University of Northern Iowa

Over the River &through the WoodsAuthor(s): Susanne KortSource: The North American Review, Vol. 292, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2007), p. 41Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25478984 .

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But Richie had my best interests at

heart. When we reached Broadway, he

turned toward me and pressed a crumpled five dollar bill into my hand. "Take her home in a cab," he said, referring to the woman they had found for me. Richie knew that if I had been left to my own

poverty-strewn devices, that Hell would freeze over before I would be caught dead in a cab. But the money leapt from Richie's heart into my hands. It was in that one gesture that I would remember him forever. That one gesture made it possible

for me to forgive him everything. Forgive the late night phone calls that would leave

me tossing and turning for hours on end.

Forgive him his insensitivity to my poetry.

Forgive him all the aborted projects. Forgive his disdain of theater. Richie and Lizzie climbed into their own cab and headed home. With Richie's money I

played man about town, and took the film editor back to her place. I took her home in the cab and never saw her again.

Later, when I did get married for the second time, Richie took my wife and I out to eat. We went to Victor's, a Cuban restau

rant on the West Side, and he treated us to

supper. It was his wedding gift. By that

time, however, his own marriage had

failed. Lizzie had moved off to Connect

icut, and money for Richie was tight. He had invested all his cash into an antique pool table. He would spend the days playing pool. He insisted that I come up and photograph it for him. It was easy to see that night how the disease was running its course, like a mad magician doing tricks no one ever wanted to see. He was loud

and crude and crazy. My wife didn't know what to make of him. In addition, Richie was farting a lot. He had more bad gas in him than a pregnant dragon.

I neglected him again. He left Manhattan and moved out to Los Angeles where his mother lived. He edited a film on the closing of the Fillmore East. My wife and I went out to LA (I was angling for a play production) and looked him up in his studio. He proudly showed us the scenes he was working on. He was never

happier than when he was working, and he was one of the best. He took us to lunch. Again, the treat was on him. Life

was on him all the way to the end. Then we shook hands. He, with great

unsteadiness and using two canes,

walked away from us. I should take him home in a cab, I thought. But I didn't.

I owed him five dollars. I still do.

JACK GRANATH

Broken Stoplight of the World

I'm stuck in traffic, radio on?

Stupid of me to venture out.

A guy on a bicycle glides right by Like a tidy little poke in the gut.

I see a way out up ahead

And wonder what my chances are:

The horns, the heat, the imbeciles, And all this prattle about the war.

SUSANNE KORT

Over the River &

Through the Woods

To the left went the diapason of forks, to the right the spoons 8c knives in sterling, 8c in between came plates

that were appropriate, sequentially? those were repasts she regaled us with, nothing less than sumptuous, tureens & sauces 8c jellies 8c relishes: equipages

for butter 8c cream, grapish epergnes in the center: her dining room table: equinoctial feasts where she counted on

familial esurience, it made her life a thing of beauty, now 8c then, seeing all of us in places she'd decree were the right ones (on cards,

I mean, handletter'd, itsy violets 8c such, she had a lot of time): 8c everything seemly. She hailed Mary there'd be none of those gratuitous shenanigans

born of the vine, no espiritous implosions our kin were given to, to her chagrin, no son's head

laid to rest on her lineny cloth like my Daddy's

every single year, impeding the serving of the pumpkin or mince or key lime:

piece de resistance

November-December 2007 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 41

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