1

Stanley C. Brown email: wed1949@msn.com

1035 Scott Drive #475
Prescott, Arizona 86301

INCIDENTSBy
Stanley C. Brown
An "incident" is "something that happens as a result of or in connection with
something more important; a minor event or episode..." For Marian Louise Shapleigh,
making love with the man she hoped to marry, was, in the scope of things, only one incident
in her busy life as a student. Giving birth to a boy-child was a major event, for mother, for
son, and for the father who used that event as the spring board from which
to leap out of
their lives.
Marian's life for the next months was filled with the major events of dropping out of
college and returning to the home of her parents in Illinois. It was 1930, and a major event
in the life of countless Americans was getting under way - The Great Depression.
However, that was only an incident in the life of her son, William Shapleigh. The
major event he remembered was when at the age of seven he decided his first name was too
common. There were two others in his second grade class who also answered
to "Bill."
"I think I will be called 'Snap.'" And so he was, from then on.

Except for the slow, slow dripping of water from a spigot into a shallow pan on the
ground, everything was totally quiet. Shap sat in the shade of the lanai near the pool,
watching the gardener, Jose. The man stood like a statue, propped by a long handled weed
digger, staring at the spigot. One drop of water every
fifteen seconds, according to Snap's
count as he turned his sun burned arm back from
looking at his watch.The passing of time
was not how the caretaker for the Santa Cruz Town House
2 Association assessed moments
like these. Jose Moreno had no such orientation to gringo watches and date books. His
world view was of place, not linear time. Just now he was here, contemplating the formation
of water drops on the rim of the faucet, and their occasional descent into the little pan. A
lizard came to drink, and Jose did not
move.
William Shapleigh had laid the newspaper across his legs, open to long columns of
tiny stock market statistics. He was glad to pull his attention away from squinting for the few
stocks his broker managed for him and try to enter the world of the gardener. He became
aware of the comfortable contours of the lounge chair pressing his back. That back of his
 2

still ached from a week of long hours over a computer, and climbing in and
out of a county
vehicle to call on welfare recipients.
"Why does Jose stand there and do nothing; on
our time?" Shap wondered silently,
knowing that part his monthly association fee paid the man. This negative thought was an
invasion into his hour of peacefulness. He tried to put this needless anxiety
aside and
leaned his head back, tucking the bone at the top of his neck into lounge's
the plastic ribbing.
This was his Eden. Though not the fanciest of town houses it nestled beside the
foothills of adjoining mountains. He laughingly called it "the lower rent district." The town
houses were in groups of four, sharing common walls, on either side of the single, curving
street which formed a large "horseshoe." The innermost portion of the horseshoe was a
common area landscaped with desert bushes, trees and meandering walkways. At the
center was a large swimming pool and lanai. It was here Shap often retreated for solitude.
Most of the residents were much older than he, being retired and either away on trips or off
to bridge games and volunteer tasks. He had the pool area much to himself whenever he
wanted it.
Whenever he wanted it! That was a sort of life philosophy, he supposed. At least,
there was no one else to live for but himself. His mother was in another state, and his father
had been missing since he was born. There were some half-brothers, but they never
communicated. As for a wife, well, that was a painful subject every time
it came bubbling up
in his consciousness. God knows he had tried. Or had he? lack
His of self assurance pulled
the rug out from under permanent relationships every
time.
Being short didn't help either, five foot six, although his body was well shaped and
he kept his muscle tone by hiking, watching his diet, and occasional workouts
his on
home gym.
The "Shapleigh" name came from his maternal grandfather, but his mother was more
English, like her own mother and she told him once that his natural father was Scottish.
Although Shap had always accepted his ruddy complexion, he often wished for the darker
skin of southern France, or brown skin like Jose who had just moved his weight from the
weed digger and renewed his task. Shap grasped the short sleeve
his shirt
of to wipe his
blue eyes, which were burning from the sun-block lotion. Maybe he should grow a
mustache, or a beard, or let his hair grow long, instead of being so trimmed and neat all the
time. Some change was called for, as this feeling of dissatisfaction lately reminded him.
Being a county social worker did not seem to be going anywhere. But then, how could he
 3

know where he wanted to go?

He sat up, folding the business section and tossing it on the lanai table as he moved
to the edge of the pool. He pulled his shirt over his head, tossed it aside and dove in. The
cool waters refreshed him, soothing the growing agitation of the old dilemma. How do other
people decide to change a lifestyle? How could a single,
independent guy make room for
someone else in his life; in his home and his routine? It did not seem possible! The silence of
the deep water was shattered by the thought. "Making room for someone else in his life."
He pushed his feet against the bottom and shot to the surface, gasping for air and
then kicking out into a crawl for the far end of the pool. To surrender his life to something
bigger than himself would mean letting go, giving up his dreams and hopes and desires for
another person's dreams and hopes and desires.
The kick of his legs and splash of his arms took on a sudden surge of vigor. Three
laps, maybe four, and he would go in, grab a bite of lunch, and head for his other secret
garden - The Book Store.
Saturday was crowded at The Book Store. The spring afternoon in Tucson
brought
out more traffic than Shap had hoped to see. He was elated when someone pulled out of a
space right in front as he drove up. He backed his leased BMW against the curb, and
chuckled when he saw there was even enough time on the meter to go another hour.
Parking meter coins mattered on his salary and Shap reminded himself again that if he were
not a bachelor he could never afford such a luxury car. "Think twice about making room for
someone else," he thought cautiously.
Upon entering the store he immediately became transfixed before one of the
tables. The shuffling and shoulder rubbing crowd faded from consciousness as he
looked at the fragile album in his hands. Embossed in gold on a dark green cover were
the words, "Cuttings From Wood And Field."
The heavy cover was detached from the rectangular volume, and he handled it
carefully. Laying the book upon the backs of other books regimented along the table, he
gently turned the cover over and began to study the pages. On each yellowed page real
flowers and leaves were artistically glued and crisply dried by thick blotter-pages
bound into
the volume.
Her name was there in the upper right hand corner of the first page, in faded but
open and delicate handwriting. It read, "Lulie L. Manchester," and then, "London," and
then the year, "1873."
 4

Beginning on the second page the carefully arranged dried grasses, flowers and
leaves carried the memory of nature's color. They were pressed into a collage worthy of
framing, and each grouping was inscribed by the same feminine handwriting as on the
frontispiece. The words were not the biological names of the plants. Lulie was obviously not
a scientist; she was an artist and she was a traveler. Her handwritten inscriptions followed
the curves of each arrangement, and named the places she had visited. What travels! What
memories!
She began near her home, "Chester Cathedral, St. John's Priory."
Shap wondered if that was where she attended school. "The Tower of London,"
"Karr Gardens," "Birkinhead Park." Then with a grand leap he found himself with her at
"Heidelberg Castle," "Friedhof," "Munich!" The same careful handwriting continued page
after page. Soon it was "Strasbourg," and then "Rome," "St. Peters," "Florence." On that
page he stoodwith her "Beside Mrs. Browning's Grave" and plucked a wild daisy. He
recalled his college English class, the Browning's, their love, the halcyon days in Italy, her
untimely death in Robert's arms. "How do I love you? Let me count the ways..." Her sonnet
was spoken in whispers just then by William Shapleigh to Lulie Manchester.
Suddenly they were in France! Oh what a trip it was! "La Fronteine," and so many
other place-names. He looked at them and saw her, with silken hair like gold. No, it was
dark hair, very dark, and it glistened like black silk. It framed the rounded beauty of her
face. Her cheeks held just a touch of color. Not ruddy, not pale. Just a glow that shown
from deep within to make hers the most lovely face he had ever
imagined.
On another page the grouping of leaves and grass was inscribed "10th July 1873,
Review French Troops before the Shah..." Apparently Lulie and Shap were the
not only
visitors there that summer. It was a glorious time of gardens, palaces, parks, cathedrals, old
town walls... Sometimes the inscription was simply, "Outside the wall" of another European
town of antiquity.
Then they were home again. "Windsor Castle." That page included a turquoise and
bronze peacock feather among the leaves. It said, "Model Farms." Kind of adown,
let he
thought.
Inserted between two of the pages there was a program fashionably printedhard
on
board paper. It was adorned with a water-colored painting of blue violets, and
listed in two
parts were concert numbers performed by the 'The Chopin Club." Lulie
was named with
nine other "misses" who had played on pianos "from the Warerooms of M. Steinert and
 5

Sons, 132 Westminster Street." Her piece had been an

Allegro Brillante by Mendelssohn,
arranged by Reinecke. But the concert was Wednesday evening, May 3rd, 1882!
Where had she been those nine years since her travels in Europe? Did she teach
music or art? Were these her fellow teachers, or a combination of students and teachers?
She apparently played a minor part, two thirds of the way down in the evening, sharing the
keyboard with a Miss Hill, who was perhaps her student. Or was Lulie the student and Miss
Hill the teacher?

Had she gone to other places in the meantime? Where there other albums of
'"cuttings?" Perhaps not, or this program for the concert would have been in a later edition.
At least she was not married. She was still "Miss Manchester," and available to his heart.
He could almost see her now, in her Jane Austinesque clothing, with hopes and
dreams which must have filled the hearts of girls then. Somehow she seemed more
pristine
than any girls he knew. It was refreshing.
Shap continued turning the pages, carefully. In a couple of instances a dried leaf
had broken loose and fluttered out of the book. Mishandling this book that was not yet his
seemed a violation of the girl herself, whose eager fingers had pressed those leaves along
with her hopes and joys. They were her memories, kept in their secret place all these years.
Now he shared her intimacies. He was like some Aladdin
opening the past, and these
memories escaped the pages to envelope him and take him away on a magic carpet to the
Europe of a hundred years ago.
She evidently had been sent on a graduation tour to complete her education. She
would have been well chaperoned. He found it difficult to meet her on each page
without
being observed. He must find a way to see her alone. Perhaps in the shadow of an old town
wall, just around the corner from peering eyes, or in the dusty caverns aofdarkened
cathedral.
Shap was nearing the end of the book when he came upon a dance bid. It was the
kind that would be hung from a girl's wrist and the boys who sought her touch would inscribe
their names therein for one or more of the dozen dances listed. The bid was dated in June,
just before the venture across Europe. Had it been her graduation dance? Had one of those
names been special to her, someone who hated to see her
go away?Beside several of the
dances she had noted that it was a "quadrille" or a "waltz." He preferred to waltz with her
himself. As Shap studied the different names and forms of handwriting, he saw that three of
the dances were taken by the same young man. A flare of jealousy overcame him. Who
 6

was this fellow to take Lulie to himself three times, while undoubtedly a long line of eager
males went home disappointed that theyhad not been able to share her during the
evening?
He felt he knew so much about her. No, not just about her; he
knew her.
Shap was sensible enough to realize what his mind was doing to him in
idealizing this phantom, but it didn't matter. She was real to his heart, and he was
enjoying every moment of this intimacy with her.
Now a twist of his mind caused Lulie to become even more real. By some
blending of
imagination with reality she took the form of a girl who worked in his office. Shap's eyes
stared at the page, losing their focus but seeing Annie. The two women became one in his
mind's eye. When he thought of Lulie Manchester, the face and form of Annie Bennett was
there. He had never dared ask her to go for coffee, let alone to go on a date. Now as she
took on Lulie's personality Shap took on courage. He felt he had a new and privileged place
with the dark haired girl at work, whose face glowed from within like a ripening peach. An
entree to her life had opened, and without the old anxiety or labored reasoning he decided
to break the silence. He would speakto her at the first opportunity. The thought rushed
through his mind, “How wonderful that an incident like this one in the book store could
change his outlook on life.”
"Sir, did you want to see any other books at this table?"
The voice of a polite fellow-customer was obviously suggesting he move out the
of
way, which he did. The flight of fancy back from Europe and London to Tucson took only the
wink of an eye, and he purchased the precious book of "Cuttings" for one dollar and twenty
five cents.
-fin-