Losing Elizabeth

Losing Elizabeth
Losing Elizabeth
A memoir
Al Gramatas
Sirena Press
Lyrics from “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Ewan
Maccoll reproduced by permission of David Platz Music,
Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Al Gramatas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in

any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without written consent
from the publisher and author, except by a print reviewer, quoting
brief excerpts.
Sirena Press
an imprint of Murmaid Publishing
ISBN-978-0-9760634-2-1
ISBN-0-9760634-2-5
Cover and Book Design

Nancy Frederich
Printed in the United Sates of America
Second Edition
Acknowledgements
Diane Marcou
Nancy Frederich
Dr. John F. Gay III
Dedicated to
Elizabeth Marie Johnson

“The first time ever I kissed your mouth, I
felt the earth move through my hands, like the
trembling heart of a captive bird…”
The memories still linger, not want-

ing to go—just yet. A tapestry of uncloud-
ed colors remain, etched on the canvas of
my mind.
I’m hopeful others will visit with her,
now, and long after I’m gone: my words
pulled from a bookshelf, assuring in a
way, she will never be alone.
On the following pages, I’ve chronicled
our impassioned love affair, and the com-
pelling aftermath.
The dialogue is true to the best of
my unbroken memory …the nuance of
a moment …precise as my writing skills
allow.
I have taken the liberty of substituting
my own name with another; a surrogate,
freeing me to write, I believe, more objec-
tively, and with less trepidation.
The story begins an hour before we meet.

[1] Al Gramatas
Chapter 1
The escaping landing gear breaks our slumber,

as the giant airplane descends slowly toward Atlanta
out of a dark, rainy sky. His face is slumped near the
window, eyes gazing into darkness. Our words were
mostly about business and his childhood hero, Joe
DiMaggio, before he suggested a nap. He looks more
tired now, in his wrinkled white shirt and loose tie, for
a moment reminding me of a weary tortoise, after lum-
bering from a churning sea. The three-day LA trade
show and five-hour flight have taken a toll on my boss,
the man I love like a father.
“What’re you looking at, Charlie? You’ve seen it a
thousand times before, my man.”
”Yeah, I guess. All those little, slow moving cars
down there remind me of ants following each other
back to their mound. I enjoy flying into LA at night. You
can see lights as far north as Santa Barbara and south
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almost to San Diego but to the west there’s nothing but

the darkness of the Pacific, like the world just stops.
Sometimes, this sort of selfish thought creeps in my
head when I’m looking at all those lights, doesn’t matter
which city, really.
There’s a woman down there who would’ve brought
me more contentment than the one I married all those
years ago, just never had the good fortune to meet her.
When I think of what might have been, it makes me
sort of blue. Everybody’s world is so small.” He turns
my way, with a smile. ”You ever think about crap like
that, Nick?”
“Not in the last few minutes, Charlie, but you gotta’
be one of the great thinkers to ever grace mother earth,
right up there with Aristotle and Plato.”
“You really think so, huh?”
“Darn right. They say stuff like that all the time,
just opened their second hamburger joint, this one over
on Spring Street. You ought to drop by sometime. The
three of y’all would really hit it off.”
Charlie’s laughter is rarely contained and it’s not
this time. The waitress-in-the-sky lady looks at us ques-
tionably until she remembers we hadn’t ordered alco-
holic beverages during our long journey.
“I’m flat worn out after the last few days,” he says,
wanting to get back to business before we land. ”Just
might retire next year or maybe sooner. You keep on
selling smart in those European-cut suits of yours and
my business card might wind up with Nick’s name on
Losing Elizabeth [3]
it. By the way, I bought a suit like that a few months ago.
Damn thing made me look like a blowfish so I gave it to
the Salvation Army. Want to have a drink at the Crown
Room before you head home? I’ve got a two hour lay-
over before I hop a Charlotte plane.”
“Wish to heck I could, Charlie, but two friends and
I meet for dinner once a month and if I don’t show, they
won’t let me forget.”
“Say hello to Kim for me. She’s a pistol. Tell her I
said if I was twenty-five or thirty years younger, you
wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.”
“I will, Charlie. I will.”
The rain abates, leaving a fine mist in the air, inspiring

the driver of the shuttle bus to open a window to the
left of his corn bread fed arm. A rush of fresh spring
air sweeps away the musty smell of damp luggage. The
radio is tuned to Motown at a sound level high enough
for his enjoyment but low enough to not offend those
aboard with a more puritan taste or none at all.
“Marvin Gaye do anything for you?” I ask.
“Oh man, don’t get no better than Marvin. My old
lady’d run off with him if he’d have her, know that won’t
happen.”
As we pass the familiar, large lit billboard ”Fly the
world with Eastern in 1977,” I think about Charlie’s
retirement and the possibilities. I was privy to his occa-
sional outbursts with other sales managers but with
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me there had never been a cross word. Amusing it was,

when my counterparts dubbed me “the anointed one,”
owing to my apparent immunity from his tirades.
My thoughts move from Charlie to a couple sitting
across the aisle, the lap of the woman holding a baby
girl. My smile is returned through sleepy, brown eyes
as I picture her with Rover, the best dog there ever was,
when I was a boy. I wonder if there’s a mutt in her fam-
ily. Not likely, I reason, the wife reminds me of the sort
that would have brought along a cat or two from her
single days. Such foolish thoughts come to mind when
life is good.
Driving north over water drenched streets, I remember

our first meeting at the Rainbow Café on Piedmont Ave-
nue some two years back when I introduced the busi-
ness-suited Arne to Ben, clothed in green sleigh bell-
laden trousers of a Christmas past. ”Only thing that
was clean,” Ben said at the time.
I don’t recall whose suggestion set our monthly get-
together in motion but now it’s ingrained. We don’t call,
just show up on the first Friday of each month. Closing
in on the café, a thought springs to mind that we should
go somewhere different next month, maybe someplace
with outdoor seating and different food, diversity being
the spice of life that it is. New restaurants seem to pop
up every week in northern Atlanta, christened with
unique names and splashy signs to draw the attention

of the hungry with loose money.
Pulling into the almost full parking lot, I see Ben
pacing slowly back and forth near the front door of the
restaurant as he always would when someone was late.
“I talked to Kim from the airport. She said that Arne
called a couple hours ago to let us know he was heading
to Florida with his honey and won’t be here,” I inform
him through the passenger side window before scout-
ing for a parking space none to early.
“Screw Arne,” he says in his inimitable way as I
open the restaurant’s familiar oversized door. ”Going
off to the beach in his new Porsche with what’s-her-
name. We don’t need him, Nick.”
“Sounds like you might be a tad jealous, Ben.”
“The only time I’ve ever been jealous of Arne is
when the old Aunt he barely knew left him that money
when she croaked. Naw, that wasn’t jealousy, just plain
old envy, man. The only thing that’s ever fallen into my
lap is bird crap, and that’s a fact, partner.”
Never in the history of the modern world have there
been two people more dissimilar, each marching to a
radically different drummer. Arne, the not quite good
enough ex-jock, is now a serious and sometimes fastidi-
ous sports reporter at the morning Constitution.
A couple months back, after Ben raked him over the
coals for being too uptight about an upcoming deadline,
Arne shot back, ”Jesus, Ben, you don’t realize what’s
involved. I have to get the facts right or my boss is on
[6] Al Gramatas
my ass and if I write something with a hint of criticism

about play on the field, some of the readers get pissed
and the players won’t talk to me and on top of that my
writing has to be grammatically perfect.”
Ben told him that he wouldn’t be any less up-tight
working as a grocery bag boy. ”Hell, Arne, you’d wor-
ry that you might step on some wet chewing gum in the
parking lot on the way to the customer’s car. Then you’d
be concerned about stuff gettin’ on your socks while
you were waiting for the gum to harden in the freezer
so you could scrap it off your shoes.”
Ben went to work after college with a soda bottler
and has been there ever since, sitting behind a desk all
day ordering components from endless pages of end-
less catalogs. But, away from the office he would trans-
form immediately into his real persona: the most amus-
ing person I’d ever met. When his wife coined us “The
Three Stooges,” he countered, ”That’s so unfair to the
Stooges. They’re much more sophisticated than we
are.”
The summer before, Arne and I urged him to do
stand up at a local comedy club on amateur night. It
started awkwardly, when a three sheets in the wind,
middle-aged female climbed from her barstool onto the
bar and began singing sad lyrics, pleasing no one, other
than her own alcohol hazed mind.
The bartender re-seated her, but the damage was
done. Ben lost his timing and any confidence that he
might have had. He returned to our table through light
applause. We wanted to know why the drunk disturbed

him. Nothing ever flustered Ben. “She reminded me of
my mother when I was a kid,” he said.
Tonight he’ll order the same entrée as before and
the time before that, but only after examining the menu
and asking a question or two about specials the waiter
has described. He’s not yet had an opportunity to exam-
ine the familiar menu.
We’re waiting with others for the anxious young
hostess behind the tall, slender desk to call us to be seat-
ed. Her long black evening dress sets her apart from the
scurrying wait staff in their employer supplied white
polo shirts and tan slacks. Every few minutes she hur-
ries to a dining area hidden from her station to check
for an available table. High heels just under the black
dress seem to be fighting the feet, wanting her to look
awkward with each step. An older well dressed couple
strolls unhurriedly with drinks in hand from the bar.
Their facial expressions indicate they resent being
called for seating much too soon. “It’s a wicked, cru-
el world when the very young hurry us along, isn’t it,
Doris? This wouldn’t happen in Ft. Lauderdale,” he says
to his lady companion as they pass.
“Nick, why did you tell the hostess that your name
is Zin? I remember you doing that the last time we were
here.”
“It’s less confusing. They’re never really sure how
to pronounce my last name when we’re called. It makes
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things simple for the hostess and it’s easily heard over
conversation, cuts through the air well.”
The crunching sound of an automobile accident
comes from the busy six-lane street just outside the res-
taurant, easily heard over the buzz of conversation.
Almost everyone turns to look toward the front, unlike
me, whose eyes rarely hunt the source when a wait-
er drops a tray or a hungry baby cries, possibly due to
compassion, I like to think.
But she turns, almost in unison with her date, both
standing directly in front of us. Her line of vision
toward the front door is temporarily interrupted by a
slight glance at me, and then another, like seeing some-
one in a crowd who seems familiar, deserving a second
look.
Then she turns away as if the wreck had never hap-
pened or the hostess might call their name any moment.
She stands still, possibly to reconcile something in a
curious mind.
The smooth back above cloth greets her neck in a
most enchanting way. I study the white summer dress
with straps embracing the shoulders as perfectly as her
ankles fit into the pale pink espadrilles. She touches an
earring hiding under blond hair, like a reaction to an
afterthought.
The room seems brighter than before. A faint smell
of fresh cotton permeates the air. My sense of things
only moments before is rapidly expunged, replaced by
titillation, an intense sense of attraction.
My wife once said she appreciated that I didn’t look

at other women when we were out and that it made her
feel special. ”I have no reason to do that,” I said with
complete honesty at the time.
Her date says something before disappearing from
view, walking past me toward the exit, probably want-
ing to see blood on the tracks, I jealously assume, with-
out knowing him at all.
“Nick, honey, I’m goin’ to get us a menu to look at,”
I hear Ben say in a mocking Southern gay voice as I
step forward to occupy the sacred space vacated by her
date.
“Excuse me, Miss, I just want to have a word with
you if I may and then I’ll return to my under educated
friend,” thinking she probably heard his inappropriate
remark.
She turns, not directly facing me, like a beautiful
bird aware of an intruder while at the same time keep-
ing its poise. I ramble, the mind telling me my words
are bungled, imbecilic.
Then, as I see her date returning, from my mouth,
like a simpleton, ”If you’ll accompany me to dinner
some evening, I can promise you’ll experience some-
thing more exciting than tonight, I would think.”
I hold my business card chest high, exposed, expect-
ing rejection. Not a word has she spoken. Her right hand
rises slowly, apprehensively, to gather the card. I smile
as her head turns forward, dismissing me.
[10] Al Gramatas
“What were you doing? Do you know her?” Ben

inquires, at the same moment her date looks my way, a
stern look indeed.
“No, not really.”
“Harrison, party of two,” the hostess announces,
and they leave, reminding me of the couple atop a wed-
ding cake.
“Miss, could we be seated in the same room as the
couple before us?” I ask, to no avail. As we follow the
hostess to our table, she’s sitting across from him with a
large menu in slender hands, oblivious of my attention.
“What was that about, Nick? I’ve never seen you hit
on a woman before. Married men are supposed to wait
till they’re middle age before they start that shit and you
aren’t there yet, partner.”
“She turned her head toward the front door and our
eyes met, something went through me like a knife, only
it felt better. She’s lovely.”
“Brother, Atlanta’s eat up with good-looking wom-
en, you know that. What about the blond here last win-
ter that came over and asked if you wanted a ride in her
red Corvette? Remember what you told her?” he says as
he positions the chair containing his body closer to our
dinner table.
“Nope.”
“You said your pecker had been shot off in Vietnam
and you have to sit down to pee. How do you come up
with shit like that?”
“I don’t know. Thought it was sort of funny at the

time, I suppose.”
“Me too, but she didn’t.”
“Hey girls,” Arne says, unexpectedly appearing at
our table with a smile on his face.
“Thought you were on the way to the beach with
what’s-her-name.”
“Not yet. Had to stay at the paper longer than I
wanted to rewrite an article a new reporter did on one
of our local sports heroes who got a DUI last night. She’s
in the car and I have to go by the apartment to pick up
my stuff. Just thought I’d say hello to you farts. You look
a little undone there Nick. Did your best client leave
you?”
“Naw,” Ben chimes in. ”Nick just went a little cra-
zy on us awhile ago. He’ll be okay when he screws his
head on straight. Is the one waiting in the car the same
gal that went with you down there at the end of last
summer?”
“No. That was a different lady.”
“Nick, are you listening?” Ben wants to know, lean-
ing forward to get my attention and interrupting my
daydream.
“This’ll get your head turned around,” he contin-
ued. ”Did Arne tell you what happened on the way
down there last year?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I still laugh every time I think about it. Arne meets
this girl in a bar down by the Constitution and a cou-
[12] Al Gramatas
ple weeks later they take off to Florida for a few days
and when they cross the state line from Georgia she
tells Arne it would be nice if they stopped at her par-
ent’s house in Cottonville.”
“Cottondale,” Arne says, needing to keep every-
thing exactly right.
“Yeah, it’s on the way. So this old geezer about eighty
comes to the door with his wife and he’s got overalls on
and over them he’s wearing a holstered pistol. He talks
about Arne’s girlfriend as being their youngest child
out of something like ten and she’s his favorite.
Then he asks Arne to help him saw a tree stump in
the backyard for winter firewood. They start sawing
with this thing, six foot or so saw blade with a handle
on each end.
After ten minutes in the heat, Arne’s run out of oxy-
gen and sees stars and shit in his eyeballs. The old man
tells him he looks peaked and he needs to get out of the
sun.
Then they go in the back door of the house and Arne
keeps on going out the front and collapses in the driver
seat of his car and when the daughter gets in, the geezer
sticks his head in the window and says ‘you take care of
my little girl, you hear, and if you don’t, I’ll find you and
shoot you where it hurts.’
Arne pulls out on the highway smilin’ and wavin’ at
the old man, hoping he never sees him again and glad
he’s still alive. What do you think, Nick?”
“Funny, Ben,” I say with effort.
“Gotta go guys. See y’all in a few weeks.”

“Hey, Arne, don’t go visiting now, you hear,” Ben
has to say.
My thoughts drift back to her as I half-heartedly lis-
ten to Ben. His words seem less interesting than nights
before. He rambles on about his wife wanting a bigger
house when the baby comes.
Finally, after little conversation from me, “Let’s go,
Nick, I could have more fun than this down at the A&P
watching the truck unload. You need to get your head
out of your butt before you go home.”
The busboy has cleared their table and is laying out
fresh silverware as we pass. I open the door to the park-
ing lot with Ben following. None of the diners are walk-
ing to their cars, no headlights glowing. The smell of
newly paved asphalt saturates the air, stark enough to
be associated with the night somewhere in the future.
They’re driving south toward the bars or north to
the apartment and bedroom communities, I guess.
Why waste time? I’m sure they turned north. A sense
of melancholy sweeps through me, leaving a feeling of
discontent.
“Pal, what you did tonight, you need to just forget.
Think about what you’ve got at home. What the hell’s
wrong with you? We’re living the American dream,
man. Keep it in your pants. Think about it. If you get
out of your funk call me Sunday morning and I’ll get us
a tee time around two o’clock.”
[14] Al Gramatas
“Yeah, I’ll call you, Ben.” He shuts his car door and
pulls into the night toward home.
Walking to the car, I think of my words to him a few
months before concerning his pending marriage: “That
Lynn of yours is a heck of a woman, buddy. Marriage
is commitment. My father married for the first time at
forty and when his heart stopped at sixty-four he was
on the bathroom floor with the shaving soap still on his
face.
Before everything went black he told my mother
that he had loved her every day since they had met and
before they took him away, she shaved his face because
she said he never left the house unshaven.
She let them know the funeral home could expect
her there to ‘comb the hair on that beautiful man’s head
the way it should be.’ He was handsome, but that’s not
what my mother was talking about. Do you understand,
Ben?”
Considering my actions tonight, the words seem
synthetic now.
The drive home overflows with thoughts of the last few

hours, the compulsive need to approach her and say
those things, so unlike me. I recall the hue of her blond
hair and the blue-green eyes that were urging the mind
to speak, but words never came.
I remember she almost turned to look back as they
began the walk to their waiting table. As we passed, her
eyes seemed unfocused and the mind into thought, a

meaningful nuance, I wishfully believe.
What sort of voice resides behind that splendid exte-
rior? Have you read Nietzsche and Voltaire or do the
Hollywood tabloids hold your interest? Something half-
way between would be nice.
Her face continues to captivate my mind as if the
genes were predisposed for my benefit, to offer some-
thing extraordinary, especially for me.
“What are you thinking about, Hon?” the wife asks the
next day as I stare into the woods, holding a plate of
kebabs destined for the grill.
“Thinking about Ben. Need to call him about a tee
time,” I say, realizing the lie.
[16] Al Gramatas
[17] Al Gramatas
Chapter 2
“My name is Elizabeth,” the engaging voice said.

”You gave me your business card a few—.”
“Yes,” I interrupt, eagerly and somewhat foolishly.
”I’ve thought of you every day since that night at the
Rainbow two weeks ago. I went back the next Friday
thinking maybe you and the sort of effeminate fellow
in the Madras jacket might return. But after a couple
hours the barkeep said she didn’t think it was going to
happen. So I took her advice and drove home.”
“He’s not effeminate, just good mannered. That was
sort of a foolish thing to do. What would you have done
if we had walked in?”
“I didn’t have a plan. I was goin’ to play it by ear.”
“Are you married, Nick?”
“No. Do I look married?”
“I don’t know how one looks married. Do you wear
that black suit often?”
[18] Al Gramatas
“Noooo,” I say, thinking she dislikes the suit I had

bought just a few months earlier. I hear what sounds
like muted laughter. ”Are you laughing at my suit,
Elizabeth?”
“No, I’m laughing at you sounding like a schoolboy.
Are your parents Greek or Italian?”
“Well, it’s a tad more than that. My father was born
on a Greek island and my mother is a small town girl
from Alabama.”
“Are there any Greeks in the Mafia?”
“Don’t think so. Greeks like to own restaurants so
they can bring cheer to people, not whack ‘em.”
Again, the inviting laughter. ”You have a sense of
humor, don’t you?”
“Yes, and the way you’ve been putting me on since
this conversation began I assume you do, too. Inciden-
tally, Elizabeth, you’re stunning.”
“If I were stunning I’d have more work.”
“How so?”
“Shouldn’t have mentioned it, really, I’ve modeled
part-time since I was twelve. First one was a retail cata-
log doing casual clothes and then this and that, but now
that I’m in my late twenties, it’s different. I’m in their
girl-next-door files and there are a bunch of those types
out there. My five day a week thing is being a hospital
nurse and I love my job.”
“I can picture you in nurse’s attire, sort of a prettier
Florence Nightingale.”
“Don’t get carried away.”
“Sorry, but I have been since my brown eyes caught

sight of you that night. Am I coming on a little too
strong?”
“Probably, how a person might look is only a small
part of what they’re about. One should never base their
opinion of another on that. You believe that, don’t you,
Nick?”
“I did until a few weeks back.”
“What happened then?”
“I saw you.”
The laughter scoots through the telephone line to
my welcoming ear.
“Elizabeth, are you into astrology?”
“In a small way.”
“Well then, as you probably know, most Libras,
including myself, share some common traits. A kind
nature is generally the one most folks would think of.
I’m sure you’d agree if we could be with each other
awhile.”
“What did you have in mind, Mr. Libra?”
“It just so happens I’ve been thinking about that
since the night I saw you, I mean, met you. What about
the Diplomat, if I can get reservations?”
“That’s very expensive.”
“We’re not going Dutch. Don’t concern yourself with
it. Where do I pick you up?”
“We can meet there; I don’t know you and rather not
give you my address. My daddy has always told me to
be cautious of better looking guys.”
[20] Al Gramatas
“If you’ll promise to be there tomorrow night at sev-

en, I’ll do whatever needs doin’ to get the reservation.
Probably be there early in case you are.”
“There’s no need for that, I won’t be early, see you at
seven.”
“Till tomorrow night, Elizabeth.”
“Wait!” ”I forgot to tell you something, it’s
important.”
“Yes.”
“My mother didn’t have sex until she married my
father and I decided when I was a teenager I’d do the
same. I’m aware of how that sounds, at my age and
especially during these times, but that’s how it is. Do
you still want to have dinner? Take a moment before
you answer.”
“I don’t need a moment, Elizabeth. See you at
seven.”
All the selling savvy I could muster was necessary to

lock-up the reservation, I think to myself, waiting near
my car for the restaurant’s valet. I’d heard that most en
vogue eateries leave at least one table open during prime
evening hours to satisfy a late call from a prized cus-
tomer or celebrity floating through town.
The spiel over the phone, about my near lifeless sis-
ter desperately wanting to dine here before she passed
on to the heavens, worked. How could anyone deny
such a request made by a caring brother? Well, only
those few on our planet without a heart, no heart at all.

Superlative selling skills should be classified as an art
form, like ballet or conducting a symphony, I like to
think.
The part-time valet, but full-time Georgia Tech stu-
dent is earning his money, accelerating to the back of
the restaurant to park a car, then to the key box as fast
as possible and on to the next car that’s pulled in. Sweat-
ing and only a quarter till seven, he says his partner car
parker is late.
”I’m dying, man,” he shouts in my direction while
running to deposit another key and carrying a little too
much girth around the middle for his age.
“You need to thank your buddy for showing late.
If you work off a few pounds, maybe one of those pig-
lets over at Tech will let you take her to the Varsity for a
slaw dog and onion rings.”
He tries to laugh but it refuses to come out.
“Stop a moment,” I say, as he’s about to enter my car.
”Here’s a few bucks and all you have to do is tell my
date that I’m in the bar waiting for her and say it to her
real nice.”
“How will I know her, man?”
“You’ll know. She’ll be alone and you’ll still be think-
ing of her when you’re back in your dorm cell tonight.”
“Nick, is that you?” asks a voice from a small red
Volvo that has pulled in, her head sticking partly out-
side the driver’s window.
[22] Al Gramatas
“Yes, I’m here,” I say to the face, fresh as an early

dew, and wondering why I’m thinking that I sound like
the village idiot.
I open the door offering my hand but the car lunges
forward. Her foot hits the brake. She turns the engine
off and lays her head on the steering wheel.
“Are you okay?” as I place my hand on her shoul-
der. ”The same thing happened to me awhile back. I for-
got to put it in Park,” I offer, attempting to lessen the
embarrassment. Gathering the slender hands, I gently
pull her from the car toward me. The slight trembling
fades as the blue-green eyes look up to greet mine. ”I
guess I’m a little early, huh?”
“I thought you might be.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to believe you would.”
The valet is waiting for us to move from the car.
”You’re right, man, I woulda’ known it was her when
she rolled in.”
“What did you say to him?” she asks as the restau-
rant door is opened by an attendant.
“I told him that you would be the best thing to ever
grace his parking lot, something like that.”
“Oh, that was nice, but I’m sure it’s not true.”
“Sir, my name is Nick Andreious,” I say to the mai-
tre d. “This angelic creature and I have arrived at the
appointed hour for what hopefully will be the culi-
nary experience of a lifetime. Where shall we be seat-
ed? Also, would you kindly furnish me with pencil
and writing paper? It seems I’ve left mine behind at the

Constitution.”
“Of course, sir. This way, please.”
“What was that about?” she questions after we’re
seated at the table draped with white cloth, located
away from most of the crowd. Elegant French adorn-
ments enhance the large but intimate room.
“I was trying to impress you, of course, and at a fair-
ly new place like this, they may mistake me for a din-
ing reviewer. If that happens, the meal might be on the
house. At the very least, they’ll do their best to please
us.”
“What would you tell him if he asks if you are a
writer for the Constitution?”
“I’d say that I’m not authorized to divulge that.”
“I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you.”
“I’ve been thinking the same about you, Elizabeth.”
“I’m going to the ladies room. You order for us if the
waiter comes. Just don’t order red meat for me. I never
eat it more than once a week. Maybe seafood would be
nice. Order a glass of Chablis, too, but not a bottle. More
than one glass and I get giddy.”
As she walks away, the dress looks perfect for the
occasion, like the white summer dress the night we met.
She doesn’t glance to the left or right, the body mov-
ing with a sensual presence without any hint of overt
display.
A man and woman engaged in conversation at a
table near her path look up, their eyes following until
[24] Al Gramatas
she is well past. The purse she’s placed on the table for
my safekeeping is refined, like her. I’m gazing at the
purse as she returns.
“There’s a nice attendant in the restroom handling
towels and stuff,” she says after sitting down. ”I told
her I didn’t have my money with me and that I would
be back with a tip. She smiled and said that manage-
ment wouldn’t allow her to accept tips but the man that
does the same thing in the men’s room is allowed to.
That’s not right, you know. So, Nick, what is it you do
for a living or is it that you’re just a kept man?”
“No, no, I sell logistic services for a large compa-
ny, lots of entertaining and laughing at bad jokes. The
fellow I was with the night I met you is a client and a
friend.”
“Did I show the right amount of reluctance before I
accepted your business card that night?”
“Actually, a little too much. I was thinking at the
time if you didn’t take it, I’d drop to the floor and hold
on to your leg until some cop pried my arms off. I had
this insatiable desire to be near you. Not a word escaped
your pretty lips that night, you know.”
“I shouldn’t have taken your card. I was on a date. It
wasn’t the right thing to do and I apologized to him lat-
er but didn’t throw away the card, obviously.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yes, me too.”
“Sir, the pen and paper you requested.” The waiter
is decked out in a short, black tuxedo jacket with a gold
medallion of some significance on the right lapel, serv-

ing notice that it was going to be an expensive evening.
“Thank you. The lady will have lobster and for me,
chateaubriand, light on the béarnaise.”
“How is the wine, sir?”
“Better than Thunderbird.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, I suppose,” The waiter turns to
walk away.
“Elizabeth, tell me everything about yourself from
the day you were born.”
Our words flow as if tonight will be the only oppor-
tunity, like something dangerous might happen tomor-
row. We want to explore everything tonight, just in
case.
She recounts the growing up years in Memphis, the
only child of a physician and a mother who aspired to
be the same, then derailed after meeting her future hus-
band in medical school and having the baby Elizabeth
to care for. ”He still smiles at her the same way he did
when I was a child.”
The family trips are recalled, Europe and the Orient
and other interesting places I have never seen, begin-
ning when she was very young.
She recollects in detail the night of her tenth birth-
day, tagging along with her father at the hospital to visit
patients, then praying for them at bedtime. She speaks
kindly of the boyfriend in high school before dissolving
the relationship during their freshman year of college.

[26] Al Gramatas
There was nursing school before working in her

father’s practice, then moving here to be near her best
friend since childhood and to ”see what Atlanta is
about.”
The words leave me thirsting for more, her bright-
ness of thought darting here and then there, filling my
emotional reservoir, a dormant, hungry place I didn’t
know existed before tonight.
I tell her about the earlier years: growing up in a
small town, riding my bike to the city pool and playing
baseball until the summer sun was gone and standing
on a box behind the cash register in my father’s restau-
rant as a kid, taking payment from customers.
But when I chat about the cheerleader I dated dur-
ing the senior year of high school, I fail to mention we’re
married now and that she will probably be asleep in the
bed we share when I return home.
The dishes had been taken away much earlier by the
time the Head Chef puts his hands on our table to solic-
it praise for the food he had prepared and to temporar-
ily relieve his tired, stubby legs.
My compliments are greeted with a smile and then
he looks only at Elizabeth. A heavy French accent influ-
ences each word, rendering much of his chatter indeci-
pherable, but only for me. She begins speaking in his
native language. He becomes captivated and contin-
ues babbling until she asks directions to the toilette. He
retreats to his kitchen, finally.
“Guess I shouldn’t have let him know I speak a little

French. Sorry, I don’t know that much, actually.”
“I adore that Memphis voice in any language. He
seemed tired from a busy night in the kitchen. He needs
to go home.”
“Speaking of home, I can’t believe we’re still here,
it’s almost eleven. I really need to head for my apart-
ment and get in bed. I have to be at work at seven and
I’m always there a little early to discuss what happened
overnight with the other nurses before they leave.”
The room has been full most of the night and now
only the two of us and a table of Japanese businessmen,
some looking our way with envious faces, remain. The
manager thanks us for being the restaurant’s guests
as he retrieves our keys before we walk into the warm
night air. Our cars are parked adjacent to the door by
the now gone Tech student.
“Elizabeth,” I begin, as I open her car door. ”The
woman an hour or so ago who touched your shoulder
on her way out, you know her?”
“No.”
“She sort of paused half a second and then moved
on with her husband or whoever it was. Do you remem-
ber that?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why do you suppose she did that?”
“They were at the table to our left. She was seated
facing us.”
“And so?”
[28] Al Gramatas
“You wouldn’t understand, it’s a woman sort of

thing. She thought we were having a nice time. I’ll
explain it to you sometime.” I close her car door.
“If you say so, but I’ve got a feminine side, you
know.”
“I’m not sure you have a feminine side, Nick. Good
night.”
“Can we see each other again?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have your telephone number.”
“If you’re a good boy, I may give it to you. I’ll call.”
“I miss you already, Elizabeth.”
“You can’t miss someone when you’re with them.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Give me a little good night peck, Nick. I have to
go.”
I gaze at the flawless profile while she locates the
headlight switch and engages the transmission. Her
face turns toward me, illuminated by the remaining
lights from the restaurant. She allows my kiss on her
tender lips to last the precise amount of time to confirm
the magic, not a second more, and then turns right onto
the late night street, without looking either way.
[29] Al Gramatas
Chapter 3
During the days that follow, I’m absorbed with

thoughts of Elizabeth and what might be. Since our din-
ner, feelings for my wife have become altered, unset-
tled. The harshness that seemed to simmer under her
skin before is now more conspicuous, the contentious-
ness of her demeanor more noticeable.
There had always been a sense of unrest laying in
wait to be drawn on at any hint of provocation, whether
real or imagined, dormant thoughts now lay exposed.
I try to temper these heightened perceptions by
remembering the earlier, brighter times, not so long ago:
the soft summer nights at seventeen, sitting in my car
outside the Baptist church, listening to her pound the
piano keys to the choirs’ last offering, “Amazing Grace,”
and waiting for the dash from opened double doors for
our ride to the drive-in theatre north of town where we
would do things teenagers do and talk of the future.
[30] Al Gramatas
And on her parents’ porch on Sunday afternoons, I

would listen while her father imparted simple snippets
of wisdom, invaluable for a precocious teenager with a
wild streak, but without a father of my own.
Late at night from the car parked in an alleyway,
we would see a bathroom window curtain move, reas-
suring himself his daughter wasn’t going too far with
the boy carrying such an unusual last name for a small
Southern town.
We married at the large downtown Baptist church
that supported a red face preacher with an Irish accent
and then sped off to Atlanta, thinking we were a little
too quick on the draw for the town of our birth.
Memories are unable to erase the feelings for anoth-
er. My conception of happiness has been reshaped—
nothing can be the same again. The infatuation with
Elizabeth could pass, I tell myself with insufficient con-
viction, still thinking of her at the restaurant, finger-
tips provocatively touching the necklace, significant in
a way only a man can fully appreciate and understand.
“Arne, how goes it?”

“Over worked and underpaid,” my friend replies
over the phone. ”Just got back from an assignment in
Tennessee. What’s up Nick?”
“Actually, I’ve been calling your place since Sunday.
I’m in a pickle, I need your help.”
“Hope it’s not like Ben when he got that DUI driv-
ing home last winter. I was downtown half the night
bailing his ass out.”
“No, nothing like that. It began the night you went
to Florida with your lady. You stopped off at the Rain-
bow to say hello to Ben and me. Well, I met a woman
there. It’s a long story, there was a wreck outside and
I’ll tell you everything later. Anyway, she called me at
work a couple of weeks later and we had dinner and I
can’t shake it. I’m nuts about her.”
“This is getting a little crazy. Did you forget you had
a wife at home when you were doing this shit?”
“I know it’s not good and I can’t believe it’s happen-
ing myself.”
“Guess you already popped her, right, Nick?”
“Far from it, but I lied. When she asked on the phone
if I was married, I said no. If I’d said yes, she would have
hung up. It was the tone of her voice, deliberate, I know
she would have. It was the only thing I could do, and
then at dinner she asked for my phone number, and I
gave her yours, it was the first thing that popped in my
head. That’s why I need your help. I want you to pre-
tend we share your apartment if she calls there, won’t
be for long.”
“Nick, this isn’t like you and it’s crazy. Not good for
anybody. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“I understand how you feel but this isn’t the time
for moralizing. You’re either my friend or not, simple as
that.”
[32] Al Gramatas
“Yeah, I’m your friend but in the pro sports there’s

a term they use when a call is highly contested – play-
ing under protest. I’ll go along with this and give you a
chance to do whatever you’re going to do, but I’m play-
ing under protest and I’m going to feel like shit while
I’m doing it.”
“I’ll resolve this situation soon. I promise.”
I knew how Arne would react before he opened his

mouth. He speaks often of widespread infidelity in the
professional sports world with disdain and has become
jaded in much the same way a cop becomes weary of
seeing too much of life’s underbelly.
I feel I’m letting people down, most of all, the wife.
My life is being uncontrollably reshaped; the past of
only weeks before, irretrievable.
There has not been a call from her for more than a week
and I’m tortured with thoughts, expectations of the
worst. My anxiety tells me our night at the restaurant
meant nothing, or possibly another caught her attention.
A completely new experience I have taken on, wanting
someone, not knowing if she feels the same.
“Nick?” The one word nullifies all my insecurities.

“Yes, Elizabeth, great to hear your voice. How are
you?”
“Good. What are you doing Sunday afternoon?”

“I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that whatever I’ll
be doing will be done near you.”
“Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re beyond the
pale?”
“No, I don’t know anyone intelligent enough to say
something like that.”
“You make me laugh, Nick, you do. I’m calling to
invite you to come with me to celebrate the retirement
of a lovely man who has known me since I was born.
The reception party will be here at Georgia Baptist Hos-
pital, where I work.”
Driving through town to the hospital across rain-

drenched streets, I feel no guilt. There can sometimes
be things in life that are too enormous, refusing to be
bound or judged by conventional codes. My life should
be like this, I’m thinking, as she talks about Dr. Samu-
el retiring as Head Administrator. She interrupts her-
self, asking me to slow down a teeny-weeny bit because
of the rain. The inflection of her words, tactful, yet
enchantingly tender.
The large room is austere but without the faint smell of

sickness in the corridor we had come from.
“Girl, I’m so glad you came. You know that, don’t
you?”
[34] Al Gramatas
He is a small man with little hair, but with the pres-

ence a person should have in the position he is vacat-
ing. His narrow face radiates a warm smile as he greets
Elizabeth.
“Don’t be silly. You know I couldn’t miss this. Daddy
and Mother have a special present for you. They mailed
it today. Dr. Sam, this is my friend, Nick.”
He greets me with a handshake one would expect
from a surgeon of many years, and with an inviting
expression laced with underlying apprehensiveness.
”Good to meet you, young man, how long have you
known my godchild?”
“We met about a month ago. She’s limited our asso-
ciation to a dinner date and today, but I hope there’s
more to come.”
“Yes son, many have wished that. Did she tell you
I was in the room at her birth? Her father Jack was my
student in medical school. My wife, Anne, has assem-
bled a year-to-year photo album of Elizabeth, the birth-
days, proms, first day at college, everything. The last
one is of Elizabeth and her parents while she was mov-
ing into the apartment on Buford Highway. Jack wanted
her to live with us for a while but she wanted her own
place. Anne and I were unable to have children.”
“Is your wife here, Dr. Samuel?”
“Yes, Nick, she’s upstairs distributing magazines
and bringing warmth to the infirmed and may come
down later. Anne said she’s seen enough of me in the
last forty-five years and is not going to stand around
here for three hours watching me talk to people. She’s

too damn independent. I need to get me a younger
woman I can control.”
“Dr. Sam,” Elizabeth says, ”If Anne wasn’t around,
you’d perish.”
“Yes, dear, you’re probably right.”
Regardless of where he steps, he draws us near with
a gentle hand on Elizabeth’s arm or a gesture. He moves
about the room like an old politician, shaking hands,
a pat on a back here and there, always with a sincere,
reassuring smile.
”This institution will continue its road to excellence
without me, Alice,” he says to a middle-aged female
admirer with moist brown eyes. ”My successor has a
great sense of purpose. He’s dedicated to the employees
and the people we serve.”
He turns to Elizabeth, placing a hand on her lower
back. ”Elizabeth, you probably haven’t met Mr. Lowe,
the hospital’s procurement manager. He purchas-
es everything we need, including multi-million dollar
machines.”
Without warning, the evening takes an unforesee-
able turn as a man interrupts Mr. Lowe’s conversation:
“Dr. Samuel, good evening. I don’t believe you’ve
met my wife, Joan. Please introduce me to this pretty
thing. Do you work at the hospital, dear?”
“You foolish person, aren’t you aware that you’ve
insulted both me and your wife,” Elizabeth turns to
walk toward the corridor. I instinctively point my fin-
[36] Al Gramatas
ger in the man’s embarrassed face. As I turn, Dr. Sam-

uel is following step-for-step. Entering the corridor he
grabs my hand, like a small child in distress.
“Nick, she’s going into the women’s room. Let her be
alone for a few minutes. You’ve known Elizabeth for a
short time, but do you care for her at all?”
“I love her.”
“Well then, you have to do something important for
yourself and me and everyone who loves her. Are you
listening, Nick?” as I stare at the door she’s entered.
“Yes, of course.”
“Since childhood Elizabeth has had this acute sense
of empathy for those treated unfairly. She had distaste
for that ‘pretty thing’ remark, mostly because he said
it in front of his wife and she knew it was embarrass-
ing for her. Elizabeth would have let it go if it wasn’t for
that. For the most part, she deals with things like we all
do, but she doesn’t have the tolerance most of us have
and every so often something like today happens.”
“Are you saying it’s a mental problem?”
“No, son, I think of it as a gift. I can envision a world
where everyone is as mindful of not hurting others as
she is, it’d be a much better place to live. Now, when
Elizabeth comes out she may be in a different mood.
Don’t mention the incident. Just be supportive and stay
with her as late as possible. She shouldn’t go to bed
tonight with this on her mind. The man who made the
comment is a physician I’ve known for many years. He’s
not a bad person. They had attended a wedding recep-
tion earlier and he probably had a couple cocktails.

I’ll have him send a card of apology to Elizabeth. The
Board of Directors has arranged a dinner for Anne and
me tonight, otherwise I would invite Elizabeth to our
house. Everything will be fine. You understand how
much she means to us, don’t you Nick?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Darn rain,” I say, hoping for a response that nev-

er comes, her eyes staring through windshield wipers
working at full speed.
“I’m glad you came with me for Dr Sam’s retire-
ment,” she says after long minutes of silence. ”I think he
probably likes you.”
“I hope so. I didn’t say anything to offend, like I usu-
ally do?”
“No, Nick, you’re the epitome of a social chameleon.
You can impress anyone when you have the need. You
impressed me, didn’t you?”
“The same answer as before, I hope so.”
“Why do you suppose all the other drivers are going
slower than you?”
“Your point is well taken, dear.”
“Did you say dear to placate me or something
more?”
“Both.”
Few words are spoken during the remaining miles
to her place. The sound of rain pounding on the car
[38] Al Gramatas
roof is more pronounced, after turning north onto the

Freeway.
She looks forward, without expression, as if the
cadence of the windshield wipers has cast a hypnotic
trance. I consider a joke, but decide not to voice it.
Placing my hand on her neck or knee comes to mind,
but I do nothing, realizing she wants to be alone, with
her thoughts, without my intrusion. I recall everything
she said on the way down to the hospital, letting those
words replace the silence.
“I wouldn’t make a good host tonight, Nick. Just need

to go to sleep,” as I return the key, after unlocking the
green door to her apartment.
“How about an hour of TV?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Will you be okay?”
“Sure, everything will be fine.”
“Good night, then,” I can only reply, as the door is
gently closed.
I stand in the breezeway, concerned, staring at the
rain bouncing off the roof of my company car and her
red Volvo.
The door opens. I turn to see her standing in the
doorway. ”I didn’t hear you go down the steps. Are you
going to stand there all night?”
“You might need me for something.”
The laughter is the first since leaving the hospital.

”You’re crazy. Want to tuck me in? I’m not implying
anything more than that. Do you understand?”
“Yes, and it’ll be the highlight of my day, dear.”
“I stayed with my friend from Memphis who lives
in Dunwoody during the time I was looking for the
apartment,” she says on her way to the bathroom to
brush her white teeth. ”She told me to look at Riverbend
up in Marietta or around here, so I found this, almost
new and somewhat affordable. Then Daddy tells me
he’s going to pay the monthly rent. I was furious with
him. I said ‘Daddy, why didn’t you tell me that before I
moved here, I would have gotten a larger place’ and he
said ‘that’s the reason I didn’t tell you’ and he was right
of course. Aren’t you going to ask me about the tick-tick
sound?”
“Sounds like the timer my mother had on the stove
when I was growing up.”
“What was the color?”
“White.”
“This came from my mother’s stove. It’s white,” she
says, the words coming between teeth brushings. ”My
daddy put it in my bathroom when I was twelve or so.
His best friend is a dentist and he told my daddy every-
one should brush their teeth for at least three minutes.
I’ll be ready in a minute.”
The placement and quality of each piece of furniture
in the relatively small living room resembles a smaller
[40] Al Gramatas
version of the house she grew up in, I assume for no

particular reason as she beckons me from the bedroom.
“Do you feel okey-dokey?” I say, sitting on the bed
next to her, now in thin, pink two-piece pajamas.
“Yes, but I feel spent, you know. I’m sorry about
what happened, but he shouldn’t have said that. Can
you imagine how his wife felt? I’ll call Dr. Sam in the
morning to apologize.”
“That’s not necessary. I spoke with him while you
were in the ladies’ room. He understood. An apology
isn’t necessary. Maybe I should’ve made the fellow’s
simple face even uglier with a fist to the teeth.”
“Glad you didn’t, that would have been stupid. Tuck
me in. There’s something about you that I trust and I
don’t know why.”
I pull the pink sheet over the smooth shoulders,
accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. The sensual smell
remains as I stand.
“I may wait a few minutes to see if the rain slacks.
I’ll make sure that I turn the inside lock hickey on the
door before I go.”
“Be careful, Nick. Please don’t drive fast.”
“Will not, promise,” assuring her, before pulling the
bedroom door shut.
I sit on the couch looking at the rain pound on the
sliding glass door to the sun-room, abating now and
then into a restful silence. The events of the day rush
through my mind. Her reaction to the man’s remark
was a little overboard. Most would have let it pass. She
was concerned the words he used to praise her, embar-

rassed his wife, I ponder, wishing my idiosyncrasies
were as admirable.
The couch slowly becomes my bed. I prefer to stay
here tonight, only a room away. The feel of the paja-
ma cloth as I pulled the sheet over your shoulders and
that face framed by blond hair strewn on the pillow was
almost more than I could take without enveloping you.
It’s not exactly lust; afoot here is something more spe-
cial, Elizabeth.
When you turn to look at me, with the eyes trailing
my way a second later, do all men go crazy over that?
Even the little boys probably did when you were ten. I
love watching those bare feet walk from here to there in
the apartment. There’s something in the way you move.
And the voice, I love listening. All in all, remarkable,
divine. I’m flying like a bird across the sky. Euphoric
contentment sweeps through me, a nirvana in its purest
and most delicate form, before sleep comes.
The neon sign in the window of the women’s shop was

flashing ‘open’ ever second or so when I turned the
doorknob to enter. It seemed like a sign to be hung in
the window of a liquor store or Chinese restaurant, but
not where ladies things are sold.
I walk in to buy something for my wife’s birthday.
The mall, with its abundance of things, is only a few
miles away, yet, I’m drawn to the gaudy sign. The inte-
[42] Al Gramatas
rior is smaller than I expected. The sales clerk goes from

one customer to the next, making suggestions. She tells
a woman with wide hips that the full pleats she holds
may not be the best choice and then sends her off to
the fitting room with different pants, pulled from its
hanger.
She impresses me, using the right words, with a sin-
cere smile. The customer will not think of herself, in
this store, as overweight.
The clerk approaches me to ask if I’m looking to
select something for my wife. I tell her today is my sis-
ter’s birthday, not knowing why I lied. She pulls a hair
clasp, held a second between white teeth and puts it in
blond hair, while I’m unable to take my sight from the
blue-green eyes.
I ask why someone like her would work in a place
with such a crude sign in the window. Her smile fades
before she tells me there is no flashing sign and that she
knew the present was not for my sister.
A loud shriek loosens me from the bad dream at

daybreak.
“Nick, for a few seconds I didn’t recognize you.
I thought someone had broken in. My heart almost
stopped. You were supposed to leave last night. Why
are you here?”
“To protect you from other men.”
She says nothing and plops the full length of her

body on mine, the face resting on my shoulder, her
warm breath soothing my neck.
“Can we stay this way for awhile?” I say softly from
under jasmine-scented hair.
“Yes.”
“Why does your hair look so beautiful when it’s
messed up?”
“I don’t know, silly.”
“Elizabeth, may I retract my earlier thought? You’re
smashing my bladder. I’m in excruciating pain. I have
to go.”
“Me too,” she smiles.
“Aren’t you going to your office today? ” she asks while

preparing toast.
“I’m the boss, I don’t got to, and since this is your off
day I thought I’d hang around with you awhile if that’s
okay.”
“I’m going to the park later. You want to come?”
“Of course, can I have butter for my toast?”
“I don’t have butter.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have butter?”
“It’s not good for you. Eat your toast and drink your
grapefruit juice like a good boy.”
The phone rings out from across the room. ”Ah ha,
do your boyfriends usually call this early?”
[44] Al Gramatas
”I don’t have a boyfrin–Good morning, Daddy… yes,

I told him y’all mailed his present yesterday…Oh, may-
be a hundred people were there…Daddy, Nick is here.
We’re going to the park later. Want to talk to him while I
take a shower… Love you too.”
“Good morning, Dr. Johnson.” The liveliness of the

voice, like his daughter’s, is engaging.
“Well Nick, just being in her apartment means you
got a shot. I don’t think anyone has been there when I’ve
called before and I call just about everyday. Heck, I may
never have grandkids. The last person she cared about
was probably Will. Did she tell you about him?”
“No sir.”
“She and Will went steady their senior year in high
school. Come to think of it, I don’t know if young peo-
ple use that word anymore. Anyway, we would all go
over to his father’s place on the lake. It was the first time
I’d ever ridden in a boat. Will was a big football and bas-
ketball guy in school. He was always smiling but when
game time came he was all business.
“Elizabeth started calling him Buster. She thought
he looked like a character in a Broadway play we went
to when she was little and then everybody started call-
ing him Buster. I don’t think he minded though, any-
thing she did was all right with him.
“He and his best friend rented a limousine for the
prom and Elizabeth wouldn’t go in it,” he rambled on.
”She told him that no one else would be there in one

and she refused to get in so I loaned him my car. I don’t
think he ever got any of his money back.
They went off to school at UT in Knoxville togeth-
er and about halfway through their freshman year I get
a call from her on a Saturday morning explaining that
she’s coming to Memphis to tell Will she’s breaking up
with him.
“Will had come to Memphis to see his folks because
he didn’t have any classes till the following Tuesday. I
asked why in the world didn’t she wait till he got back
to school and she said that wouldn’t be fair to him
because he should know and she drives all the way to
Memphis and spends a couple hours with him Saturday
night and then comes to our house to sleep.
“I was telling her that I thought she loved Will
and she said she had never experienced love and what
attracted her to Will was that he was handsome and his
daddy owned half of Memphis.
“Then she said the most exceptional thing about
Will was that he had such a beautiful heart. She was
sad that night. We heard her tossing and turning in bed
like she did when she was little. I still don’t understand
why she didn’t wait till he got back to Knoxville. She’s
like her mother: when she makes her mind up, there she
goes, doesn’t matter if it makes practical sense or not.”
There was a pause, perhaps time contemplating
the new topic of conversation. ”So how do you like
[46] Al Gramatas
her apartment? She’s got it fixed up nice, wouldn’t you

say?”
“Yes, sir, super nice. She mentioned you’re helping
with the rent.”
“Nurses salaries aren’t what they should be. I didn’t
want her to starve down there. I know what it’s like to
have no money. Did she tell you about the apartment we
lived in until she was four?”
“I don’t believe so,” I reply, thinking that I’ll know
ninety percent of their family history before I get off of
the phone.
“It was dark and drab. They tore them down a few
years ago. I met my wife in medical school. There were
only three females in the whole damned school the year
we began. After Elizabeth was born, I got a loan at the
bank for two hundred dollars just to pay the rent. Our
parents couldn’t help us financially so we both had part-
time jobs, we were struggling.
“My wife and I were playing canasta on the kitch-
en table and Elizabeth was sitting in the high chair eat-
ing crackers. Betty puts her cards down on the table and
says, ‘Jack we can’t go on like this. There can only be
one doctor in this family.’ I ask her who it was going to
be and she said ‘Let’s flip on it.’ She called heads and the
dime bounces off the table onto the floor by her foot. She
picked it up and said, ‘Tails. I guess you’ll be the doctor
in the family.’ Then we started playing cards again as if
nothing had happened and we’ve never talked about it
to this day.”
“Did you see the dime on the floor before she picked
it up?”
“Nope, couldn’t see through the table.”
“Has it ever crossed your mind that it might have
been heads?” I inquire, peering down the hall, noticing
the shower had been turned off.
“Nope,” Dr. Johnson asserted. ”She wanted to be the
one, but she lost. She’s like Elizabeth: won’t lie or con-
nive. She could have said heads but she didn’t, end of
story.”
“That was very poignant. Thanks for sharing it with
me. I hope to meet you and your wife soon.”
“We’d like that very much, Nick. You’ll understand
the importance only if you have a daughter of your own
someday. Elizabeth has mentioned you to us on a cou-
ple occasions.”
“What sort of things did she say?”
“Can’t tell you. She might come to Memphis and
give me a tongue lashing. Let’s just say it’s positive.”
“Your daughter seems to be about ready to go to the
park.” I offer, seeing Elizabeth exit the bath, fresh and
radiant. ”I suppose I need to see if there’s anything to
be loaded in the car.”
“Y’all have a wonderful day. Goodbye, Nick.”
“Goodbye, Dr. Johnson.”
“Hold on! Hold on! Betty wants to talk with you a
minute. Are you there?”
“Yes.”
[48] Al Gramatas
A heavy yet feminine woman’s voice chimed

through the phone. ”Nick, how are you?”
“Fine, Mrs. Johnson, and you?”
“Good—and you can call me Betty. I just wanted to
hear your voice and speak with you a minute or two.
Elizabeth has spoken of you.”
“Yes, your husband mentioned that, but he wouldn’t
divulge anything more.”
“Elizabeth likes you, Nick. We ask her questions, the
kind all parents ask their children.”
“Of course.”
“She says you and I are similar in one respect. We
say what we think, maybe a little too direct with people
some time.”
“Yes, I was scolded by Elizabeth a week or so ago
at a restaurant for being critical of a waiter. She lets me
know when I go overboard.”
“I’m not criticizing,” Mrs. Johnson disclaimed. “I’m
only saying when we talk to each other, neither will be
perturbed by the other, if that makes any sense.”
“Yes.”
“I overheard most of what Jack told you. I love him
but he talks too much, spending all that time talking
about stuff that has nothing to do with the present.
Elizabeth has known you for only a short time. We wor-
ry about her. We don’t want her to be hurt.”
“I would never do anything to harm your daugh-
ter,” I respond, while guilt stabs my brain, realizing my
big lie may cause Elizabeth hurt someday, in some way.
“She said you dress nicely and sell intangibles or

something, as I understand it, and live with a friend. I
suspect you have other lady friends. Is that true?”
“No, that’s not true,” knowing it is the only answer
to give and feeling less of a human being every time I
lie.
“I care for her as much or more than whatever she
may have said to you about her feelings for me. My
father died when I was fifteen and was not wealthy like
Will’s dad, but I have a good job and look to the future.
“I say these things because there’s something in my
mind that tells me you hoped she would have married
Will and you couldn’t really understand why she turned
down the wealth and a good man. You’ve not gotten
past that and now anyone she cares about is suspect. Is
that the way it is and am I being too direct, Betty?”
“She said you were perceptive. I liked Will. He
would have made a good husband and taken care of
Elizabeth. She’s more fragile than she seems. Please
remember that. Hope to see you soon, Nick, when we
can get to Atlanta.”
“Same here, Betty, goodbye.”
I sit on the couch waiting for Elizabeth to dress,
thinking of Betty’s questions and the concern for her
only child, my guilt increasing with each word she
spoke. I’ll tell her that I’m married now, before we drive
to the park. She’ll tell me to leave and that will be all
there is.
[50] Al Gramatas
“Did Mother beat you up pretty badly,” she says,

with laughter, on her way to the kitchen.
“She put things in perspective for me.”
“I haven’t told you about my first date,” as she con-
tinues to gather things for the park. (sentence structure)
“I was sixteen and he came to the house in his Father’s
new Buick. Mother was on the phone with somebody
upstairs and me and Daddy were standing in the front
yard with him.
“Daddy was admiring the car, telling him that his
family had made a wise choice and all of a sudden
mother comes out the door to make sure he knows that
I must be home by ten o’clock. And then she notices he
doesn’t have a watch, so she takes hers off and puts it on
his arm.
“It wasn’t the nice one Daddy bought for her when
we were in Switzerland. It was a cheap thing she’d worn
around the house for years. The clasp to lock the wrist
chain in place was damaged so she had to manipulate
it just right to put it on or take it off. It looked so silly on
his arm with the short sleeve shirt he was wearing. He
was so embarrassed when he would look down at that
small woman’s watch.
“When we drove off, I told him I’d try to undo the
latch and he could put it back on before we returned
home, but he was afraid we might break it and what
Mother might do. When we were standing in line for
movie tickets, he stuffed his hand down in his pants
pocket as far as it would go to hide the watch from oth-

er kids in line who we knew. It was all so funny, Nick.”
“Yes, it was. I love the way you describe things.”
“Do I look nice? Will the ducks like me in this?” she
asks, standing before me, mimicking a model’s pose.
“You look wonderful. The ducks will be pleased,” I
say, mesmerized for the millionth time.
“No, don’t turn here. Go over to Briarcliff Road,” she

says, while I’m heading east on Fourteenth Street and
thinking that this is not the right time to tell her. Every-
thing is too perfect today.
“We’re not going to Piedmont Park?”
“No, it’s a small park near the horse stables on Briar-
cliff Road. Do you know where I’m talking about?”
“Yeah. I know where the stables are, but I’ve never
noticed the park.”
“It’s neat. I was stopped in traffic a few weeks ago
and saw a duck through the foliage and went back on
the weekend. She and her male companion were float-
ing around in the pond until I fed them bread and the
three of us became friends.”
“How do you know their gender?”
“Personality, silly.”
“Excuse my ignorance, Elizabeth. I should’ve known
that. Did you bring the whole-wheat bread?”
“Of course, white bread isn’t good for any living
creature, including you.”
[52] Al Gramatas
“Frankly, Elizabeth, I have no idea how I’ve lived to

be thirty three years old abusing my body with all that
good tastin’ white bread. I’ll be forever grateful for that
information.”
“Nick, stop with the words and pull over, well off
the road.”
“Where’s the walkway?” I ask, stepping from the
car.
“There isn’t one. Walk through there toward the big
oak.”
The thought of being transported from a noisy car-
nival midway to a peaceful utopia in some far part of
the world comes to mind, as my eyes gaze on the small
park and miniature lake, together occupying a space
not much larger than a large house.
“I see why you come here, a lovely place indeed,
someone has spent lots of time manicuring. It proba-
bly belongs to the folks in the white house behind the
pecan trees.”
“I think so. The last time I was here an elderly man
came out the front door and waved. After I returned his
wave he went back inside. I suppose they don’t mind if
people come here for a while.”
“Elizabeth, I want a place of our own like this some
day, where I can sit and watch your blond head turn to
gray while you hold my wrinkled hand.”
“I knew you’d say something like that before we
came.”
“Really?”
A smile, passed over the shoulder, is her only reply.

“Ducky, ducky,” she calls to the unseen twosome in
between conversation with the less important me.
They appear from the bushes slowly waddling
directly toward her, heads cocked to one side and then
the other, as if wanting confirmation that this was the
one from before, with the brown bread and soothing
voice. Their pace speeds up, after concluding she is the
friend. They stand near, accepting snippets of bread
tossed on the ground, never bickering over the other’s
good fortune, taking their turn.
“Elizabeth, what’s the most beautiful thing your
eyes have ever seen?” I lounge on the blanket, enjoying
life more than ever, feeling things I’ve never known.
“Sometimes you tickle me, the way a thought pops
in your head, like that. Ther’re so many beautiful things
in the world. Let me think, maybe the Pieta.”
“I’m not sure …”
“A sculpture by Michelangelo, depicting the Madon-
na holding the body of an adult Christ on her knees like
a sleeping infant. It’s the first thing you see entering
the main basilica at the Vatican. You don’t have to be a
believer to appreciate the significance—its beauty tran-
scends beyond any religious stuff.”
Unhurriedly, she talks of things and places she’s
seen, transporting me there with words, sometimes
stopping in mid-sentence, allowing time for a mother-
ly response to a duck’s quack. In between her thoughts,
[54] Al Gramatas
I’m mostly silent and reflective, preferring to wait for

her voice, rather than hearing my own.
Her eyes look upward from the lap, darting from
place to place, embracing the small lake for a few sec-
onds, then moving to locate the ducks and finally set-
tling my way with a smile. All the while, the hands and
fingers are guiding knitting needles and brown thread
into an unfinished edge of cloth, the intricate rhythm
remaining the same, regardless of where the eyes
wander.
The larger duck nips at the edge of our blue blanket,
wanting more bread or attention, maybe both.
“I think we should go, don’t want to wear out our
welcome with the people in the white house,” she rea-
sons. “We’ve been here almost an hour, you know.”
The traffic whizzes by as we approach the car, driv-
ers attempting to get somewhere to do something of
less worth than our experience in the park, I think, clos-
ing her door.
“Let’s come back next week Elizabeth,” as I began to
pull onto the roadway.
“Stop the car!” she shouts. “The ducks are going to
be killed!”
She springs out, scampering to the rear to cut off the
ducks’ path toward the busy street.
“They wanted to say goodbye,” I call out, before she
disappears into the bushes, a duck corralled in each
arm, returning a few minutes later with soiled knee
length white shorts and disheveled blouse.
I pull onto the roadway with John Lennon’s ”Imag-

ine” on the FM dial, telling the world what could be.
“Let’s go to my apartment so I can change clothes
before we do lunch,” after brushing red dirt from her
blouse.
“Nick, those darn ducks, they’re dumber than most
barnyard animals, you know, but aren’t they precious?”
Golden moments arrive sweetly, on soft feet, steal-
ing another piece of my heart. She looks backward, but
the ducks do not reappear, prompting a bright eyed
smile.
“I think they’ve settled in, don’t you?”
“Yes, Elizabeth, I’m sure they’ve settled in.”
In mid-afternoon, I ease the car into a space in front of

her favorite ice cream shop to purchase the usual two
scoops of strawberry in a cup and my one scoop of the
same, mounted on a wafer cone.
We drive to a place not far away, feet from the Chat-
tahoochee River. It’s a place I’ve visited often over the
last several years, by myself, to think a business prob-
lem through, but mostly to enjoy the solitude.
The last time here, an older man and a young one
were up-river, both wearing waders to keep the chill of
the fast current from their legs. Before I departed, the
older man pulled several trout from his bending fly rod
and the younger man, none, as I recall.
[56] Al Gramatas
Today, there is only the two of us and an occasion-

al couple, lounging on their inner tubes, floating south,
disappearing as they round the bend, toward Atlanta.
I put my hands around the scant waist, to sit her
atop the table, settling her feet away from the nail head
that has worked its way slightly from the weathered
bench.
She’s happy I’ve brought her here. I can tell, by the
expression on her face, and body language. Fingers
on the spoon remove small bits of ice cream at a time,
allowing her words to flow, unrestrained.
She describes the flowing river and moss covered
trees lining the bank, in words more vivid than those
of Thoreau, and then becomes quiet; rushing water, the
only remaining sound.
I think of her smile, during lunch, when the small
child ran to her mother and out the corner of my eye, I
saw the extra money she laid on the table for the hard
luck waitress, who told us her story of woe.
She walks nearby to deposit the ice cream contain-
er in a waste can and returns to sit near me, more close
than before. My hand is pulled into her lap, held tight,
as if it might escape.
“Do you think about me, when we’re not together,”
she says, with eyes fixed on the flowing river.
“You know I do.”
[57] Al Gramatas
Chapter 4
Some eight weeks after offering my business card

at the Rainbow, we’re together for some portion of
almost every day. My wife rarely questions the absence,
aware that client entertainment and traveling have been
an integral part of my job for the past several years.
Those pursuits have been replaced, for the most part,
by something more immediately gratifying. Admitted-
ly, the amount of time I devote to Elizabeth in mind and
body is excessive, but it is the only place where content-
ment resides. I can only imagine the suffering experi-
enced by those who are obsessed like myself but are
without reciprocating love, unfathomable.
A physician in the hospital cafeteria is occasionally

summoned by the intercom to difficulties upstairs.
[58] Al Gramatas
“Elizabeth, is this Nick?” asks the nurse on her way

to a table with her tray of noontime food.
“No Libby, this is Eduardo. I use him only to satisfy
my carnal desires,” she says, sitting across from me and
sucking on a straw, relieving the container of its last
inch of lemonade. Her symmetrical face and blond hair
are accented by the whiteness of a perfectly fitted uni-
form, everything unsoiled, bright.
“Yes, Libby, I’m Nick. Good to meet you. I’d like to
think there is no Eduardo.”
“There isn’t, just you.”
“Libby, you can get that nice seat by the window if
you hurry.”
“Is she this playful when she’s upstairs?”
“Not really, she’s all business. Bye, Nick, I think I’ve
said too much already.”
“Bye, Libby.”
“You were sort of sharp with her, weren’t you?”
“She talks too much sometimes,” she says, pushing
away the emptied container. “When I get off at three,
I’m going to scoot down to Rich’s. There’s a summer
dress sale, want to meet me there?”
“I could pick you up here at three.”
“Do you work anymore?”
“Let’s just say that you’re my priority at this point
and time in my life, Elizabeth.”
“What will I do with you?”
“Anything you wish.”
Her laughter makes me feel good, all over.
“What do you think?” She’s barefoot, swirling in

front of a three-sided full-length mirror in the third
dress she’s modeled.
“Looks splendid on you, same as the others.”
Her slight smile disappears as a couple to my left
catches her eye. A thick waisted woman of little femi-
nine refinement stands in front of her husband, wear-
ing the same dress as Elizabeth. The back zipper isn’t
completely zipped with the price tag dangling as if it
had been defeated. Elizabeth darts into the dressing
room and emerges later with the dress of her choice.
“That was a nice thing you did,” I comment, as we
enter the elevator on the way to the car.
“You’re perceptive too, aren’t you Nick?”
“What does the word ‘too’ imply?”
“That it’s not your only quality.”
“You know, her husband didn’t notice you in the
same dress as his old gal, but it was a nice gesture,
you not wanting to be compared. Actually, if I was in
his shoes with a mental picture of you and her in the
same dress, I might push her out of the car on the way
home.”
“She wasn’t an old gal. The woman was my age.
Sometimes your empathy gene just doesn’t kick in, Nick.
Tomorrow, I’m bringing home a long needle syringe
with empathy medicine to shoot you in the butt with, or
maybe half in the butt and the other half in your heart.
Would you prefer that or do you want to work on it?”
[60] Al Gramatas
“Work on it, if that’s okay with you. Is there anything

else that you’ve found objectionable about me lately?”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“No, I won’t let it go until you tell me. I can hear it
in the tone of your voice. I’m thin skinned but I can take
it.”
“All right, Friday night in the grocery store,” she
begins, as I negotiate the car from its fourth level park-
ing space on the way to her car and then to the apart-
ment. “You asked the middle age guy if you could look
through the sunglasses for a moment that he was wear-
ing. You put them on and walked around the aisle like a
blind man before handing them back. I knew you were
making fun of him for having them on in the store. He
pushed his grocery cart a little farther and left it there
and walked out.”
“Well, he was wearing the shades at night in the store
trying to be cool. When I did that it probably came into
his pea brain how un-cool it was and he was embar-
rassed. I’ve done things like that since I was a kid.
“When I was fifteen, standing by my father’s cas-
ket at the wake, these two women in their fifties, who
I didn’t know, came up to me and the taller one said,
’You’re not as big a man as your father.’ Is that the kind
of thing you say to a fifteen-year-old boy standing next
to his dead father? So I pointed a finger toward my
pecker and said, ’Down there I’m bigger.’
“The smaller woman fainted, fell to the floor like
someone hit her on the head with a hammer. The one
who said that to me looked down at her friend and then

ran out the door, too embarrassed to tell anyone what
happened. She left the woman laying there for others to
tend to—real friend she was. I got immense satisfaction
seeing her leave under those circumstances. It shows
what sort of human being she was.
“Elizabeth, it’s just the way I am. When fools or the
pretentious present their wares, well, I like compromis-
ing them, I suppose. We’re all flawed my dear: some in a
beautiful way, some not.”
“Yes, Nick, we’re all flawed.”
The apartment seems larger with each visit, as my eyes

wander over the room, waiting for her to finish a phone
call received from her mother.
Furniture in the living room is positioned to use the
floor space effectively as possible. The sofa and chairs
are clothed in muted colors.
A narrow table with slender legs above lion’s feet
holds a photograph of her father with his right arm
around his wife, contagious smiles covering their fac-
es. They’re standing on a small town sidewalk in Swit-
zerland. The base of a mountain rises from the edge of a
peaceful lake in the background.
The carpet is noticeably denser than in apartments
that I had known. Accent pieces scattered throughout
the room enhance the ambience, creating warmth and
calm, a good place to be. Some have an acute sense of
[62] Al Gramatas
aesthetics from birth, enabling refinement to crowd out

the mundane in their lives.
Off the phone, she rests her head in my lap, legs stretch-
ing the full length of the sofa.
“Did the furniture come from your parents’ house
in Memphis?” I ask, as my fingers linger in soft blond
hair.
“Other than the bedroom, I purchased everything
in Atlanta before moving in. Mother and I like the same
kind of stuff, period furniture rather than contem-
porary. We shopped until I found the perfect pieces. I
arranged to have everything delivered from four stores
on the same day, and wouldn’t you know that the trucks
arrive within thirty minutes of each other? Mother took
over like the commander of a battleship until every-
thing was in its place. Daddy had the bed shipped from
my room in Memphis. It’s so comfy.”
I listen intently as I have before, wanting more.
“Napoleon and Josephine,” she says, looking toward
the glowing television, one delightful finger pointed
toward the couple in question. “Do you think they had
a relationship as meaningful as ours? I mean caring for
each other?”
“Are you joking? Of course not, what other goofy
thoughts are in that pretty head today?”
Her laughter overflows the room, hiding and then
returning even more sweetly. The eyes are alive with
joy as a foot, flung backward over the sofa, returns to

the seat after the laughter has settled.
“You know, Elizabeth, fighting wars in central
Europe, he would send horsemen to Paris everyday
with letters he wrote to Josephine. Can you imagine
how many riders and horses would be needed to relay a
letter a day to Paris?”
“No. Would you have done the same for me?”
“Yes, if you had wanted to stay in Paris, but I
would’ve tried to persuade you to come with me. I’d
made sure you were safe with a thousand of my best
soldiers guarding your castle.”
“Why would you want me to go with you?”
“Because.”
“Because why, Nick?”
“I miss you anytime you’re not with me.”
“Oh, I see.”
She beckoned for those special few words that would

mean everything, freeing the mind from doubt, I think
on the way home, not sure why I didn’t say more.
[64] Al Gramatas
[65] Al Gramatas
Chapter 5
We arrive home from work at the same time, my

wife slightly ahead, lowering the left garage door with
the remote control before her car is completely inside.
“Nick, check the mailbox before you come in. I’m
expecting something for your mother’s birthday. I’ll
start dinner.”
“Hello there, my friend,” Marty says, stopping his
car as I’m unloading the mail. “Hadn’t seen you lately.
You’ve been traveling more, huh?”
“Yeah, traveling more. How’s your wife?”
“Good, good. As a matter of fact, she told me to
make sure I tell you something. She said I never said
thank you for your help.”
“What help?” I ask, thumbing through the mail.
“You and Kim the only people to invite us over when
we moved here. We know some don’t like us because
we talk different and from Beirut, and you introduced
[66] Al Gramatas
us to people. Thank you. And my wife laugh so much

when I tell her about goat.”
“Goat?”
“You remember, I ask you if there is local customs
I don’t know and you said, ‘You can’t kill goat in your
front yard,’ ha, ha. See you, Nick. Come to the beverage
store and I give you magnum of bubbly.”
“Thanks, Marty.”
I look up at the manicured lawn and shrubbery,
remembering the untold hours I spent there, drenched
in sweat. All that seems in vain now.
“You seem stressed, Nick. Anything going on at
work?” Kim asks.
“No, there’s nothing going on at work. Why would
you ask that?”
“Forget it.”
“I’m sorry, Kim, what time will you and Lynn get
away from Lennox Mall Saturday?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Ben and I will probably be off the golf course
around five. Thought we could all meet up at Friday’s
for dinner. The four of us haven’t been out for awhile.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do Saturday
night?”
“I don’t know where this is going, Kim. I’m taking a
shower before dinner.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what you need, a good long
cold shower.”
We have discontinued indulging in sex, but now and

then have friends to our house that was once a home.
She doesn’t ask questions but will occasionally disguise
a comment that suggests I’m suspected of infidelity.
Others see a perceptible difference; those close to us
question the nuance at times with a stare lasting slight-
ly too long or a lull in conversation that shouldn’t have
been, waiting for an explanation that never comes.
Discontentment hangs in the air, waiting for a new
day. We’ve passed the point of no return, those things
good in our marriage have been silenced, as if they nev-
er were.
Lots to do, I’m thinking, as I settle into my high back

chair and begin examining the contents of an overflow-
ing inbox on a Monday morning.
“Get line two, Nick,” Cindy says from her desk just
outside my office, in between bites of her second Krispy
Kreme doughnut.
“Arne here. Elizabeth called the apartment around
eight this morning. I lied and told her you had just left
for your office.”
“Thanks, man.”
“You need to do something to right the ship.”
“I will, Arne.”
“Another call holding, this one will be more fun,”
Cindy says.
“Nick, I tried you at your apartment earlier. Arne
said you were on your way to the office. He’s so nice. I
[68] Al Gramatas
want us to do a movie tonight. It’s showing at the arty

theater on Peachtree where we saw the French film with
subtitles. We’ve got to go. We can do the six forty-five
show and then get a bite.”
“Sure, be at your place at around six. What’s the
flick?”
“Elvis Presley! Bye, I have to tend to my patients
now.”
I put the telephone back into its cradle, dumbfound-
ed. There seems to be a resurgence of his cheesy sixties
flicks playing now but she has never spoken of Elvis.
Since eighteen, her favorite singer by some margin has
been Charles Aznavour, the French cabaret singer she
had seen perform at a nightclub in Paris while vacation-
ing with her parents. “He sounds as if he had lived each
word a thousand times,” she had said.
“I didn’t know you were an Elvis fan, Elizabeth,” as we

find seats in the half-full theatre a few minutes before
show time.
“I’m not really. I like a couple of his songs, though.”
“Well then, why--”
“Shh,” she interrupts. “We’ll see, maybe.”
The house lights are lowered and the screen heralds
the arrival of the feature film, 20th Century Fox presents
Flaming Star, starring Elvis Presley, co-starring Steve For-
rest, Barbara Eden and Dolores Del Rio, Directed by Don Sie-
gel. As the film begins, the popcorn container in her left
hand goes unnoticed as if it was another appendage

of the body. The large Coke with two straws remains
untouched, sitting between pants covered thighs. The
sometimes head on my shoulder is absent, replaced by
an erect body, anticipating the Elvis Man, I figure.
As the film unfolds, the half-white, half-Kiowa Indi-
an Elvis is the chief instigator of musical merriment in
a shotgun house on the post-Civil War western Texas
prairie. Then, less than five minutes into the movie, Bar-
bara Eden enters from stage right, accompanied by a
smile and single pigtail and I know immediately why
we came to the Elvis movie.
“Jesus, Elizabeth, the resemblance is astonishing,
but you’re more attractive,” I say excitedly in a hushed
voice.
“You really think so, I mean the resemblance?”
“Your mother couldn’t tell the difference. This flick
was probably made in the sixties. She was around your
age then. It’s uncanny.”
“Mrs. Moore, the Admissions Manager, came to see
it over the weekend and told me I had to come see her.
She said we looked so much alike. Mother saw her on
television a few years ago and mentioned the resem-
blance. The hair is the most obvious difference. I don’t
think it’s real, do you?”
“I don’t know, but picture her with your hair. It’s
sort of spooky isn’t it? Maybe y’all have the same daddy.
Was he a player when he was young?”
[70] Al Gramatas
“That’s not funny Nick, let’s not talk, we may be dis-

turbing other people.”
Tonight is the single instance of Elizabeth drawing

attention to herself: the physical similarity with the
actress on the screen. Her self-deprecating nature rare-
ly allows praise, a quality I find admirable in a per-
son so attractive. Compliments from others are usually
deflected with a gesture or change of subject. Her way
of diverting attention with ease is artful, almost as if it
had been practiced.
The movie, not as cheesy as expected, parades Elvis
as the protagonist but not the usual target of a women’s
affection. He rides into the hills gravely wounded to die
in the last scene.
The audience flows from their seats into the aisles as
credits roll on the screen.
Elizabeth presses her hand to my leg as I begin to
rise from the seat. “Let’s not go yet” she says in a seri-
ous but soft tone. “I have something important to tell
you.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for the past week. I
know it’s true.”
“What, dear?”
“I’m falling in love with you, Nick—if you’re not
with me, its okay.”
Rarely in my life have I not been able to spontane-

ously respond to another’s words, but now my brain
temporarily recoils to an irretrievable place, stunned,
unable to process the most important piece of informa-
tion it would ever hear.
I regain my senses and look her way, as she’s enter-
ing the aisle, maneuvering around the few remaining
people toward the exit. I follow, unable to catch up, hin-
dered by the small crowded lobby.
“Elizabeth!” I cry out, running toward her in the
parking lot but receiving no answer. I reach her to grasp
an arm as she opens the car door. Popcorn, from the box
she holds in her other hand, spills onto the asphalt.
“Elizabeth, I love you. My mind was spellbound
when you said that in the theatre. Forgive me for ruin-
ing the moment. I’ll never again do anything so stupid.
I can’t live without you, Elizabeth.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you leave me, I’ll run into that traffic on Peachtree
and kill myself.”
She raises the popcorn container over my head and
slowly empties it with gleeful satisfaction. For the most
part, the contents lay happily on my head and shoul-
ders. “You’re not so handsome, now. You look like a
snow cone.”
“I’m your snow cone, Elizabeth.”
“Yes you are. Hold me.”
I embrace her, in a sea of popcorn. Our laughter
expels the tension, leaving anything imperfect in its
[72] Al Gramatas
wake, transforming sweet confusion into a beautiful

June night. The laughter subsides, replaced by a calm,
blissful look spread over her face.
“Should have said we loved each other the night we
met.”
“If I remember correctly, you wouldn’t speak to me
that night.”
“I suppose.”
We hold each other awhile, until the last of the mov-
ie-goers pull their cars onto Peachtree, our softly spoken
thoughts the only remaining sound. Her eyes are filled
with comforting warmth, like a mother has for a child.
I realize my heart has drifted beyond physical attrac-
tion to a place of more substance, where enduring love
resides.
“Glad I took the waiter’s suggestion, the Feta cheese

thing was good,” she says, thinking of the all night din-
er that serves tasty hamburgers and delightful Greek
dishes and everything in-between.
“Nick, why did you order the same entrée? We usu-
ally order different stuff so we can sample,” she wants
to know, her left hand of little weight resting, palm up,
on my right leg as we drive toward the apartment.
“I wanted to know what your taste buds were
feeling.”
“You say things sometimes that are so crazy. Were
you dropped on your head as a little boy?” She laughs,
leaning her head against the passenger window. “I like

the way your hand looks, holding the stirring wheel,
especially at night. Turn off the air conditioner and roll
down the windows. I want to feel the night air in my
hair.”
“My wondrous Elizabeth, thoughts of taste buds
and your fetish with my hand are heart-warming.”
“I don’t have a fetish with your hand and roll the
windows back up, I want to snuggle.”
The atmosphere is mellower, more provocative than

times before in the second floor apartment that I have
come to cherish. Aznavour’s voice, conveying past expe-
riences of love, with occasional staccato phrasing, flows
from the small Bose speakers.
We assume our favorite seating position on the plaid
quilt laid across the floor, our backs supported by the
front of the sofa. The Chardonnay is within easy reach,
poured into wide bottom glasses to lessen the possibil-
ity of spillage on the unblemished carpet. Sweet aroma
of cannabis is pulled from the room by the air condi-
tioner in thin floating strands, made visible here and
there by hall lighting.
“You tickled me tonight with that ‘run out in the
street and kill myself’ thing you did in the parking lot.
Nick, you’re so... I don’t know... melodramatic some-
times. I can’t imagine you dead, ever.”
[74] Al Gramatas
“Not to get morbid, my sweets, but I can imagine.

Got to put something in my will to make sure it hap-
pens when I croak. I’m going to be incinerated in a big
oven. The operator will push me in feet first and then
maybe light a cigarette or call his wife while I’m being
reduced to ashes. Then the drudge will shovel most of
the cooled ashes into a small, brown box and at the end
of his shift he’ll sweep up what remains on the floor and
deposit it in a garbage bag, along with the other custom-
ers of the day. I love this wine.”
“Nick, don’t joke of death again. Promise me you
won’t”
“Okay, but I’ll need the soothing nectar of your lips
to seal my promise.”
As she released me from her soft lips, I wonder
as I had at times before if she felt the same fireworks
exploding in her mind, like my own. I’m fairly sure of
the answer.
“Nick, what was that phrase you used to describe a
red Ferrari we saw a few days ago on Peachtree?”
“Super fine?”
“Yep, flaming red and super fine.“
She had changed into pink pajamas soon after we
arrived, the ones she wore the night I fell asleep on the
sofa, unbeknownst to her, until the following morning.
“I prefer to be comfortable,” she mentioned earlier.
“Me too,” letting her know the reason my white
dress shirt hangs partly outside of wrinkled pants
under the unbuttoned collar and loosen tie.
“Nick, it’s your life. I’m not telling you what to

do, but when you smoke that stuff you’re a different
person.”
“Yeah, I smile more and raid the refrigerator more
often.”
“Be serious, please. It can lead to more dangerous
drugs.”
“Have your way, Elizabeth, if it’s important to you,
I won’t allow this vile, enjoyable substance to enter my
lungs again, ever.”
“Are you just talking?”
“No, take the bag on the kitchen counter and dump
it wherever you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, everyday is like Sunday when I’m with you,
woman. I’m so into you I can’t think of anything else.
There’s a few things about me that I need to change,
it’s in your eyes sometimes for a second or two. I’m not
going to allow anything to screw-up what we have,
especially something as stupid as a little weed. I stum-
bled out of a hole in the ground and landed on your
wings. I’m crazy about you.”
“Come to bed,” she says, after slightly lowering the
stereo’s volume and extending her hand.
“I don’t understand.”
“I want to be with you when I open my eyes in the
morning. I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve never been
in love before.”
[76] Al Gramatas
“You’d know what that word means, only if you

were me, Elizabeth.”
I gaze up at the canopy of the four-poster bed, envel-

oped in swirling colors of mauve and cream, silken
like.
The bathroom light is flicked off, a hall light remain-
ing. She stands in the doorway long enough to offer the
contour of her unpajamaed body.
“You’re beautiful.”
“Don’t talk, Nick.”
The room is bathed in soft light from the hallway;
subtle white noise from the air conditioner provides a
sense of tranquility.
She sits on the opposite side of the bed, feet on floor.
I study the sleek back until she turns her head toward
the dresser to deliberately reveal the refined profile that
has always mesmerized me.
The legs are slowly drawn onto the sheets, position-
ing her body near, luminous eyes examining mine. All
things in my head other than her vanish, replaced by a
tender kiss and then another, each feeding from the one
before.
The senses seem elevated, owing to the charming
cannabis and the touch of her body. My mouth explores
her smooth neck under the familiar jasmine scented
hair and the almost translucent breasts that retain their
perfect shape in any position.
She reclines slowly on her back, legs spread this

way and that, a nymph in a bed of mauve, with a want
of something not yet experienced, eyes closed, head
turned toward the open door. My hands transmit each
arch and valley of her body to my intoxicated mind.
The delicate arms flail femininely from place to
place on pillows and sheets, searching for a place
to be, not really caring. Her constricted carnal pas-
sage intensifies my desire, reshaping the senses, lust-
ing for everything— her essence. The gentleness I pro-
vide isn’t enough to prevent a millisecond of discomfort
expressed in blue-green eyes.
Minutes later, the graceful hands clutch my arms,
then hips, finally resting on both sides of my moist, sat-
isfied face. She shouts, ”My God” toward the silken can-
opy and everything is relaxed.
“Elizabeth, my sweetness, are you okay?”
“I’m more than that. I love you and that thing too,”
she says, one leg flung over me, playfully humping my
upper leg, her fingers twisting hair on top of my head
into small wet knots. “Nick, how much time did you
spend making love to me?”
“Twenty minutes or so, I suppose.”
“Let’s do it again, now.”
“No, Elizabeth, I’m spent. I did all the work.”
“I’m joking, silly. What was it like for you?”
“Beautiful.”
“How many times have you done something like
this?”
[78] Al Gramatas
“That was before love came to town, talking about it

demeans what you and I have.”
“Never be another love for you or me, will there,
Nick?”
“No, baby, others would be like pablum.”
“I came close to having sex with Buster in college. I
never cared for basketball much, but the coach told him
that he would get to play some that night and I went.
I knew he’d do good when given a chance. Every time
he made a basket or did something good, he’d look up
in the seats, to see if I was cheering. He wanted my
approval so badly.
“We were in his room later that night, and this ter-
rible thought came over me that it would be like having
intercourse with a brother. I felt so sorry for both of us.
That’s the moment I knew we should go our separate
ways. Do you think that’s a strange story?”
“No, all kinds of stuff happens in a person’s life. I’m
happy you don’t think of me that way. I don’t think I’d
want to go on if you did.”
“The morning after we met, I had forgotten where
I’d put your business card the night before. I found it
on the kitchen counter, soaked with water. Guess what
I did?”
“Put it in the oven.”
“I set my iron on low and scooted it on top till it was
dry.”
“That’s sweet..”
“I wanted to have sex the first time our eyes met.

That black suit looked a little sinister. I thought what
it would be like when I got to the apartment. Did you
think about me that way?”
“Not exactly, I wanted to hold you, right there in the
restaurant, and be with you the rest of my life. That’s
what I was thinking.”
“I’m sorry I said that about my sexual feelings. I
sound cheap, don’t I?”
You don’t sound cheap, Elizabeth. To me, you’ll
always sound like the sweetest voice in a midnight
choir.
[80] Al Gramatas
[81] Al Gramatas
Chapter 6
For the most part, Arne’s apartment has always

been a reflection of himself, everything in its right
place and clean. The furniture ”has to have character,”
he would say after finding another piece in a flea mar-
ket at the right price and cleaning it with a disinfectant,
twice.
The living room is sparse of adornments other than
signed photographs from a few big league sports play-
ers and a velvet picture depicting Jesus that his mother
made him promise on her deathbed to always keep on a
wall.
Arne especially liked that the front door was on
street level near where he parked so that engaging in
trivial conversation with those he considered uninter-
esting was mostly unnecessary.
“Arne, this is Elizabeth,” I tell him after he opens
the door of his two bedroom bachelor pad.
[82] Al Gramatas
“Good to meet you, Elizabeth. Nick talks of you as

the Madonna and I see why. Please come in. Can I get
you a drink?”
“A half glass of wine would be nice, Arne. He sees
things foolishly at times. Why is the apartment so neat?
Aren’t y’all suppose to have things thrown around like
in a frat house?”
“Nick does that, and I clean up,” he says, perpetrat-
ing the lie. “Most Greeks, whether they’re lawyers or
Indian Chiefs that I’ve met, are a little rough around the
edges, but I think Nick takes the cake. Sit down, please,
Elizabeth.”
“Yes,” she says, settling into the living room couch.
“My father took me on a day trip to a book signing at this
cute store in Oxford, Mississippi on my sixteenth birth-
day. There was this old Greek clerk, with a bushy mus-
tache, handling books for the author to sign. He had his
name tag thing upside down on his shirt, I think pur-
posely, and under it was this big round button that said,
‘Greeks are happy to have brought you your world.’
“He hardly took his eyes off me when we were in
line. My father picked up on it and after having the book
signed he told the old man in a stern way that I was
only sixteen. Unapologetically, he looked at my father
and said, ‘A tender age, indeed.’ My father was still mad
about that when we got back to Memphis and called the
bookstore to complain. He was told that the old Greek
was the owner. My father felt defeated. I just laughed
about it all.”
“Has your father met Nick?”

“No, but Daddy knows of him, he asked me if Nick
wears any buttons with sayings inscribed on them.”
“You’re something else.”
“What do you mean?”
“The whole package, so to speak. When you become
tired of Nick, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
“That’s not going to happen, Arne.”
“I was just joking, really.”
“Elizabeth!” smiles Ophelia, entering form the kitch-
en. “Good to meet you. Dinner is about ready. Hope you
like pasta because it’s about the only thing I know how
to do. I rarely cook at my apartment but Arne want-
ed me to cook for y’all. He loves anything Italian. I’ve
known Arne only a couple months but I know he’d eat
pizza for breakfast if he could find a joint that opened
early enough. Everybody grab a plate.”
“Thanks for doing all this. Nick and I love pasta
things.”
“Don’t speak so fast—better try it first.”
“Shut up, Arne, or I’ll make you clean the pots and
pans by yourself. Y’all sit anywhere except this chair,
please, it has a wobbly arm. Arne looks like a drunk
sometimes when he’s eating in it, rocking back and
forth. Are you going to fix that thing or not, Arne?”
“Not, it’s got character.”
“Arne, how did you and Nick meet? He‘s never men-
tioned that,” Elizabeth inquires.
[84] Al Gramatas
“I’ll let him describe it, he’s better at telling stories.

I’m just a sports writer.”
“Yeah, well, the night we met wasn’t that pleasant.
A client and I were standing at that huge bar at Harri-
son’s waiting on a table. Gees, lots of things happen to
me waiting for tables. Don’t know if you knew, Ophelia,
that’s how I met Elizabeth.”
“Yes, I know all about that. Arne told me lots about
you.”
“Well, I’m telling the client a lawyer joke and Arne
comes crashing in between us to get the attention of the
barkeep for another drink. I had to protect my territory
so I poked my finger into his side and told him if he was
going to continue acting like a redneck he ought to find
a beer joint on the Southside.
“Arne didn’t seem to like that and he takes a punch
at me, felt sort of like a flea hittin’ a windshield. I get
him in a headlock and there’s fifty bartenders jumping
over the bar and ushering us to the door. My client fol-
lowed us outside. It was crazy.
“The cop working the front door says, ‘Boys, you got
two choices: you can get in the back seat of that nice car
over there with the screen between the front and back
seats and we’ll all take a ride downtown, or you can get
in your own cars and one of you go north on Peachtree
and the other south.’
“We got in our cars. Then as fate would have it, may-
be six months later, a few of us from the office are in the
same bar celebrating someone’s birthday and I get a tap
on the shoulder and there stands Arne. I told him when

I finished my beer I’d meet him outside and whip his
ass and he tells me he just wanted to apologize for the
way he acted that night and then he bought a round of
drinks for everyone in our group. Long story, but we
became friends and later I introduced him to Ben.”
“You’ve stopped goin’ to Brave’s games with Ben,”
Arne says after taking a bite of the pasta.
“I don’t know, I’m not a great spectator, I suppose.”
Ophelia gives me a pointed look.
“You like to ‘participate,’ don’t you Nick? Can I
get you anything or do you have everything you want
tonight?”
“Yeah, Ophelia, I suppose I like to participate. And
yes, I have everything I need, thanks. Y’all want to go
with us tomorrow night to see “Midnight Cowboy” at
Perimeter?”
“Saw it when it came out five or six years ago. What’s
so special about an old movie?” asks Arne.
“The whole damn thing. Ratso Rizzo is the best
thing Hoffman has ever done and Voight plays that
simple-minded cowboy like it was written for him. And
the cameras lingering on those seedy shots of Manhat-
tan, then cutting away at just the right moment, some-
thing about that was beautiful. But the end of the mov-
ie is what everybody remembers, the scene when Rizzo
dies in the back of the Greyhound bus just before they
make it to Miami Beach. Hell, it’s great cinema, a char-
acter study of shattered dreams. That’s what it is.”
[86] Al Gramatas
“I’ve never seen it. Arne, you want to go?”

Arne dismisses the notion, seeming to wash it down
with a sip of bourbon. “Don’t think so. Nick, I ran into
someone I know the other day at the supermarket. She’s
from a small town in Alabama, like you. Her name is
Kim.”
The verbal spear struck home.
“Lucky girl, no better place to grow up, if it was a
place like my town. I don’t feel so hot right now. I’m
going outside to catch a little fresh air.”
“Could be Ophelia’s pasta.”
“Come with me Arne. There’s something I want to
show you in the car.”
“Baby, how can I help you?” Elizabeth asks.
“I’ll be okay in a minute.”
The first thought that occurs as I walk outside is to
put him on the ground with a sucker punch to the jaw,
no words spoken.
“So what do you have out here?” he says as we
approach the car.
“Just wanted for you and me to be out of earshot
from Elizabeth so you could explain the reasoning
behind that snide remark. Have you lost your friggin’
mind? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had a few drinks. Maybe I’m jeal-
ous, sitting there comparing Ophelia to Elizabeth, sort
of like a lump of coal to a diamond, you know.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? I have no idea

where you’re coming from, Arne. You invited us over
and now you’re acting like an ass.”
“I don’t like what you’re doing, maybe that’s the bot-
tom line.”
“Arne, we’re going back inside now and if you say
anything crazy, I’m going to come back over here tomor-
row and beat some of that cynical shit out of you with
my fists. I thought you were my friend but I’m begin-
ning to think differently now, things are changing with
you and me. Can I count on you to not do anything stu-
pid until I tell her the truth?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Hon, why don’t you lay on the sofa while we finish

with the dishes?” Elizabeth says from the kitchen.
“Let’s go to your place, baby, I think I’d feel better
there, lots better.”
“Okay.”
The women engage in a slight hug, each telling the
other that we should get together soon, not realizing
the full import of the evening. Arne and I stand apart,
unwilling to shake hands or exchange salutations,
knowing that our friendship is no more.
Ambivalent thoughts run through my mind as Eliz-
abeth and I drive away. She’s purposely quite, as if she
knows something is wrong, but not sure.
[88] Al Gramatas
I think of Arne and the laughter we’ve shared in the

past, mostly at our own expense. We were both athletic,
unlike Ben, and spent Sunday afternoons in the spring,
shagging baseballs in the outfield and telling each oth-
er how good we were. There was something alike about
us, a need to be boys again, escaping to a simpler place
and time, where responsibilities and careers would be
temporarily forgotten. But that’s all gone now, never to
return.
I leave feeling ostracized, like a freak on the mid-
way, to be frowned upon before they retreat to their
own less-than-perfect lives with hollow satisfaction.
[89] Al Gramatas
Chapter 7
“Ben, when I called today asking you to meet me

here... well, the reason was I thought we ought to talk
about stuff ... you know, a lot has happened.”
“Yeah, it was out there in the lobby that you met her.
It hadn’t been the same since.”
“Well hell, the three of us don’t get together any-
more. Arne and I came down a couple of weeks ago but
it wasn’t the same. Don’t get the big head, it’s not like
you were leading the parade or anything. It’s just that
the three of us jelled, you know.”
“Arne invited Elizabeth and me to his place a few
days back. It wasn’t a fun time. He mentioned Kim, sort
of like a jab at me without letting Elizabeth know what
he was talking about. That pissed me off.”
“Nick, he’s got this thing. He talked about it the last
time we were here. His father left his mother when he
[90] Al Gramatas
was a kid and ran off to some other state with a woman
he worked with and didn’t halfway pay child support. I
think he’s transferring those old resentments to you.”
“That’s not fair, comparing me like that.”
“I’m just telling you what I think, brother.”
“So what about you, Ben, where are you and me?”
“Think back when I was on the job only a few weeks
and ran in to that trouble. You remember, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Well the fact is, I screwed up the export papers and
the Mexicans were holding up that piece of machin-
ery at the border and the plant was shut down till it got
there, serious shit. You can recall that me and my boss
and you had the emergency meeting in the conference
room that morning. Well, the night before, I told Anne
I might loose my job the next day and she cried. We
didn’t have a bunch of money then and I couldn’t afford
to loose it.
“When he asked you to describe exactly what hap-
pened, you started talking your world class bullshit.
Then you said ‘Mr. Barton, I’m pleased to report the
shipment has been released by the authorities and will
be delivered to the plant before noon,’ and he smiled,
shook your hand and left the room.”
“So, what’s your point?”
“Let me tell you, Nick, what the friggin’ point is. All
you had to say was ‘dumb ass screwed up the paper-
work and this is what I’ve done to correct the problem.’
It would have made you look good but you didn’t do
it. When I came out of that conference room I had two

thoughts: I still had my job and a friend for life if you
wanted it that way.”
“You never mentioned that stuff before.”
“No reason to, you knew how it came down. The
other thing, I’ve been thinking about you and Eliza-
beth, okay? Maybe I’d feel different if you were a skirt
chaser before you met her. I know you didn’t do that.
What I’m saying is I know how much you care about
her and if she makes you that damn happy, how can
it be so wrong? You just need to get off the fence. You
need to choose which way to go.”
“I’d get a divorce tomorrow and marry her if that
would do it, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. It’s
difficult to explain, you’d have to know her like I do to
get the full impact of what she’s about.”
“I know she’ll leave me if the truth is revealed that I
was married when we were together. I’ve thought of all
sorts of stuff. I could say, ‘Elizabeth, I lied to you about
not being married. I’m sorry, please marry me and if
you will I’ll never in my lifetime tell another lie,’ or a
million variations of that.
“She wouldn’t say anything. She’d just turn around
and leave and that would kill me. I’m waiting for some-
thing to save me like I saved you in that meeting. I’m
so consumed with her. I don’t care about anything else,
really. It’s like walking on egg shells everyday.”
[92] Al Gramatas
“You’re consumed with the prospect of losing Eliza-

beth but you’ve got to tell her. There’s no pie-in-the-sky
something that’s going to save your ass. Being so cra-
zy about her has clouded your thinkin’ man. Let’s say
she walks. You can send her a dozen roses every day or
hire one of those airplanes that pulls the banner behind
it and you can keep puttin’ the old Nick charm on her
till she breaks. If you don’t tell her, what do you think
is going to happen? She’ll find out and leave you for
sure. Arne said she thinks you’re living with him and
now since y’all aren’t tight anymore, hell, can you imag-
ine what he might say if she calls there looking for you
when he’s drinking?
“That’s the other thing, man, I remember when we
started coming here he would have one or two beers but
when we ate here the last time, he was knocking down
Jack Blacks one after the other.
“You’re skating on ice about as thin as Saran Wrap.
You need to go off by yourself and think about what I’m
telling you. I love you, man, and I don’t want you to get
hurt, but you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to tell her.”
“Ben, you ever been in a place where you didn’t
know what to do or where to turn? This hasn’t got to do
anything with that, but last night I dreamed that I set
fire to that old chemical warehouse on Fulton Industri-
al. It was like I couldn’t help myself, and I knew getting
burned was the way it would probably end, but I went
and did it, anyway. I was like an arsonist sicko, want-
ing to see the flames, or feel the rush. I’ve had weird
dreams before, but that one takes the cake, I woke up in

a sweat.”
“How did it end?”
“I dunno, maybe I don’t want to remember.”
[94] Al Gramatas
[95] Al Gramatas
Chapter 8
“I’ve been unable to contact Elizabeth for a couple

days, Libby. Is she at work?”
“No, Nick, she’s not here.”
“Why?”
There is a hesitation before she continues, and then
barely audible over the phone, “I don’t know.”
“You’re not a good liar, Libby. Where is she?”
“She’s sick.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“That’s crazy, what’s going on?”
“She said I wasn’t to tell anyone, especially you.”
“I can’t stand this any longer Libby. You know we’re
nuts about each other. Tell me where she is or I’ll come
down to the nurse’s station and make a fool of myself.
I’m in pain, please relieve me.”
“She’s at a facility on the Northside.”
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“What’s wrong with her?”

“Here’s the doctor’s number. See what he has to
say.”
Minutes seemed hours. “Thanks for returning my call

so promptly, Dr. Reston. As I explained to your assis-
tant, I’m deeply concerned about Elizabeth. There seems
to be secrecy surrounding all this. Why has she been
hospitalized?”
“We’re helping her, Mr. Andreious. She’s mostly
depleted and needs rest. She’ll be fine in time.”
“Your words mean little to me, sir. I need two piec-
es of information, her diagnosed condition and where
she is. Nothing in life means anything to me right now
other than that. If you refuse me, I’ll do something irra-
tional. I appreciate the patient-physician privilege, but
this isn’t the time for that. I have a mad man in my head
right now, please understand.”
“Go to the Northside Hospital auxiliary annex. I’ll
leave word that you can spend ten minutes with her,
but no more.”
From the entrance to the receptionist desk on to the

room seems benign compared to her place of work,
everything settled, no one rushing to help. The floors
are covered with carpet, the walls with reproductions
of the masters. A place to revive the mind, not the body,

I conclude.
The door to the room is open. She lies in bed, eyes
closed. Her body is limp, without purpose. My heart
cries but my eyes remain strong.
“Elizabeth, it’s me, are you awake?”
“Yes, just resting. Dr. Reston said you were coming.
He mentioned it would be best for everyone. How are
you?”
“Fine, but I became so concerned when I couldn’t
reach you. Libby wouldn’t tell me anything and the
doctor finally relented enough to let me come by for a
short visit. Now that I’ve found you, can I hold you for a
moment? Would that be okay?”
“Of course, silly. Why would you even ask some-
thing like that?”
“You look so fragile. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Come here, Nick. Let’s cuddle.”
I sit on the white sheets, my feeling of aloneness
sweetly vanishing as I feel her presence.
“Remember, Elizabeth, the first night we were at
your place watching television? Your back was resting
on my chest like now and we stayed that way a long
time. I didn’t say anything but I was thinking we had
the same voltage running through our bodies. I didn’t
want to move, to lose the magic. It had nothing to do
with sex, something more.”
“I don’t remember it exactly like that. At times, your
hands were in places they shouldn’t have been before I
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removed them. I was aroused that night more than you

knew.”
“Do you still like my touch, Elizabeth?”
“Yes, and always will. Why did you ask that?”
“I don’t know. Just needed to know that you love
me. All sorts of things rushed through my mind when I
couldn’t get you at home or the hospital. When you get
out of this place, we’ll go to the mountains or beach and
you can rest and I’ll take care of you. Maybe we should
go now. They can’t hold you here. I only have ten min-
utes with you. It’s difficult to control my emotions. You
may see tears in my eyes in a minute.”
“There’s no need for that. I’ll be out in a few days
and everything will be like before.”
“Why are you here, is it something I’ve done?”
“No, of course not. I should have called but didn’t
want you to see me like this.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it now.”
“Well, yes, it’s okay if we do. This is where people
with temporary emotional problems come. Dr. Sam-
uel suggested it. I was disturbed by something that
happened.
“There was this old man who sits on the bench at
the bus stop in front of my apartment complex. I’ve seen
him there I don’t know how many times, dressed on
most days in a shirt and tie when I come home from
work and sometimes on the weekends. He never boards
a bus and when no one is there other than him the bus-
es don’t stop.
“When I pulled into the apartments Wednesday

he was lying on the sidewalk in front of the bench. A
policeman had parked his car on the street with the
lights flashing and was bent over him, trying to help. I
ran over and could tell he was having a heart attack but
was unable to bring him back. He thought the police-
man was his son and asked him if he was still married
and then he died.
“It just troubled me. It’s different when people die at
the hospital. I don’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t
function at work the next day and I called Dr. Sam and
now I’m here.”
“Mr. Andreious, your time’s up,” the gray-haired
nurse says with a sullen expression, standing in the
open doorway.
“Is this too much for you to deal with, Nick?”
“No, Elizabeth. Don’t have those kinds of thoughts
in your pretty head, ever. Like you said, when you get
out of here, it’ll be like it was before.”
“Hold me. You still care for me, don’t you?”
“More than ever.”
Pulling into a space near the entrance to my office, I

remember the day Charlie introduced me to the build-
ing that does not pander to the aesthetics of any kind.
The regional sales office, occupying only a cou-
ple thousand square feet is dressed in carpet, contrast-
ing with the thick concrete floor that covers more than
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an acre of the interior. Hundreds of cargo trailers sit

against open doors and on the sprawling yard, waiting
their turn to be filled and dispatched to distant places.
My business suits and silk ties have always seemed
out of place, though everyone knows they’re an essen-
tial part of the job when I’m away from the building
with customers.
“Nick, Mr. Forman called to find out why you didn’t
keep the lunch appointment with him today,” my assis-
tant, Cindy, says as I enter the sales office just off the
reception area of the building.
“I forgot to call him. Something of a rather serious
nature came up that I had to take care of.”
“We need to talk, Nick, behind closed doors.”
“Are you going to ask for another raise, Cindy?
Come on in.”
“No. It’s about what’s going on with you.”
“Like what?”
“Like the affair you’re having with Elizabeth and
other things.”
“Why would you think that’s true?”
“Women are intuitive about stuff like that.”
“Is it that intuitiveness that helps you attract hus-
bands who have a fondness for the bottle and wonder-
ing where they’re going to find their next job?”
“There’s no need to be rude, Nick. You’ve changed
in the last couple months.”
“Who else here knows about this alleged affair, Cin-

dy? Have you discussed your thoughts with the other
ladies in the office?”
“Of course not, and I answer the phone almost
always when she calls. No one else knows.”
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“I’ve just finished the spreadsheet on last month’s
revenue and there’re several accounts down substan-
tially from the same period last year.”
“The economy isn’t that hot, Cindy.”
“You know that’s not all there is to it.”
“What else?”
“Your wife came by yesterday with some cookies
for the office. She knows something is going on. She’s
sly. I think she figured that I’m not her competition.
She introduced herself to the others and was looking in
their eyes to see if she could detect anything.”
“My head is filling up. Anything else?”
“Yeah, there’s Charlie. He loves you like a son, but
he’s a sharp old dude and he’s going to put things
together at some point. Remember your opening state-
ment at the regional meeting in January: you told all the
sales people that if they don’t work harder and smart-
er than the competition we’ll get eaten up and spit out.
I’m just trying to help you, Nick, you helped me when
I needed a job. I’m telling you, things are getting out of
whack. You need to think about it. That’s all I want to
say. Don’t forget to call Mr. Forman about the missed
lunch appointment.”
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“Cindy.”
“What?”
“I apologize for that uncalled for remark I made.
I appreciate all the good work you do. I’m just going
through something important right now. Things will be
like the old days real soon.”
“I hope that’s true. One last thing, our no-smiles
terminal manager, Andre, asked me today where you
were. I know he’s not your boss. Just thought I’d tell
you.”
“Cindy, has Andre ever mentioned to you where he
was born?”
“No.”
“Well, he was born in Hamburg, Germany. Have
you ever heard of a German with a friggin name like
Andre?”
“I don’t know about things like that.”
“Nor should you and don’t worry about anything.”
“Dr. Samuel, good afternoon. This is Nick Andreious.

I accompanied Elizabeth to your retirement reception.
How are you?”
“For an old guy, very well, but since I’ve retired my
wife says I’m driving her nuts,” the familiar voice said
over the phone. “She told me this morning I ought to
get a paper route. Yes Nick, I remember you well and
Elizabeth speaks of you.”
“She’s the reason for my call. Could we talk a few

minutes?”
“Of course.”
“Dr. Reston allowed me a short visit with her today
and I’m very concerned. She spoke of the man dying
near the apartment and I understand that triggered
something in her mind. She looked so fragile lying in
bed, I’m worried sick. I’d appreciate anything you could
share with me about her condition.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. These episodes don’t
happen often, rarely, actually. When she was a teenag-
er there was an incident concerning a little boy whose
mother was a prostitute. She came home very upset. I
don’t remember all the details but her father took her to
a friend of his, a psychiatrist, and she was diagnosed as
having a transcending consciousness. In laymen’s speak
I would say it’s a small prick in the mental makeup of
emotions. In her case it’s empathy, mostly.
“When you or I see or hear about something terrible
happening to someone, we feel bad about it, to a degree
relative to how close we are to the person, that’s the nor-
mal human reaction.
“At times, Elizabeth has a more intense level of
emotion than we would experience. It latches on sub-
consciously and is very draining. She and you could be
standing on a street looking at people jumping to their
death from a burning building and she could possi-
bly have the same emotion as you. But then something
like the old man dying on the sidewalk, which for most
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would be a less traumatic event, can send Elizabeth into

a tailspin.
“That’s about as well as I can explain it. The irony is
that she works as a nurse surrounded by human misery
and as far as I know has never had a problem with her
emotions there. It’s unexplainable you know. Heck, psy-
chiatrists aren’t sure. It’s like how the world began and
what was there before that. Some things we just don’t
know.
“Son, Elizabeth came to this earth with looks and
intelligence and best of all, a good heart. That small
prick in the emotional makeup, as I described it, is noth-
ing to be concerned with. She’ll be back to her regular
self soon and life will go on as usual.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, as
if Dr. Samuel was carefully considering his next words.
“I was partly responsible for a bad decision concerning
Elizabeth, and I regret it to this day. She wanted to be a
physician like her father, Jack. Her mother wanted that
too, but Jack and I decided that all the blood and guts, if
you will, would be too much for her.
“She went off to college and after the sophomore
year enrolled in nursing school there in Memphis with-
out telling her parents. I was at their house the night
she told them. She waited till Jack had his two nightly
bourbons. Elizabeth could play her daddy like a fiddle,
you know.
“When she told him, he wasn’t having any of it and
she went into a story about the manager at the Dairy
Queen in a run down section of Memphis who said she

could come to work there anytime she wanted and that
the salary would pay the way through nursing school.
“She told Jack that after school she would go direct-
ly to work and after leaving at eleven at night would
come home to study for the next day’s classes. Jack told
her that she was never to go anywhere near that damn
Dairy Queen and that he would pay for the school.
“Her mother and I began laughing because we
knew she had made up the whole thing. Jack was sitting
there, staring at us, trying to figure it all out.
“She would have made a fine physician. Jack and I
made a big mistake but I take some solace in the fact
that she enjoys being a nurse and she’s a good one.”
“Dr. Sam, many thanks. Your words relieved some
of my anxiety. And regarding the story about the Dairy
Queen, I could picture Elizabeth saying that to her
father as you were talking. Lastly, is there anything in
particular I should do to help her through these epi-
sodes when they occur?”
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you son?”
“As much as one can love another.”
“I think you’ll always do the right thing. Just be
yourself.”
“Maybe the two of us could visit you and Anne
sometime.”
“We would like that very much.”
[106] Al Gramatas
[107] Al Gramatas
Chapter 9
Decision making, my strong suit in the business

world, has abandoned me now concerning Elizabeth.
I continue to wallow in my quandary. Her first few
words on the telephone at the beginning, asking if I was
married and my untruthful response, torment me more
each day.
After the lie escaped my lips, I wanted to grab it
back like a baseball pitcher letting go of a hanging
curve, wishing he hadn’t, sure that something bad is
going to happen. But now, knowing her like I do, if I
hadn’t lied, she would’ve said goodbye or maybe noth-
ing at all before returning the telephone to its cradle.
I reside in a perilous place, afraid of both losing and
hurting her with the truth. She has distaste for those
who lie or show unfairness toward others and there’s
empathy in her heart for the weak, but she gives no
quarter to the strong, those like me.
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Every day I write words and phrases, things I’ll

say at the right moment to appease her while I tell the
truth, hoping she won’t leave, a thought unimaginably
painful.
A hurried divorce to marry seems a short-term solu-
tion, but my deceit would be revealed by a contemptu-
ous ex-wife. She would ensure Elizabeth knew I was
married during the days and nights we were together.
I procrastinate, waiting for the right time to tell the
truth. I think she will forgive my lies, as some would, to
be with the one they love, but that thought is released
when I remember the prized virginity that was forfeit-
ed to one unworthy.
There will be no sympathy for the devil.
“She’s on line two,” says Cindy.

“Who?”
“Nick, please don’t ask that.”
“Hello, is that you?”
“I’m out, I feel good,” said the excited voice. “I’m
with Dr. Sam and Anne. They picked me up yesterday
and we went out to eat last night and I slept here. I feel
so rested. They’re going to take me to my apartment in
a little while.
“We went to Lennox Square last night and I bought
this neat two-piece swimsuit that I’ll model for you.
Maybe we could go somewhere for a few days, like
you mentioned. I don’t have to return to work until
next week. I talked to Mother and Daddy this morn-

ing; they’re leaving for Paris for a week. I’ve been there.
Could we go to the Ocean? The weatherman said it will
be clear and sunny over the Southeast for the next few
days. I’m so happy. Have I given you an opportunity to
talk, yet?”
The evening reddish sun to the west skips through the

Florida pines while we drive toward the white beach-
es on the Florida Panhandle. Her bare feet rest against
the dashboard, a forefinger tapping my knee, keeping
perfect time with the radio signal from nearby Panama
City.
“We must still have quite a number of miles to go.
We’re in a forest or something.”
“Not really. We’ll break out of this soon, go over a
couple bridges covering brackish backwater, and then
there’ll be the Gulf. Mister sun will be gone for the day.
You won’t be able to see the beautiful turquoise water
‘till morning.”
“How many other females have come with you to
this little paradise of yours?”
“I was waiting for you to come along.”
“Is there a book you get all of those right answers
from or do they just pop into your head when a ques-
tion is asked?”
“Do we stop for a cold one to get in the beach
mood?”
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“I’m in the mood already. Where are we staying?”

“At a nice condo, Pinnacle Port, if they have accom-
modations, it’s high season here. We’ll be away from
the maddening crowd. Should have called from Atlan-
ta but I was so excited to see you, I forgot. We’ll find
something.”
“Why don’t we just stay in a dump, with linoleum
floors? You know, do the bohemian thing. I’ve never
done anything like that.”
“The word ‘bohemian’ isn’t used much around here,
love. I don’t think Jack Kerouac ever wandered through
this part of the country.”
“Can we walk on the beach tonight?”
“Only if you’ll let me hold your hand.”
“I like it when you say silly things.”
“I know.”
The next day is a present from the Gods, cloudless blue

sky stretching forever.
“Nick, wake up! Half the morning has wasted away.
Get out of bed now and come on the balcony. The water
and beach are beautiful. Beaches in Italy and France are
ugly compared to this.”
“I know. I’ve been here before.” I mumble, reluc-
tantly turning over on a mattress and sheets of enticing
comfort.
“But not with me, it’ll be different.”
“Those things you say, Elizabeth. Jesus, I love it. Is

there a coffee maker in the room?”
“I got you a coffee from the downstairs restaurant.
It’s on the night table. Don’t turn it over. I’m not going
back.”
I had known summers on the Gulf Coast since my teen-

age years: music spilling from bars and restaurants
overlooking white pristine beaches, a summer place for
parents and their young to take refuge from cares back
home and play by the turquoise water.
Unlike the other Florida, most came to the Panhan-
dle from cotton mill towns and cities throughout the
Southeast to stay in small Mom and Pop motels, steps
away from the beach.
There seemed to be in each family at least one teen-
age daughter sprouting a newly bought bathing suit for
boys my age to ogle at and wish for more. After dusk,
we danced to beach music and most anything else at
the Hang Out, just a walk away from the beachside car-
nival rides.
And best of all was the nearby wooden pier where
one hoped to kiss a newly found ingénue toward the
midnight hour with organ music from the wooden
horse carousel drifting over the water.
The clear, blue water and brilliant white sand remain
the same now, but nothing more. The old concrete store
where we would bring our gallon jar to be filled with
[112] Al Gramatas
beer for a dollar has been replaced by a seafood restau-

rant, sitting under a large, glitzy sign. Only a vacant lot
remains, waiting for condominiums, where the five of
us lived, in the summer when I was seventeen, in the
battered old beach house, with only running water.
To us, it seemed like paradise. We never complained,
cleaning motel pools or life-guarding under a blazing
sun, anything to feed ourselves and maybe have a lit-
tle something left over to buy a young lady a soft drink
after we danced and before we walked out on the pier.
At times, I escape to that summer, and that will never
change.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place?” she asks, after
curling her body into my boxer clad lap on the long bal-
cony, a pelican sharing the same view from above.
“Don’t you like surprises?”
“Yes. Do you feel good?”
“If things were any better, my body would
explode.”
“How much did you enjoy me when we made love
at the apartment?”
“The second most enjoyable experience I’ve ever
had.”
“And the first? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“The moment I realized it was you on the phone a
couple weeks after we met at the restaurant.”
“You’re giving me goose bumps. I wish things

would stay just like this, forever.”
“They will. I’m nuts about you, woman, more than
you are for me.”
“Don’t say foolish things, we both know that’s not
true. Wanna’ start the day with a bang?” she inquires
after a soft kiss. “I feel something pressing on the back
of my leg that wasn’t there before.”
“I know, it’s an excitable little devil with its own
agenda, when we’re close.”
Everything is more relaxed this time, her body more

supple, a mind free of anxiety. The rhythm, at times,
emulates the sound of surf entering an open sliding
glass door, deliberate but unhurried. Her eyes, opened
or closed are always expressing emotion. A face flushed
with pale pinkness contrasts with alabaster breasts, in a
delicate feminine way.
The bed serves us well with its quilt, now lying
crumpled on the floor and pillows trying to loosen
themselves from their covers on our white sheeted play-
ground. We indulge ourselves and whisper words until
morning turns to noon.
I watch her walk onto the balcony, covered by a
white sheet from shoulders to toe, everything bunched
in to the body by arms and hands around the waist,
looking like a cult goddess on the way to address her
subjects, waiting patiently below. She stands near the
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railing, eyes surveying the blue water and white beach,

a snapshot of memory, to be recalled with ease at some
other time and place.
I continue watching from the bed, not wanting my
sense of the moment to change, or time to move for-
ward. Her head turns to the west, revealing a partial
profile under hair, now shinning blonder, under bright
sun, reminding me of a mythical siren, pulled from a
page, written long ago.
I own her and she owns me, irrevocably entwined;
the swarthy and brazen fused with the angelic and gen-
tle, forming a unique completeness, overshadowing
anything I’ve known.
“You missed a spot,” she says, in mid-afternoon, laying

upside down on a lounge near the condo’s Olympic size
pool while I’m returning the cap to the bottle of suntan
lotion.
“Where, love?”
“Right foot.”
“Stick it in the air.”
“How’s that look?”
“Marvelous, sexy.”
“That feels good, do the other one again.”
“I love your feet.”
“Are you sure feet can be loved?”
“Yours, yes indeed, the arch not too high or low
and the toes, exquisite, everything so feminine, sensu-
al. And the bottoms, free of that calloused look of some

women. Pray tell, why are they so unused looking?
“That’s sweet.”
“It’s true.”
As we walk into the cavernous club on the beach road,

not far from where we had a late dinner, the house band
covers, “Can’t get enough of your love,” the Bad Company
rocker.
A bright summer sun had gone to sleep hours ear-
lier but left a reminder of its ageless power in the form
of a slightly pink Elizabethan nose that she touches ever
so often with the tips of three cupped fingers to assure
herself that a blister or two had not settled there.
“Don’t look at my nose. I mean it.”
I laugh. “Sweetness, I can’t look at you without
seein’ your nose. It’d still be beautiful if it was Martian
purple. Do you want a drink from the bar or should we
go somewhere else? I know you’re not into this kind of
music.”
“Can we just go to the condominium and listen to
the kids splashing in the pool?”
“Anything you want.”
Never would I have suggested coming to the pool in

late evening to sit among families with noisy children,
but surprisingly, now that I’m here I find it worthwhile,
[116] Al Gramatas
even blissful when I look at Elizabeth’s smiling eyes

looking at the children.
The night hides the Gulf as it rushes against the white
sand, a sound of permanence, reassuring the young and
old that it will be waiting for them tomorrow.
“Where did the nice lady go? I want her to throw me
in the pool again,” the little boy inquires, water drip-
ping from his swim trunks onto the concrete, near my
chair.
“She went upstairs to get us refreshments but prob-
ably will be back in a few minutes. Want me to throw
you in?”
“No, sir, I want her to. Is she your wife?”
“Not now, hope she will be someday soon.”
“My daddy married my mother when he was eigh-
teen. How old are you?”
“Thirty three.”
“My mother said I’ll understand things better when
I get bigger.”
“Your mother’s right, son.”
The next day’s blue sky is a replica of the day before

until late afternoon’s dark, fast clouds come from the
west, accompanied by strong winds, turning the placid
Gulf into a churning, white capped surge.
“Why did you refer to this area as the ‘redneck Riv-
iera?’ she asks as we pull into the parking lot of my
favorite but somewhat expensive restaurant at the east
end of the beaches. The crews of sport fishing boats tied

to moorings in the protected harbor are making small
repairs and hoping for calmer water by morning.
“That’s what everyone calls it.”
“I’ve never really liked that word. How would you
describe a redneck?”
“Well, I suppose it would be someone who chooses
not to avail themselves to the finer nuances of life.”
“Could I be a redneck?”
“Hardly, too much savior faire surrounds you, dear.
Can I have a little reward kiss for remembering one
French phrase you taught me?”
The perfect tonic for Elizabeth, this three-day get away

is, as I hoped it would be. The eyes are always smiling,
her thoughts dancing and the voice, reassuring.
“I’ve cherished our time together here,” she says,
with an effervescent smile, sitting at the restaurant table
in pastel knee length shorts and blouse that compliment
the newly tanned skin.
“Maybe we could come back before summer ends
with Margie and her husband, Paul. She’s my child-
hood friend from Memphis living in Dunwoody, now.
Would never tell her, of course, but I never understood
why she married Paul. He’s so dull and when someone
asks a question, he hesitates before answering, like he’s
searching for the right words.”
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“Gosh, can’t wait. Sounds like we’d have a super

time, let’s plan that wonderful trip as soon as we hit
Atlanta.”
“No, silly, Margie’s outgoing. She makes up for him.
She’s a lot like you. By the way, she couldn’t believe I
was coming here, that I would do that. And while I’m
thinking about it, make sure you don’t let it slip if you’re
talking to Daddy on the phone. He and Mother would
go bonkers if they knew.”
“Gees, Elizabeth, this is no big thing.”
“We come from different worlds, Nick.”
“Are you ready to go back to work?”
“Yes, and I guess everyone will ask me where I got
this tan. When’s checkout time in the morning?”
“Eleven, I think.”
“Can we stay till eleven?”
“Of course, whatever makes you happy. That lobster
design on the bib the waitress put on you is almost the
same color as your delicate lips.”
“I’m cleaning the bib and keeping it as a souvenir.”
“There’s nothing on it to clean. It’s perfection, like
its wearer.
“Are you trying to get in my panties, Nick
Andreious?”
Our shared laughter spreads to tables nearby, infec-
tiously. Slight smiles appear on faces as they look our
way, wondering why they’re not brimming over with
life tonight, like Nick and Elizabeth.
The six hour drive back to Atlanta the next day is filled
with her voice, excited and reeling off tidbit flashbacks
of the past three days.
She doesn’t want to wait years to recall memories
of lying on a float in calm blue water or the laughter of
those around us when a pool boy’s attention was divert-
ed her way a second too long, producing a collision with
a carelessly placed chair that deposited him in the pool;
his face and embarrassment turning more red than a
sun burn.
Her thoughts run here and there, always leaving a
smile on my face or a look her way, making me think
that all I want from life is to make her happy, every
day.
An hour from Atlanta, I think it’s the right time to
talk, to say the truth. I have a feeling that the stars are
lined up perfectly in their galaxies. The time is as right
as it will be. Something tells me she’ll be receptive, that
things will be okay.
“Elizabeth.”
She lays her head on my right leg, pulling tanned
knees toward her chest, creating rest.
“I’m listening and don’t go to sleep driving. We were
up much too late last night and I know you’re tired. I’m
just resting a little. I’m going to pinch you every once in
a while to keep you sharp. Talk to me.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
[120] Al Gramatas
“Go to sleep.”
“Maybe, but don’t make me pinch.”
With Elizabeth at rest, I gradually increase speed,
always aware a cop car may be hiding behind the next
bridge, or maybe gaining on me, in the rear view mir-
ror. Her shut eyes haven’t erased a slight smile. She may
tell me to slow down, at any moment, after hearing the
harsher tire hum, but she doesn’t.
I look down again, at the sculptured nose, sun-
burned a few days before, now tanned the same exqui-
site color as her shoeless feet.
A few minutes go by before the needed sleep comes,
announced by a hand falling from my knee onto the
floorboard. I find the fingers and return them to my
knee near the blond hair and cover them with a hand
of my own, leaving it there, quietly, until I turn off the
car’s engine in front of her apartment.
“Elizabeth, I have to talk with you about something

very important when I get back from a business trip to
Birmingham tomorrow,” I say, after depositing the last
suitcase on her bed. ”I’ll be back in Atlanta around six
and then come over here, okay?”
“Talk about what?” as she begins to unpack.
“I have to go to work now. It’s not the right time. I’m
nuts about you, don’t forget that.”
“I love you, too.”
[121] Al Gramatas
Chapter 10
Several employees, including Cindy, are walk-

ing to their cars, their work day over, as I enter the park-
ing lot.
“Cindy, what’s up? Any problems while I was
gone?”
“The messages are stacked on your desk, but I’d sug-
gest the first phone call should be to your wife. She’s
called twice. I told her you were in Augusta and that
I didn’t know where you were staying. If I knew you
were comin’ back with that tan I’d have told her you
were in Florida. She’s pissed, Nick.”
“I’m driving to Birmingham after I leave here to
make a couple sales calls tomorrow. I’m staying at the
same Ramada Inn as usual. I’ll be driving back late
tomorrow, but we’ll talk sometime in the morning,
okay?”
[122] Al Gramatas
As I open the door to my office, I’m momentarily

stunned by the overstuffed inbox and other stacks of
paper Cindy has arranged in order of their importance.
I ask myself silently if the three day mid-week trip was
worth it and I answer out loud, ”Yes, and a million times
over.”
Before I pick up the phone to call Kim, I consider
what she may say, then realize it doesn’t matter. May-
be she’ll ask for a divorce, if not, I will. Then I’ll tell
Elizabeth everything and go from there. After the trip
to Florida, the thought of not being together is not an
option for either of us. I feel sure of that.
“Hello, I’m back. Cindy said you called.”
“Where have you been, Nick?”
“The beach.”
“I want a divorce. You can sleep here until you find
a place to live, just don’t talk to me. We’ll split the equity
in the house. A lawyer is drawing up the papers now.”
“If that’s what you want, Kim.”
“You better fuckin’ believe that’s what I want.”
Her venom spews, as it had so many times during
the marriage. This time a good reason was at hand,
unlike before. When the phone goes silent I think of a
late afternoon when the tone of the voice was the same,
the day before Thanksgiving at a grocery store.
She was agitated, having to stand in line with oth-
ers waiting to reach the cashier and then minutes later
at home there was her loud complaint of my foot, light-
ly closing the car door, my arms occupied with bags of

groceries.
After everything was put away I spoke in a relaxed
but determined voice, telling her that she was a bitch
and was born that way. As she faced me with hostility
behind contemptuous eyes, I told her that being a bitch
is worse than being born unattractive.
The unattractive can make themselves more appeal-
ing by offering a pleasant personality or applying the
right makeup but bitches have no camouflage, their
hard words and cynical attitude diminish any desirable
traits, making them forgettable.
I said all that and then drove to a movie theatre to
escape.
After working at the office late into the night, I begin

the drive to Birmingham, hoping to get at least a few
hours sleep at the motel before a mid-morning sales call.
I think of Elizabeth and what I’ll say. It will be truth-
ful, every word. I think of the hurt it will cause but that
won’t last forever.
I’ll wash her back in the tub everyday, the way she
likes it, with the sponge and I’ll do her feet and kiss
them before the soap suds are gone. Then I’ll dry her
with a soft towel and be silent until she has something
to say.
The morning had gone well.
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“Cindy, it’s me. I sewed up the account with Argon

Industries, it’s a biggie. We’re on our way back to the
glory land.”
“Nick, that’s great, but something has happened.
I don’t know how to tell you other than the way it hap-
pened. A woman called early this morning. I was on
another line and Sharon answered the phone. The wom-
an asked for the name of your wife and Sharon told her,
then she left this number for you to call. The number is
six nine two--”
“Stop. I know the number!”
“Was it her, Nick?”
“Yes.”
Desperation envelopes me. The beautiful, lingering
memories of our days at the beach are replaced by dark,
fearful thoughts of losing her.
“Elizabeth, it’s me. I know you’re hurt. I’m leaving
Birmingham now. I’ll be at your place in less than three
hours. I’m sorry this happened, I had planned to tell
you everything tonight. We’ve got the rest of our lives
to be together, okay?”
“I’m so disappointed. I trusted you, I loved you,” the
saddest voice I have ever heard, said.
“I love you,” I say as she cradles the phone before my
last word. The silence is excruciating.
The delay in telling her was a huge mistake, I tell
myself over and over on the drive back to Atlanta.
There was never the right time, always tomorrow. The
procrastination now seems the most reckless thing I’ve
done in my life. The sound of her voice on the phone,

the few words, I will never forget, no matter where we
go from here. I’ll spend the remainder of my lifetime
making up for this, Elizabeth.
“Be there,” I whisper to myself, before turning onto
the street leading to her apartment. My heart sinks as
I see the empty space where the red car was usually
parked.
I walk to the second floor breezeway knowing there
will be only darkness in the kitchen window. The pale
green curtains are not drawn shut, as they usually were,
heightening my sense of unwanted change.
Everything my eyes visit now is cloaked in a mys-
terious shroud: cars coming and going, people talking,
sounds that seem to belong to another place, remote
and alien, not a part of my own, estranged world.
I drive by familiar haunts: restaurants, theatre park-
ing lots, the small park of her beloved ducks, finding
nothing.
I return to the apartment near midnight and
wait. Where would you be, Elizabeth? What are your
thoughts? The questions run incessantly through my
exhausted mind before I make my way to a silent house
and into bed, unwanted.
Saturday morning arrives with an unsure memory of

her friend’s name in Dunwoody. Marge? Did she men-
tion her last name? I don’t remember. Should I call her
[126] Al Gramatas
parents in Memphis? I don’t have their phone number

but it’s probably listed. If there, she’s protected. I should
leave that alone. I drive by the apartment repeatedly
over the weekend until people look at me with suspi-
cious eyes.
I sit at my desk Monday morning, undone, contem-
plating a call to her parent’s home in Memphis.
“Someone is on the phone for you on line one,
Nick.”
“Thanks, Cindy.”
“Hello.”
“Am I speaking with Mr. Nick Andre–?”
“Andreious, yes that’s me. Who’s this?”
“Sir, I’m Lieutenant Barton with the Atlanta Police
Department. I have information that you may or may
not know at this time. It concerns a Ms. Elizabeth Marie
Johnson.
“I haven’t spoken to her since Friday. What’s wrong?”
I answer as something rushes through my body, mak-
ing it weak.
I stand, for some reason, pressing the phone receiv-
er more tightly against my ear.
“Sir, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. She took her
life on Saturday.”
“What are you saying, ‘she took her life?’ What does
that mean?”
“Sir, she committed suicide.”
“Are you sure that happened?” I say as a yellow

note pad on the desk began absorbing my tears. “What
happened?”
“She bought a twenty-five caliber handgun from a
pawn shop on Buford Highway a little before noon on
Saturday and told the clerk she was going to put it in a
drawer in the bedroom for protection.
“She asked him to put one bullet in the chamber
and he did. Then she walked out to her car and locked
the doors. The clerk is still in a psychiatric facility.
“The reason I mention that is he saw her put the gun
to her head from where he was in the store. He said his
eyes followed her out to the car because she was such a
pretty lady. He ran to the front door but the gun went
off before he got outside.”
I wondered what the pain would have been like. I
wanted to feel the pain.
“Your name appeared in her diary every day for the
last few months,” the officer continued in a monotone
voice. “It was on the front seat of the Volvo. We got your
telephone number from the address book at the apart-
ment. I understand that you’re emotional now, sir, but
we would like you to come to the downtown precinct
and give us a short statement because as far as we can
ascertain you were the last person with her. I’ll be in
room 210 until …”
He continues to talk but I stop listening. There seems
to be a peculiar quietness as I walk through the office
on the way to the car with no destination in mind.
[128] Al Gramatas
After several miles I pull to the side of a road to lie

in the seat for several hours in a fetal position, wishing I
had never been born, allowing her hurt and death to be
erased from time and space.
I see myself lying on the car seat from above, the
body seeming feeble, the face ashen, like it’s ready to
die. The tears change the color of the seat fabric near my
eyes. The only coherent thought I’m able to hold is that
I must kill myself to relieve the intolerable misery and
the guilt of taking her away from all the people who
loved her in those twenty eight years of life.
I pull the silver pistol from the master bedroom’s dress-

er drawer and examine its magazine for cartridges.
In the kitchen I place a dry, red washcloth on the
dinette table to protect the glass from the harshness of
the steel barrel. A bird stares toward me from the patio
in a misting rain as I switch the safety catch to the off
position.
There should be one special snapshot memory of
her embedded in my consciousness, I tell myself, when
the sudden blackness comes but my mind wanders from
one to the next, all equally worthy.
Peculiarly, when death is imminent and self-con-
trolled, the mind recalls moments that have before
seemed insignificant.
I remember the feel of her hands grabbing my
arm when lightning struck, leaving a shopping mall. I
remember the instinctive slight turn of her head, when

inappropriate words were spoken by me. I remember a
question I never asked, concerning the mysterious dis-
appearance of half a dozen high heel shoes from the
closet, shoes that would have extended her height to
exactly that of my own.
After awhile I realize that I’ve become consumed by
the memories and unfocused on the task at hand. The
decision to not leave an exit letter seems sensible, I tell
myself. What is there to say? She’s dead because of me
and I’m doing this because of that, period.
I hear the garage door opening, wondering why my
soon-to-be ex-wife has returned home midday. I put my
hand around the pistol and take it with me, laying it
under a pillow on the bed in the guest bedroom.
I close the door and lay my head on the other pillow,
listening to her footsteps. They’re the same sounds I’ve
heard since the first day of marriage, now repeated as
she changes into nightclothes in the master bedroom.
“Are you awake?” she asks, after walking to the out-
side of my closed door.
“Sort of.”
“Why are you home?”
“Don’t feel good.”
“I’ve come home to rest, too. I think I have the flu
virus,” she says. ”The lawyer has the papers ready.
We need to be there this Friday at two. Is that okay for
you?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
[130] Al Gramatas
“Nick, is there anything you want to tell me before

Friday?”
“Just that I wish you happiness and I’m sorry this
happened.” I say with sincerity, knowing I have hurt
her too.
I remain in bed until past midnight and then drive
to the apartment.
The space where she usually parked the red Volvo is
vacant.
I pull in next to an adjacent building to have an
unobstructed view of the empty space and the breeze-
way on the second floor. The once green door now
seems black, foreboding. I stay until sunrise.
“I’m sorry you had to wait,” Lieutenant Barton says,

standing in the doorway of his office on the second floor
of the ragged police headquarters.
“That’s quite alright.”
I wait in the armless metal chair for him to retrieve
something from a file cabinet and think of the jailhouse
next door, which I had passed only minutes before.
There should be a place for me there. A cell that is so
dark it cannot be found for delivery of food or water. A
place that smells of urine and is never washed, where I
listen to the demented chant my guilt to the murderers
until I’m done with.
“Please speak into the small mike in front of you.

We tape conversations in non-legal matters so we don’t
have to type it up later. Is that alright with you?”
“Yes.”
“Someone would have contacted you Saturday,
but there was no listing of your name in the phone
directory.”
“We’re not listed.”
“I assume you mean you and your wife.”
“Yes.”
“You were having an affair with Ms. Johnson. Is that
the long and short of it?”
“She didn’t know I was married, so for her, it wasn’t
an affair.”
“How long did you know Ms. Johnson?”
“A little over three months.”
“When were you last with her?”
“Thursday, when we returned from Florida.”
“Why do you think she committed suicide?”
“She found that I was married.”
“That seems peculiar. Most women cuss you out
and leave or they stay in the relationship.”
“She wasn’t most women.”
“How do you mean?”
“Difficult to explain, things like deceit were more
harmful to her.”
“We contacted her parents on Saturday. Is there any-
one else we need to contact?”
“No.”
[132] Al Gramatas
“We still have a few items from the car, the diary
included. It was decided by the Department years ago
that when diaries are confiscated for any reason we for-
ward them to surviving parents and if there are none
we store them. Rightly or wrongly we think that others
should not have access to the deceased one’s most pri-
vate feelings. In this case we’ll of course send the diary
to Dr. and Mrs. Johnson in Memphis.”
The Lieutenant hesitated, then looked at me again,
retuning his eyes from the floor, before bringing his
hands together under a receding chin, as if he was
going to pray.
“Because of the pain I’ve seen in your face since I
saw you sit down in the waiting room, I’m offering you
an opportunity to read whatever you’d like. I can find
you an empty desk where you can be alone. There’s not
an unkind word about you and there are some beauti-
ful entries that only a woman could write. Would you
like to read them, Nick?”
“Thank you, but I don’t think so. The guilt
would probably increase and I don’t think I can take
anymore.”
“I understand.”
As I walk back to the car, thinking about the decision,

I catch my reflection in a storefront window and turn
instinctively to look at the face that had always pleased
me. It looks differently now, repulsive, monstrous. Nau-
sea racks my body as I stumble to the curb and begin

regurgitating on the pavement. A high-heeled woman
stops to place her hand on my back.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asks kindly.
“No, I killed someone Saturday.”
She removes the hand and continues her journey
more swiftly than before.
[134] Al Gramatas
[135] Al Gramatas
Chapter 11
To me, it seemed the sweetest summer of all. Most

afternoons on the way home from the small town’s
swimming pool or the baseball field named after Babe
Ruth, I’d steer my Western Flyer bike into the parking
lot of my father’s restaurant. Making a beeline for the
pie case, I’d devour two Boston Crèmes and see how
many orange sodas I could drink. My father never said
anything, maybe because I was his only son.
I was coming of age at fifteen, I thought, on my way
to manhood. The waitresses would smile at my fool-
ish attempts to flirt, and then ask if the training wheels
were still on my cherished bike, and all of us would
laugh.
Sometimes I’d talk to customers or work the cash
register. Sometimes I’d wait for the Coca Cola truck, so I
could say hello to John. The truck would show up once
a week, always at the same time, give or take an hour.
[136] Al Gramatas
The driver was a nice fellow, I suppose, just never said

much. But he did tell the story about being bitten by
a rattlesnake when he was a kid, hunting in the back-
woods, and how John, his black-as-smut helper on the
truck, carried him a mile on his back to the highway for
help.
They had been friends since childhood, and I
thought how peculiar that was. The driver rarely smiled
and had a serious nature about him, and his helper nev-
er met a stranger.
John was the one everyone liked. One hand would
hold the delivery door open, while his other pulled in
a large hand truck, loaded with cokes inside wood-
en crates, everything clanging as he moved. I always
thought the bottles were about to break in their crates
or the whole thing would topple over onto the concrete
floor, but they never did, because John knew what he
was doing.
He called my father Mr. G and me, Little G, I sup-
posed because he couldn’t pronounce our foreign
names, or he just didn’t want to try.
Before stacking everything against the wall, he’d
address everyone in the kitchen with a smile and a few
words, which seemed just right for the moment, making
them feel better than before he entered the building.
My father asked him once if he got a second check
every week from Coca Cola for being their goodwill
ambassador. He replied that God put him on earth to
bring a little sunshine in people’s lives and that he had

done a good job, for the most part.
I wondered, as a young boy will, why an old man in
his forties would do such hard work, and what would
happen when he got even older.
Most everyone in our southern town knew something

about John, and I knew it too. He had found love with
a white woman, Thelma, a half a dozen years before,
when they worked at the cotton mill.
Thelma came to the restaurant one day looking for a
job, and my father hired her. Later, I overheard him tell
my mother that a supervisor at the mill said she was a
hard worker, and that was good enough for him.
When Thelma heard John’s bottles rattling in the
kitchen, she never ventured there, until my father went
to the cash register to pay the driver’s bill and the truck
had pulled into the street.
One of the last times I saw John was the week of my
graduation from high school. Riding shotgun, as usual,
he climbed down from his seat, with a smile across his
face, and found me standing by the truck. I asked if he
knew that Thelma was sick. She had called, not sound-
ing well.
He stood, not saying anything for a moment, seem-
ingly puzzled that I would know of their relationship. I
asked if he wanted to use the phone because I’d heard
there wasn’t one in the old battered house by the rail-
[138] Al Gramatas
road tracks where he lived with an aging mother and

a son. He thanked me, saying he would call from a pay
phone near the next stop. John urgently rolled the sodas
in and went outside, to pace back and forth, his face
lined with apprehension, waiting for the driver to start
the engine.
Thelma never came back to work again. Her pay-
check was picked up each week by a sister, and that con-
tinued until the end. Everyone at the restaurant liked
Thelma, and there were no dry eyes when we got the
news.
Our family and several employees went to the funer-
al, where they laid her in the red earth, after prayers
were offered in a small Baptist church on a country
road. John was not there that day, and we all knew
why.
After Thelma was laid to rest, the truck came without

John for a while. The teenage son of the driver rode with
his father for a month or so, both pulling bottles of soda
inside, the sweat dripping from their pudgy white fac-
es, as if they had to use every muscle in their bodies.
My last memory of John was the week he returned
to work, the same week I would head for school in
Atlanta, wanting a fuller life, more than a small south-
ern town could spare.
Taking payment from customers was my job that
day, when I heard cokes entering the back door. The
sound was different, like before, John’s sound. Every-

one was quiet when I approached to welcome him back,
and to say I was moving out of town. He wished me
well, but said little more, before returning to the truck
to sit in his seat, without expression, waiting for the
driver. His profile was unlike the one I had known. It
was vacant and without joy, needing solace that would
probably never come.
Fifteen years have passed since John lost Thelma, and

the truth is I’ve not thought of them much, maybe a
fleeting thought now and then.
Tonight, my mind has wandered back to that place
and time.
I know now what John was feeling, sitting there in
the truck.
The same things are roaming in my head now. Eliz-
abeth and I were of a different bent, and more sophis-
ticated about the ways of the world than John and his
Thelma, yet, the measure of the loss is the same, the
very same.
[140] Al Gramatas
[141] Al Gramatas
Chapter 12
I summon the manager of our Memphis office to

telephone local funeral homes and identify the one han-
dling Elizabeth’s service. He responds within minutes
of my call. “Nick, it’s the Providence of God, I’m telling
you. The first place I called was the one,” he says, the
good Christian that he is.
“Oh, of course, we can do wonderful things these days,”

the man at the funeral home tells me when I call to ask
if the casket will be opened.
I may not be brave enough to look at her, I say to
myself, after listening for a few moments to the enthu-
siastic description of his skills, cutting him off in mid-
sentence, not wanting to hear more and to ask for less
gruesome information.
[142] Al Gramatas
“The deceased will be taken to the Church for a

viewing by the family at a little before two o’clock and
after the pastor’s words we will proceed to the final rest-
ing place,” he says with little empathy for the caller but
with practiced reverence for the dead, as it should be.
The airplane flight to Memphis is delayed, a result of

problems never quite explained. This may be the final
indignity I have to offer, arriving late or not at all for
her funeral, as I ponder, waiting in the Atlanta airport,
engulfed in my private world of torment. I finally board
the plane two hours after the scheduled departure time,
wondering if this is a bad omen, a reckoning for the
wrong I’ve caused and a forewarning of things to come.
After running to the rental car in Memphis, I nav-
igate street after street, finally arriving at the church
shortly before two-thirty and park at the rear of a line
of cars, directed there by an elderly man.
As I hurry nervously toward the tall front dou-
ble doors, they’re suddenly opened outwardly by two
young men dressed in black. I stand still near two
motorcycle policemen, one pulling a helmet over his
head.
Within moments, she comes out, encased in a pol-
ished walnut casket held in the black gloved hands of
six men approximately her age. My tears flow uncon-
trollably as Dr. Johnson and his wife follow their only
child.
He is beyond grief, slumped, hands dropped to the

sides of his legs rather than consoling his wife. He stares
at the casket wide-eyed, trancelike.
The mother, crying and speaking inaudible words
known only to her is supported by a man, his tears
unable to be wiped by hands that are holding Mrs. John-
son’s shoulders. His petrified expression is much differ-
ent from the smiling photograph lying among others in
the album Elizabeth had shown me in the apartment on
a Sunday afternoon, not many weeks before.
Will’s beautiful heart, as she described it, is evident
as he comforts the mother of the woman he loved not so
long ago, and whom he seems to love now if the tears
are a measure. He carefully deposits the mother on the
rear seat of the black limousine and walks to the back of
the hearse as the pallbearers strain to position the coffin
for its last ride.
Their job completed, they step back, facing each oth-
er, looking at the ground with stolen glances toward the
coffin.
The attendant puts his hand inside the open door
of the hearse, seemingly to adjust something, to make
it right. He withdraws from the opening and grabs the
handle of the heavy door, pushing it forward. The harsh,
ominous sound of the closing door resonates through
my mind, announcing Elizabeth’s journey to her grave.
I become hysterical, instinctively walking to the
hearse, touching the side window, looking at the flow-
[144] Al Gramatas
er-laden casket, not wanting the driver to get in or the

hearse to leave.
“Elizabeth, the experiences you’ll never know. I’ll
love you forever. Please forgive me.” The church steps
appear as I wander across the lawn, trying to find a pri-
vate place to regain a part of my sanity.
“You’re Nick, aren’t you.” The man says, not asks,
standing over me like the Good Samaritan, a soothing
voice in my world of despair.
“Yes,” I say, through a shattered voice, not my own,
”and I recognize you, Will, from a photo she showed
me. I’m pleased to meet you, but not under these cir-
cumstances. I’ll compose myself in a few minutes. I can’t
talk anymore right now.”
“I’ll go with you to the cemetery. I’m with my par-
ents and sister. I’ll give them the keys to my car and be
right back.”
We wait for those in front of us to enter the street.

“You must have rented this at the airport.”
“Yes. I almost didn’t get here. There was a problem
with the plane in Atlanta.”
“I suggest you don’t introduce yourself to her par-
ents. They’re not themselves right now. He had a nurse
bring over some pills from his clinic yesterday. Both of
them are like zombies.”
“I understand.”
“She told them about you on several occasions.”
“Do you know anything about the conversations?”

“I spent most of last night at their house. We talked
about everything there was to talk about. Last week she
called late at night to tell them she was madly in love
with you.
“I felt hate for you when her father told me that. I
shut myself in the bathroom and stayed awhile, trying
to get it out of my head. She broke up with me in our
freshman year in college. That night she told me she
cared for me, but wasn’t in love. I called my best friend
in Memphis and we went out and got drunk at the Ren-
dezvous, a club here. The cops took me to jail after a
ruckus in the parking lot. My father bailed me out and
I told him about Elizabeth. He knew how much I loved
her. It was the only time I’ve ever seen tears in his eyes.
He’s a hard man. I’ll never forget it.”
“Are you married, Will?”
“Yeah, I married a sweet gal. She worked in my
father’s business. We got two kids now. She’s a super
person.”
“That’s great.”
“No, that’s good. What you had was great. I go to
Atlanta for business reasons now and then. I’d like to
have a beer with you and talk about what happened. I
don’t think talking about it now would be right.”
“Of course.”
“When we were eighteen, Elizabeth said she under-
stood why people commit suicide. ‘The only way to
relieve the mind,’ that’s the way she put it.”
[146] Al Gramatas
“What was going on when she said that? The

circumstances?”
“We had been water skiing at my dad’s place at the
lake on a Sunday. I was taking her home late in the day
when we saw this maybe nine or ten year old black kid
walking beside the highway, alone.
“It was miles from anything on the back side of the
lake and she asked me to stop. He said he was on the
way to his aunt’s house on Morris Avenue, and when
he got in he slumped down in the backseat like a scared
animal.
“Elizabeth asked him if there was anything wrong
and he told her his mother was a heroin addict and that
she was in bed with an old white guy at the lake and he
decided to leave. He said it matter-of-factly, without any
emotion. Elizabeth noticed him holding the back of his
left hand and when she asked about it, he unwrapped a
bloody sock that hid a gaping wound.
“The flesh was lying apart, like it had been cut. Eliz-
abeth told him we would have it taken care of at the
hospital and then drive on to his aunt’s house, but when
I stopped in front of the emergency entrance he jumped
out of the car and ran. We drove around for a while but
couldn’t find him.
“Elizabeth was mostly silent on the way to her par-
ents’ place and before she got out she said that about
suicide. It worried the hell out of me but when I tele-
phoned her later that night she said, ‘Now, Buster, why
would I ever do something like that?’
“She sounded fine so I didn’t think much about it

anymore until she died. Nick, I have to ask you a ques-
tion. I know it’ll sound peculiar. You and Elizabeth, did
y’all have a sexual relationship?”
“No, Will. She told me about her mother being a vir-
gin till she was married and that she was going to do
the same. She let me know that in the beginning.”
Compassion, even when a lie, gives relief to those
suffering, I’m thinking, as I drown in my own misery.
As she’s lowered into the earth I stand nearby,
alone, sensing for a moment, through the tears, that it’s
a dream, then immediately realizing the truth.
Dr. Samuel sits next to Elizabeth’s mother holding
her hand. The cries of those around me, who knew her,
send me deeper into despair.
I sit in the Memphis airport, desolate, a feeling that I’m

sure will be with me the remainder of my sorry life.
“Miss, the car I turned in a few minutes ago, I’d like
to rent it again. There’s no need to have it cleaned.”
I drive back to the cemetery, arriving just before
sundown, her favorite time of day. The caretaker, walk-
ing near his house, eyes me as I approach the grave,
then looks away, as if he has seen many come before.
A slight wind stirs the air, now and then lifting my
tie. The sweet smell of flowers and aroma of the recent-
ly unearthed soil assaults my nostrils.
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“Elizabeth, I’m here, sitting on the ground in the

black suit you mentioned the first time you called. I
thought you were laughing at my suit but you said ’no,
it’s because you sound like a schoolboy’. Your face mes-
merized me that night at the Rainbow and when you
called two weeks later I went nuts when I heard your
voice.
I’ll never know exactly what emotions you had after
you found that I was married, but I know it must have
hit you like a ton of bricks, devastating, wasn’t it?
You knew at twenty-eight you finally found the one
you loved and figured that what we had would never
happen again but you thought of me as being soiled, so
what were you to do?
You tossed away your virginity when you took my
hand that night at the apartment. When you began
thinking about it all, you supposed I was a fraud, some-
one who takes what they need and leaves, but it’s not
true.
I was going to tell you everything and ask you to
marry me. You didn’t know that, did you or would it
have changed anything after you found that I was
married?
Lieutenant Barton said that most women who find
their lover is married give them a cussing and go on
with their lives, but you had to do this.
That quirk of yours, being so sensitive about people
being unkind, well, what I did to you, my lie, was just
a little speck of a thing compared to the cruelty around

us, Elizabeth.
You should have been beside me in Vietnam to hold
smashed human bone dying in the rain, the horror of it
all or how about the millions of Jews who were herded
to the crematoriums at Auschwitz. And did you know
that thousands in our world die every day with swollen
bellies because they have no food? But for you, my lie
was horrible too, wasn’t it, dear?
My eyes are filled with tears but I won’t wipe them.
I don’t want to see the stupid flowers and the red dirt
they’ve piled on you.
If you hadn’t done this we could be moving into a
house soon and maybe would have had a daughter that
looked something like her mother.
I wonder sometimes if you did this to hurt me.
That’s a foolish thought, I suppose, but if you did, you
succeeded. The hurt is more than I could explain to any-
one, not that I ever would, and the consuming guilt is
heavier than anyone should bear, even me.
Don’t think I’m mad, I’ll never have those thoughts.
There’s nothing in my heart but love. I just want you
back. I’ll never understand why you thought you had to
do it.
I have to go now to catch the last flight of the day to
Atlanta. If you ever want to speak to me, I’m here and
I’ll be talking to you during my worst nights and will
visit you from time to time. I’m so lost without you.
[150] Al Gramatas
As the plane lifts from the runway I write the follow-

ing on my boarding pass and put it in a shirt pocket,
unsure of the reason I want a memento of the most bru-
tal day of my life:
The funeral for Elizabeth Marie Johnson began in a
Methodist Church near downtown Memphis and end-
ed not far away. Her body, encased in a polished walnut
casket, was lowered into the red earth among the moss
covered gravestones of those long forgotten.
[151] Al Gramatas
Chapter 13
On a bright, pretty day in early August I move from

the house into an apartment community, the kind with
manicured grounds and expansive lagoon pool, telling
its residents that the premium rent is justified.
I plunge into work again, vigorously, to distract my
mind from other thoughts and to repair the damage
inflicted on business, caused by my lack of attention.
I also become a parody of the times: a white pants
dandy, slicing through the night; a supreme indulger of
booze, drugs, and lascivious sex, things to anesthetize
the mind and soul.
I have no relationships, only a once empty fishbowl
sitting in the pantry holding business cards, deposit
slips, and napkins, all vestiges of the women who have
passed through for a night or more.
At times, peculiarly, I find that I’m lonelier with
someone than without. Nevertheless, a compulsion to
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pursue the next experience remains. Until Elizabeth

there were no affairs or serious flirtations during an
almost decade of marriage, but I swiftly find attracting
the opposite sex is, for the most part, effortless. A sign
of the times, I suppose.
Drugs are available as fast and easy as a squirrel
changing position. Most everyone I know smokes weed,
but I find it’s not my drug of choice. Lounging with pot-
heads doesn’t blend well with my temperament. I find
my drug of choice quite by accident, while talking to an
occupant of a bar stool around midnight.
“Want to dance?” she asks.
“I’m beat. Worked all day and then took a customer
to dinner before coming here.”
“Be my guest,” pulling an orange plastic container
from her purse.
“Looks like a prescription container. Did a doctor
prescribe the pills?
“No. I keep them there in case my mother or some-
body goes through my purse. Stick your tongue out.”
“What am I taking? Can you be trusted?”
“Speed.”
“Amphetamine?”
“Yeah, speed, crystal, all the same thing. I’m going
to the ladies room. You be here when I get back.”
“Linda, you’re a purveyor of magic,” I say, with a
smile on my face, after she returns. “Let’s dance and
where are we going after we leave here? The night’s still
young.”
As the seventies speed toward the next decade, Atlanta

is the Mecca for those looking for a more desirable life
and an opportunity to grow professionally.
They come in droves from the decaying cities of the
North and small Georgia hamlets where there wasn’t
enough to do on Saturday nights, bringing their bag-
gage, as I had brought mine.
Everybody is looking to find their special one but
most settle for less, someone that’s not hard to look at
and easy to hold.
“You have a really nice apartment, Nick, but there’s not

a single photograph. Why is that?” the overly inquisi-
tive night visitor asks.
“Don’t want to remember.”
“Did she leave you for someone else?”
“No, she just left.”
I continue believing the grief will subside as the months

slip by, similar to after the death of my beloved father
when I was fifteen, but it doesn’t. Days filled with the
complexity of business and adventures in the night are
mostly free of her, but at times, especially when I’m
alone late in the evening, it’s the long black cloud clos-
ing in, things gnawing at the mind. Keeping my plate
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filled is what I need to do. Keep moving. One can’t feel

the sun by sitting alone in the shade, I figure.
Only a few months into my new life I sense that the
metamorphic process of transition was complete. Other
than the job, my previous life had evaporated.
There is no longer the stability of a marriage, some-
thing to come home to. Those couples my wife and I
considered friends have decided to side with her, I sup-
pose, and rightly so.
Ben has deserted me, too, at the request of his wife,
not wanting her husband associating with a known
adulterer.
Most of all, of course, is the affection I no longer
receive from Elizabeth and the sweetness that began in
the theatre parking lot when I first expressed my love.
It was the kind of sweetness that hung in the air. I miss
that terribly.
There are smiles on countless faces that have looked
my way lately, but they are manufactured, as are mine,
to entice, to charm. I don’t confuse those smiles with the
sincerity of Elizabeth’s sweetness.
At times, I think the future holds little other than
work and going into the night to fetch more women,
like a painter retuning to the canvas to make another
stroke on a bad painting.
The sleeping, or more accurately, lack of it, has
become a burden. Sleeping pills are serving me less
well now, but I continue to consume them before bed for
the placebo effect. I need their help, even if they deceive

me.
As each month turns to the next I become more jad-
ed by the lifestyle I lead. I think of women differently
now, especially the lonely ones and the things they will
do for affection, even the disingenuous kind.
They tell me things about their past as if I’m the
Messiah, put here to save them from their loneliness
and self-doubt. I have demons of my own, I should tell
them, but I don’t, preferring to keep Elizabeth above it
all. I lend them my ear and they repay me with their
wares, an unspoken bargain made in the night.
A sordid lifestyle it is, but I push such thoughts from
my mind for the most part, wanting to retain as much
humanity as possible. I look in the mirror, realizing I’m
a willing participant.
Decadence can stain the soul, I’m thinking, as I lay

across the brass bed late at night in a room I’ve not seen
before and will not visit again. She stands naked in the
bathroom, preparing another line of cocaine to snort
into her abused nose.
“Want a little more of the white lady before I put it
away,” she asks.
“Nope, wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week.”
“I didn’t bring you here to sleep, Nick. Do you do
this often?”
“The sex or the coke?”
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“Both.”
“The coke, almost never, too addictive and expen-
sive. It’s for rich bitches like you. The sex, now and
then.”
“Why did you describe me like that?”
“The car you drive and the size of that bag of nose
candy sitting in front of your teats. The bitch part, hell,
do I have to explain that?”
“I think you got it about right. Want to do some cra-
zy shit when I come back to bed?”
“Not if I’ll be hurt.”
“You won’t be, I will.”
“You ever think about gettin’ off the train, before it
crashes?”
“Why get off, it’s fun. We’re going to be old and fat
one day, Nick, enjoy it while you can.”
“Yeah.”
“Your tone has changed since leaving the club, the
good time Charlie has turned to something else. You’re
not an axe murderer or something, are you?”
“Not lately.”
“Listen, I was married to a Braves player for a while.
I thought it was going to be good, but it wasn’t. He
didn’t know how to do anything good off the field. My
daddy never said anything, but I could see it in his face.
He thought my husband was dumb. He wasn’t good in
bed and didn’t even know the small fork is for the sal-
ad. The three close friends I’ve had since college are all
divorced. One has two kids and no child support. He
ran off to South America or somewhere. Nothing is like

I thought it would be. I live for the moment and don’t
think about all that other shit. You want to hear more?”
“No.”
I look forward to Charlie’s visits from the corporate

office. They have become less frequent than before. He
never says why and I don’t ask, nor do I talk about my
life away from work. It would seem to him a life with-
out substance and he would be right.
He’s standing outside the baggage area of the airport
with his expensive, tan Hartman luggage and matching
briefcase. I think of what he said a couple years earli-
er as I pull to a stop…’Buy the best stuff when possi-
ble. It gives you that warm fuzzy feeling and everybody
thinks you’re smarter than you are when they see you
with it.’
He greets me enthusiastically after placing the
Hartmans into the trunk. “Gees, Nick, where you been?
I coulda’ read War and Peace, the whole damned book,
while I was waitin’ for you.”
“I’m sorry, Charlie. The traffic is crazy. I’ll buy you
a drink at your favorite watering hole if you won’t be
mad, you old fart.”
“I’m going to miss coming to Atlanta,” he says as I
pull away from the curb.
“What does that mean?”
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“What do you think it means? I’m hanging her up,

retiring next month. Had my fill of this rat race shit. The
wife and me are moving to the mountains. So, are you
going to screw it up?”
“What?”
“Your new job.”
I lay a hand on his shoulder, ”Charlie, if I wasn’t
driving, I’d kiss you on your bald-ass head.”
I knew you were queer all along, you fucker.”
“Charlie, seriously, I never thought I’d be getting
your job after what happened. I appreciate everything
you’ve done for me since day one.”
“You and your folks brought the revenue back to
record levels. You deserve a lot of credit for that, Nick.
There was a time when I was thinking about firing you
back then, but after that call about the girl dying, just
couldn’t do it. Don’t remember exactly how I respond-
ed to you on the phone that day because I was stunned
by what you were saying. But I do remember telling you
that yesterday is dead and gone, and that you have to go
on with your life. How are you doing now?”
“Found that yesterday may be dead, but it’s never
gone. Some nights, I’m imprisoned by dreams, Charlie,
about the way it could have been.”
[159] Al Gramatas
Chapter 14
He had not lost the phone number I’d written on a

piece of paper from the rental car’s glove compartment
the day of the funeral. I think of the kind face that day
as I listen to his voice calling from the Atlanta airport to
say he was in town on business, wanting to meet me, if
possible. I suggest a bar, not for from the Interstate that
would be easy to find.
I sit in the corner, away from the laughter, know-
ing this isn’t a place where we should talk about her
and thinking about my bad suggestion as he enters the
door.
“Will,” I call out, after walking halfway across the
room to greet him.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice, sorry
that I didn’t call from Memphis. I was in a hurry.”
“It’s okay, we’re here. Have a seat. What can the
waitress get you?
[160] Al Gramatas
“Nothing, I’m an alcoholic, been on the wagon six

months. Can’t go back. It was pretty bad.”
“I was thinking this was a dumb place to meet when
you walked in, wanna’ go someplace else?”
“Naw, most of my friends drink, I’m around it all
the time. You don’t have to call me Will. I’ve been Bust-
er to everybody since Elizabeth named me that in high
school. I wear it now like a good fittin’ coat, or maybe a
badge, wouldn’t want any other name.”
“What can I tell you?”
“Anything you want to. Her parents never ques-
tioned things. It’s like they don’t want to know why.
They don’t travel anymore. Betty started working at his
clinic, I guess to have something to do. They damn sure
don’t need the money. It’s sad as hell, really. You were
married, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“How could you do something like that?”
“She was everything and I was afraid of losing
her.”
“You lied to her.”
He hurries his weight out of the chair and walks
to the bar, holding it at the edge with both hands for
awhile before turning to look toward me through sad
eyes.
“Come with me Buster. I want to show you
something.”
He sits in the passenger side of my car, not wanting

to be there, while I pull the small crimson box from my
briefcase.
“This is what I bought in Birmingham the day
before she died. The jewelry store lady asked why I was
so sure of the size. I told her I just knew. I was going
to explain everything and ask her to marry me after
returning to Atlanta that night and then I would have
put it on her finger if she said yes.”
Why didn’t you take it back?”
“Take it back? Why would I do that? It’s all I have
left.”
“Why can’t things work out like they’re supposed
to?”
“I don’t know, Buster. I try not to think about it, but
I do.”
“When y’all were sittin’ around sometimes and you
said something stupid, did she curl her lips and look
cross-eyed at you?”
“Yeah.”
The baseball game is in the bottom of the second when

I flick on the television in my apartment. We had gone
to a restaurant to eat together. It was there I extended
the invitation to have him as an overnight guest and he
readily accepted, willing to wallow in the past and the
pain, like me, anything to be near her again.
[162] Al Gramatas
The funeral is never mentioned. Now and then,

one of us gazes toward the meaningless game for a
while, giving the other a chance to recover from a hurt-
ful thought or allow a single tear to be secretly wiped
away.
At times, he speaks of her as if she loved him, refus-
ing the truth. I hold back, not describing our intima-
cy, words I know he’d be unable to erase from his mind
until death.
When the last out is recorded in the ninth, we walk
to the lagoon pool and sit in the darkness under an
umbrella to finish our thoughts.
It occurs to me that we could be close friends in
another life, but never here. The past is too painful, the
loss too great.
We head back to the apartment with nothing
resolved, but with an understanding of what love for a
woman can do to another man.
[163] Al Gramatas
Chapter 15
Yesterday marked the second anniversary of

Elizabeth’s death. She enters my mind incessantly these
days, sometimes as a fleeting thought and now and
then as prolonged images so vivid they can almost be
touched.
I’ve stored memories of our time together, down to
the inflection of her words, the nuance of a hand remov-
ing an earring. With little effort, I can turn to a particu-
lar page, reliving an experience as if I’m sitting alone in
a theater, watching ourselves reenact a scene on stage.
My conscience, at times, seems incapable of deny-
ing entry to other players, demons dressed in guilt and
remorse. They arrive on stage parading themselves as
if they own me and then beckon that I go with them to
their dark, confined room, a space that happiness and
joy has abandoned.
[164] Al Gramatas
A fickle concoction it all is and sometimes, mostly

in the dead of night, tempestuous thoughts stir the air.
I know well the persistent raven tapping at Poe’s cham-
ber, things being the way they are.
I ‘ve visited Elizabeth’s grave site in Memphis twice, the

first during a business trip in June of last year and then
yesterday, on Saturday. I arrived from the airport in ear-
ly afternoon, staying with her until the caretaker said it
was time for the gate to be closed.
There were things I didn’t have time to say, so an
overnight stay in a memory motel nearby and returning
today was the only option. I thought it peculiar when
he explained about the gate not opening until noon on
Sunday. Before, I had only known of cemeteries with-
out fences where the griever could visit the loved one
whenever they wished.
A short time after my return today, the caretak-
er appeared seemingly from nowhere, delivering a
small black folding chair and departing without a word
spoken. I viewed the delivery as compassionate and
thought of his silence as golden. From my place on the
ground, I looked up as the chair was placed by my side
and sensed he did not expect me to speak. He looked
away from my wounded face out of learned respect.
A procession came in the afternoon to bury one of
their own nearby. I remained until the last of them had
gone so there would be only the two of us for a while.
I talked to her today about things left undone and

of my crying heart and how much she is missed, and I
spoke of atonement for my shameful deceit. There was
deliberate silence for extended periods.
As she not long ago said, ”consuming all of the
time with words isn’t necessary, silence can hold beauty
when you’re with the one you love.”
Late in the day I carry the chair to the caretaker’s
house, thanking him for his kindness and return to the
grave to lie on my side for a while atop the polished
marble above her body, before I walk to the rental car
on the hill.
[166] Al Gramatas
[167] Al Gramatas
Chapter 16
Years had passed since the parking lot would fill

on Sunday, yet the church in downtown Atlanta still
drew attention to itself. The high slender steeple rests
atop a silenced bell tower, everything supported by
the massive building occupying the best part of a city
block. Most of the parishioners drifted away over the
years, finding comfort in suburbs, wanting peace from
downtown.
A wino or two would be slumming on marbled
steps sometimes as I drove by on the way to visit a client
in a high-rise office building nearby. The glass-enclosed
signboard, attached to the facade, announces a welcome
with words from the scriptures, beckoning lost souls
seeking redemption or anyone else who happens by.
Pulling open one of its tall double doors, I expect
solitude and quiet, but discover more than a dozen wor-
shipers, mostly men, scattered about in the front rows
[168] Al Gramatas
listening to a sermon. The preacher stands to the right

of the pulpit, in a robe, glancing toward me with a half-
smile before returning his attention to the small flock.
His words and delivery are unpolished, as if he
chose the wrong profession in his youth. Now, at an
advanced age, he has the dismal duty of preaching to
the unkempt and homeless, sitting and coughing, before
him.
I sit in a back pew, away from others, like a voyeur,
preferring not to participate. Heads are bowed in silence
for a short prayer before the ragged congregation heads
up the slightly inclined isle toward the front doors.
Some look my way as they pass, as if my suit and tie
are out of place. The preacher ambles up the isle, behind
them, like an old horse unable to right its neck and head,
ready to be put down, any day now.
“Welcome, young man, I’m Reverend Monday. I
hope you won’t mind if I rest here a few minutes before
going in the back to the rectory.” He places the Bible
between us and sits several feet away, not wanting to
invade my space.
“I’m Nick.”
“You should have gotten here an hour or so earlier,
coulda’ had a good meal with us.”
“You have a soup kitchen?”
“Well, that was back in the depression days. I remem-
ber them well, stood in line with my father more than
once. Still recall the look on his face. No, soup is about
the only thing we don’t serve. A restaurant owner down
on Ponce has an employee deliver what’s left over after

they close every night. He’s got a key, puts the stuff in
the frig around midnight. Been doing it for years. Start-
ed with his father and after he died, the son kept send-
ing the food. Never even met him. I used to call to say
a thank you every couple of weeks, then awhile back,
he said that wasn’t necessary. On Thanksgiving and
Christmas day, there’s something extra. I’ve heard he
likes the ladies too much and gambles in Vegas. I pray a
few words for him most every day.”
“Reverend, I’d think the good he does overshadows
the bad.”
“Maybe so. What were you thinking before you
came here today? I can tell from your clothes that you’re
successful, or working on it, but that means little when
something is heavy on the mind, maybe I could help.”
“Not to offend, but I have to work it out on my own.
I came, thinking I could be away from phones and peo-
ple, and bad thoughts. Driving down the street, I felt the
need all of a sudden, to climb into a cocoon. I thought
your place would do just fine.”
“Do you have faith in Jesus, son?”
“What do you really mean, do I believe words in the
Bible, written several generations after his death and
that he was born from a teenager who never laid with a
man?”
“Yes, that’s what faith is about.”
“I think I’ll just sit here awhile, Reverend, and think
about everything. I’m tired.”
[170] Al Gramatas
“Stay as long as you wish.”
The voices come from different directions, waking me

from a slouched position at the end of the pew. Several
dozen people of different ages and colors, some already
seated, have arrived. The sign out front, advertising the
seven o’clock service in red letters, flickers in my mind.
“I was told you came in by yourself, this afternoon.
The Reverend said you might need a little company dur-
ing the service. I’m Ann and this is my sister, Joanne.”
“Good to meet both of you, please have a seat.”
“He’s a good man, isn’t he? Last year his mother left
a small inheritance and he told us a salary wasn’t neces-
sary anymore.”
“That was an unselfish thing to do.”
He rushes from the rectory, approaching the pulpit
with vigor, as if a transformation had taken place from
late afternoon.
“You should see him when he feeds the downtrod-
den. He’s a different person. I asked a long time ago,
why that is. He said they’re more accepting if they
believe you understand their misfortune, and it’s bet-
ter to speak and act with little ado, like their life on the
street.”
“Welcome, my fellow Christians and whoev-
er else may be with us. I’m speaking only a few min-
utes tonight. I’ll be leaving soon to be with our long
time member Mary Sims at the hospital. Her physician
called a short time ago to say she is in a bad way. I know

everyone will pray for her tonight before leaving the
building. This is also choir practice night, so I suggest
you stay and listen. Couldn’t cause any harm.
“I want to talk now about faith, a word so fragile,
it is sometimes misunderstood. Do you remember the
story of our Prophet Jonah and his three day sojourn in
the belly of a whale, and then was spit out on dry land,
after praying to God? There is, in the Bible, any num-
ber of described events that draw the suspicion of some,
and on the other hand, are accepted as fact by Christian
Fundamentalists who are not of our ilk.
“So, is the whale story real, did it happen, or is it
a parable, used to illustrate a moral or spiritual les-
son? Common sense tells us if we were in the whale for
three days, our remains would have been excreted as
waste, same as with the many smaller fish it had digest-
ed along the way. It would be folly to believe otherwise.
The Bible is a guide, explaining the fallibility of others,
and the faith that saw them through. Faith is that com-
plete trust and confidence of knowing there is a higher
power beyond this world, a place that is everlasting. I
have to go now. Bless you all.”
“He’s good, isn’t he?”
“Yes Ann, , I hate to say it, but earlier when he was
with the homeless, I thought he was a simple man.
Actually, he has an eloquent mind and you can hear the
conviction in his voice, like red on a rose.”
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“You say things like he does. Are you coming to our

church again?”
“I’m not sure. Why do you come?”
“The church brings me peace. I’ve not had an easy
life. I believe there’s something beautiful and serene on
the other side, after death. Reverend Monday interprets
the Bible like he wrote it himself. There’s a place wait-
ing for him in heaven and I pray there is one for me too.
I love the Lord. Do you?”
“Ann, at this point in my life I don’t think I’m capa-
ble of loving anyone, even the Lord.”
[173] Al Gramatas
Chapter 17
Summer is nearing its end, with the darkness of

fall and winter drawing close, unwanted, when I notice
a dark haired woman lying apart from others at the
apartment lagoon pool, wearing red-framed sunglass-
es. She’s holding a paperback that had lost its origi-
nal shape to wet hands and the sun. Near her are thick
soled flip-flops, serving as paper weights for the already
read New York Times.
My memory flickers back to a beachside shop some
two years before. I had offered to purchase pale blue
flip-flops for Elizabeth, accompanied by my explana-
tion of their practicality.
“Thanks,” she had said, ”but I prefer to wear the
shoes I’ve brought with me,” and then marched off on
the sugar white sand in the shoes she spotted in a bou-
tique window while shopping with Dr. Sam and Anne.
[174] Al Gramatas
I referred to them as her Grace Kelly shoes and she

smiled. Everything was wonderful.
I wade to the edge of the pool, resting my arms on
the concrete. “My name’s Nick. You look good in cheap
sunglasses. Want me to teach you how to swim?”
“Know how to swim,” she says with a Northern
accent, not looking up from the book. “Is that your
opening line?”
“Yes, how did you like it?”
She lowers the book to her lap and looks toward me.
“It doesn’t lack originality.”
“Well, then, may I sit on the end of your bench and
discuss where we might dine tonight or do you prefer
to read?”
“You can sit. My name’s Mary.”
“Did you tell me you’ve never been here?” I say, driving

my company car, only a few miles from the white Gulf
beaches.
“I’m from Jersey, remember? I’ve never been to Flor-
ida. Our family would go to the shore near Wildwood
most summers.”
“Mary, you’re going to have a delightful experience
in the Sunshine State. We’ll be there soon.”
“No sir,” the reservation lady said when I called the

week before to reserve the condominium. “That unit
was sold last winter and the current owners don’t allow
us to rent it. I can put you in the unit just above. It has
the same beautiful view, of course.”
“That’ll be fine,” I respond, thinking how asinine
it was that I requested the same room where Elizabeth
had walked and laughed.
Earlier, my thoughts were different. I wanted to
be there, again, to see the balcony, where she stood
wrapped in a sheet and the bed where the pillow was
held to her chest. I thought there were particulars that
I’ve maybe forgotten, and wouldn’t be able to carry
along, in the years ahead.
I remember the carpet’s color, but the tile pattern
of the balcony floor escapes me. There could be nuanc-
es of conversations that would be rekindled or oth-
er moments that have slipped away. And now it seems
foolish I would allow another to intrude Elizabeth’s
space, a place of dreams and memories that should
remain untouched.
After the call is concluded, I ask for forgiveness
and then hate myself for the remainder of the day as
repentance.
There was a stop at the Atlanta airport to pick up Mary

on the way to the beaches. She had served passengers
their food and drinks on a flight from Boston and now
after all those hours working in the air and traveling
[176] Al Gramatas
on land she was on the way to a much deserved shower

and change of clothes before we dined.
“I’ll be on the balcony when you’re ready. The Mar-
garitas will be waiting for you in the blender on the bot-
tom shelf of the fridge.”
“Great! If I get tipsy tonight, you won’t take advan-
tage of me, will you, Nick?”
“A gentleman would never do something so repul-
sive, but I’m not entirely sure about myself.”
“Bad boy,” before water begins splashing against
the shower door.
The sun had slipped below the horizon before I
stepped onto the long balcony. The sound of surf lap-
ping at the shoreline can be heard but barely seen in the
dimming twilight.
Floodlights illuminate a portion of the white sand
beach near the building. Faint voices rise from the bal-
cony below as I lower myself into the dark green chair.
The man’s voice seems familiar, maybe from the
past, something about it, engaging. Looking below, a
man’s hand is attached to a glass sitting on the flat rail-
ing, but I’m unable to see more.
“Be back soon, Elizabeth, so we can go out and eat.
Your mother and I are starving,” the familiar voice
said.
The young woman appears to have come out of
the building from the stairwell ground exit. She walks
toward the water in a two piece white bathing suit, the
left hand holding blond hair away from the back of her
neck for a moment, the right adjusting a strap on the

shoulder.
The name, such a coincidence, I think, just before she
turns her head to answer the father. “I won’t be more
than ten minutes,” she calls over the shoulder.
Suddenly, intently, she looks up directly at me with
an expressionless face, resembling the expressive one
I had known so well. Then she turns quickly, moving
from the lighted area toward the surf, skipping, then
walking, then skipping again with hands held out from
the body, a mirror image of Elizabeth.
I run to the front door, pass the elevator, then down
five flights of stairwell. The moment feet hit sand, I look
up toward their unit.
The back of a man moves from the balcony to a
lighted living room. Good that her parents don’t see me.
They might mistakenly think I was running after their
daughter to do harm.
Standing near the surf, nothing is seen to the east
but to the west, someone is in the distance near water’s
edge.
The night seems to darken second by second as
I walk toward the figure and then it disappears from
view, inexplicably. I look out over the salt water, need-
ing an explanation, but none comes.
On the way back to the building I see what seems to
be flickering light from a television screen in their con-
do. I stand on the walkway near the stairwell and eleva-
tor entrance for a while, waiting for her to return.
[178] Al Gramatas
The strangeness will be answered later on, I tell

myself, I’m tired now. There were no thoughts of Eliz-
abeth earlier when I walked to the balcony to sit in the
green chair. On my mind was the missed sunset, a con-
sequence of Mary’s flight arriving almost an hour late
to Atlanta plus the stop at the bank and then on the way
down, her insistence to stop at the fruit stand.
Tomorrow will be a new day, I’ll think of tonight as
a coincidence, the name, everything.
“Where have you been? I thought someone kid-
napped you,” Mary says as she opens the door after my
knock.
“Just a little walk on the beach.”
“I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me too, sort of.”
“I got a memory for faces like a dog has for the ones that
feed him,” the middle-aged, portly waitress says, look-
ing at me. “I remember you ate with us before, either
last summer or the one before that. You left me a ten-
dollar tip. I didn’t know it till after y’all went out the
door ‘cause you put the check on your American Excuse
card.”
“That’s a hell of a memory you got, lady. That was
the only time I’ve been here, other than tonight.”
“Are y’all married?”
“Nope, just here to have some good clean fun.”
“Well then, it’ll be okay if I say the other thing. I

remember her, the woman with you. She was blond and
y’all smiled a lot.”
The words spread a chilling loneliness through me
as Mary looks at her purse on the floor, for no reason
other than to deflect what’s been said.
The waitress flips back the cover to her note pad,
pen poised in hand. ”Order anything but the oysters.
They ain’t no good this time of year and don’t ask me
why ‘cause I don’t know. Just take my word for it.”
“She’s a card, isn’t she?” I say after we order.
“So much like a woman who works in a diner just
before you go into the Holland tunnel on the Jersey
side. The only difference is the accent.”
“Mary, you don’t have that hard edge some seem to
have from that part of our beautiful country.”
“I went to parochial school from elementary all the
way through the twelfth grade. I think that has some-
thing to do with it. My mother says there’s something
perceptibly different about Catholic school kids as they
grow older. By the way, you have an edge sometimes but
you can also be a lamb. Where did that come from?”
“Don’t know, no one has ever mentioned that.”
“Do you want to go out tonight or should we go
back to the condo?”
“There’s a place a few miles down the beach road
with a house band that sounds a lot like Fleetwood
Mac.”
“Similar, but different, you mean?”
[180] Al Gramatas
“Yeah, there were a couple horn players in the band,

last year.”
“Isn’t it good that everyone is a little different from
everyone else?”
“Yes, Mary, I think about that every day. I do.”
I slip out of the bed after sunrise, away from her almost
silent snoring. The lobby is vacant other than a bored
young woman behind the front desk waiting for her
replacement.
“Miss, the people in unit 412, I may know them.
Could you tell me their last name?”
“You’re mistaken. 412 is owned by an older couple
from Michigan. They’re only here in the fall and win-
ter. They would never come in high season and they
don’t let us rent it. Maybe it’s another one you’re talking
about?”
“No, it’s that one. Someone is in there now. I saw
them last night. I’ll prove it if you’ll unlock the door.
Let’s go now, please.”
“Sir.”
“Please, I insist.”
“See, I told you, there’s no one here,” she says as I stare

at the blue quilted bed in the master bedroom where
Elizabeth and I once laid.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience I’ve caused you.”
“No problem. You have a nice day. Can I send the

maids to your unit?”
“Not yet, someone is still sleeping.”
Submerged to the shoulders in water at high tide, my

skin tells me the clear blue water has not yet absorbed
the full warmth of the rising sun.
I gaze at a boat on its early morning way to the
deep water fishing grounds and then look up toward
the mysterious condominium where I had become per-
plexed and embarrassed minutes earlier. I try to think
of a rational explanation, but pathways of my mind
offer nothing as an answer for those events of the night
before. Without doubt, the condo was occupied.
My eyes clearly saw the young woman who looked
much like Elizabeth standing in the brightness of the
floodlights. Everything was real. Did I see an apparition
or maybe insanity has overtaken me? I’m not among
those who believe in the supernatural or a hereafter.
Religion is the opiate for the masses, someone once
said. Yes, we slithered from the ocean who knows how
many billions of years ago and finally became strong
and sophisticated enough to build condominiums and
bridges and wars and then we go away, our guilt and
sin silenced.
“It was out there, Elizabeth, we were on floats. ‘Sim-
ple times are best,’ see, I remember your words that day.
You wanted the blue one so it would be less noticeable
[182] Al Gramatas
to any sharks that wandered by. And you mentioned

my red float and yellow swim trunks would be the first
thing they would see from miles away and that I was
sure to make the six o’clock news in the worst possible
way.
Your mind, so amusing and beautiful, those things
you would say. I miss that most of all. The water that
day was smooth as glass, but you wanted waves to rock
you, so we paddled out past the sand bar.
We were lying on our backs and your fingers were
around my arm when the wave hit, pushing us apart.
Side-by-side again, you put your fingers around my arm
like before, only a bit tighter. Do you remember what
you said? ‘I don’t need another silly wave, everything in
my little world is fine, just like this.’
Life was wonderful, wasn’t it, magic always hover-
ing above us, as if it had found a home.
Any day now, I’ll be released from you, Elizabeth.
I’m slipping below the water line.”
[183] Al Gramatas
Chapter 18
As time tumbles by, I bring along baggage packed

years before. Sometimes the weight seems no more
than a human hair and at other times there is heavi-
ness, like the massive rope that holds giant ships to
their moorings.
The memories of her come and go without conti-
nuity and seemingly unrelated to other events of the
moment. At times I recall them voluntarily, wanting to
relive an experience of joy and sometimes thoughts of
her invade my consciousness, uninvited, sitting there
like birds on a wire, bringing their own agenda.
As Dr. Sam said of Elizabeth’s flaw, the mind is a
complicated thing. I can attest to that. There were my
twelve visits to a psychiatrist, a good man nearing the
conclusion of a professional career devoted to assisting
those with drug or alcohol dependency, and the emo-
tionally maimed.
[184] Al Gramatas
“Nick,” he said, “You have taken on more than your

rightful share of guilt in this tragedy. The fact is she
pulled the trigger of the gun. That was a selfish thing to
do. You’ve carried this undeserved burden far too long.
It has damaged you and must be released. Only you can
do that. I think you don’t want to let go of her. You must,
if you are to improve.”
I refrained from asking questions during our time
together until the end of the twelfth hour. “Are there
things in people’s minds so enormous they can never be
erased?”
The answer came without hesitation, “Yes, of
course.”
[185] Al Gramatas
Chapter 19
“Meant to be,” were the words her pastor chose to

describe the circumstances. My soon-to-be second wife
and I are sitting in his church office, making prepara-
tions for the wedding.
She had sung in the choir until she went off to col-
lege, and after that, there was the job in Manhattan,
keeping her away for another year. Now she was back,
listening to him intently, because this would be her first
wedding and she wanted everything to be right.
The wedding coordinator church lady sits next to
the pastor with a look of astonishment, a consequence
of the story my soon-to-be-wife laid out for them,
moments before, concerning how we met and what
occurred before that.
While the three of them discuss particulars, things
of little interest for me, I think of parts of the tale she
had deliberately left out, those too offensive for church
[186] Al Gramatas
ears. I look toward them, in case they ask something of

me, yet, my mind drifts back to the beginning.
It all began when Kim and I were happy together. After

moving to Atlanta, we took a one-bedroom apartment
on St. Charles Avenue, a tree lined street where magno-
lias blossomed in spring and everything seemed right.
On Sunday afternoons, we’d walk a couple blocks to
the Highland Theatre, and after the movie, our minds
were always on the scoop of vanilla served in a green
glass of Coca Cola at Fleeman’s Pharmacy.
A dark mahogany counter near the front remind-
ed me of the drug store back home, but we preferred
sitting at one of the small tables by the window, so we
could see people walk by, and maybe wave to a friend
or two.
One thing we’d always count on was the little girl,
about eight, bringing our vanilla floats over, one at a
time, held with both hands, so they wouldn’t spill. She
was the daughter of the owner, a forty-ish man with
vacant smiles, who seemed always to be busy counting
pills, or moving around like there wasn’t enough time.
He would always be there, coming and going, behind
the sign identifying the prescription pick-up window.
The daughter looked unlike the father, with her fair
hair and soft face, the cheeks always with a ready smile.
She’d plop herself in at our table, or sit at a nearby one if
there wasn’t an extra chair , and ask us about the movie
and a million other things. The pharmacist would shout

from the window, sometimes telling her to leave the
customers alone, and we’d always tell her to stay.
I fast-forward to memories of only eights months ago,

and the knock on my door. I’m inside, lounging on the
white couch with a simple-minded brunette, pleased
with my attention.
The air conditioner can barely keep up, compet-
ing with the July afternoon heat and flames in the liv-
ing room fireplace. We’re smoking the last of the hash-
ish my companion brought over, while we watch color-
ful cartoons on television. Deciding that someone from
the lagoon pool may have come up to find why I’m not
there, I ignore the knock – until it persists.
“I saw your head through the blinds from the park-
ing area. My daughter is moving in. The moving van
will be here tomorrow, but she has a small TV in the
trunk of her car. Would you help?” The woman clamps
her nostrils with two fingers, for a second, after smell-
ing the odor creeping out the door.
“Why in the world do you have the fireplace
going?”
“Atmosphere, lady, have you ever seen Bugs Bunny
do a back flip in slow motion?”
“No, but will you help my daughter?”
[188] Al Gramatas
“Of course, I find I’m standing before you in only by

boxers. Let me attire myself in more suitable clothing
and I’ll be right down.”
“What’s goin’ on Nick?” the voice from the couch

says.
“Find my pants, babe; I have to prepare myself
for a gallant deed, much needed by this lady and her
daughter.”
We see each other coming and going after she moves
in, and exchange words and smiles now and then, but
nothing more, until I receive a call late at night.
“I’m up at Applebee’s on a date.”
“Good for you. How’s the food?”
“Fine, but he’s not like you. Why don’t we go out
sometime?”
“Would that be wise? We live so close to each other;
what if something stupid happened?
“Nothing stupid is goin’ to happen. Don’t you think
I’m pretty enough? I’m better looking than most of those
bimbos I’ve seen you with.”
“I’m at least ten years older than you.”
“I don’t care.”
“How about tomorrow night?”
“That’s better.”
“The restaurant was not the kind that lends itself well
to a first date,” I say, driving back to the apartments.
“That greasy fried fish smell is in my blouse and

skirt. I’m taking them to the dry cleaners tomorrow.
The restaurant advertisement in the paper looked good.
You can select the place we eat the next time, if there is a
next time.”
“There will be.”
“I liked the fish sandwiches served in my father’s
place, except on Saturdays. He said he didn’t want to
offend the Jewish customers. I never understood the
logic of that.”
“Your father had a restaurant?”
“No, a drug store, but they serve drinks and sand-
wiches and ice cream.”
“Where is it?
“Intersection of St. Charles and Highland; it’s been
there for years.”
“Did you take stuff to the tables when you were
little?
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I would come in with my blond haired wife on
Sundays after the movies. We’d sit near the large win-
dow. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” she says with astonishment. “Do you still love
her?”
“No, a lot has happened since then.”
The pastor’s words ring in my ears.

[190] Al Gramatas
[191] Al Gramatas
Chapter 20
We flew to Maui after the wedding and during the

ensuing years had traveled extensively. And now, after
a decade of marriage, my wife has changed little, car-
rying the same spirited temperament and kind nature,
much the same as those years before in her father’s drug
store.
We boarded a ferry earlier today at the port of
Piraeus, along with several hundred backpacking col-
lege-age youth, on our way to Santorini. This is our first
trip to Greece, and I view it as very special, almost a
pilgrimage.
Last night, we had visited the home of a relative on the

island of Lesvos, the birthplace of my father. She had
invited others, including two men who had known him
before he sailed for America at nineteen.
[192] Al Gramatas
They told me things about my father that I had never

heard and as we sat a stone’s throw from the blue Aege-
an Sea, I realized they didn’t fully realize the impor-
tance of their words and laughter, directed at a son who
had lost his father long ago.
The ferry arrived after midnight this morning at
the town of Fira on the western shore of Santorini and
we fell asleep in a cliff-top room situated on the top of
volcanic remains more than a thousand feet above the
ocean.
Opened curtains in late morning reveal the most
magnificent view eyes will witness, striking beauty that
would escape the brush of the most gifted artist. Daz-
zlingly white houses cling to the top of cliffs, intermin-
gled rapturously with blue domed chapels. Resting in
the calm blue water below is a long, clean, three-mast-
ed schooner with her sails fully extended. An old wom-
an dressed in black from head to toe leans against the
white buttress of a walkway near our window, looking
out to sea.
The day is nearly cloudless as we walk the winding
pumice stone pathways, discovering visual treasures,
with the sea rarely out of sight. At shops, we lay hands
on the right gifts for those back home and sit at outdoor
cafés to gather our thoughts.
A late afternoon taxi ride is temporarily interrupt-
ed by an important stop at the young driver’s house,
his wife standing out front, breast feeding an infant.
The driver kisses both with Greek affection before
our trip continues toward Oia to watch the sunset. We

arrive with droves of travelers from scattered parts of
the world, all speaking excitingly in different tongues
about what they will see and then are hushed as the
bright orange sun slowly disappears behind the volca-
nic caldera.
The beautifully warm night air is touched now and
then with the aroma of spices drifting from restau-
rants alongside the harbor’s busy main street. A white
aproned waiter invites us to a table near the moored
fishing boats, rocking gently now and then in the har-
bor water.
“Are you enjoying your dolmades, Nick?”
“Taste better than I had in Athens but not as good as
those you make back home.”
“Maybe we can come back someday, there’s a mil-
lion islands we haven’t seen and maybe we could go to
France,” she says with enthusiasm.
“I like some of their movies but Parisians are too
civilized. Here is better, to be around my own. They’re
more fun, vibrant. I’d like to go to Corfu and Rhodes.”
“Let’s walk down the dock before we leave,” she
suggests.
The bouzouki music from the café is slowly replaced
by the thin sound of a radio coming from a small fish-
ing boat as we walk down the long wooden walkway
over the water.
[194] Al Gramatas
He’s sitting on the deck of the blue and white boat,

a bottle of wine in the left hand and a cigarette in the
other.
“Kalispera,” I say, greeting him a good evening.
“You and your wonderful lady have come from
America, I think,” he says in English with a heavy
accent.
“How did you know, sir?” she inquires.
“The way you dress. Easy to know.”
“That’s an incredible observation skill you have. Are
you a fisherman?”
“I have fished God’s waters since a boy. The fish,
they make more fish. He has been good to me.”
“You’re lucky to work in such a beautiful place.
Would you take us out on the water for a few minutes if
we pay you?
“Lady, I have no need for money. Your company will
be enough payment. Can we leave your man on dock
until we return?”
She laughs as he extends a weathered hand to steady
her balance, settling her on the front seat.
He looks my way and extends his hand to shake
mine. “Your name?”
“Nick.”
“I’m Gus. You sit with me here at back, boat not
move good through water with more weight on front.”
“Do you sleep on the boat, Gus?”
“Sometimes, like now when my wife pushes me
from house.”
“Why is she upset with you?”

“I drink little too much sometime and snore. She
doesn’t like. My sweet Helena and Gus have married
thirty-nine years. Everything is okay tomorrow. Love
for a woman is something, you know.”
“Yes.”
The putt-putt engine seems to have a rapport with
the boat, moving us over the water without vibration,
at a speed that’s in harmony with our words. His right
arm rests on the transom with the left on the tiller to
guide us over the calm harbor water.
He holds the wine bottle forward. “Lady, have a
taste, good, made on Santorini.”
“Never refuse a Greek’s gift,” I say, knowing she
will if I don’t interject.
“Is this retsina, Gus?”
“Yes, you like?”
“It’s distinctive.”
He and I began passing the bottle from one to anoth-
er, as if we had known each other for some time.
“What reason you decide to travel here?”
“I’ve heard from more than one world traveler that
this is the most beautiful place on the face of our earth.
I’ve always wanted to see Santorini with my own eyes.
My father was born on Lesvos where we spent several
days before coming here. Everyone there refers to the
island as Mytilini, its largest city. It’s confusing as hell.”
“Life is confusing,” he says in a knowing way.
“When I was a young man I fall mad in love with this
[196] Al Gramatas
girl and everything is good until day I ask her to marry.

She said ‘No, I will go to Athens, my brother has a job
for me there.’ I beg her to stay but ‘No, no,’ she said. So
next year Helena and Gus find each other at church. We
marry and I adopt her little girl. We have good life, the
three of us. You know, sometime you can’t have what
you want, but find something you need.”
“Yes.”
“Life is this and that, you know. At sixty-five Gus
looks back at his life, good and not so good. I have
brought happiness to some but have regret for those I
caused hurt and the ones who loved me but I couldn’t
give back. There are things that poison the mind. The
olive can be tasty but too much rock under the ground
can make bitter. Fruits of a lifetime can be the same.
Here on the sea I have only good thoughts. She’s my
mistress.”
The fisherman talks on into the night with exuber-
ance about his Island when he was young, before the
tourists came and of his life now. “Mr. Gravedigger, I’ve
already told him. When you dig mine, would you make
it shallow, so I can listen to the sea kissing my Island,
and feel the rain. I made him promise.”
“Gus, you’ve been so gracious to us over the past
hour,” my wife says, turning around to face him with a
thankful smile. “We can go in now, if that’s all right,” as
she feels the first coolness of the late night air.
“Whatever you say, America lady.”
Over the bow of the boat I see people eating at out-

door cafés and strolling to shops on the street by the
water. Floodlights illuminate the darkness of tall volca-
nic remains in the background and in front, a mélange
of colors decorate the waterfront, reflecting their warmth
over the nearest boats in the water.
The thought surfaces suddenly and thorough-
ly without warning: Elizabeth, please come sit beside me a
moment. For a fleeing second I feel her presence and then
she leaves, as hurriedly as she came. I focus filled eyes
on my wife’s back as she gazes toward shore; a sliver of
guilt flickers in my mind for wishing that another was
here from so long ago.
“Are you hurting?” Gus asks, over the slight sound
of the engine.
I say nothing, waiting to be released from emotion,
wanting to compose myself before reaching the dock.
“A woman?” he asks, close to the ear, as if my
thoughts had been laid out on a platter.
He begins singing in his native tongue with a bra-
vado that seems out of place and then the baritone voice
begins embracing the moment, as if the words had been
written long ago to be song only on this summer night.
The fisherman’s life of passion and heartbreak are
emotionally captured in simple but poignant lyrics,
lamenting the past and foreseeing a wondrous, untold
future. ”Embrace memories of the heart as if they were
pieces of gold,” the words urge, ”throw away those
holding sorrow and others will have room to grow.”
[198] Al Gramatas
His hand rests on my shoulder, remaining there,

until we lightly bump the side of the dock.
“What’s wrong, Nick?” she wants to know, looking
at me, preparing to step from the small boat.
“He’s overcome with the beauty of it all. Greeks are
that way. But he can’t stay here. He needs to go back
to America and love you. It’s easy to know. Did I say it
good, Nick?”
“Yes, Gus, as perfectly as it could be said. I wish you
a happy life, my friend.”
“The same to you, Nick. Will you remember me,
America lady?”
“Of course, Gus, we’ll never forget you,” she answers
with a smile, before we turn to walk toward the water-
front street to hail a taxi for our hotel.
Thoughts of Elizabeth’s brief visit play over and over,

as the small taxi pulls from town onto the road toward
Fira. The moment her spirit departed, I recalled the day
of the funeral, but unlike before, without the veil of
guilt, that for so long had tethered itself to my thoughts
and dreams.
In the side window of the taxi, I picture scenes from
the past. They rush by, a kaleidoscope of events from
the night of our meeting at the restaurant to her last
words on the phone. They do not bring pain now, only
a feeling of sweet melancholy, the kind one feels for a
distant loved one, knowing time will pass before they
meet again. A sense of contentment flows through me,

an emotion that has been elusive since her death.
The miles clip away easily, through the lovely night
air, with the dark ocean on one side and houses, most
unlit, on the other.
The driver practices his English with my wife, pre-
ferring to hear a woman’s voice, rather than mine. His
words are painted with youthful exuberance, wanting
to be heard. He’s the same driver who drove us to view
the orange sunset earlier today, and there may be a
stop at the house, like before, to kiss his wife and child,
before entering town. Another smile will find our lips,
if he does.
I think of his youth and when my age was the
same. He resembles me, in his face and the way the
hands move about in conversation, as if words are not
enough.
There are many things I would say to him, if he was
my son. I would tell him that mistakes will be made
along the road and a time may come when your heart
will be tempted to cast aside truth, craving something
that your eyes have told you is gold.
It’s a place you must never go, where lives can be
shattered, one of them your own. And keep in mind,
there are those who are more fragile than most, who
can be wounded with simple lies, and sometimes the
damage is done in the blink of an eye.
“This is last trip tonight,” he says, as we pass his
small unlit house on the edge of town. “We’re going
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to America when I know English good and save more

money.”
“Good, my father got off the boat at Ellis Island
with a hundred dollars. By the time he reached his mid-
twenties he was the proud owner of a restaurant on the
lower east side in Manhattan. Work hard and America
will be good to you.”
“You live in New York?”
“No, we are from Atlanta, in the South.”
“Where was father born?”
“Lesvos.”
“My family is from Lesvos. What is your last name?
“Andreious.”
“Get away from here, as you Americans say. We are
maybe cousins.”
“That would be nice.”
“You grow up in the South? Your father move
there?”
“Yes.”
“’Why he move from New York?”
“The same reason you stopped earlier today to kiss
your wife and baby. He fell in love with a woman from
there. My possible cousin, it’s why we do things, really.
It’s always about a woman.”
We enter the hotel after midnight. The lonely desk clerk

has a need to tell us about his son in America and the
hotel’s history and a number of other things before we

work our way to the small elevator and into our room.
“I’m gonna’ call Charlie. Today is his birthday and I
always call. You remember, I’ve told you about him. He
was my boss, years ago. It’s mid-afternoon in the States
now”
“Don’t be all night, probably cost an arm and a leg
from here. I’m taking a shower so I’ll smell good for
you.”
“Charlie, it’s me. Happy Birthday!”

“Thanks a bunch, Nick, where are you this time?
“On the island of Santorini, in Greece. I’m on
vacation.”
“Gees, I know you like feta cheese, but you could
have bought some in Atlanta.”
“That’s funny Charlie, but I got something impor-
tant to tell you.”
“Everything you say to me is important, you know
that. I can recall stuff all the way back to the day I hired
you. When I asked if you wore cuff link shirts every-
day, you said when a client makes a decision about who
they’re goin’ to give a big chunk of business to, they’ll
remember you, and when they think of your competi-
tion, you want them to think of polyester. God, I liked
that!”
“Remember when we were in that fern bar on
Peachtree after work, and a woman in a red dress
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walked by our table. I looked your way and said she

had soft shoulders and dangerous curves, and you
didn’t say anything, just looked away. I knew why you
did that. You thought I should have more respect for my
wife, and you were right. Your silence said it all.”
“Shit, I remember all that stuff.”
“And, do you remember the sales meeting when
the rep asked why he couldn’t close that sale until you
went with him? Do you remember what you said? You
leaned over the podium, and he knew you had some-
thing important to say. You told him to have his shoes
shined every week and kiss his wife before he left for
work, even if things had gotten old.”
“Yeah, but this is different. I had an epiphany
tonight.”
“A what?”
“It’s like you suddenly realize the essence of some-
thing important, the meaning of it.”
“What happened?”
“I was in a little fishing boat, in the harbor, and this
thought out of the blue came in my mind. I asked Eliza-
beth to sit beside me, and she did.”
“You mean her body?”
“No, of course not, her spirit. I was engulfed by it.”
“I thought you didn’t believe...”
“What do I know, Charlie? I’ve never been one to
delve into the mystic. Maybe there’s something out there
more powerful than the Gods that people have thought
up, something indescribable, just there, shrouding all
the billions of planets in an unknowing way. Last night

was an incredible experience. I’ve not had that feeling
since she was really here.
“I can hear it in your voice. Did she talk to you?”
“No, but it was like when she was alive, I always
knew what Elizabeth was thinking when she was
silent.”
“Why did all of this happen. What did you think?”
“I know for sure Charlie. She came to forgive me.”
[204] Al Gramatas
[205] Al Gramatas
Epilogue
The hotel bed with fresh linen is comfortable, but

sleep doesn’t come, the memories too bright to be swept
away. My wife’s sleeping face is slightly lighted by the
tall streetlight, below.
I think of her kindness and the smile she brings
wherever we might be. The thought of sharing the event
on the boat comes to mind, but I dismiss it as a fool-
ish idea at best. I’ve never mentioned that part of my
life, knowing our marriage could be tainted in a slight
way if my obsession with Elizabeth those years ago was
unveiled.
Some things should be left unsaid, to be recalled
silently, but not in a secretive way. All that remains
from a past of angst and longing is now nothing more
than a flickering candle, the slight flame refusing to be
put away by time or the changing winds. I look toward
[206] Al Gramatas
my wife again, and think of places we’ve seen and spe-

cial moments shared, over the years.
“We have a full and satisfying marriage, wouldn’t
you say?” I whisper in a hushed voice, watching her
sleep.
The day of our marriage comes to mind, with smil-
ing faces looking from the pews, while I took the ring
from Charlie to slide it on her hand. I knew we would
never visit that place of magic, where I had once been,
yet, comfort surrounded me at the altar, as if she was
sent to make my life all right.
I recall the tears in Charlie’s voice after I spoke about
my mystical encounter tonight. The conversation last-
ed long enough for me to say I loved him like a father.
There was an importance attached to my words. His
health may prevent another birthday and I needed to
tell him now.
More than an hour before sunrise, I slip silently from

bed to walk the narrow winding paths in town. Lights
from the small shops remain on to remind late night
revelers that the wares inside can be had the next day.
I sit on a bench near the boats and listen to their slight
movement in the water and think of the town down the
road, and that harbor, where it happened. Maybe there
should be a last visit, to see the small blue and white
boat again, but when I walk to the place where taxis
were parked, one after another earlier tonight, none are

there.
The proprietor of the modest coffee shop and his
helper arrive before sunrise.
“Kalimera,” he greets me a good morning, while I
sit on the nearby bench, looking over dark water. With
Greek words, I ask if he speaks English. “Yes, I lived
in Boston for twenty-five years before returning to the
Island of my birth. I’m George, and you?”
“Nick.”
He invites me in, saying there will be a parade
today, a religious holiday. I listen to him describe the
day’s events, and then mention that we will be leaving
soon.
An early summer sun slowly reveals the dark blue
harbor before he places our coffee on the table and sits
in a chair, looking pleased with his life.
“We celebrate this week,” he begins, “because it’s
very special to us. Over the years many beautiful things
have taken place, some miraculously.”
“Last year on this day, my father telephoned me
from his house and talked to me.”
“What did he say?”
“That’s not the point. He had not spoken in ten
years. The doctors didn’t know why.”
“I have a story to tell you, George.”
“Start from the beginning, I have plenty of time.”
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“Well, I was going to explain only about last night,

but you’re right, it should be told from the beginning.
The story begins when I was thirty-three and ends
today. It’s about a man’s love for a woman and the things
that happened along the way.
“Over the years, I’ve thought of writing a memoir
and now I’m sure that’s something I’ll do. Before last
night it would’ve been like a song without a final verse,
but now the book will have an ending, you see. It’ll be
my gift to her so she knows I still care, like always.”
“Will you return to our island someday?”
“Maybe, there’s an older fisherman in the next town.
I don’t think he’ll be going to sea many more years. I
could buy his boat and do some fishing myself or just
take it out in the harbor at night to sit and look at the
waterfront. Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be wise,
George. There comes a time when things past should
not be so close at hand. Santorini is the most beautiful
place my eyes have ever seen. I understand why you
returned. But for me, too much of the past would be lin-
gering at my door, because of what happened last night.
After leaving the business world, I’ll find a place near
blue water, somewhere that’s free of yesterday and eas-
ier on the mind.”
“I understand, ya sas, Nick.”
“The same to you, my friend.”
People are in the streets, on my way back to the hotel.

Shopkeepers open doors and the smell of a new day
permeates the air. I change path for a man and woman,
into their years, deserving respect. She looks up, with a
wrinkled smile, expressing thanks without words and
moves on, supported by a hand, in a manner he knows
is needed.
Costumed children began gathering in the public
square for the parade, happy they’re here. He’s about
six, holding her small hand, embarrassed, but glad it’s
there, not knowing why.
A thought comes: slipping back in time, to his
age, a chance to have another shot at it all; faces nev-
er seen, smiles from good friends not yet met. Depos-
ing a King would be nice, to have gold laid at my feet.
Yet, all that would seem paltry, compared to the bright
midway I’ve walked, and the love felt, strong enough to
bend the mind. No, I’ll leave it to you, little man, and
those who come after you, not yet born, to keep the cir-
cle unbroken.
I look back, before entering the hotel. He’s still hold-
ing the little girl’s hand, and in the other is a shiny reli-
gious icon, held high, with exuberance, the kind only a
child can display. He steals a glance toward her, while
she says something to her pregnant mother. An old-
er man bends down, to put his ear against the moth-
er’s extended belly. His smiling face talks to the unborn
child, as if his words can be heard.
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Musicians, in the gazebo, began playing a tradition-

al Greek song. He raises his head from the mother and
begins dancing in the street. A white handkerchief, dec-
orating his suit coat, is pulled, an end offered to a young
woman in the crowd.
“Granddaughter, we dance,” the old man shouts out.
They move side by side, connected by the white piece of
cloth. Over his head, fingers are snapped to the festive
rhythm of the music, like he did those years ago, with
her grandmother. Their dark eyes look forward, at me,
the tourist, with my hand on the opened hotel door.
I smile, and it’s returned, as if I’ve been invited into
their world for a moment, to capture a little piece of the
magic, hanging in the sweet summer air.
Before reaching the elevator, I receive a slight wave
from the desk clerk. His other hand is busy checking-in
new guests. The couple standing before him are young.
They hold hands and speak with Irish accents. She
turns her head toward me. “Sir, do you speak English?
Are you enjoying your stay here?”
“Yes, I’m sort of in a hurry to pack, or I’d tell you
more. It’s all good, the hotel and the Island. You’ll
remember the experience when you grow old.”
“Our wedding was yesterday. We promised we’d
grow old together,” she says, with the innocence of a
child.
“I wish both of you luck, and hope it comes true.
Leave the bags on the floor and go out to enjoy the
parade and festival. Dance, if you feel like it, and if not,
sit near the gazebo and listen to the music. Look at the
people, with smiles on their faces and watch gulls fly
across the sky. Listen to your dreams. Get carried away
by it all, this wonderful thing called life.”
Later this morning we fly to Athens, where a larger air-

plane will be waiting to take us home. And, after suit-
cases are unpacked and things put away, I’ll walk out-
side, as I have before, to gaze at the sky and wonder
how it all began.
I’ll marvel at the fullness of my years and whisper
a thank you to any ear that might be turned my way.
I will think of the present, and all the love that’s been
laid on my table by those I cherish, knowing they feel
my devotion.
And I will remember Elizabeth in her summer dress,
the memories resting like polished pebbles in a shallow
stream, their weight granting reason to stay, refusing to
be washed away.
I can hear the laughter. I can see the smile.

[212] Al Gramatas

Losing Elizabeth

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Losing Elizabeth

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Losing Elizabeth

Copyright © 2009 Al Gramatas

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in

Cover and Book Design

Printed in the United Sates of America

Elizabeth Marie Johnson

The memories still linger, not want-

The story begins an hour before we meet.

The escaping landing gear breaks our slumber,

almost to San Diego but to the west there’s nothing but

The rain abates, leaving a fine mist in the air, inspiring

me there had never been a cross word. Amusing it was,

Driving north over water drenched streets, I remember

unique names and splashy signs to draw the attention

my ass and if I write something with a hint of criticism

applause. We wanted to know why the drunk disturbed

My wife once said she appreciated that I didn’t look

“What were you doing? Do you know her?” Ben

“I don’t know. Thought it was sort of funny at the

“Gotta go guys. See y’all in a few weeks.”

The drive home overflows with thoughts of the last few

eyes seemed unfocused and the mind into thought, a

“My name is Elizabeth,” the engaging voice said.

“Noooo,” I say, thinking she dislikes the suit I had

“Sorry, but I have been since my brown eyes caught

“If you’ll promise to be there tomorrow night at sev-

All the selling savvy I could muster was necessary to

those few on our planet without a heart, no heart at all.

“Yes, I’m here,” I say to the face, fresh as an early

and writing paper? It seems I’ve left mine behind at the

medallion of some significance on the right lapel, serv-

There was nursing school before working in her

“Guess I shouldn’t have let him know I speak a little

“You wouldn’t understand, it’s a woman sort of

During the days that follow, I’m absorbed with

And on her parents’ porch on Sunday afternoons, I

“Arne, how goes it?”

“Yeah, I’m your friend but in the pro sports there’s

I knew how Arne would react before he opened his

“Nick?” The one word nullifies all my insecurities.

“Good. What are you doing Sunday afternoon?”

Driving through town to the hospital across rain-

The large room is austere but without the faint smell of

He is a small man with little hair, but with the pres-

here for three hours watching me talk to people. She’s

ger in the man’s embarrassed face. As I turn, Dr. Sam-

tion earlier and he probably had a couple cocktails.

“Darn rain,” I say, hoping for a response that nev-

roof is more pronounced, after turning north onto the

“I wouldn’t make a good host tonight, Nick. Just need

The laughter is the first since leaving the hospital.

version of the house she grew up in, I assume for no

was concerned the words he used to praise her, embar-

The neon sign in the window of the women’s shop was

rior is smaller than I expected. The sales clerk goes from

A loud shriek loosens me from the bad dream at

She says nothing and plops the full length of her

“Aren’t you going to your office today? ” she asks while

”I don’t have a boyfrin–Good morning, Daddy… yes,

“Good morning, Dr. Johnson.” The liveliness of the

”She told him that no one else would be there in one

her apartment? She’s got it fixed up nice, wouldn’t you

A heavy yet feminine woman’s voice chimed

“She said you dress nicely and sell intangibles or