prose

Aunt Vagna and 9/11

Story 1

Aunt Vagna and 9/11

I arrived at 7.00am. The day clear in the falls and shadows of buildings; a cloudless Autumn. The Autumn they executed James Elledge Holte, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. It was a culture shock at first, standing on the corner of Fourth and Lafayette, the busy traffic rumbling by, taxis hooting from the kerb, a truck driver yelling abuse to an open hood, steam hissing from an old Pontiac. I could hardly see the open sky, buildings so tall they shaded every arterial road of the city. What day was it? I could only guess without my glasses that history was happening on the front page of the New York Times. Large black lettering spelling out “WITNESS TO AN EXECUTION”. I felt sick at the thought of words like ‘lethal injection’, and Aunt Vagna’s name. Was she related to this Holte? I would soon find out.

She lived in an apartment on Madison Avenue and I had three hours to kill before I could see her. What did Aunt want from me? Why the sudden trip to New York and on top of everything paying my fare from London to Hong Kong? The rest of the journey finding the funds myself. She was always ostensibly the richest woman in the family. They said, she draped fur and diamonds, had shares in General Motors and AT&T. But she never contacted any of the family. Father said, she was afraid that everyone would sponge, come after her wealth when they didn’t deserve it. So they left her alone.

I remained suspicious, but curious.

I sat in an alfresco coffee shop in one of the quieter streets, about two blocks away from her apartment. A sliver of sun shone down between the skyscrapers and I was able to pick up the paper and read the front page without my glasses. I must have left them in the subway when I was juggling my backpack, discarding the paper bags, making everything more compact. After all, I was on foot, the pack heavy with the jewel box, books and photographs. I knew, looking at the congested streets, that I could pace myself much quicker than hailing a cab. By now I could carry my briefcase and leave my luggage in a locker, come back for it in the evening.

Free of the weight, I stretched my legs under the table. The waiter, in a German accent, brought the last cup of coffee I could manage. I asked him about the Trade Centre and he drew a map on my serviette. I tore the map’s corner, placing it in my wallet.

I knew Vagna had one of her flower shops near the Twin Towers. Perhaps, that’s where she was. She couldn’t be in Greenwich Village, or the Manhattan store, that would take her past lunchtime to meet me. Really, I didn’t know where she was.

It wouldn’t hurt to visit the shop. I opened my journal and looked for the address. Pushing my way through the crowds, I felt a tug on my coat lapel. I clasped my hands tighter on the briefcase. Feeling that sensation against my jacket was odd, yet slight enough not to suspect anything. I tapped my pocket, the horror of its emptiness made my stomach rise, only to have my lungs bang hard against each other. Or so it felt. Bastards! The two had pinched my wallet, the one in front pleading a synthetic ‘sorry’, the other quickly lost in the distorted view of heads.

I decided to forget about Aunt Vagna’s flower shop. I needed that wallet, especially the map, so I back-tracked along the pavement, lifting my head intermittently above the crowd to see if I could catch the swift footwork of the two pickpockets.

At a newsstand, I asked the guy behind a multitude of magazines if he’d seen two young men in baseball caps and moccasins. He just answered, ‘Seen one, seen em all, Pal.’

I was devastated. Map lost. No money. No credit cards. I’d have to report it. I tried the alleys, hoping the same two might be waiting for me again, especially for the briefcase. They didn’t know I had something valuable that I could bargain with.

In a cardboard-stacked alley, a Chinese cook emptied a pale of fish heads into a dumpster. The stench moved me on. I crossed over the main street to the other side, taking my weary legs down several sidestreets.

I thought a storm had sprung up, the sky darkened suddenly, people were running everywhere pointing, shouting, covering their mouths with newspapers. Some were running backwards, elbows bent across their faces. I poked my head out from the cool shadows into what I thought was a dust storm. The scene was horrendous like a cloudburst from an atomic bomb. There was a loud crack and a roar in the air I’d never heard before. This time I could see the smoke lathered grey and pink filling Broadway. I watched shoes landing on the pavement, reams of paper haunting the grey-cloud drizzle. I knew I had my mouth wide open. I felt charcoal on my tongue, the full taste of it seeking my lungs. It clotted my hair with an ash fallout. I was inside a nightmare on Canal Street, a strange movie reeling itself away before my eyes. This was not Godzilla trampling and crushing buildings with its enormous footfalls. This was devastation, Bruce Willis’s panic city – no twins – a gaping hole left in the sky. Sirens, alarms, the noise was deafening. People were screaming, crying. They hollered, turning me like a globe to run. I couldn’t move. I could only think of Aunt Vagna and her flower shop near the Trade Centre. The building now full of flames, falling glass, storey after storey crashing into the streets of New York.

New York was falling apart.

Betty Parker

Story 2

Betty Parker

She was, my Father said, a Bible Basher. Her kind never gave up. I wished he hadn’t said that because I believed in God and miracles. Jesus had made a cripple walk, while my father was an undistinguished man. I was too little to tell him to hush his rowdy tongue in a provided house. I eavesdropped a lot, and wondered why Betty made my father wild. Perhaps, she taught him drinking was a curse. I came to this conclusion. Whether inside or out, he always hid his amber glass. I thought of Betty, whale-boned and pale, ambling up the street, taking her time to pigeon-toe her shoes on a narrow Richter bus. I heard the kids snorting, making a meal out of ‘slow’, her titanic thighs settling size already in the margins of their minds. Betty Parker went five days to a little factory northeast of town. Filing manicured hands through her seed pearls, she quoted Ecclesiastes to busy factory workers. But she never understood the empty seats on Sunday mornings, ignored their time at winning seasons at the footy, everyone under heaven at the picnic with sausages and buns. By Monday teatime she was at our kitchen window crying failure at the job, and getting back her dusted sponge. My Gran and Mum gripped with the fits, made me ask, Why? What did Betty do? Well, it wasn’t just the onions bringing tears to their eyes. It was the fine carb soda she must have shifted in the pantry’s dour light. I knew Miss Parker more than most. The kind of life she lived. Like any night bird, she had a lonesome sound, living with a father who couldn’t stretch suspenders let alone his toes. He kept a tight bible on her wedding plans, while she pushed his wheelchair to that little room with flies. In her kitchen, passing chocolate cake in my direction, she’d trail her silken voice and skirts across the room, give me a stunning vision of the future. Good, looked pretty dangerous on that wall print, if I remember, walking with the tigers and the lions, sunbeams poking over distant mountains on a lonely northern road. If bad, I’d be in the hothouse with those corseted ladies, smoking, getting drunk, cavorting with the devil. I didn’t care for either. Her world was quieter than mine, choir practice, Sundays at the Assembly of God, baking, stoning fruit, figs brimming a metal bucket. I loved the tealeaves that floated in my cup, green Aeroplane Jelly we never had at home. I liked the way she sent me round the corner for Manning’s special devon, the meaty string he gave, and telling me when I opened up the parcel, to keep the change.