my third novel this year. Much of it has been sketched out. When Wiebke and Toby, my friend here, are gone, I’ll have nothing but time. I would like to stay on welfare and just read and write and those other things I always do. If I can start a business, I will, but I hate the thought of having a job. There aren’t enough jobs to go around, I don’t want to take one away from someone who might really want it.

The wedding was beautiful. Wiebke was, and will continue likely, very stunning the wedding day. Nevin made her a short white lace dress. She wore white nylons, shoes and under things. The marriage was at City hall. It was clinical and in German. My friend, Bryan was with me and Paola, you might know her, was here and her friend Yael.

Though her parents were uneasy about the union, they came and celebrated whole heatedly. Her 3 siblings came also. Only Willi stayed the whole night and camped out with us. We married early Friday morning and went to a beautiful spot next to the woods 20 km from here. All day and night went excellently.

Neil Young isn’t encouraging any happy feelings with his Harvest LP, Amer called yesterday. Their L.P.C.D. is waiting for a few thousand dollars before being finished. He said I could come back to Toronto. Can’t though. I want to some times, just to be with them, but this is where I am now.

I thought I was going to write something. That’s why I picked up this pen and book. I can’t think of what it is I was going to say. I’ll mention that our citrus trees are all over 8 inches high now. Seven of them. I like them. I love trees. That could be one reason I’m suddenly obsessed with the idea of selling a home started kit for trees. Cut out, fold up, cardboard pots, a little dirt, 3 seeds, a blurb in a few languages and let distributors move them. In fact I think I’ll work on the concept a bit now. Talk to you later. Franny.



by Joanne B. Washington

read on. wombat_part_05



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