The Yellow House, It's a Wednesday, and Ponderous Detective Opera
The Yellow House
Go ahead. Have a large bowl of mascarpone, add your one grain of salt. The smell of wet grass has gotten in here. We have a big day in front of us. I drive my father down to the yellow house, one of six houses he lived in as a child, due to money reasons. There are lots of cars on both sides of the street, many have out of state plates. The house is crammed full of loud talk. Robert Goulet's Christmas album is nowhere to be found but I smell my Nana's roasting chicken. Henry my cousin's husband is there and he's still alive. We're an hour early. I'll just drop you off I say. Alrighty my father chirps. That's how he talks. As I leave I note our majestic river has grown shallow, patches of stone more than usual crop up on large portions of the bed. I've never seen it that way. Down in the cellar is where my uncle used to keep his ham radio gear and airplane models. Are they still there? It smells like coal, which hasn't been stored here for fifty-plus years. Mom, she's done it again, she's not here. She was supposed to be here in case someone came by to have a look. She could be scratching around over on Queen Street, the one that got divided into four apartments and burned. Cause: electricity. The sound of birds and Spanish always bring out the sleuth in mom. She starts to tell the story of Jesus, falls into one of her spells. All we like sheep she says, all we like sheep. Pass the waffles. Pass the wine.
***
It's a Wednesday
A lot of people here have lots of plastic bags.
In their hands, at their feet, tied around their bodies. I have one only, from a defunct restaurant chain, and my gray water-resistant shoulder bag with eight zippers and anti-theft tech. It's seen five countries if you count the airport in Iceland.
There are benches arranged in a square like in some courtrooms I've attended: a skyward space in the funereal style. That's someone I know (Mark?), so by gesture I ask can I take a picture. He's surrounded by kids of different ages.
Sure, he says, but they can't understand what's going on. The words are coming too fast for the ears. It's just as well. There's a crowd now. Latecomers enter through a steel door I just noticed out of the corner of my left eye.
This set-up is like at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia, a place you can rent for tributes and weddings. The Society is quite low, is not elevated, just five or six feet above the pavement outside and who even knows how far above actual sea level.
I'd like to know my present sea level and also the daily river depths. I don't expect though that these numbers are forthcoming. I'm weak, for real. Not sure how I got so high up. I am not used to the air they have up here.
How to go on, without all my things?
I can't find my bags and what's inside them.
How will I find John?
It's been many years since I felt like eating I still don't. The path leading out through the steel door is a spiral staircase. I know I shouldn't look down but I have always been one to look down. I need my hands and arms for balance, have no way of covering my ears and keeping out the radio. Yet we were so close to getting somewhere, imagine that. I have a receipt.
A person says I'll let you in if your name is Mary my name is Mary too.
***
Ponderous Detective Opera
Here's the snare-part. The fluffy-haired television detective (basso profundo) hops and paces.
The chorus (audience) follows him around, without fail. Mr. Roux (tenor) mixes up Carlotta (mezzo, dog-lover, vegetarian) for Rose (Carlotta's fleshy twin). Then he gestures or dies in that direction.
If cut off, this super-short opera can regrow itself, like a lizard's tail. When this quarter had meatpacking, the avenues flowed with rivers of shoebox love-letters and blood.
The pondering detective repeats his oceanic questions, sometimes stealing Carlotta's waking life by the fire escape, by practicing triplets in his head. She gargles with saltwater, refuses to sing. She knows which song to sing.
Valerie Fox is a poet and fiction-writer. She has published six books, including the recently published poetry/art collaboration, The Failed-Love Factory Auction Catalog, with Arlene Ang. She's published work in Microlit Almanac, The Maryland Literary Review, Cleaver, Maudlin House, Philadelphia Stories, The Cafe Irreal, and other journals. This is the sixth time she has appeared in The Cafe Irreal; most recently her I Keep Trying to Name the City I Often Dream of appeared in Issue #87.