Two Poems — Michael Heffernan
A New Shirt
I had often wondered what it was like in downtown La Mystère,
having been to the outskirts once or twice on business passing through,
and seen the town-lights from the heights and glimpsed the famous tower
of the late-Gothic Cathedral of La Sainte Serviette,
said to have scraps and stains from the Last Supper, which natives believe
took place in the Sunshine Room of the Quality Inn on North Main.
But I’d never been to see them. On the way I stopped
to view the equestrian monument in Cadillac Square.
Le Sieur Cadillac sat on a cascade of caparisons
over his steed’s veiny flanks. Then the great beast moved
first his enormous left hoof, then the right, lifting Le Grand Sieur up
and nearly over till his wig slid back,
exposing the hillocky mole on top of his bare bronze noodle.
I had no idea they could do these things with statues
on this side of the void. Beyond the Square, down a narrow street,
where horse and rider came clopping at full speed,
loomed the contained gloom of the Cathedral with its vault
shaking a thorny nail in Heaven’s eye.
From the murky vestibule next to the kitchen
head-chef Christy Himmelfahrt greeted me on his way out for a smoke,
his sleeves still rolled from baking the Lord’s Bread.
“Yummy stuff you’re at,” I said. We showed each other the side door
into a penumbral courtyard itchy with smoke
from neighborhood coal-fires, cauldrons of incense, the Eucharistic oven,
and now our tasty hand-rolled cigarettes from Christy’s case.
Above in the creamy atmosphere a squadron of Imperial fighter jets
screamed through the wound they tore in the sky’s forehead
that dripped one ruby drop larger than the other out of its seam.
As we ducked for cover under an archway,
Christy’s white jacket grew whiter with flour.
I ran my right hand over my black coat’s left shoulder
and rubbed the stub of collar on the new white dress shirt
you’d stowed for a surprise in my bag before I left.
I loved being a priest after all these years of indecision.
+++
The Husband
I used to park my Beemer in their driveway
in front of the garage so Jim couldn't leave,
then let myself in while he and Marie
were upstairs fucking. They'd have to come down
in their bathrobes. Marie would make me coffee.
I'd put my feet up on the kitchen table
and shove my Gucci loafers right at Jim
sitting there dazed and sweaty, to let him know
who really owned the place. He knew I'd slept
with women once. I'd tell him he was lucky
I wasn't into pussy anymore,
or I'd give him a run for his money with his wife.
I knew he realized this was no joke.
I could have her in a minute if she'd let me,
and she would let me. I knew how to make her.
Women like me can have whatever they please.
Peggy and I did threesomes with Ed Rose,
the first of several men who married me
for a piece of Daddy's money. Ed didn't care
who I brought in to sleep with. He would watch
Peggy and me in the hot tub going at it,
and then he'd climb in with us and fuck me
while I sat in Peggy's lap under the water.
He knew better than to try to fuck her too.
Peggy wanted me to have it any way
I liked to have it. Ed Rose was just a pig—
a useful hunk to have around the place,
bone-stupid, but good-looking in a Porsche
with the top down at a hundred miles an hour.
Peggy knew me for what I was and loved me.
She'd kiss and fondle me from behind while Ed
was leaping like a billfish over us.
Marie's bare feet would always turn me on.
All I could think of was a long slow kiss
from the tip of her toes all the way up her thighs
into that muff she kept in her bathrobe
while moving back and forth with the coffee pot.
I'd gotten her a job at the Company
where Daddy paid me six figures a year
to keep out of his way. I let her think
our friendship was the on-ramp to the fast-lane
for her and Jim. I knew I made him nervous.
He had a thing about being working class
and getting where he was all on his own.
His people were white trash, and so were mine,
only mine got rich, and his stayed poor and proud.
He talked about his father dropping dead
in an alley where he'd gone to get some tools
out of his truck when he was on a job.
His father was smart enough to have gotten rich,
to hear Jim talk, but not as smart as mine,
not where it counted, which was in knowing how
to make a lot of stupid people happy
to get what Daddy gave them, and Daddy gave them
enough to make him rich. Jim didn't care.
Besides, he thought his father was a hero
because he had his truck and his own tools.
Jim kept the tools his father had died for,
pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, a blow torch.
One afternoon I found him on the porch
trying to fix the door that wouldn't lock.
The deadbolt wouldn't fit the plate. The house
had settled so the door was half an inch
below the doorframe. Jim had his father's pliers
twisting around inside the knob-lock parts.
I told him I could get a handyman
to come out from the Company to fix it.
He said he was going to fix it if it killed him.
Obviously he didn't want help from me
or the Company. I loved pulling his chain.
I sent the man out anyway the next week.
Jim didn't say a word, not even thanks.
Marie said he looked sullen about the door.
Part of me only wanted him to know
how easily I could do any God damned thing,
if it meant putting a man where I wanted him,
and part of me was happy to help Marie.
Jim's mother died one day in February.
He had been up all night holding her hand.
When I got there, he turned and looked at me
like he was glad to see me for a change.
I gave him a big mink hug. I thought he'd cry,
but all he did was stand with his arms out
like a stuffed bear and wouldn't hug me back.
The stupid bastard didn't have his momma
to crawl in bed with anymore. I hated him
for being weak enough to let me walk
all over him, with his wife there like a flower
I'd pay good money just to put my nose in.
Eventually he couldn't handle it.
After a while Marie was on the road
on business all the time with me. Jim cracked.
He'd call her up and beg her to come home.
When she came home one afternoon, they argued.
Jim said he couldn't stand the thought of her
running around in the same car with me
or staying in motels in the same room
where I could see her in her underwear.
She freaked. She came to my place with the kids.
I told her I was shocked to hear of it—
I couldn't believe Jim felt the way he did.
I told her I thought Jim had lost his mind—
he wasn't too tightly wrapped to begin with,
I said. Whatever was wrong with him right now,
she was better off to get away from him
and not go back, in case he might be violent.
She looked confused. She didn't know what to do.
Finally she said she guessed that I was right.
She must have known if Jim wasn't crazy now
he'd soon be driven crazy if she stayed.
At least I knew that I would see to that.
I helped her get a lawyer. Marie filed.
I thought Jim might come over to get her,
and I wasn't sure what he might do to me,
so I sent a man down to the electric gate
to make sure nobody just drove on in.
But Jim had taken off to Oregon.
After a week Marie and the kids went home.
She had the papers sent for Jim to sign.
She got her settlement, and custody.
She had the house, the mortgage, the car payments,
and an office across from mine at the Company.
Jim wrote the kids a card from Astoria,
where he was living with an old girlfriend,
and said he hoped they'd look him up someday.
One night I came for supper at Marie's
and parked the car in front of the garage.