Prayer

Two questions haunt us, daunting and profound:
From whence we came, and whither we are bound;
Too long a course on unfamiliar ground
For us to neatly wrap our thoughts around.

Yet there is One Whose lofty vision scans
A greater distance than collective man’s;
Both (space and time’s) infinities He spans
For both perform according to His plans.

Oh Lord, You see us as we struggle still
To find the righteous path upon the hill;
We pray You will our daily needs fulfill
And grant us the wisdom, strength and the will

To purge ourselves of our iniquities
So we are able to traverse with ease
This narrow isthmus ‘twixt two boundless seas:
The past, the future, two eternities.

The Silence Within, National Library of Poetry, Owings Mills, Md. 2001
Sounds of Poetry 2001, NLP, Owings Mills, Md. 2001

(c) Leo Toribio

Deep Resentment

Rocco hefted the bag of cement and poured its contents into the mixture of sand and water in the trough. As he stirred the slurry, he groused at silent figure on the bench. “This is why I brought you down here, to see how I’m forced to work for a living. All my dreams of going to college–maybe becoming a writer or somethin’–are dead. And all because a certain wise-ass teacher said, ‘Your writing must be more concrete; if you can’t be more concrete, I’m going to flunk you.”

When the mixture offered sufficient resistance to his trowel, he moved toward the bench. Rocco said, “Well, I flunked, dammit. Mama, she never stopped cryin’ cause her only son never made it to college.” He picked up a bundle almost as big as he was. “I think it killed her. What’s more, this work is killin’ me!” he went on. He carried his load over to a deep hole near the trough and dropped it in. “See how hard I work?” he grumbled. Then he dumped a wheelbarrow full of crushed rock into the hole, and finally, as he upended the trough, dumping its contents into the same hole, he screamed into it, “Okay, Mr. Smart-ass teacher. Izzat concrete enough for ya?”

Leo Toribio

First Meeting

First Meeting

(as it might have been written by W.B.Yeats or James Joyce)

Long chestnut hair to the small of her back, her denims were blue and her blouse was black. That’s the image that first caught my eye, drew my attention and forced a sigh. Then, when she turned I was stunned to see, brown eyes flecked with gold, gleaming at me, on a sweet round face with an elegant nose, and two lips like petals of a deep red rose.

Two rows of pearls, dazzlingly white, parted those lips and brightened the night in a smile as broad as the Irish Sea as she floated across the floor to me; on legs well-formed and athletically trim, she seemed to be dancing across the gym, moving with grace like a sinewy cat, lively and springy, not clumsy and flat.

My heart started pounding irregularly as I studied this beauty approaching me. Trembling, my knees felt weak and unsteady; I had no more time to make myself ready. But the look in her eyes was inviting and warm, broadcasting confidence, sentience and charm, it quelled my anxiety and soon put to rest the undefined fear that had lodged in my breast. And I knew at that moment she did understand, when she reached out, caressing my cheek with her hand, and suddenly, somehow I was finally at ease in my first meeting with Mary Louise.

Leo Toribio

Surprise: A Lesson

In the 1970’s in Puerto Rico, when I programmed computers for a living, I came home tired from a day longer and tougher than usual. At the door my wife informed me, “Your children have been horrible all day. I’m dead tired. You take care of them. You can put them to bed. Read them something–that works pretty well.”
I looked for something to read to them and found only torn pages from a few books.
When I mentioned this to my wife, she replied, “Tell them a story of when you were a boy. I’m going to sleep now.” She disappeared down the hall.
My childhood would bore these children. Good, I thought: they’ll go to sleep that much sooner. After telling them to get their pajamas on and all that, I gathered them into the boys’ bedroom. “Your mother says you’d like to hear about when I was a boy.” Three faces looked back at me: Steven, Diana, and Eddie. Their expressions betrayed neither boredom nor interest. Mentally, I groped for some kind of inspiration–ANY kind. I looked around the room for a while before I noted a few Christmas toys that had so far survived.
Winter and Christmas.
“Our family put up a tree, too. Just like we do today. One Christmas your Aunts Marcia and Laura got bikes that came in big boxes. They had to put them together, though. That took them most of the morning. They wanted to ride them, but your grandfather and grandmother wouldn’t let them take them outside, since the roads hadn’t been cleared yet.” Three pairs of eyes had not closed nor even blinked.
“One year we all got sleds and took them outside and up a hill where we built a little ramp and slid down the hill, over the ramp through the air for a little jump and on down the rest of the hill. We had to dodge a stone wall our next-door neighbor put up. But that was easy. Other kids in the neighborhood joined us and some helped with the ramp and we all had a lot of fun.”
“One day after a snowstorm, your Aunt Marcia went outside, barefoot, and made angels in the snow.” Three faces looked blank, puzzled, uncomprehending. “She often did that, though your Aunt Laura and I didn’t do it beyond the first time. For us it wasn’t that much fun. You lie down in the snow and sweep your arms through the snow from your waist to up above your shoulders and you move your legs like a broom sweeping back and forth. When you get up you see a picture like an angel on the Christmas tree.” I paused for breath.
“Papi, ¿Qué cosa e’ la nieve?” Daddy, what’s snow? my youngest had asked. His brother and sister also looked to me for an answer.
That stopped me. I realized only Steven had seen snow when he was but a year old. He would not remember. And the other two had never had never seen a winter with snow. If the three of them saw anything on television or at the movies, they had forgotten. But how could I explain snow to them?
My brain had gone on strike, on vacation, shut down for the winter. I sat there looking at the young faces awaiting an answer. Just sat. Tried to think. And did not come up with a nice ready-made explanation. I ran my thoughts over the house and areas we had visited together. After a short eternity, I grasped at the only straw I could see.
“You remember the refrigerator and the part where Mami keeps the ice cream?” Three nods. I lucked out there: what child would NOT know where such goodies were kept?
“Okay. On the side of that box, there’s a white frost that your mother cleans off every so often.” More nods. “Think of having everything outside covered with that frosty stuff, as deep as your ankles. It covers everything outside. Everything is covered in this white blanket until people clean the roads and sidewalks, or it melts in the sun. That frost all over is snow. Understand?”
Three slow nods. Three doubting expressions. I continued my story, citing ice skating and skiing as particularly good fun until the youngest’s eyes started to droop and close.
“Okay. That’s it. Bedtime.” And without argument they went to bed and asleep.
Next day when I came home again, my wife asked me, “What did you tell them?”
“About our winters and Christmases in New England. Like you said. Why, what’s wrong?”
“I heard Diana asking Steven if he believed the things you told them. He said, ‘No way. He told us that stuff ’cause he doesn’t know any good stories.’”
Later I reflected upon these events. My children spoke only Spanish and I had become fairly fluent. But what gave me pause was the knowledge that had someone told me ten or twelve years before, that I would be explaining snow–in Spanish–to children who had no idea what it was like and that the children would be my own, I’d have put in a call to the white coats and the people in charge of the rubber rooms.

John Sayre

The End of Something (with apologies to Ernest Hemingway)

The End of Something

From the moment she drifted into my room, I knew there was something very special about Elizabeth. A dream girl, with high-boned cheeks, long, flowing silken tresses and the eyes of a doe, she was also a confirmed vegan. “I do not touch dead meat!” she solemnly declared. But there was more to her than that – much more. She manifested an ethereal quality; she was like no one I had ever met. And in no time at all, we found ourselves swept up in a whirlwind affair.
I took her to my favorite haunts where we played with erotic abandon. I learned to eat salads, because she would not permit me to kiss her lips if I had just eaten meat. We laughed together, lightly and long, as we skipped through the streets of the city or raced up the grassy knoll in the park to our favorite romping place.
I never promised her the moon, but I would have if I could have. Instead, whenever I noticed that some trinket had caught her attention, I bought it for her. One day, we paused at a pet store window to delight in the antics of a beautiful puppy. Elizabeth was as enthralled by the puppy’s antics as I was, and so I bought the puppy, and a collar, a leash, a ball and a small package of meaty puppy treats. Elizabeth seemed ecstatic with the puppy, and the three of us scooted merrily up to our favorite spot in the park.
As we sat on the bench, we watched the puppy play. But we soon noticed that the puppy showed a marked preference for returning the ball to me. This was intolerable, but I hit upon an idea that I thought would correct the situation. I opened the package of doggy treats and offered one to the puppy who quickly devoured it and insistently probed for more of the same. “Here, Elizabeth, take this. “ I began, offering her the package. “If you feed the puppy some treats, I’m sure he’ll quickly bond with you.” “Oh, no,” she responded, “I can’t.”
“Please,” I said, “I know it will work.” But still she resisted. With no further thought, I grabbed several treats from the package and tried to place them in Elizabeth’s hand, but the slightest contact with her hand caused her to instantly recoil with a look of shock and betrayal on her face. “How could you?” she asked, incredulously. She turned, in an instant, and walked away from me. “Please, Elizabeth, I’m sorry, come back!” I pleaded. But I knew, from the instant I brushed her hand with that doggy treat that I had betrayed her trust, irrevocably, and I’d lost her, forever.
Abruptly, I found myself sitting up in bed, drenched in perspiration, eyes moist and tearing. I tumbled out of bed, limped to the vanity, and peering into the mirror, I scornfully groaned at the traitor in the mirror, “How could You?”

Leo Toribio

Love, Honor, Obey

Love, Honor, Obey

Silas’ blonde wife did a lot of stupid things, but whatever she did, no matter how dumb, the things she did always seemed to work out favorably. And she was as frugal as he was, and he really appreciated her loyalty and obedience, so he decided to show his appreciation and he phoned her and told her to meet him for dinner. “Meet me at the mall,” he said.

She was elated. She could hardly believe her ears! The tightwad never took her out to eat. “But how will I find you?” she asked.

“Just look for Penney’s.” he answered.

Even though she did exactly as she heard him instruct her, she never found him. She did, however, return home with $1.87 more than when she left.

Leo Toribio

Nothing Gained

West Dormitory, Union College

The taxi driver wrestled Howie’s steamer trunk out of the van, dragged it to the sidewalk. Howie gave him the fare and a handsome tip, expecting some help getting the trunk to his room. Instead, the driver thanked him and climbed back into the van.
“Uh…sir, can you help me carry my trunk…”
“Curb delivery only—insurance doesn’t cover it.”
The van pulled away, its exhaust enveloping Howie in a gray-black cloud of diesel fumes. Behind him, someone called, “Whaddaya got in there, a dead body?” Turning, Howie looked up and saw a guy crouched on the top step of the landing. The guy uncoiled to a standing position. He said, “That cabbie’s a real bloodsucker,” then “need a hand? Ground floor—five bucks, second—ten, third’ll run you fifteen.”
 The badge plastered onto his raggedy black tee shirt said “PROCTOR.” His name was in smaller type, too small to make out from where Howie stood. He was lanky, but not gangling, like Howie. His face was narrow, his eyes an intense green, his long nose chiseled; shiny black hair pulled back into a ponytail, a wolfish twist to his mouth.
Reminded Howie of the guy in the old Dracula movies on cable.
“Is 301 on the third floor?” Howie asked. “What do you think?” the guy said. Howie turned back to the trunk. Behind him the guy said, “Twenty bucks.”
“You said fifteen!”
“I just remembered. I got no insurance coverage either. C’mon man, pay before you play.”
Howie fished a twenty from his wallet.
They tugged and pushed the trunk up the eight metal-edged concrete steps to the landing, then into the building. Howie was breathing hard, sweat pouring down his pallid face, stinging his eyes and steaming his wire rim glasses.
“Hold on a second. Let me take off my jacket.”
Howie doffed his jacket and tie and placed them atop the steamer trunk. Half way down the hall on the right, he spotted an elevator.
“Hey—you said…”
“If we take the stairs it’s twenty more.”
“But…”
“Relax, I was just messing with you,” the guy said, with a crooked grin.
“Wait—you mean…we’re roommates?”
The guy hiked a flip-flopped foot onto the steamer trunk, rested his crossed forearms on his knee and gazed at Howie.
“301—right? Printout says ‘Renfield III, Howard—Room 301’. Trust me. We got the best freakin room in the building. Call me Luke.”
The name on his badge said, “Lucius Deville.”
“What about that twenty I gave you?”
“Tell you what: you can have the bed with the million-dollar view. Right into some of the Women’s Dorm rooms when the shades are up. Sound good?”
 After they managed to shoehorn the trunk into the elevator, Howie asked, “What year you in?”
“Sophomore. Space is tight so I gotta have a roommate…but bein’ a Residence Proctor, my housing’s free.” he continued, unasked.
“What do you have to do?”
“It’s kinda like being a minimum security prison guard. Make sure there’s no booze, no weed, no co-habitating…”
“And what if students break the rules? You report them?”
The guy chuckled. “Not if they make it worth my while not to. It’s a freakin college dorm, not a prison, right?” Fox in the henhouse, Howie thought.
“I thought my roommate was supposed to be Billy Lugo.”
“Oh, he’s not coming. He was waitlisted at Tranny State—got accepted last week.
When they entered the tiny room, a faint odor of rotten eggs invaded Howie’s nose. “Whew, it’s warm in here. What’s that smell?” Howie said.
“Waddaya mean? Smells okay to me. Weather’s fine in here. Wait till it gets cold. You’ll be grateful you’re not freezin’ your ass off. Hell, I wanted to be put next to the furnace room in the basement. Oh, you got the upper bunk.”
The upper and lower bunk beds were pushed width-wise flush against the single window in the room; the upper bunk’s view of the outside was restricted to a narrow sliver of window pane. “I can’t see squat up there,” Howie groused.
“You wanna be disturbed when I have to get up in the middle of the night to let somebody in who forgot his key? Listen, later on, how ‘bout we check out some hottie waitress friends a’ mine at the Rathskeller?”
***
That night, Howie clambered down from his bunk and made his way to the steamer trunk. He opened the trunk and withdrew the implements from its secret compartment. He crept to where Luke lay supine…and drove a sharpened wooden stake through his left nipple. An unholy, skull-shattering howl that only Howie could hear issued from Luke’s deformed “O” of a mouth.
Howie dropped his mallet, clasping his hands to his ears to block out the knifing pain. Luke’s eyes bulged open, piercing Howie’s eyes, transfixing him.

“Hell…low! I’m a Satan Second Class, not a freak’n Vampire,” he messaged telepathically to Howie.
“Huh,” Howie muttered, “we’ve been tracking Billy Lugo for a while now. When he didn’t show up I was hoping you came as his replacement. That ‘Billy Lugo’ alias was–it was short for Bela Lugosi. Very funny. And you told me he transferred to Transylvania U. I put two and two together. Then there was you, of course, acting like a total jerk.” And came up with five, Howie thought.
“Damnation to hell, I just flunked my devilment 101 course, thanks to you,” Luke sighed. “I’m gonna have to re-take it. There goes next summer. Renfield…I shouldda picked up on your name. Your great-great grandpap musta been Carlyle F. Renfield, Dracula’s freakin flycatcher.”
“You got that right. Speaking of names, your name did give me second thoughts about whether you were a Vampire, though. Lucius Deville? I get it now. You’re named after Lucifer the Devil! But even if you weren’t a Vampire I figured I’d try to nail you anyway. You devils hang with them, don’t you? Oh well…like they say, nothing ventured. Looks like we’re both going back to the minors.”
Len Z