JON & ELLEN REESE, July 2016

“No way you’re taking her to that… that circus!” Sam Reese fumed. His dark gray hair clung to his forehead in the heat.

“Mom asked me herself,” Jon replied quietly. “She wants this.”

“Your mother doesn’t know what she wants for breakfast!”

Sam Reese paced the driveway rapidly, like a boxer circling the ring.

Jon let the man pace and grumble to himself.

“It’s a damn circus … she’ll be confused. Distraught.”

“I’ll be with her”, John said.

His father just kept up the rant.

Jon began counting the houses in the street to himself 

The placid September afternoon didn’t show any hint of fall. In Yuma, in the Southwestern desert, the change of seasons was often more concept than reality.

Like my old man’s ability to change his mind, Jon thought sourly, awaiting the next tirade.

But it never came.

“All right,” Sam said. “Do what you want. You always do, don’t you?”

He wagged a finger at Jon. “If something happens to her, it’s on you. You understand?”

Jon turned and left him without a word. He went into the hallway where his mother was waiting. “Come on, Ellen”

The spindly woman gave him the most serene look as if she hadn’t heard the heated discussion in the driveway, then followed him to the car.

By the time they got out there, Sam Reese had already made himself scarce. Jonathan didn’t care.

In the car, he asked his mother, “Have you and Dad seen that doctor, Carrie and I recommended? He is a specialist in … if you can’t remember well, and such.”

His mother merely rested her head against the passenger window while the sunburnt houses passed by.

Jon drove on.

From time to time, he glanced at his mother. As they drove past Kmarts and gas stations, and steadily came closer to their destination, it was as if a new light dawned in the eyes of the 65-year-old wisp of a woman.

The Yuma Art Center was a restored building with four visual art galleries, a theater, studios, classrooms, exhibitions, and the whole shebang. It took about 30 minutes to reach.

Once you were inside, you could, for a moment, forget you were in a dusty border city.

This fall’s symposium included workshops on pottery, photography, painting, sculpture, and printmaking, as well as sessions on digital art, theater, poetry, and art activism, just to name a few.

It was an event that Arizona state trooper and Dodgers fan, Jonathan Reese, would never have attended—unless he had to, of course.

Suddenly, as they were parking, Ellen Reese said, “Will Carrie be all right with the children?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Carrie always takes care of the children when I’m out, even when you and Dad are visiting. Everything’s … fine.”

Jon led his mother by the arm until they got their tickets.

“You want to go to the poetry readings first or …?” he asked when he had paid.

Behind him, Ellen Reese didn’t reply.

Jon turned and saw that his mother was already halfway through the central lobby, heading towards what looked like a dizzying swarm of white paper planes, suspended from the ceiling in hair-thin wires.

There had to be at least a hundred white thingies floating up there and whatever it was occupied the center of the entrance hall prominently.

The elderly woman gazed at the white slices of pearliness in wonder and folded her hands in front of her heart. “Oooh …”

Jon ignored the other visitors who were already staring. 

He gently walked over and let his hand strafe her shoulder. “Ellen—Mom?”

“Aren’t they beautiful?”

“They sure are,” Jon said quietly.

“—Officer?”

Jon turned to face the second surprise of the day. “Well, I’ll be …”

His mother was still watching the whiteness, oblivious to the stranger who had just approached them.

The newcomer was about thirty, built like a bodybuilder, and tattooed like a convict–which was exactly what Jon had pegged him as when he first found the man in the wreck of his car, twenty minutes outside of Gila Bend last month. 

Jon had thought he might have to fetch a dead body for the medics, but Gareth Oldendorf had survived the crash. 

Here was the living proof. Smiling from ear to ear.

“Are you here for the poetry, Officer Reese?” Gareth quipped.

Jon smiled. “No … How’s the leg?”

Gareth glanced at the cane he held. It looked oddly out of place for such a muscular man.

“Well … I’ll never walk properly again. Too many fractures.” He hesitated. “But I’m alive, thanks to you.”

“Hey, it wasn’t just me,” Jon corrected. 

“You kept me conscious until the paramedics came, I hear that’s important.” He smiled ironically.

Jon pursed his lips. He didn’t really want to engage in casual conversation with one of the many traffic victims he had come across in his career. 

He eyed his mother. She was still absorbed by the sight of the white above them.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Gareth said.

“Yes,” Jon replied. “It is. What is it?”

Gareth waved at all the white. “Why, seagulls, of course.”

“Seagulls?” Jon frowned. “They look like paper kites and strings.”

“It’s abstract,” Gareth remarked. “But I heard the artist talk about it earlier in the day, her inspirations and so …  “ He grinned. “Say, Are you here to get a little of that poetry you told me you missed out on your entire life?”

Jon nodded non-committally. Apparently, Gareth remembered they had been talking about this while the man was stuck in his car and close to passing out. 

For Jon it was a little clearer in mind that the convict-on-parole he had kept from the brink, had been on his way to a literary event.

You met lots of different people as a trooper, but seldom a combo like the man in front of him.

“Yeah, I remember,” Jon said. “I do remember,” he added wistfully. 

He checked on his mother again. 

Something dawned in the eyes of Gareth Oldendorf.

“May I?” He nodded towards Ellen.

“OK,” Jon said. “But talk slowly.”

Gareth went over to stand beside the elderly woman as if he were there to admire the abstract seagulls, too.

“Mrs. Reese,” he said, “I’m Gareth Oldendorf. I’ll be giving a reading of my poetry later today, but I just wanted to say that you have a very fine son. He saved my life.”

Jon shook his head in the background.

Ellen didn’t reply. She didn’t even look at Gareth. Instead, she whispered:

“Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea.”

She held her hands together in front of her heart as if she was looking at each of the seagulls in turn, and quoting it for them.

“What did she say?” Jon asked.

“It’s Yeats,” Gareth said. 

“What?”

Gareth tried to pretend he was offended. “You know, I believe you now when you said that day that you don’t read poetry. It wasn’t just something to keep up conversation while I was bleeding.”

“Most people don’t remember that much from accidents,” Jon said.

“Oh, I remember all the things that hurt,” Gareth replied. “Like my shattered leg and meeting someone, the last person I thought I’d ever see in life, and then it’s a guy who doesn’t read poetry.”

“Be careful now, or I’m going to have to talk to your parole officer again.”

“Yeah, that too,” Gareth looked down. “But thanks for going easy on me in your report. It helped a lot with insurance and so …”

Jon eyed his mother impatiently. “Never mind.” 

Gareth looked at Jon first then at Ellen Reese. Then questioningly at Jon. 

Jon nodded reluctantly.

You scribble a few lines in prison and suddenly you think you are the most important person in the world. Good riddance.

“Mrs. Reese,” Gareth tried again, “Do you like Yeats? The White Birds?”

“Oh yes,” Ellen was totally present now. “Your father gave me a collection before he proposed to me.” 

She giggled like a little girl. “Oh, he just did it to impress me. He doesn’t know the first thing about poetry, but it worked, didn’t it?”

Gareth looked quickly at Jon, who looked like he was trying on a set of chains. But for now, that was all he did. 

“It was the only book he ever gave me,” Ellen continued, casting down her eyes. “Sam doesn’t read books, but he knows how to read a girl’s heart.”

“He must have done something right,” Gareth said. “I’m sorry there isn’t anything about Yeats at today’s event. It’s mostly about modern art”

“There isn’t?” Ellen asked, looking surprised. “But what about this?” She waved at the abstract paper birds

“I know who made it,” Gareth said. “But I’m not sure it has anything to do with Yeats.”

“Oh, it must have something to do with Yeats,” Ellen protested. “Why, look at it! There must be at least a hundred gulls.”

“I don’t understand the thing about gulls,” Jon said, stepping up from behind. “What is that?”

“Well,” Gareth said, “’The White Birds’ was a poem that Yeats wrote for the woman he was madly in love with—Maude Gonne. She refused his marriage proposal. He wrote the poem the day after that downer. I think she had told him she would rather be a ‘seagull’ than any other bird. So he likened their relationship to being a pair of seagulls who maybe could escape—and live together forever. I guess he hoped he could somehow make her love him by expressing his feelings like that … maybe. I’m not that strong on Yeats.”

“Stronger than me,” Jon said.

“It’s gone now,” Ellen said wistfully.

Jon took her hand. “What is?”

“The poems. We lost them when our first RV went up in flames in Colorado. Remember?”

Gareth’s eyes widened.

Jon felt the heat from outside, even in the air-conditioned lobby. He was tired already and just wanted to sit down somewhere with a cold beer.

“I … remember,” he said. “You lost a lot of your old stuff then.”

“Oh, Sam bought a new autocamper,” Ellen said, crossing her arms. “He could always find money for that.” She didn’t look at the paper gulls any longer. “Not my books, though. Suddenly the older editions were too expensive.”

She turned towards Jon and stroked his cheek as if he were a little child. “But it was many years ago. You and Dave were very small. The important thing is nothing happened to you.”

Gareth cleared his throat. “I think I have a collection with the poem at home, not a first edition but maybe second. If you like,” he glanced at Jon, “I can drive there and get it, Mrs. Reese. You can have it, as a gift for what your son did for me.”

“Mister—” Jon started. “That is not necessary.”

The big man looked at Jon squarely. “Isn’t it?”

Ellen was alight. “Are you sure, Mr.—”

“Oldendorf, Ma’am.”

“Are you sure? Won’t you miss it?” Ellen grinned like she had just been given the world in her hands. “It’s Yeats, after all. Yeats!”

“It really is no problem,” Gareth said.

Suddenly, Ellen turned pale. “But what about the readings? We should find out when they are.”

She looked around, confused by all the different items and displays in the lobby. “Are they here? What is this place? I thought it was a festival for poetry!”

“We had better go home now.” Jon moved to take her by the arm.

“No,” Ellen cried. “What about the book?”

“I’ll get it for you,” Garrett said “I will drive right now.”

“What’s happening?” Ellen muttered, bewildered. “Where are you taking me?”

“Christ,” Jon shook his head, “when I get back to the old man, I’m going to tell him something for lying about how much she … ”

He faltered. There was a sour taste in his mouth.

Gareth put a big hand on Ellen’s shoulder which seemed to calm her down.

“Where would you like to go, Mrs. Reese?”

“I’d like to see the collection,” she said, looking grateful. “Yeats.”

Gareth looked directly at Jon. “We can all go to my place to get the book. Then you can go home.”

“I don’t know …” Jon said.

Gareth sounded like he was almost pleading. “This circus here is not for Mrs. Reese, anyway.”

Jon raised his eyebrows.

Gareth, still keeping one hand on Ellen’s shoulder, said, “I mean— I don’t blame the event makers, they did a helluva job: but there are too many different arts crammed into one venue.”

“You know what: I think you’re right.” Jon added a smile that he actually felt. “Thank you … Gareth.” 

They went out together to find The White Birds.

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Cover photo by Andrew Rice on Unsplash

Beach sea gulls photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Flight of sea gulls photo by thom masat on Unsplash

Pair of sea gulls photo by McCall Alexander on Unsplash

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Song: T’Pau – “China In Your Hand”

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