DANCERS IN THE SKY STORIES DANCERS IN THE SKY STORIES Barry Eysman Copyright 2011 by Barry Eysman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means— whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law. ISBN 978-1-257-05256-1 EVERYDAY MAGIC. IN THE MERE LIVING. WE TOO. IN LOVING MEMORY OF JASE, JOSHUA, DIEGO, ROB AND BERRITY— MY FRIENDS TABLE OF CONTENTS Before the Fall........................................................................................1 Pirouette .................................................................................................5 Late Night Radio ................................................................................... 8 Something is Really Wrong .................................................................10 My Name is David ...............................................................................13 The Brindling Day ...............................................................................17 Halloween Charade ..............................................................................19 And his Eyes be as Blue as the Sea......................................................20 Paul Finally Gets to Play Basketball ....................................................51 Doing Time in Tooth Ache Town ........................................................52 The Joel Woods....................................................................................57 Of Autumn ...........................................................................................61 You Remember Your Name ................................................................62 Heading to Winter Winds ....................................................................65 Wendy ..................................................................................................66 Farm Story ...........................................................................................69 And in the Middle of the Midnight Ocean ...........................................72 Clown Down ........................................................................................74 Bank Caper...........................................................................................77 SnowLand ........................................................................................... 81 The Answer ..........................................................................................84 Vladik in Golden Sunshine ..................................................................88 Cardboard Boxes ..................................................................................92 T Was a Bopper .................................................................................. 96 viii A Doggie goes a ‘Courtin’ .................................................................101 Rebuke ...............................................................................................104 Rain Story ..........................................................................................115 IT: A Comic Book Script .................................................................. 123 The Shocking Death of Huckleberry Hound .....................................126 Manhattan on A Tooth Ache..............................................................130 On Reading The Muses Are Heard ................................................... 134 Heading for St. Paul ...........................................................................141 Analysis with a Long Lens ................................................................151 Grave Hill...........................................................................................154 Tiny Tim: Stave the Next ...................................................................156 The Witch...........................................................................................158 When the Music Stops .......................................................................170 My Father ...........................................................................................178 Blues for a Werewolf .........................................................................184 My Back Alley Deception ................................................................ 194 And Somehow Winter........................................................................200 Mad Killer on the Loose ....................................................................202 An Immensity of Snow ......................................................................204 Portals: A Love Story.........................................................................209 Incident at Maywood Motel ...............................................................214 Virtual Bookshelf Blood ................................................................... 222 Dream Along ......................................................................................228 Seems a Little Seam to Me ................................................................230 Addendum ..........................................................................................234 WHAT COULD BE WORSE THAN ALL THOSE YEARS OF EYE PROBLEMS?… BEFORE THE FALL Approx. 7 years ago. I sit, trembling, in the waiting room. Summer. Hot. The afternoon light streaming in the windows through the sheer curtains. The operation is to be out patient. I have had two previous eye surgeries. I see well. But in my left eye is a pattern of raindrops that covers my entire vision. They have been there a number of months. I wear an eye patch. The doctors do not know what causes the patterns. They are sympathetic and more than skilled and patient beyond words. It is not their fault. They will know, too late, these patterns are cells collecting on my lens. One doctor believes they are caused by vitreous fluid, which I am here today to have removed and replaced with artificial liquid, which should take care of it. He is wrong. This operation will be useless. What the problem is will be diagnosed later by a different doctor, which will involve cleaning the lens with a laser ray. I will have to wait six months for this to be done. For the eye must heal from this operation. Shortly after that problem is eliminated, the right eye will develop a mound of circular effects that seem to bubble and will look brownish. I am learning to live with them. Time seems endless. I cannot go out in the sun, without seeing these things, or watch TV, or use the computer very much. Any motion, the slightest, even, will make these things go wild. I will spend one solid year lying down, not moving more than I must, and keeping my eyes closed. This process, the guesses, the quick giving up by a man who is supposed to be the top eye surgeon there is in this country, all of that, is its own horror story, not involved in this article. A nurse comes to me in the waiting room. She tells me to use the rest room. Then, when I return, she uses eye drops in both my eyes. I dab at the liquid under the eyes. I am shortly taken into a pre op room, where I am told to lie on a gurney. Remove eyeglasses, any jewelry, etc. I lie there on the hard surface. The room, I remember, is cold. The light over me shows the gloppy raindrop pattern perfectly. I listen to the chatter of the persons who work there, waiting for the next gurney to be rolled into the operating room. I close my eyes. Try to get drowsy. I suppose the drops are to deaden my eye. I wait for 2 Dancers in the Sky something of some sort to put me at least a little under. The form I received said there would be someone sitting beside me in the operating room. To hold my hand; I was to squeeze if the surgery became in any way painful. Occasionally someone would come over to me and ask how I was. I said I was all right. One person came to me and asked if it was my left eye to be operated on. I said, right. She said, right? I said, no, left. She said left? I said—yes. The Who’s on First? routine I found amusing later. I heard the persons talking, nurses, orderlies, I have no idea their positions, relaxing, unwinding, and complaining about having to work till at least eleven this night. I heard about the cheap prices of bar stools at some local store. There was laughter. I tried to relax. They talked about other subjects. I tried tuning them out. I asked someone who came to check on me, shouldn't I be out or something? He didn't say anything that I remember. I was not in and out like it has been suggested by friends. I was always consciously aware. I wanted to tell everybody to shut up. The drops had to have deadened my eyes, otherwise I would have gone through the roof at the first touch of a surgical instrument. But that was all I had to relieve me of pain. I was wheeled in to the surgical room. No one held my hand. I listened to the doctors. The chief surgeon was telling his fellows that no one in the clinic had ever seen eyes as badly constructed as mine. It was a wonder I could ever see at all. How I had was beyond them. All bets were off when it came to my eyes, and the effects and causes of those effects they had never, for the most part, encountered. That my pupils were pin pricks. They had to dose them over and again to widen them. They are talking about the surgeon who discovered