no fairy, just wet sand

I had wanted to start the day taking pictures of N's hands and her breakfast - fresh cheese, a round loaf of bread torn into pieces, the spoon in the honey that is slathered across the surface. Her morning face, rapt in silence as she sips strong black tea.

She wears one of my shirts that became her bathrobe many many months ago. 

E walks into the kitchen, ready for another bowl of cherries. It is an oddly peaceful Saturday morning.

"Ready for the tooth fairy to come tonight?" I ask her. 

She stares at me. She wanted to keep the tooth for a few days first, reluctant to surrender it to the unknown. There are no tooth fairies in Russia. 

"It's still in the jar, right?" I ask her.

She stares at me.

I go to the living room. 

It is gone. 

I start to ask if she was playing with it, how it might have gotten lost. I root through piles of drawings, through legos and tiny bits of plastilene. It is nowhere. E stands, her arms stiff by her sides. Her chin thrust into her chest, she stares at me. A terrible moment passes. I want to ignore the thoughts entering my mind. I kneel on the floor, lift her chin with my thumb.

"It's not here, is it?" I ask, knowing the answer already.

She nods slowly, once.

I breathe in slowly, letting it out. I do not want her to see me angry.

"So your mother told you to hide it from me, and bring it to her?" I ask.

She nods, already crying.

"Did she threaten you?" I ask. "Did she say if you didn't bring it, something bad would happen to you?"

She nods again, shaking. 

She can hardly stand.

All at once she wilts into my arms, weeping. 

My shirt grows wet.

This is the first time E really lied to me. She let me think the tooth was still there for days. She hid it in her pocket and brought it to her mother's house in secrecy. She is learning deceit, which disturbs me deeply. I am not surprised. I knew a day like this one would come. We sit for some time, and I talk her through it. We agree on how to handle this new wrinkle. We are a team, and she knows it. She feels terrible, to have been manipulated. 

Her mother just took the tooth after she gave it to her, no money, no gift, no surprise. Just the same petty madness. Just the same bizarre victories she celebrates, while her daughter suffers, while her daughter forfeits a visit from a fairy.

Later, we go to the playground. The sun is fierce now, burning through the leaves of the poplar trees. The earth is dry, dust kicking up in great clouds as the children land at the bottom of a long red slide.

A tiny boy crawls through the dirt, his face pressed down, his mouth open. He is eating it, like a tractor plowing. His sunburned father chases after him, white socks, black sandals, half of a tattered pinstripe suit.  

Another boy wanders wildly, a leather strap around his chest like a pet. His mother yanks on him, when he goes too close to the swings. 

A midget boy runs up to E, crying wildly, galloping around the sandbox like some kind of wild animal. His face is wise, tiny yet large for his distorted body. He thrusts a stick into the sand with a satisfied flourish. It is his flag, I think to myself. E stares at him. She has only seen midgets in films, and never a midget child. 

She leaps to me, her hoarse whisper wet in my ear. 

"Pop, I just saw a really really fat pigeon." She says.

Accordion music swirls from the outdoor restaurant next to the playground. It does not stop, circling and circling in the quiet afternoon.

The boy on the leash stares at us speaking English. His tongue dangles from his mouth.

The midget boy is digging in the sand with his bare hands. The drunk sunburned father asks him a question he dos not understand. The midget boy scowls at him. His face is tired, annoyed. He tears off through the playground again, like a bee is on him. His legs flap sideways, more like a bird's wings as he careens across the slide and the jungle gym. He spies a cork in the grass, and gives it to the boy that eats dirt. I think he may be learning disabled. It's hard to tell, he is so small. 

"Hatchu probka?" The midget boy says. (Do you want a cork?)

The boy grabs it.

The midget boy runs off, growling as he leaps over a tiny garbage can. He makes sounds like he is the six million dollar man. The boy on the leash screams at him.

E looks up at me. She face twists through a number of things she might say to me. I smile at her.

"I love you, kiddo." I say.

She nods once, mostly to herself and then goes back to digging for wet sand.

lilac, pray for me

E looks up at me from the sandbox, squinting in the late sunlight. Her first loose tooth is wiggling around in her gums, a stain of blood around it. We walk home.

Downstairs, I lift her up to one of the lilac trees. She closes her eyes and breathes in their old lady fragrance. I stare at the gnarled wiry skeletons. Clusters of white flowers and lavender make the branches hang low, dipping in an offbeat rhythm as a breeze passes. E grabs a clump as I bring her back down and she smiles at me, suddenly satisfied.

Upstairs, I place them in a juice glass. I always place lilacs in juice glasses.

I form the hamburger patties gently, salting them on the cutting board while the pan gets hot. E looks up at me, poking a finger into the soft meat.

"How do you make them so tasty Pop?" She asks me.

I smile, sigh quickly through my nose and am lost in that glass of lilacs, remembering a summer job from my college years. Working in a sort of diner, getting trained by a guy named Mike who wore rainbow tie-dye shirts under his uniform. He was stoned most of the time. He taught me the ropes, lining up order slips above the fiercely hot grill, snapping them with his fingertips as he threw meat down to sizzle and pop in the summer night. I learned fast, working mustard into the grilled cheese sandwiches, banging the fries out of the hot oil, tossing salt over them with backhand splashes like I was a tennis pro. Mike taught me everything. He never got stressed out, no matter how angry the waitresses were, no matter how many slips fluttered above our heads. He just flicked his fingers on them, called out the plates to me and we pushed it all out.

Mike would bring a clump of lilac in with him from his break, and rest it in a juice glass on a window ledge close to the grill. It was a strange and tender gesture. He would never explain to me why he did it, and I never asked. When the slips really stacked up I would see him stare at the lilac for a moment, maybe close his eyes and let a breath out slowly.

I developed a personal slang to make the waitresses nuts.
"Rip Van Winkle!" I would shout from my station, then clanging my spatula on the counter. "Growin' a beard!"
This meant an order was up, sitting too long waiting to be served. They were not amused. Margaret, a battlehorse in polyester, a single mom with three kids for example. And Rosalie - John Wayne as a gunslinging waitress in a one piece, name tag dangling off the collar. She stared me down, shaking her head no, warning me maybe I needed to wear a hairnet if I didn't cut my sideburns.

The waitresses could leave early if the place got quiet, but first they had to approach the manager - a fat little man with a mustache that covered a miniature mouth. "When can I get off?" They would ask him.
He would pause, his tiny lips puckering into a silent air kiss.
"I dunno, but can I watch?" He would reply, chuckling then screaming in laughter. He told this joke every night.

At the end of my shifts I was supposed to throw out the garbage. He would stand in the doorway, holding he door open, watching me. One night he actually helped me. "What are you studying, college boy?" He asked me, offhanded.
"Film." I said. "But I write a lot. I'm writing a kind of a novel."
"I read." He said, tossing a bag high into the air before it splashed into the dumpster with a soft thud. "The letters to the editor in Hustler."
 I smile blandly.
"Some are really good." He added. "But films are better."

They asked me to cover the breakfast shift once, and I was terrified. I could cook an omelette at home in a nonstick pan if I had a little time, but spreading eggs across the great stainless steel grill, stacking homefries and pancakes and making it all work was a sort of nightmare. Mike was not there, instead a guy named Kevin with curly hair. He talked to himself a lot, had a spatula in each hand. I just tried to bring him plates and flip the pancakes to look remotely useful.

As breakfast wound down and we shifted the prep to lunch and my familiar and beloved burgers, a lone order came in from a wide-eyed waitress with skinny legs jutting from her ill-fitting uniform. She was young, a college girl I thought. Kevin stared at the slip for a bit, then looked me in the eyes for the first time that morning, sliding it down towards me. I raised my hands in defense, not wanting to screw up somebody's eggs. I read the slip. In giant curlicue letters it said "let's go out!". I stared down the aisle at her, seeing her biting her lips. I mouthed an OK to her and she disappeared in embarrassment.

We went out, and I learned that she loved Guns-n-Roses more than life itself, that she thought Axl was some kind of angel, the way he sang. She had deep tan lines, and did not drink. I pushed The Clash on her, some old Bowie, The Ramones. She wanted none of it. She let on that she was a Jew for Jesus next, explaining to me she would never sleep with me, that she prayed for me every night. She offered to give me a bible, and if I did she promised to take a shower with me. She had layers of oddness under that uniform, and my typical curiosity disappeared. She kept calling me on the phone at work, in the middle of the dinner rush saying she could save me if only I would pray with her.

I broke things off, and took a job building opera scenery for the rest of the summer.
The pay was much better.

The pan is smoking hot. I spread a thin sheen of oil that shimmers on the surface. I drop the burgers in and they instantly start talking, making happy noises.

E is poking my arm. I look at her. She holds her tooth in her tiny hand. The first one to go. We talk about the tooth fairy and if she should leave rubles or dollars when she places it under her pillow. I find a jar in the cabinets to keep it safe. It smells of vinegar and chili.

She sleeps now. The jar with the tiny tooth at the bottom stands next to those lilacs in the darkness of the kitchen. I think of Mike getting stoned, smiling his wide smile, his perfect teeth. I think of the skinny waitress. I wonder if she knows that I pray now.

all is vanity (laugh with the howl)

The howling drones grew, then plateaued, then consumed themselves for twenty minutes as we stood waiting for someone to come on stage. A distorted sine wave bleeds through a broken speaker, then hammered strings in a ceaseless fury, then church bells banged away with double mallets. It is like this for some time. The crowd is anxious, cracking nervous smiles. Young girls are shoving towards the front but can't see anything. A tall man in front of us with bad teeth stinks like rotting meat. A lap steel is added, waves of growling, snarling bar chords shimmer above the chaos. This goes on for a very long time. N leans back against me. She is yelling in my ear, but I can hardly hear her. I guess what she is saying from the context. I shrug my shoulders. I make a face that says "let's wait a bit".

The room is full of smoke. People are sucking on cigarettes like they are going down on the Titanic. The air is stale and does not move. I look up at a window vent in the roof of this garage. It is covered in plastic.

My ears are ringing. The performance is so loud, you cannot even hear it. A bass player comes on the stage, tuning his instrument then thumping out low, held notes that shudder the floorboards. It remains like this for some time, the din, the roar, the slashing of air.

Now Norman appears. My hand shoots up into the air and I point at him. He sees me, nods once. He looks like a preacher, or a general from the civil war with his grey hair and mustache. Those tattoos on his arms, the black pants, they are all far too familiar to me. How many nights did we drink in the Mars Bar until the gates were pulled down, with Algis and Tracie and the rest of them?

He pulls his Fender on, sloping his back into a curve and looses an opening salvo. It moans slowly, hovering above everything else. He stares out at the audience, looking past everyone, past the bar in the back, looking all the way to Afghanistan I think.

Jarboe finally emerges, wearing a stiff white cowboy hat. His hair is grey now too, his belly swollen over the top of his pants. He is playing the old Gibson still, with half of the knobs taped over or broken off. He acts out his part, conducts, swirls his arms in the air like a chef enjoying the perfume of some minestrone. He nods, his chin thrust in the air. He plays.

You can't really hear anything at this point. It is just a massive ringing. It is far beyond bone crunching noise. It is far beyond the colossal footsteps of giants. It is louder than meteors smashing into the earth. It is impossible.

N leans back on me. She wants to do it, but her heart is beating too fast now. She needs fresh air. We have been standing for four hours already. She doesn't feel good.

Somehow it ends. Jarboe grumbles a handful of words. I know the drummer too, just forgot his name.

The next one crashes in, the air itself is shuddering. The crowd just stands there motionless. They play one note on every instrument as loud and hard as they can. The drummer counts out the measures. Jarboe grimaces and howls and falls to his knees as the kids in the front row snap pictures and smile. I saw the Swans play a few times in the early nineties. I know they did shows like this, but they also did shows where you could hear some words, when the beautiful chaos was interrupted by quieter passages. That was a long time ago, and the sound guys were really good. No matter how loud it was, you still heard everything. Here, I see someone playing an ebow, and can't hear him at all. I see Jarboe's lips moving and do not hear him. I start to get angry at the Russian sound guys. I know the musicians are asking for monitors to hear themselves. They keep asking. I know what it is to play without hearing yourself. It is like being in a very loud limbo, performing blind, in a vacuum.

N looks up at me. She will go outside. She tells me to stay, that she will be ok.

I know what they are doing. Jarboe believes that if the sound is this loud, if it is truly painful - it actually hurts your body. People have been known to throw up at a Swans show. He wants the pain. He wants the experience. He wants the surrender and the epiphany. He doesn't want to play the popular stuff you can find on youtube. He doesn't want to give off even a whiff of the sellout punk hero. He does not play requests. I get it. He is going all the way back to the beginning. This was the first music they made. This was the dinosaur goo that split the world open, so long ago. It is still magnificent. But twenty years ago, he grew beyond this madness. Twenty years ago this was a first step in many. I understand this is all that will happen tonight. Paleozoic howling.

My blood is running in cold waves up and down my back. Those short girls are pressing into my kidneys. The room is getting even hotter and the tall guy's shirt is producing a truly foul smell, like liver and raw onions and warm vodka. I press my fingers halfway into my ears and hear things much better. I love the noise. I love the cold snarl of Norman's guitar. The drummer is perfect, precise, lifting the room until it hovers a few feet off of the ground.

I send N an sms. I don't like the idea of her standing alone outside.

Jarboe talks now.
"Raise your hands high, Muscovites." He says, like he is working at a circus. "Raise your hands high, powerful Muscovotes. You killers of fascists."

I see him smirk to himself. I start to think he hates this place, with the bad sound system, playing in an art garage on a Sunday night.

I don't feel good. I want to hear everything happening on stage, not just this sharp ringing that is beyond deafening now. My hands shoved deep in my pockets, I realize I need to go. I need to make sure N is ok, standing in the parking lot outside next to the security guys. It is cold tonight, and she is not dressed well. I also want to stay, to drench myself in the New York of my twenties when I lived around the corner from CBGB's - to laugh with the howl. I want to drink some stale beer and talk to Norman afterwards, those simple musician's conversations that sum up an entire night in a few words, a nod of the head, a knowing expression, an exchange.

But I will not.

I leave quickly, and those short girls are thrilled. They still won't see anything.

Outside I gulp on the cold air. N looks up at me. Her face says "I tried". I hold her hand, put my arm around her to warm her. She is freezing. We sit in her car with the heat all the way up. Talking to each other is almost pointless, as we can't really hear anything, just an empty hollow whine that will fade after we have a pot of black tea and maybe a piece of cake in a near-empty cafe before we go home and to bed on this Sunday night.

a town with no cheer

8AM Victory Day. 

The streets are empty except for handfuls of drunkards slurping from plastic liters of malt liquor. For once, no old ladies selling roses or daffodils. Plenty of police and military standing in slumped groups with old semi-automatics slung across their backs, cigarettes dangling from limp hands. 

Birds are chirping furiously. Crows descend on piles of trash in splashes of noise. In this stillness, I see my reflection in store windows. I look tired, angry. My chin is up, hands lost in pockets, chest thrust forwards, legs chewing up the sidewalk. 

It is time to get E back.

This is a day when victory is celebrated. Cheap flags are being screwed to the walls. People are wearing white suits.

My mind wanders in the cool air.

There is no victory, I think. There is just an end to conflict. There is always loss. Unmeasurable loss. Waste of time, of life, of money. I think of the war over E, and how she is the actual battleground. Her tiny limbs are pulled in opposite directions every week. On the one side, mind games, manipulation, starvation, neglect, abuse. On the other - love, attention, nourishment, music, laughter, jokes, sandboxes and swings, countless toys, arms that never tire.

I know she is both fragile and strong. I know she has developed survival skills, but I ask why she has to. I ask why she cannot visit her homeland until she is 18, why she cannot chose anything in her life, why she has no voice, no opinion.

There is no answer.

There is only rage and deaf hostility. There is only anger to fill up the void. There is a blind swirl of madness, and the wreckage of lives in its path. This is our life, every day here, in a land with no rules.

There is no victory. But someday, this will end.

E's face jumps as she appears from behind the door. She has made a tiny paper basket for Aurora, a little girl we play with sometimes. 

We will walk in the grass, and pick some dandelions to put in it. We will stop at a fountain and throw some pennies in the fast running water. We will hold hands in the bright sun as the president's cars scream past us. 

I see a few potatoes and onions strewn across the sidewalk in front of a war monument. The soldiers are huge, much larger than life with their thick limbs and round faces. I imagine the food is some kind of remembrance, a strange offering.

We see an old woman in front of us, a shopping bag half-ripped on her elbow. There are potatoes and onions tumbling to the ground behind her and she does not know. E looks at me, then bursts into laughter.

We put the onions and potatoes in our pockets and present them to the old woman. She stops, surprised and confused. E babbles to her, as we place the potatoes in her hands, as she examines the broken plastic for some time. She feels betrayed, that it should last forever.

Embarrassed, she thanks us briskly. Her face a twist of sadness, she has not laughed once.

We go on our way, to buy milk and chocolate, maybe an ice cream on the way home.

I really don't understand people here.

look up, dandelion

And we are driving, just to move around, looking for the tiniest excuse to go here, to go there. After a week of chaos, of early mornings and late nights making everything work it's confusing to have a quiet afternoon and nothing urgent to take care of.

At home, the air in the hallways stinks of fresh paint, cheap and toxic. I get splitting headaches from it. Windows open, then closed, it lingers in the rooms, coating the back of my throat. Grotesque yellow, red and green - wet and sticky for days. Another slathering that hides nothing, as logical as wearing your underwear over your pants.

We sip Turkish coffees in the late afternoon, sharing some sorbet, letting the juices run together at the bottom of the glass and slurping them up. The sun bright, the air cold, we watch people smoking cigarettes The clouds roll past us. There is nothing to disturb the moment. N tells me funny stories from her childhood, about boys that had crushes on her, about bouquets of roses and birthday parties.

I tip my cup over, as I learned to do in Greece. I leave it upside-down on the saucer for a number of minutes, almost forgetting about it, then turning it back over. I always show the cup to N first, as she has a knack for deciphering the cracked sludge that paints the sides.

I see two people looking up at the sky she says, quite certain. I see them too. I can't decide if the two people are looking up in fear, or if they are just trying to see the future. At least it is not one person looking up at the sky, I think to myself.

The next day, I call to tell E I am coming to get her. But she is being held prisoner again. She is being forced to go to a beauty salon for hours while her mother gets a haircut and will be dropped off afterwards. I know she doesn't want to do this. I know she wants to be on the playground, making pies from wet sand.

And then it is growing late. I call and call. 

No answer. 

Finally the phone rings. E says she will stay at her mother's tonight so she does not disappoint her. I hear her voice breaking. Her mother is screaming at me on the phone. She is laughing at me. She tells me I can do nothing. The madwoman has found her Spring. 

I press to take her in the morning at least. She hangs up the phone. 

I try to call back. It is switched off. 

It will be a long night, even with some wine and big bowl of chinese food. This is the moment I fear, the moment I try to forget, the moment when I am furious and lost, the moment I cannot even talk to E on the phone, the moment I have lived a thousand times already. 

It never gets easier.

I wake up at five. I try to write. The paint fumes are strong again. Just a headache and a blanket to wrap around myself. I shuffle around the house wondering what to do, doze off in a chair and then it is eight. I dress quickly, running down the streets my shadow long in front of me. I imagine E will be dressed already behind the door, just the sound of locks turning and then we will be in the playground in a handful of minutes.

She is exhausted. She has not eaten. Her face is filthy, her fingernails black. She blurts out a million stories about yesterday, about how she did not want to go anywhere with her mother, that she was waiting for me the whole day.

We pick a few dandelions that have sprouted by the side of the road.