Story J

[LaurieAK]

STORY J


Making Leonard Happy

“Thank God he’s busy. His life is a life lived in service to his work. Send him a flower.”-Jennifer Warnes.


Hearing Leonard come home late at night is rather like hearing an exotic bird trilling in the jungle of fortitude. Only the resolutely determined stay awake through these rare occasions. Still, there I was on that October night, sleepless and dreamless when the Cohen door closed at 2 AM-closed loud enough for me to notice. I heard that he awakens early so I would not have been surprised at early morning furor from other sources in the neighborhood, but Leonard is above all else-quiet.

I live next door in a middlesome non-descript old city home. It took me at least three years to learn the rare nature of his celebrity. He was on tour then, and the life of the home was removed from everyday life. He had a housekeeper and a gardener like so many of our urban brethren. I was another autumnal casualty concerned with getting on with post-work life. Here I was, an aging urbanite, looking forward to puttering around in a garden and I find myself next to an aging man who still has a garden keeper doing those actions that I had saved up for all these years while he led, apparently, a life too seductive to have any outward alchemy of purpose.

I don’t remember exactly when I learned of his profession and as I hesitate to call it -his celebrity. Our brief encounters were always cordial but without significance-no purpose here-only abject cheerfulness. I didn’t need him for anything. He obviously didn’t need me.

I worked in the roses-I hauled in sheep manure from a ranch in a valley not far from LA. I would occasionally see him outside-seldom without his Mexican gardener tilling the rocky California soil in his yard. I would wave during these brief moments and he would give back the salute, He’d straighten his back-looking up as much to the horizon as to me-then, turning toward my home would give me the warm smile that showed how fortunate he seemed to feel that he could be as he greeted me from this comfortable distance. I never though to invite him to tea.

In the early 90’s , someone, an old friend I guess, mentioned his album, “The Future.” I had heard, “Suzanne” back in my youth. I remember a church guy using it as a proselytizing
song and my sudden laughter that “Jesus was a sailor” would make me a churchgoer. This old friend somehow noticed that Leonard was a neighbor-please don’t think he stalked him-it was only an accident that he discovered this and he would never bother him. But his interest piqued mine. No longer was it just a neighbor who walked among the hardy winter mums that graced this urban place-the gardener overawed the garden.

Gradually the evanescent nature of poetry fixed my vision. Should I stare toward this man’s home and risk seeing those heavenly beasts that prowl through the day to day landscape, or, seeing nothing, risk forever the blindness that robs the ordinary? Simple is difficult and grand plans are buried in difficult surrender.

I’d heard-secretly now-wrapped in tender vows of legends-that those terrible words of urgent tales-those tales that challenge us in abject terror-hold different stamina for neighbors of poetry. I’d looked for odd reasons to greet Leonard. I’d think, “No roses, water-softener salt only”

How can I challenge here? It’s always a different form of tea that we look for in extraordinary life.

It was late on a Saturday night that I tried to intervene the first time. I jumped up and rushed out at 2 AM: I thought that it was only fair that I waited here amongst the flowers for an outcome. I’d never looked beyond this time for an opportunity before, and I was not prepared for his response that my help involved trespass.

I fought depression of my own-what tangle today should I encounter that would leave me forever less afflicted?

Then, at last-on the sidewalk of chance- a pair of sunglasses appeared. I rang the bell and offered them-a final tribute to the sudden clamor of a masque of mercy-here on this blameless porch.

[Fljotsdale]

This sounds so real. I could see all of it...

[Diane]

Some excellent lines in this one. And again I am left wondering what happens next.

I have really enjoyed reading these stories. Big Thanks to all the writers.

Diane

[Joe Way]

As I raise my hand for this, I have to tell you that the subject would have been much easier if it were living next to Leonard-in winter.

Joe

[linda_lakeside]

Right, and in a Seedy Hotel? One day, all those constraints can be added to a poetry contest.

Linda.

[Joe Way]

Dear Linda,

Yes, and with you as the interthingy-all will be well again!

Joe

[linda_lakeside]

Ah. Nice thing to say, Joe, but would you be judge again? That, is the question.

Regards,
Linda.