A double not friends kind of a poem

The tale of an internet friend and her intriguing obsession with this fellow, so nice as to be named Rivers twice. Look him up, he was a fascinating character. Not sure how the double not friends -- a girl I've only typed to being obsessed with a long-dead fellow -- came through, but it was certainly poem worthy.

Doctor Rivers and the girl

She’s looking for the doctor,
Here are pieces of him, if you care to look,
Rivers is in the mud, in the graveyards,
In Oxford’s thousand year old halls
Where she reads the great Englishmen.

Rivers lives in the scrawl of his notes and letters,
The whispered love with war poets,
He’s with the headhunters,
All those ticcing, weeping warriors walking between the lines.

She will put the good doctor together and you will know him,
She will fill in his lines, shade his edges, rub away
The smears of indifference, the decades that bury him,
Because his mercy still shines on dark aged corners,
He’s been gone more than a lifetime, so he’ll never leave her.

The young soldiers died to prove his power,
They fell down before Rivers, wrote poems
In praise of how he set their minds quiet,
Then sent them back to their duties in hell --
For the pied piper this time he came
Down so gently, with such regret.

Her mum died on the Doctor’s birthday,
But no there’s no negative transference,
He heals all traces of war neurosis, of shellshock,
He puts her back together, too
As she maps his life, gathers the parchments and fragments,
She does it for love, we must love him, too,

Soft eyes, angel by the bedside,
Father of the Empire’s broken toys.

Letter from Mr. James

If the house were on fire, I would grab these.

Dear Mormon girls

I didn't mind you stopping me in the snow, while I listened to Hank Williams sing the blues. You three with your black wool coats and bright colored gloves, holy book in hand. You were impossibly nice and earnest, and you asked what I thought in such a way that I had no answer -- they were leading questions about men and God and no, what you said doesn't mean a thing to me, but I just said I didn't know.

I didn't mind, because while you tried to make something click in my head or soul, while you talked about Joseph Smith and holy lights, and how even good heathens get to the lower levels of heaven, I tried to look in your eyes and figure you out. How'd you get this sincerity and certainty that you have the truth?

Maybe I should have told the truth. I'll look at your pamphlet, sure. I once read a whole book for heathens by Christians -- then I threw it on the floor, because it answered nothing.

I'm not saying there's no God or heaven... It's just you always insult the work of man, and sure we're incomplete. We got issues. But --

If you want moments of clarity, see me reading "Nirvana" by Charles Bukowski in a Borders and almost crying because poetry could be like that.

If you want bravery, check out Christopher Hitchens, so sure that there's nothing after death, but knowing he'll go out with his head up. And if there's a God, Hitchens will be right there giving him a few cross words.

If you want self-sacrifice, how about Raoul Wallenberg's life for 100,000 strangers?

If you want loving your fellow man, how about men being told for months to hate the other, then shaking hands on Christmas and burying their dead?

And if you must have religion, if you must have religion, why not the crowd singing the chorus of "I Hear Them All" on New Years Eve? Sure felt like religion to me.

Come on, it was even in church.

That's what means something. That's a God and a heaven, no matter if there's a God and a heaven, too.

Nashville

Thoughts on the Tennessee Old Crow Medicine Show New Year's Eve Show. No offensive to anyone, particularly R. and J. who are both highly lovely people.

In the break between Old Crow Medicine Show sets, S.T. grabs my hand in one of those friendly two-hand shakes and says, "I know this was a big deal for you." Sweet of him to say that, but no no, something wasn't right. It wasn't a big deal, because I didn't risk anything.

I thought about it ever since I ran into S.T. (the subject of "Yankee Bones Lament") at the West Virginia Old Crow show in November. He told me to come to Nashville for this epic gathering of Old Crowites, this all night party. I thought about asking friends, I thought about how we'd get there, and I thought a lot about going by myself. I thought about taking the bus, I thought about asking for some floor space from a guy I'd never met. I asked females who were going whether the gentlemen were reputable sorts. And I tried to picture how I'd pull it off. How I'd not get scared if I ended up walking in a "foreign" city in the middle of the night. How I would just be able to figure everything out.

I ended up going with a friend and his friend -- I liked the new girl, liked my old friend, of course. I like a road adventure with people. J. turned on her beloved Johnny Cash and we passed signs that said "Hell is real." I was feeling the South.

But one thing turned to another, and the intriguing folks I wanted to see I just saw for a few minutes. I chickened out and didn't ask things like "hey, can I stick around and hang out with you two?" Or "just in case it's somehow possible, can somebody drive me back to my hotel?" Limping around Nashville for half an hour searching for the rental car, I kept thinking about who I could call, what I could do besides go sleep and then go home to life. But I chickened out.

When R.P. sent me a ticket in the mail and didn't want to be paid for it, I knew I was going no matter what. But I didn't have to risk it, so I didn't. And as perfect happiness as the show was. The Ryman Theater was beautiful. I counted down to midnight with nobody I knew in sight, just Ketch Secor on stage looking sweaty and beautiful. Balloons came down, and I wouldn't have minded a good kiss with my boy back home, but I also was perfectly content by myself for the show.

I met K.K. who was dressed in an elaborate Western shirt and came well supplied with a thick Tennessee accent and a sweet Southern friendliness. R.P. and a slightly whiskied me wandered off to lean against a building, surrounded by neon celebrations. We talked about the hierarchies of the Hank Williamses. For some reason I sang a part of "Political Science" -- "We'll save Australian, don't want hurt no Kangaroos." He said something about taking in the scene, and at the moment I was so happy my face was about to crack. So happy because where the hell was I -- in Nashville in the drunk streets, talking to a stranger.

I met S.S. and R.S. for far too short of a time. They had been so sweet and helpful when I schemed to come to Nashville by myself. S.S. seemed shy, R.S. not so much, but both friendly as hell and seemingly glad to meet me for 30 seconds. And then they all went off to drink beer and God damn I was low and jealous.

Not friends -- none of them less than 11 years older than I. Maybe they have no interest in me. Maybe we got nothing in common besides our undying love for the Old Crow. Likely none of them is my undying soulmate true love best friend or anything like that. But it was just me not being able to hang with the cool kids again. Me not quit pushing hard enough because I was dying to meet new people.

While S.T. and I limped and trailed behind J. and R. on the way to our rental car. When I jumped out of the car later at Broadway, so sick of waiting, and walked into the Barbecue Place by myself. I was pretending, like I pretend on every trip, no matter how much I love who I'm traveling with, that I was by myself. I did it in Guatemala and Belize in the markets, trying to talk. I did it a hundred times in airports, walking ahead of whoever I was with, pretending I was alone with just a backpack.

When I nervously recognized beards and hats and suddenly worried what I was thinking in thinking these people wanted to hang out with little old me. When I wandered down Broadway with R.P. and my friends had disappeared and it might have been a bad idea because I was a little drunk but it wasn't. When S.T. gave me a sip of whatever good whiskey he keeps in his flask, and this time my mama wasn't around to make me hesitate for a second. That was what I wanted this trip to be. But it was just bits and few minutes.

I don't mean to fetishize the South exactly, "Yankee Bones Lament" and its possible-hopefully-not-cliches-not-withstanding. It's just that's it's culture shock and the home of music that raises the hair on my neck and hurts me so well. That the people down there are different and seem darling. That I've spent so much of my life comfortably following older people about and some more of it standing around wishing I could follow them. And it's that my life is what it is, that I'll finish my college, but after that it's go to be different - whether I go South or West, I got to get out of this town. And these people are different and they're disconnected from the rest of my life. They're more signs that the world is nice and big and not the same and oh fuck, I can't even explain it.

It just broke my heart to not drink with them. It broke it strangely sharply.

Not friends pictures

I chased this guy down Carson Street, lost him, but then took his picture when he doubled back. He's my Not Friend because anybody who provides the joy of a man singing and playing "Wagon Wheel" on the banjo while riding a unicycle is worth recognition.

(Getting back on the unicycle with the banjo is the tricky part.)

More Not Friends poems

(This is what I look like on a greyhound bus.)

Poems written for my this semester's poetry class. Obviously based on the afore-written-about people, but it was an interesting and weirdly difficult experience to make up some details.


Smoking in Helena

The bus driver in blue, chews his sweet-burning pipe,
Paces under the mute station lights,
His face is long-gone handsome and furrowed with impatience,
He wants to make it to Great Falls before midnight turns too far into tomorrow
Maybe his wife is waiting, maybe just a mealy Motel-Six --
Still, you can’t leave pretty girls with freckles and third babies on the way
In a closed up capital city,
So we’ll all smoke together for a while.

The bus driver makes mean jokes that are funny, too
While Charity, Marissa and I sit on cold black benches
Our hands brush as Charity passes white wisps of cigarettes,
We try not to drop them or burn each other’s fingers,
Trading DNA with strangers, with pregnant Marissa, Charity
Who used to love meth, now with her big brown folder of children’s drawings,
Community saved her life, she tell us as we watch the dark.
And we wait for maybe an hour, suspended like this,
In all atmospheric intimacy, swapping spit, passing poison
We release white puffs onto the black,
There’s nobody else here to breath it in.

The bus driver says we’ve got to go,
We say we’re sorry to leave her like this,
We hope for car lights to take her home,
Marissa says it’s alright, and she holds her cigarette close,
Green sweater taut over her stomach,
Cheap red luggage clustered round her delicate little shoes.

---

Moonshine country

I‘ve never tasted moonshine,
But I’ve curled up on a Greyhound bus, cutting though the Montana dark,
A slight hell-raiser from Great Falls
Named Asia in the seat behind,
Kicked out and heading East to find a boy
Watched out for the moment by a thick, tattooed man called
Spider, heading down South to see his mama
-- And Asia was talking about moonshine,
How she sat a table once drinking glass after glass feeling fine
Then she stood up and fell cold on her face
Then this boy took her home and they spent four days together,
That’s all it took, and she’s New Hampshire-bound, leaving the West
And I hope it’s true love, because I like a bad idea to turn into the meant to be
But I just don’t know if Asia’s country song would end that way or not.

--

(If I'm ever gonna write good poetry again, I may need to take another bus trip to Montana. And this time I will take more photos! I almost entirely dropped the ball on that -- maybe I was sleeping too much?)

Mr. James

Obviously not my photos. No copyright infringement intended. Also, how's that for handsome in his flyer days?

Waiting to call Mr. James, my stomach was in vicious knots. Once I had told him it was an honor and hung up the phone, I had a high that somebody shouldn’t ever bottle, because there’d be a whole lot more addicts around. I did it. Jesus H. Christ, I just talked to a piece of history.

It began with Mom renting “The Great Escape” from the library when I was 14. We watched one tape, then I had to go to bed, but hated to go, waiting for the conclusion. The movie led to two obsessions – Steve McQueen and POWs. For Steve, I just watched all his movies and vowed to one day stand in his footprints at the Chinese Theatre in LA. For the POWs, I remember waiting anxiously for a battered, used copy of “The Great Escape” by Paul Brickhill to arrive in the mail. I remember a Time-Life style book of POW photos.

One day I found a website about the real history of that mad exercise in nose-thumbing and gentleman and soldier’s duty. I found a few names of men who might still be alive, and then an email with the webmaster and suddenly I had an address. Mr. Bertram Arthur “Jimmy” James of Shropshire, England. Born April 1915, shot down in a Wellington Bomber in 1940. Number 36 (I believe) out of Stalag Luft III’s tunnel “Harry.” Survived the murder of his 50 comrades, sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp with Harry “Wings” Day and others. Tunneled out of there, but somehow managed to avoid being executed again.

Survived to the rest of the war. Survived until January 18 2008. While people at Chatham were crying over Heath Ledger, I was crying over Mr James.

I sent a letter and got a response. Blue ink, formal handwriting, gentleman old British politeness coming through. So glad I sent a letter, would I like a copy of his book? More letters, and finally I asked if I could call him for an interview. He said yes, of course. Call anytime. Like you could just phone up people like that and it was nothing. Like I had every right to pester him to tell the same damn story over again.

I called. And it meant I was a journalist and absolutely nothing on earth could stop me. I called at Dad’s work, and afterwards went out to lunch with his coworkers/my future friends, Chuck and Betsy the war correspondent. It was the sign that maybe I could be a journalist and talk to people like Mr. James and basically life could be God damn perfect.

**************

I came back from three days in Croatia and there was a letter postmarked “WWII Magazine.” Dear Lucy, we are pleased…etc. They had accepted me. I was 15 years old and once again I was a wunderkind. What the hell else was there to conquer in life? The letter said it would be a while before they published it, and now it’s going on seven years. Somehow I’m not sure it will ever happen, but I check every month at Barnes and Noble, just in case.

A couple more years, a couple more letter exchanges. I almost went out there to England – I made tentative plans. Journalist hooks could have been the 60th anniversary of the Great Escape in 2004. An exhibit on it at the Imperial War Museum… I had gotten my moment with Mr. James, but I wanted more. I wanted to meet this man in person. But what did I think I was going to ask him? I had no profound questions for this guy who had spent the last 60 years being known for the worst war in history. For the act of bravery that lead to 50 comrades being killed. Sydney Dowses, a fellow survivor of the Great Escape and the Sachsenhausen escape never wanted to talk about it. One of the only articles about him I saw mentioned how he never even saw the movie. He had no interest in ever doing so.

Still, I know I didn’t ask him anything new. I had no new brilliant question in mind as I made hopeful plans for planes, and trains and where in Ludlow, Shropshire, UK, I would stay. Whether we would have tea and whether suddenly I would be comfortable with this man.

I wanted to be his friend, or his easy pen-pal. I wanted to be special to him and to hold a fascination that was even a tiny percentage of the one he held for me. At the very least I wanted to be the one who thought up the brilliant question. But perhaps there wasn’t one to ask. And maybe I was a novelty at least, because how many 15 year old American girls were writing him?

I waited for him to go those last few years. I googled every year or so to make sure there was no new obituary. He turned 92. His penmanship got shakier in the last two letters. But as much as I made this writing about me again, as much as my experiences with Mr. James were partially about being bad-ass and 15, it’s really about him. He was a character, a piece of history, a brave gentleman flyer of the old school. I just want people like that to stick around forever, because when they’re all gone, there’s nothing left of a whole amazing chuck of humanity. And of history.
***************
I can’t write about him good enough yet. He meant too much for somebody I never even met. The fascination still has a hold of me. Montana; Tobin and I ran down the hill to escape a mountain hailstorm and it was German bullets nipping at our heels – we downed, brave flyers trying to make it over the Alps. In a wide, flat Central Valley California tomato field last summer, Tobin and I lay flat in ditches and then when the timing was perfect, we ran for the barbed wire fence – the border and freedom again.

It’s a little insensitive, it’s juvenile, but it all comes from some desperate need to know what it felt like climbing over mountains, praying to avoid patrols, and trying and trying for years to make it home this time.

******
My interview with Mr. James -- the version I sent to "WWII Magazine."