TOLAR 

Tolar reminded himself that in two weeks he would be finished with the academic world after which the future reared itself in vague coloration's barely integrated enough to give him a semi-pleasurable sensation; much like those times when he stood under the night sky and felt the motion of the earth. He had never been able to articulate this feeling other than a crude analogy to an ant in the hold of a great steel ship turning into a wide harbor. He laughed at the analogy. Hopefully there were others in the world who would conjure this sensation in a more precise language suited to the experience. But after listening to even his enlightened friends he realized that precision would come from out of the provincial circle of his existence.

Ah youth; poised at the precipice of the real world yet already restless for the past! Tolar had been in contact with an old family friend who ran an advertising agency in San Francisco and when he had been younger had taken care of the man's handicapped son; a boy whose eyes seemed continually startled as if they belonged to another body or spirit. And when Tolar thought about the advertising man he invariably thought about the handicapped boy and the way the boy looked at him with gnomic knowledge or a secret or an indictment of the healthy.

His words came hurriedly out of his mind while his tongue attempted to phrase a clever sentence.

Tolar had not talked to the father in seven years. He was not sure what he was going to say to him. As a matter of fact the whole business of having to decide on a career seemed more trouble that it was worth.

Tolar had the kind of sense that absorbed situations all at once and the world told him, through his sense, that no man was satisfied with his choice; that at the center of a man was the ambiguity that the choice brought in its wake.

This meditation lifted a burden off his shoulders for a moment. He may as well be a butcher or a street cleaner as well as a newspaper man. He had always seen newspaper men as essential failures who evaporated their sense of failure in alcohol. Besides, he had known three or four people who had changed careers not once but several times and all before they were thirty so it wasn't a 'problem' yet. Perhaps in several years, squeezed in a brightly lit cubicle, shut-in, with the hovering specter of some authority always around, it would be a problem.

Everytime he imagined such a thing he would feel tired and go over to Bertha's apartment along the Bay.

He never claimed that Bertha was his girl friend; she was simply there. They had grown up together and she was always there though he didn't make the effort to keep together as she did. She was homely, tall, well-read; she spoke quietly, especially over the phone. More than once she had called Tolar up during the night and invited him over to her place.

"Now?" he would answer, his voice tired and even credulous.

"Well...it's just....that I want you next to me. I'm thinking how it will be when you are next to me....I'll put on coffee."

That was the extent of their relationship, other than their mutual interest in Cromwellian England. Bertha was a teaching assistant and was considering applying for an opening in the southwest. She wanted to go, she didn't want to go. Tolar found himself more and more irritated around her, especially that she was using him now and had probably used him the whole time they knew each other. Since, when he thought back on it, he was doing something for her all the time. But she had a patient ear and would listen to him so, in his mind, it all evened out.

He stood near the street in the hot noonday sun. The heat drove all desire to work out of him and he looked for his favorite bistro; the one that had ivy growing over the frontpiece and large, iron-encased windows.

The day was hot and silent with little traffic in the street. As Tolar made his way to the bistro everything reminded him of work; the bus driver standing at the donut stand while his bus idled in front of the BART station; the commercial jet arching over the Berkeley Hills toward the east; the road, the lamppost, automobiles, signs were all the result of purposeful labor and it made him feel insignificant; where would be the evidence of his own labor?

Advertising slogans, he answered himself in disgust. It was that or else obituaries and feature stories about immigration to the Bay.

entered the cool restaurant and took a seat against the wall and ordered a beer and sandwich from the tall and red-headed waitress who had a small purple tattoo on the back of her hand. He was glad now that he hadn't bought a newspaper so he could pause a moment in his thoughts. He was distracted by the red-headed waitress who reminded him of a woman he passed once in the hallway of the apartment building he lived in; an exotic creature who smelled like fresh tobacco and wore a string of gold around her neck.

Ah labor, he mused. Perhaps the last two weeks of school would be extended for another couple of years in pursuit of an advanced degree. NO! He had had enough of school; it seemed unreal. He had the ambiguous itching in him to begin constructing a significant career but it couldn't be done alone, no, someone else had to be there.

The day had been hot and oppressive. In several days he was to learn whether he had been accepted for the position at the University. His mind repressed the inevitable letter which would come for him. And if the letter was positive it meant getting dressed up and going to the interview and sitting in front of a stranger and having the stranger ask him questions which were always demoralizing and which he had turned into a minor art out of the pain of it. He would assume the voice of authority but edge it with a sublime irony and taking it as far as the interview would allow. If the interviewer became irritated at the tone of voice he would cut it short, bow his head gently and slightly and offer some comment about how ignorant he was of many things.

But now, under the influence of the Heineken and the passive reading of the newspaper, he had forgotten everything. Charles, the owner, seemed more than nervous. He would talk to the barmaid behind the counter and then stride from table to table without saying anything before disappearing into the back room which was used for poetry readings and musical auditions among other things. He was a big friendly black fellow who had served time in state prison but had now become something of a legend in Berkeley. He didn't allow riff-raff into his club. A big, hand-painted sign above the cash register read, "No dope, no dice, no games" and as a result of his efforts he got a clientele of university students, educated transients, local literati etcet.

This particular night there were few people in the place. Later that evening there was going to be an 'open mic' which meant anyone with talent was given fifteen minutes to do what they did best.

Tolar was one of the few in the bar reading the newspaper. Across from him was the woman and behind her sat a middle-aged man reading a soft-covered book. The room was fairly dark, lit only by the candles on each table and the light over the bar and in the light he could see the woman half-looking at him or looking at him before directing her face to the general mundane scene. In the dark he perceived that she was small in stature with an exotic looking face; perhaps east-European. Any other night he would have ignored the young woman but the atmosphere of boredom and anxiety that had come over him made him think that perhaps he would try to talk to the woman. For a long time he readied himself to go over to the woman. It was not in his nature to be so bold, nonetheless, an item in the paper had for an inexplicable reason made him bold. It had been an article about the war in Central America and the exploits of an American journalist to get various stories; the harrowing escape from a right-wing death squad. A brief biography had been published about the journalist and it turned out the journalist had gone to Tolar's high school five years prior to Tolar. And as he meditated on the journalist's name he realized that he had gone to high school with the journalist's brother or it appeared that way and this was confirmed by the grainy photograph of the journalist. This information brought the story to the most personal of levels since he had visited his brother's house more than once; had met their parents; had met their sister. This was a block style house in the hills, thoroughly immaculate with the reigning father an athletic, even bullying fellow; a former track star at the university.

If not startling him, the item in the paper pitched him into a whole imaginative universe where he followed the exploits of his friends brother thorough the strange land of Central America; through the political strife which was hardly intelligible and through the sense of danger the article imbued every move that the journalist made. It was while musing thus that he went over to the woman and stood in front of her table, an expression of awkward shyness on his red face.

"Would you like to join me at my table?"

The woman looked up at him. She was far more beautiful close up than he had pictured. She did have an authentic aura of the exotic about her.

"Why don't you sit here at this table?"

She did have an accent of some kind; possibly French. He quickly retreated to his table and took his beer and cigarettes and joined the young woman at the table.

"They would never do this in New York."

"Oh, is that so? What does that mean?"

"I'm from New York- people don't introduce themselves in cafes- they assume something is wrong with you. if you do that- maybe that's why I feel nervous."

Tolar leaned back in his chair and laughed. "Oh, I'm alright. You couldn't be with a nicer fellow."

The woman smiled and pulled a cigarette out of her purse. Tolar took the round candle burning in glass and tilted it toward her so she could light the cigarette.

"Actually I don't go up to people and introduce myself like that. I like to leave others alone. But for some reason I felt stupid sitting alone and the place isn't crowded. Had the place been crowded I wouldn't have come over."

He told her he was a student. He felt funny telling her that as if it weren't appropriate now. What was a student except a kind of intellectual bum? But he felt the need to tell the truth. Why lie he thought to himself? I'm never going to see this woman again. I may as well tell her everything she wants to know.

The woman was Sonia and she had left New York the previous week to enroll in an acting studio run by the local repertory company.

"An actress?"

She seemed too sad to be an actress; too shy, sad and awkward to be an actress but she mentioned some of the productions she had been in back in New York and not only had he heard of the productions but had seen them on television; on the public television network and in a moment he remembered the exact place and time that he had watched the program she mentioned and how he had been living with a nut-woman at the time and they would sit in front of the TV and she would remove her blouse and he would scratch her back and smoke pot; years and years ago it now seemed.

"Well, an actress is a fine thing to be."

"I think so- it's difficult, competitive but worth it- if you can make it a career- this is why I came out to the Bay Area. New York is glutted with actors and actresses and so I thought the best thing I could do would be to get: connected with local repertory theatre and then, when I was more experienced, head down to LA."

There was a sudden clamor in the back, behind the heavy cloth curtain and Tolar turned and to see the local poet emerge and demand more beer from the barmaid.

"More beer or I won't perform tonight." The poet was a short, dark man with black clothes and a sinister, underground aura about him. He looked around the empty cafe. "Where are the people? Is this all that's going to show up? It's a disgrace." And when he had his pitcher of beer he vanished behind the curtain, his muffled voice now shouting to someone on the otherside.

The woman had moved the week before. She seemed reticent about talking any further about her personal life and so began to ask Tolar about himself.

"I'm just a student, although, in two weeks I'm no longer going to be a student."

"And what are you going to do when you graduate?"

"I don't know- that's an unnerving question- I've repressed that question in myself- it's repelling to my sense of the future."

The actress stopped asking him questions and they stopped talking to each other for several minutes. Tolar drank his beer while the woman smoked. More people were coming into the club. Students, old hippie types, a black man- perhaps Jamaican, dressed all in white his hair braided over his shoulders and down his back with a generous handful of green stems pressed against his chest.

"He's a poet. I've seen him before," Tolar said.

"It looks as though he should be one."

'"Would you like to watch the show? They have comedians, poets, musicians- people get drunk- occasionally an old European type professor will come down and read his poetry. No one understands them and he goes home mad. Then the wild poets will perform and the crowd will laugh and have a good time; no one famous or anyone who will be famous. I think all desire of fame has been burnt out of them- pot you know- that'll do it to you."

"I know nothing about poetry but the comedians sound interesting."

Within twenty minutes the cafe was filled with couples and single men reading political tracts in the dim light. People lined up in front of the cloth curtain and paid a dollar to get into the back room, larger than one would have suspected. A cavernous room actually with a good sized stage at the far end that was busy with activity and equipment. Tolar led the actress to a table after ordering a pitcher of beer and they sat watching the comedians first. Tall, clean-shaven men who looked like athletes and told dope jokes so the crowd whooped and laughed. As Tolar watched the comedians it suddenly occurred to him that these were talented people. Given a chance for exposure they would become successful. It wouldn't be difficult to refine the kinds of jokes they told to give their jokes a broader base of appeal; dope for the young students, sex for the women in their thirties, animal jokes for the old people. But at the same time he knew they would never be successful; that every comedian who stood at the microphone looking cynically over the crowd would never reach an audience other than the collection of oddity arranged in front of them. Then, slowly but surely, they would be absorbed back into the reality they were struggling from and become mechanics, technicians, even beauracrats if they had a degree. It depressed Tolar to think about so he didn't laugh when a bushy-haired man began to joke about excrement.

It was not simply their talent but their ability to get up and perform for strangers. This he counted as a oracle of sorts even if television had jaded all sense of courage in the act. It was a different kind of courage than mortal combat or flying planes and the like but it was courage nonetheless. It was as if they effaced their personality for the crowd; how did they recover from that?

The woman at his side was smoking and gazing into the stage without expression. "Was she judging their performance?" he asked himself, since, she too, was a performer and unquestionably gained courage from every performance.

The last poet left the stage. All during the performance Tolar questioned himself whether he should ask the woman back to his place. It was always a risk. She did have enough ambiguity to her that was for certain.

"Well now, "I'm drunk," he finally said. "Can you imagine that? Three beers and I'm drunk. ..do you have a car?"

"Yes, I have a car. Do you?"

"No, I don't like cars. Do you find it strange that I don't like cars?"

She seemed interested and more animated. "Oh, absolutely not."

"Cars have always let me down; they've never come p to my expectations. And then there's all the peripheral nonsense around owning a car...it's just a can that goes," and Tolar flattened his palms and described ridiculous vertical places in the smoky air.

They left the club. It was dark and chilly. There was another festive atmosphere along Telegraph Avenue. Tolar was not dead drunk but drunk nonetheless and pulled the woman into a corner bookstore.

The store was quite a contradiction to the festivities outside. A half-dozen students and oddities moved between the aisles of used books.

"I'm looking for something, " Tolar said to no one in particular. He had the woman by the hand. She was smiling slightly. "

Yes, it's still here." Along one shelf of books he found a thick paperback on mysticism and took it to the front desk. A sullen and arrogant looking fellow presided at the desk, rang the purchase up and with a limp gesture gave the package back to Tolar.

They left again. They headed up Dwight Way, off Telegraph when it suddenly became quiet and dark.

"I've been meaning to buy this book. I love the crazy mystics; they knew everything."

The woman didn't seem moved one way or another. They stopped at her car, an old Chevy with torn-up upulstory in the back and a pair of tennishoes tied around the rear-view mirror.

"Now, where do you live?"

"Oh me?" And he pointed vaguely in the direction where he lived as the woman pulled the car from the curb.

The woman started asking him a series of questions:

"How long have you lived in Berkeley? Why are you interested in mystics? Where have you traveled?"

Tolar answered dutifully, afraid he had made a terrible mistake. The woman was only going to drop him off at this place and that would be that. He would never see her again except by chance.

He finally blurted out, "I love Berkeley because it's a hatchery for new life; a being hatchery!"

The actress was smoking.

When they arrived at his apartment she went with him up the stairs. He was nervous now, wanting to drink another beer. As they entered his apartment she said, "You know, I haven't believed anything you've said."

He let the comment pass for a moment. The apartment was in disarray. Clothes were laying over chairs and the sofa. Books were strewn about. The kitchen gave off a stench.

"Do you want a beer or some wine?"

Instead of answering she asked him if he had a stereo. He pointed it out to her.

When he was in the kitchen pouring himself a beer he could here jazz from the other room.

She had taken off her coat. She wore an old-fashioned green dress that fell to her ankles.

The actress was on the otherside of the room. He noticed that from that distance she appeared to have blue eyes. She had kicked her shoes off. There was a lull for several minutes as she stood in the room, rocking back and forth to the music. Tolar had sat down in the couch drinking the beer. The beer made him get up and when he came back he got another beer.

"Well, you know, mysticism is coming back in vogue these days. It's all the drugs and so forth but you don't have to take drugs to understand that stuff. Well, it's more interesting than jobs or school don't you think? Well, everything is a big mystery to me."

* * * * * * * *

The song ended and at the end Sonia sighed heavily, brushed her forehead then sat in a heap on the old couch that Tolar had purchased at the flea market. There was long silence between them, then she said. "I hate confusion." Tolar shrugged his shoulders, clapped his hands and got to his feet. "My apartment has never looked better. I thank you and believe you deserve a reward. Come here."

He was standing at the entrance to the kitchen and gestured the woman to enter. The kitchen was small and smelled faintly with gas which the woman noted, 'ah, the owner of the place never fixes anything,' Tolar answered her, gesturing vaguely before opening the refrigerator- a small unit painted in red. The unit was packed with an assortment of goods; stale cheese, a carton of goats milk, anomalous shapes wrapped in tinfoil, a couple of slices of dried pizza, and wilting lettuce.

"It's not all that much. How about a can of soup?" The woman nodded.

So they ate the meal Tolar began questioning the woman carefully and without unnecessary probing about her existence.

"I am unfortunate I know that. I had a boyfriend several months ago who kicked me out of the house we were renting, over on Durant Avenue. He was a crazy fellow from Oklahoma who used to tease me all the time, then one day said he was never going to see me again. I did some unfortunate things after that."

"Oh, such as what?"

"Really stupid things. One night I stood under the window of his bedroom and began to sing. Like this..." and she began to sing in a falsetto voice that startled Tolar; a hefty male voice that seemed conditioned by cigarette smoking. "Well, I don't know I was crazy at the time, so, I was singing this song that was obscure in some way. I guess I stood there for an hour and a half like a dope and before I knew it I was surrounded by the police. They told me that I had to leave or they were going to arrest me. "But you can't arrest me, I don't have anywhere to go." One of the officers gave me a ten dollar bill and told me to get a room for the night but not to disturb anyone otherwise he was going to put me in jail. I remember one of the officers went up to the room and got my sleeping bag and personal belongings. So I Just walked around a bit until I found a park and slept there, then the next night went to a church and slept in the backyard of the church. Since that time I've just been moving along."

Tolar took the story in and was sympathetic- he felt an obligation to inquire about her state of being.

"Well, yes, I get a state check and that's what started the whole mess really because it was late and I couldn't pay my share of the rent and that gave Tom an excuse to throw me out."

Tolar was impressed with the ability of the woman to speak clearly, without emotion, about her travail. She took it as a matter of fact experience which would soon be forgotten.

There was no question about an exotic, nearly sensual aura around the woman. It had been something he had noticed since meeting her. Something which came from the woman herself and was communicated nearly telepathically to him but which was so strong Tolar felt suspicious of it. Her smooth limber face seemed indistinct in the dim light and he was suddenly aware of a pressure in him; of feelings in him which had been dormant for a time.

Then the woman smiled. "Do you have anything to drink?"

"I have some cheap wine, some old Chablis that's been sitting around for awhile. I usually reserve it for a friend of mine who seems to have left the state though I don't believe it. Anyway, if you'd like, I would be happy to share it with you."

"You are very generous. I can feel my fortunes change. Most people would throw me away like a ragdoll but you've been more than kind. I feel my health restored."

Tolar felt good himself and poured the wine. He was no longer uncomfortable with the woman. On the contrary he could see that she was one of the unfortunates who is misunderstood and so they have a rollercoaster of experiences which either defeats their spirit or makes it stronger. There was unquestionable intelligence about the woman, obvious sincerity, a kind of humbleness that he missed in women, especially the college women he had been around the past few years. For, whatever experience the woman had taught her something and sharpened her truest instincts. Al1 thought of taking advantage of the woman vanished. He would let her stay for two weeks at the least, until she was able to get on her feet again. During that time he would see if she had family in the area or what her work skills were and make sure she got her state checks- unemployment checks he imagined. In fact, the more he thought about it the more an apprehension left him- some weight that had been on him for the last several months began to leave and he felt that great opening which comes from compassion- which comes from allowing the best nature in himself to flourish and to help another person. A sudden vision ran in his mind that detailed how he would put the woman back to a respectable and healthy state. He could see it unfold in his mind and it excited him; all of the useless thinking he had done the past few months on the state of the the world, on his own future!

She had slipped into the other room. He heard her turning the stereo on. He had a tape on his tape machine of old 60's rock and roll. He heard the first strain of Satisfaction and then heard the machine stop. She yelled out to him, "Do you have any Rachmanioff?"

He went into the living room. He tried to place the name but couldn't. He apologized for his tape.

He went into the room and watched the suddenly alluring woman riffle through a stack of albums and tapes looking for something to her satisfaction.

"They're all old I'm afraid. Tomorrow I'm going down to the used record store and sell the; ah, sell them all and buy something decent."

"Don't you feel like dancing after you have cleaned? It must be an old instinct that comes alive. I feel like dancing!"

And with that the woman turned several times and moved gracefully across the room. "Join me, join me for the dance," she called out to Tolar.

They danced for what, to Tolar, seemed hours but which was only a few minutes. It was the first time he remembered swirling around, breathing heavily until the room, the simple room that he lived in felt alive, pressing in at him; not abstract and a place or utility but a kind of home.

The woman had a determined expression on her face as though she knew she was going to teach the man something he didn't know before and that the impression she left was of the utmost importance.

"I Just want to play something that is soothing. I don't like rock and roll anymore. It's not complicated enough."

He suddenly felt ashamed that he was still listening to rock and roll. He listened to it because it brought back specific memories And he need those memories to gain depth to his existence which on the surface was always appearing ludicrous.

* * * * * * * *

She became an obsession without question. Now he forgot about finding a job or his "girlfriend," as she put it and concentrated all his effort in helping the poor actress who cleaned his house two or three times a week. And well within a month's time, Tolar found himself begging to be let in to his own apartment; as though, now, he had to prove to her that he was capable of whatever bargain had been at the beginning. She had assumed a great deal. He had assumed nothing and, in fact, was in that paradisiacal but unreal space of everything "being good." "It's all good." That was his favorite saying. It didn't matter what happened because he would have memory; his hard experience would be turned into memory and he would treasure it, take it with him in whatever stage of development life offered to him.

"Life, you odd word," he thought.

David Eide
January 24, 2014