Muttering Retreats of Restless Nights<\/b><\/p>\n
By Robert Marton<\/b><\/p>\n
Let us go then, you and I,<\/i><\/p>\n
When the evening is spread out against the sky <\/i><\/p>\n
Like a patient etherised upon a table; <\/i><\/p>\n
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, <\/i><\/p>\n
The muttering retreats <\/i><\/p>\n
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels <\/i><\/p>\n
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: <\/i><\/p>\n
Streets that follow like a tedious argument <\/i><\/p>\n
Of insidious intent <\/i><\/p>\n
To lead you to an overwhelming question… <\/i><\/p>\n
Oh, do not ask, ‘ What is it? ‘ <\/i><\/p>\n
Let us go and make our visit.<\/i><\/p>\n
(from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot)<\/i><\/p>\n
__________________________<\/i><\/p>\n
At night, Thomas Carroll walked the streets of Mayefield.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Not that there were many streets to walk, but he covered many of them, including the alleys between the blocks, almost every night.\u00a0 Weather didn\u2019t matter much.\u00a0 In fact, seasonal changes made the walk more interesting.\u00a0 Warm rain in the summer had a different texture and feel than cold rain in the winter.\u00a0 August\u2019s hot, humid air was as difficult to breathe as January\u2019s icy wind, but the heat tended to depress his body and spirit, while the chill energized him.<\/p>\n This was a chilly evening.<\/p>\n Thomas walked and thought and observed.\u00a0 As a Mayefield native and a reporter for the weekly newspaper, he knew this town and these streets better than most people, maybe better than anyone.<\/p>\n All of the town\u2019s streets going south from Main Street were named after trees. Since the death of his father 15 years ago, Thomas and his mother lived at 485 Maple Drive.\u00a0 Before that, they lived two blocks south and east in a more modern home at 211 Pine Street.\u00a0 Their current Maple Drive house had at one time been a Mayefield showplace, but age and lack of maintenance had diminished its glory. \u00a0But the rent was reasonable and it was convenient to his mother\u2019s job at the pharmacy and Thomas\u2019 job at the newspaper, both a block over on Main.<\/p>\n Every night when he reached the sidewalk in front of the house, Thomas faced a decision: turn right or left?\u00a0 What he encountered would be different depending on his choice. All of the town\u2019s streets appeared quiet and serene, but upon closer examination, they were anything but.\u00a0 Various shapes lurked in the shadows, mostly believing they were unseen, doing whatever they did in the dark of night.<\/p>\n But they were<\/i> observed, by Thomas, who referred to them as the Damaged Ones<\/i>\u2013 those whom the \u201crespectable\u201d people of Mayefield didn\u2019t know about or really want to acknowledge.\u00a0 The Damaged Ones <\/i>included the homeless <\/i>\u2013those few in town who barely survived in the alleyways or on the riverbank; the friendless<\/i> \u2013the lonely who lived quietly in town without attracting much attention or affection; and the clueless <\/i>\u2013living what they believed were secret lives under the cover of darkness.<\/p>\n You almost never read of the Damaged Ones <\/i>in the Mayefield Messenger, a \u201cfamily\u201d newspaper which weekly chronicled the town\u2019s happenings.\u00a0 The lives of the Damaged Ones <\/i>were out of place with the Messenger\u2019s usual club news, school events, and announcements of births, engagements, and weddings. The clueless<\/i> were exceptions:\u00a0 Their public lives may have been respectable and respected, but their private, shadowy lives at night would shock and disgust most Mayefield residents.<\/p>\n The Reverend Reginald Hill was one of the <\/span>clueless<\/i>, and he was<\/span> <\/i>out and about that night.<\/span><\/p>\n Reverend Hill was the rector of St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Church, the primary place of worship for Mayefield\u2019s Protestant establishment.\u00a0 He carried himself with a regal, dignified bearing that led many people to wrongly believe he was British. He had served at St. Andrews for over twenty years.\u00a0 He and his wife were fixtures in the town\u2019s most respectable social set.<\/span><\/p>\n Tonight this man of God was on the prowl.<\/span><\/p>\n For a few months, Thomas had observed Reverend Hill on these nocturnal strolls. Not every night, but several times a week, Thomas watched him \u2013hunched over as if trying to hide himself\u2014slither along the dark streets. He always stopped at the same house on Sycamore Street, about two blocks from the rectory.\u00a0 He walked past the front of the house and just when he got to the far edge, he jumped behind a bush and worked his way along the side property line until he came to a lighted window in the rear.\u00a0 The window was just at eye level. The reverend gazed into the window for about ten minutes, and then returned to the sidewalk the way he came in.\u00a0\u00a0 He walked around the block and back to the rectory.<\/span><\/p>\n On several occasions, Thomas observed this ritual from behind a tree across the street.\u00a0 From this vantage point, he could not see into the window.\u00a0 What was Reverend Hill watching?\u00a0 One previous night, after the rector left, Thomas sneaked into the yard and peeked into the window.\u00a0 It was a bedroom, but no one was there.\u00a0 One other time, Thomas ran ahead and tried to catch a glimpse before the reverend arrived.\u00a0 Again, it was an empty bedroom.<\/span><\/p>\n On this night, Thomas was determined to see what the reverend was seeing.\u00a0 After Reverend Hill went into the yard and positioned himself before the window, Thomas carefully and silently followed, and hid behind a bush, just a few yards from the peeper.<\/span><\/p>\n And he saw it.<\/span><\/p>\n Rather, he saw <\/span>her<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Judith Hensler.<\/span><\/p>\n Blue smoke filtering through the pale television light.<\/span><\/p>\n Lying on a bed in just a white bra and panties.<\/span><\/p>\n Translucent, almost an apparition.<\/span><\/p>\n Judith Hensler. Wife of a prominent local lawyer.\u00a0 Her husband was an elder in Reverend Hill\u2019s church; she, the leader of the ladies Bible study group.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mrs. Hensler was smoking a cigarette, gazing at \u2013but not really seeming to watch\u2014a small black and white television set.\u00a0 She inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs for a moment, and slowly exhaled.<\/span><\/p>\n Judith gave no indication she knew she was being observed, but Thomas had a sickening feeling she did.\u00a0 Her forward focus seemed deliberate, purposely ignoring the gaze upon her.<\/span><\/p>\n Thomas fixated on the image before him for a few minutes, then walked away quite disturbed at seeing Mrs. Hensler\u2019s nearly naked body on display that way \u2013 not disturbed that he had seen her body, but that it was on display for anyone to see.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mrs. Hensler was his mother\u2019s friend, possibly her best friend.\u00a0 Although younger than his mother, Judith and Mrs. Carroll were much like sisters: sharing secrets, going on shopping trips into the city, gossiping over coffee on chilly mornings and sometimes a cold beer on warm afternoons.\u00a0 Judith spent many hours in Thomas\u2019 home.\u00a0 She was almost like family. She seemed to fill a lonely gap in the widow Carroll\u2019s life.<\/span><\/p>\n But Mrs. Hensler meant more than that to Thomas.\u00a0 She was the object of his deepest fantasies. As close to his age as his mother\u2019s, Judith inspired in him a desire that occupied his thoughts throughout the day, and more so at night.\u00a0 These fantasies were not merely sexual.\u00a0 Judith represented an ideal as a modern, sophisticated woman.\u00a0 She was beautiful, educated, self assured \u2013 and a seemingly devoted wife and mother. A person of true quality \u2013 everything he hoped to find in a mate for himself.<\/span><\/p>\n In their private conversations, Judith often encouraged Thomas to reach beyond his grasp \u2013 to leave Mayfield, to go \u201con the road.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThomas, you can be Sal Paradise,\u201d she encouraged. \u201cLike Kerouac said, \u2018be \u2018tremendously excited with life,\u2019 explore the world.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cLife is out there,\u201d she often said (usually pointing west for some reason).\u00a0 \u201cGo get it; life\u2019s not going to come to you.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n She schooled Thomas on the great artists and poets, introducing him to a world previously only a shadow to him.\u00a0 \u201cArt, beauty, love,\u201d she would exclaim, \u201cthese are the things in life that have meaning, that survive time.\u00a0 All the rest of it is trifling.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Judith\u2019s favorite poet was Emily Dickinson, and Thomas often viewed her as being Emily-like, a person of beauty and grace, pining for absent love (although she had a husband), writing flowing lines of poetry like those she quoted so often:<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cFind ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cHope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cMorning without you is a dwindled dawn.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Several Sunday afternoons she drove him to art museums in the nearby big cities.\u00a0 Once or twice, her husband came along, but he usually seemed bored and stopped going.\u00a0 Judith was knowledgeable about most of the famous artists, but her favorites \u2013thus becoming Thomas\u2019 favorites\u2014were the Impressionists, particularly Monet. Judith lectured him on Monet\u2019s light effects and atmosphere and the sensory experiences of his paintings.\u00a0\u00a0 She even broke into French during these discourses, using terms like <\/i>“en plein air” to describe Monet\u2019s outdoor techniques and using the French titles of paintings (\u201cLa Femme \u00e0 la Robe Verte\u201d sounded so much more romantic than \u201cThe Woman in the Green Dress\u201d).<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Judith casually quoted from literary works. Some quotes made a permanent impression, and one or two highly influenced his thinking and view of the world, like the opening sentence of Tolstoy\u2019s Anna Karenina:\u00a0 \u201c<\/i>All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.\u201d\u00a0 <\/i>For several years, that line influenced how Thomas looked at the people of Mayefield in his news stories and in his personal writings.\u00a0 He was bored with the happy and contented, focusing instead on those who lived on the fringe or appeared out of place.\u00a0 He wanted to look behind their public fa\u00e7ade to reveal the \u201cdamage\u201d they tried to hide.\u00a0 As Thomas realized more and more \u2013and it was certainly confirmed on this night\u2014the smiling faces we encounter (as in Prufrock\u2019s \u201c…prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet\u2026\u201d) may very well mask real pain and sorrow.\u00a0 He wanted to discover the \u201chow\u201d and the \u201cwhy\u201d of personal unhappiness.<\/i><\/p>\n He believed Judith.\u00a0 No doubt he loved her.\u00a0 And now \u2026 what is this he is seeing?\u00a0 Judith on exhibition like one of her beloved Monet canvases:\u00a0 pale flesh shown through a smoky veil. Was this the real Judith?\u00a0 Was this tawdry display her idea of art and poetry and beauty?\u00a0 Was this scene in her mind when she spoke so often and loftily of literature and art?\u00a0 Was there always sleaze behind the sophistication?<\/span><\/p>\n Judith on display for a leering hypocrite. She had to be a willing participant in whatever sick drama was being carried out.\u00a0 What lured Judith into that room to pose in her underwear night after night?\u00a0 What sickness possessed her to show herself in such a way?\u00a0 Was she was one of the <\/span>Damaged Ones<\/i>: one of the <\/span>clueless <\/i>\u2013 living a secret life under the cover of darkness?<\/span><\/p>\n How would Thomas regard Mrs. Hensler in the future?\u00a0 Would this experience enhance the fantasy or diminish it?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Would this push him a little further along a misanthropic path?\u00a0 Or would it make him wearily philosophical about people and passion?<\/span><\/p>\n And would he be back, on other nights, leering like the Reverend Hill at the image he didn\u2019t want to watch but possibly couldn\u2019t resist?<\/span><\/p>\n No answers, at least not on this night.\u00a0 Thomas didn\u2019t know how this would change him, only that it would.<\/span><\/p>\n After a few minutes, Reverend Hill finished his peep show for the night, and started back toward home. Thomas waited at the corner, perspiring heavily despite the chill in the air. As Reverend Hill approached him at the corner, they stared at each other silently as if they shared a secret \u2013 or shared even more. Finally, Reverend Hill spoke.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOh, hello, Thomas.\u00a0 What are you doing out this late?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJust walking,\u201d Thomas replied.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, it is a lovely evening for a stroll, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Thomas\u2019 walk home was depressingly dark.\u00a0 He noticed very little along the way, except the darkness and how the longer he walked, the darker it seemed to get.<\/span><\/p>\n (Robert J. Marton)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Muttering Retreats of Restless Nights By Robert Marton Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}