Love Songs: The Exquisite Agony of Blues

By AnnieMae Robertson

"Love seems to be the balance pole. Too little and your load shifts precariously one way, too much and it swings the other."

Love Songs is a unique collection of short works. It was intended to be a concert of sweet old love songs to ease the soul. Instead the pieces are truer to the agony of blues. Some are amusing-some abrasive-some tragic. And all are thought provoking cautionary tales.

Death of a Mordot, the crowning novella, illustrates the fickle nature of gods and the inability of the inhabitants of that world to feel the compassion needed to survive. It is a fantasy romance of diversity, tolerance and faith, all that good stuff we could use in our world where our gods, hard cash and cruel power, are just as fickle and even more dangerous.

This is a book to be read curled up in a cozy place with your favorite comfort food-or on the subway on your way to fight dragons. Better yet, if you are a dragon, on a hillside on your way to fight men.

"A superb collection Robertson really tells it like it is! This is a MUST READ!"

G. Abrams-Proof Picks

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 21, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462067350

AnnieMae Robertson

AnnieMae Robertson is more a journey than a person. She has meandered like the universal string through this life and beyond, inside heads and hearts and dreams. She has twisted through social strata, crossing cultural boundaries to experience the persistence of poverty and the instability of affluence. She has listened to the stories of the birthgivers and the dying, and all manner of people in all manner of situations who taught her compassion first and foremost. Presently the journey has slowed to allow the retelling of all those stories, a task she manages at her computer in a miniscule apartment in Western Massachusetts.She has been a poet, a playwright, a painter, and most important, has raised four wonderful daughters and one wonderful son.

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All Rights Reserved © 2002 by AnnieMae Robertson

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc. 5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200 Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

All stories included in this collection are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 0-595-22233-1

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6735-0 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

I am grateful to my daughter Metta for her endless

help putting this book together, and for her encouragement. Also to my other children for their constant support, and my friend Pat Schneider, Director of Amherst Writers and Artists, for giving me the confidence to do a bit of mind-bending.

In memory of a little dog named Toastie.

Contents

Introduction

BRUTUS

PARENTING

THE EFFIGY

COWS

GODDESS

BURNING

A SPIRIT HOUSE FOR MICHAEL

CHARLES B. PERKINS, ARTIST

TREE

DADDY

RAYMOND

TYMARINE

THE SPELL

CLONE

DEATH OF A MORDOT—A Novella

Introduction

Ί would like to say the following stories are true but I cannot. But, if J-you should recognize a situation as one of your own, I want you to remember that my view was from inside your head where you allowed me to reside for at least the duration of the experience. And somehow that makes you coauthor and equally responsible for anything I have written here. I hope I have been compassionate in the writing.

AnnieMae Robertson

BRUTUS

If you have ever looked into the large black eyes of a fawning cocker-L spaniel, you have witnessed a major show of affection that can easily be recognized as pure adoration. It is that quality of love, that illogical validation, deserved or not, that has created an army of dog fanciers.

Brutus is not a cocker spaniel. He is not even the sort of dog who could rest his slobbering jowls on your knee and have you feel good about it, unless he happens to be your dog of course. He did, in fact, actually exist, though not quite in the context into which I have penned him. His intensity of love seemed as startling to Brutus as to his human witnessing his sudden change of soul.

He knew he was not human, not pink or brown or red slippery naked flesh. He knew he was black and sleek, with shiny fur that rippled with every muscle movement. And he was powerful across his shoulders and along his muzzle to the ridges between his cropped ears. And he was proud, a working dog set to protect a territory bounded by the high stone fence, the field along the back of the building, and the edges of the pavement where the strip of loose gravel and sand bordered the roadway. All of it was his.

And when the parking lot was full, the guests sitting noisily at their meals, even the inside of the building was his. When the door opened at the top of the steps, and the long whistle stirred the fine hair inside the cups of his ears, he would take the steps several at a time, move inside and stand for a moment there by the maitre d’. He would hold his head brow high, pose like an aristocrat, a show dog, then walk between the tables searching for smells.

He would circle each table before moving past the curtains into the passageway to the game rooms. His human had trained him to search for the scent of gun oil—of graphite—of gunpowder. And if any one of those seated had reached a hand toward him he would let the growl start low behind his chest bone. He would rumble slowly, rolling back the black edge of his mouth to expose the points of tearing teeth. He was good at his job. And only when he sat once again beside the maitre d’, did they slide back the curtains inviting everyone to witness the opening roulette wheels, the craps tables and blackjack at the far end of the corridor.

That was his evening’s work. In the daytime when the shadows were blacker, the sunny areas brighter, his job was to patrol the pavement and the back hedges. No one was allowed in, no one. Even deliverymen sat still in their vans until he moved in circles around them, always seeking that one metallic oil scent.

And once, when a new driver stepped out a moment too early, Brutus had pinned him back against the door of the cab and slobbered spittle on him, heavy paws pressing hard on the man’s chest, hot breath slipping out between his open jaws. Life was good.

It was on a Saturday that things had changed. He knew it was Saturday because of the extra cars that had entered and left the parking lot early in the day. The Saturday limos. But the word Saturday meant nothing to him. It was purely and simply limo day, easier than some of the others because he knew the passengers and the drivers. They were Saturday people, familiar, some friendly—some not, and some smelling heavily of metal oil. He would not let them enter the building until he was given the word. Down, Brutus!

And that Saturday things had started out the same. He was on his fifth patrol, just down at the edge of the pavement, a little back from the stone wall when he saw the bike cross from the road to the drive. It intersected his mental barrier suddenly, two tires spinning, legs and feet moving, right there in his path. He crouched large and deadly, then lunged first at the revolving wheel, then at the leg, then at the blond swinging braids, spinning the child and the bike wildly across the loose gravel, pedals upturned—legs—elbow—head. She was down and he was on her in a second, his teeth pressed against her throat, tasting salt, tasting child.

She did not scream but lay there still as he raised his head and backed away. Nothing was right. She was not a vendor or a limo driver. She didn’t smell of metal oil. But she had invaded and now was down, one foot caught in a bicycle spoke. He looked into her face, sniffed the blood on her forehead, on her elbows. She was so still. He rubbed his nose against her hand, licked her cheek softly, cried puppy sounds until she opened her eyes and felt the warm wet of him. She lifted a hand and touched him cautiously, pushed aside the sogginess of his attention, and tried to sit up. He pressed her back, one large paw heavy on her chest, leaned his muzzle into the fingers of her touching hand and begged her to love him.

He looked back across at the white clapboard building. The West-field Inn with its green awnings was too far away in his dog mind, but he could see the open door at the top of the steps. The man was there. Brutus could feel him watching, knew the whistle would come. He lay full out, tucked his head in against the child’s chin, flicked his tongue in small kisses along the taste of her. It was new. It fractured his dog mind into non-dog pieces.

The man came, the whistle still between his lips. He patted the dog. Heel, boy! Stay! he said and picked the child up, carrying her across into the building. Stay, boy! And the large dog lay there, waiting, remembering that different smell, that lingering of small child blood.

For the rest of that day and that night, and for several days following, Brutus worked his territory. But always, as he searched for the metal-oil scent he also searched for the smell of her along the stairs—in the cars and vans—down by the wall. He knew the man had taken her away in the large car. He knew she was somewhere safe because he would have known if she were not. But he brooded within his sleek dark form. He grieved her as lost.

When he had begun to forget, late on the second limo day following, a shift in the air, a tingling familiar in his nostrils stopped him there on that convergence of pavement and road. She was walking this time, slowly—cautiously, looking at him with her eyes large and human. And he stood very still trying to control the tremors flicking the undersides of his fur. He tipped his head to one side, waiting.

She held her hand out carefully, palm up, and he lost it, his energy bursting through his barriers driving him in circles around her. He tasted her face, pushed his nose in her ear, in her hand, bumped at her until she grabbed him around the thickness of his throat and hung on. Everything in the world was the child.

The cars inching past were no longer his concern. The whistle, pressing its demands, was brushed away as incidental. The rules were gone. He followed her, moving close so her fingers could brush the ruffles along his shoulder. He had never been beyond the end of the drive, never out onto the road, never to the corner—to the river—out on the pilings along the rocks. He had never run so free, beside her, away from her, toward her. She was his living now. It was his job to guard her adoringly.

When she walked him back to the drive, she shook a plump child finger at him. Stay, she said, pressing the seriousness into creases between her eyes. Stay! The man watched from the open door of the building.

After that the little girl came every day and they walked. She talked to him as if he were a human friend. She told him about her brother, and her house down by the beach, and the school she went to every day except Saturdays and Sundays. And all the time she talked she leaned in close to him and rubbed his large head with her hand. He whimpered and growled and purred like a gigantic kitten. Life was somewhere cloud high.

All of his training was scattered. Cars came and went with only a glance or a cursory sniff. His tours of the dining room were paced off

quickly, dutifully, his mind always out at the end of the drive, watching.

The man talked to him, rubbed his fur vigorously, fed him pleasant lumps of meat. He gave him new smells of oil and metal to remind him. The man reimprinted parameters: Heel, Brutus! Stay, Brutus! Find, Brutus! And the dog tried very hard to please. He knew it was important and he loved the man, wanted to feel his hand scruffing his flanks, patting gratitude. But even with the long leash on, and the serious business of working, his head turned to see if the child was there.

The last limo day, the sun was warm and he felt good following along as she gathered a handful of blue flowers. He chased at the flying things, snapped his jaws on moths, let them wiggle, wings fluttering on his tongue. He whined at a bit of glass that embedded in a paw, sat patiently while the child wiped the blood away with the end of her shirt. He even endured her attempt to carry him wounded, until they both fell exhausted into the tall grass and he was allowed to limp along at her side.

The parking lot of the Westfield was empty except for one car when they got back that day. He had a burning feeling in his brain that there was something he had left undone, something threatening gone unchecked. He didn’t want to leave the child, but he knew he had to. He looked at her, measured himself in her eyes, licked her face and turned back to the building.

He circled the car once, twice, caught the scent, nerves gathered to caution, lip quivering. He took the stairs several at a time, bounced the large door open. They were there inside, his man and another, and the smell of oil, of gun, peaked ripe. He moved fast, but not until the first shot caught his man in one shoulder, slamming him back against a table and down. Brutus ripped hard into the second man,

hard into the gun that had been his quarry all his life, his enemy. His dog body muffled the second shot and there inside the open door, away from the child, he died.

PARENTING

Being a parent is like inching along a swaying tightrope blindfolded B while balancing gyrating offspring on your head and shoulders. The most you can hope is that you make it to the far side without dumping your cargo into the chasm, to say nothing of dumping yourself. Some parents are naturals. They hold their children out in space and dance them skillfully through infancy and adolescence to adulthood. Others clutch and mince and panic, and sometimes give up entirely. Love seems to be the balance pole. Too little and your load shifts precariously one way, too much and it swings the other. But the thing that is common to all parents, even to Hal in the following story, is that you do the best you can.

He thought about all of it, the great circle of the world, of family, of friends. He saw everything as though it were folded into a bowl of blue gelatin. And in the deep blue edges, under the rim, he could see the danger. And he knew only he could see it circling, getting closer every day.

The danger became a factor of duty, his duty because he loved his family more than even his own breath. He had watched everything change, first the stars that had become so distanced he could no longer locate galaxies, all faded—gone. Then the closer places, the cities, became so angry, the small towns, all blown away by the noise and the poison. Even the trees looked different, unsmiling, strange. He hated it.

They had talked. Or at least Margaret had, pressing him back into his seat at dinner last night. Hal, she said, and he watched her lower her fork until it became a parallel plane hovering just six inches above her plate. I’m worried about you. We all are.

We? He doubted that. They were all too blind to be worried. They could not even see the danger. That was why it was his duty to track the darkness edging everything.

You have been so quiet, she went on. It’s not like you.

He shifted his gaze until he could see her mouth. He liked watching her lips move, form each careful syllable as if her lips were dancers learning a new tap routine. He couldn’t hear the sounds very well. They were gray—meaningless—ghost things that skittered toward him and away before he latched on.

I know you have been under a lot of stress...

He heard that and she was wrong. It wasn’t the stress. He felt his frustration burning around his eyes. She talked like there were choices. God, the cold darkness shifted. It always did. Only Margaret did not.

Hal tried to remember when he first knew. Three months ago? Six months? That was back when he started to feel good about things. That’s what they let you do, feel good about things. They sit there dark in the corners and wait like a cancer waits in your lungs or liver until you are feeling really good, like finally getting ahead.

Is it business, Hal? If it is, you should talk about it. We can help.

Business was good. Or at least it was accomplished. The office didn’t need him. It required less attention than breathing or thinking. He knew it existed only to distract him, to make him forget what he had to do.

He looked around the table at the empty chairs. The kids had vacated their seats without his realizing it. They hadn’t cleaned their plates, or asked permission to leave. They should have asked. Kids used to. It was a requirement. He thought about his own childhood. His father would have taken a strap to him.

That was one of the things wrong. The rules had changed. Back when he grew up parents could raise their children to be courteous. He thought about that, remembering.

He loved Margaret. She had been a good wife for twenty-seven years, relying on him just the way a wife should rely on her husband. It was an orderly marriage, and that too was the way it should be. She had been pretty when he met her, or at least as pretty as he was handsome. Life should always have balances.

The past few years she had put on weight, become Raphaelesque, and he knew that bothered her. But a woman should not be thin at her age. He wished she had let her hair gray naturally. It should be a long gray rope that he could brush in gentle strokes, and twist in a thick braid. His grandmother had hair like that. He hated Margaret’s brown frizzy curls. And now she was talking about changing that. What had she said? Blondes have more fun? That was a sign. He knew the danger was already seeping in, crouching around them.

He went into the study and closed the door. Maybe if he lay down for a minute the thinking would stop. Just for one minute. He needed that and a minute shouldn’t be too much to ask.

He could see himself reflected in the mirror behind the couch. He too had put on weight. It suited him, turned him into his father. That’s who I am, he thought, and visualized the transition, his father floating down, moving inside his form with him, taking up brain space. He had to be very careful not to make his father angry or the pain would start. He tried not to think about the fat fingers, crushing the pulp inside