Dave's work: Tales Well Told

[artsyone]

 Good afternoon Clipperphyles. I have excellent news. First the backstory: As we all know, our good and decent friend Dave Griffin shuffled off this mortal coil a while back, but during his time here, he left a legacy, a trove of work, that I was lucky enough to take part in. Dave was lucky, Dave was Irish and if you're Irish you're lucky enough, but Dave was doubly blessed with a dry wit as well as a wry sense of humor and I have here, to present to you, possibly the last story he wrote in the "On Genesee Hill" series: which consists of "Billy's Foley's Morning", "Blame" and this presenting piece," The Living Room." The fact that he wrote it whilst he himself was actively dying makes the title "The Living Room", all the more poignant. This piece has wintered over on my e mail since 2017, because he never gave me permission to share it. He felt it was a "set piece" and therefore very personal, but now that almost four years have passed, I feel that he wouldn't mind if I posted it up.
    The story works on many levels and as usual, in Dave's writing, nothing is as it seems. So I give you Dave's opus, this wonderful little short short, about life, death and the meaning of it all.  

             The Living Room 
           by Dave Griffin
               2016

              It was such a long time ago. I was just a boy, but I'll always remember the errand I was sent on that cold morning in the beginning of March 1896, if only because it allowed me to spend a few minutes sitting in the most beautiful apartment home I had ever been in at that point in my life. But, more so, I received a gift that day on my way back downstreet that I have treasured all my life.

          It all began when Mr Dalton, the weekend manager for the Wilcox Brothers Jewelry store where I worked on Saturday's, directed me to take a package up to the new Genesee Flats Apartment House; a way up on Genesee Hill in a wealthy part of the city. I asked the elderly man if I might have three cents to take the trolley and he turned and stared at me as if I had asked him to use his wife's corset to make a giant sling shot.

          It was a long walk a way up Genesee Hill, but at least I was out from under the wary eye of the old man. At twelve years old I could have walked to Herkimer without sitting down for a rest. I was capable of doing what I saw other kids and even adults doing, but I wished I were indeed an adult and had knowledge to prevent me Dear Old Mither from breathing her last with so much difficulty. God rest her soul, the poor woman. She never deserved a death like that.  Had I been a doctor I would have been the best and able to spare her from the misery, but her life passed through my fingers as me Da sat sniffling at the kitchen table and I kept Mam propped up in a kitchen chair, as close to the stove as possible, keeping her warm till the last. That was in the middle of last winter, now a new Spring had come, though it was still quite cold and icy.

          The new Genesee Flats was the latest wonder of the city. Seven stories tall! Many would be afraid to go up that far off the ground, but I knew there was an elevator and I had read in the papers just how safely the builders said the place had been constructed. They said that "no fire could ever break our nor spread throughout the building, a common 
thing in the cheaper tenements all around Utica."

          Anyways, Mr. Dalton was very specific in his orders to me to go around to the back of the place and up the stairs to the sixth floor. He must have read my mind about the elevator. He said it was only for tenants and he would know if I tried anything. Mr. Dalton had spies everywhere. After the final hike up from Deveraux Street I tell you I did not look forward to climbing those back stairs. 

           I walked up Clinton Place along the South side of the Flats into the service entrance at the back and once inside I went up and up the wooden staircases as quietly as I could and the along the Tradesmen's Corridor to sixth floor, apartment no 56. Girls voices came to me through the heavy back door, one distinctly Irish, the other distinctly American. They were laughing and carrying on. After a time the laughter got louder and I banged at the heavy door more forcefully, so that the hilarity came to a stop.

         "Annie get the door!!" the American voice said.

         There was a solid click of the lock and then the door swung open effortlessly. Most of the doors I had encountered in my short life either creaked or scraped the floor, but not this one. Before me stood a slender, freckled, red headed girl in a grey dress and a stiff white servant's cap. She put her arms on her hips and leaned towards me:

          " Can I help ye, me Boy-o?"

           I swallowed hard. "I'm here to deliver a package to a Mrs. John B. Wood." I felt like I wanted to die, or at least just vanish.

           "I am to hand it to her personally and to none other." I had practiced the phrase over and over with Mr. Dalton before I had left the store.

           " Well, then...deliver it to her personally....! You don't say. Don't be gettin' above yer station with me, Mister. Just you wait!" She shut the door hard. When it opened again, after an eternity, a tall and beautiful brown haired woman was standing there smiling down at me. She was wearing a dress my Mam would have loved.

            "How can I assist you, young man." Her voice was like a Sunday church bell, strong and ringing, yet sweet and kind.

      To be continued.

             

           



           


   

[Clipper]

I can't wait to tune in to the next "episode." I always loved his stories. Thank you for archiving some of his work and for bringing it out again.

[artsyone]

The Living Room ( a continuation)

          The tall elegant woman in the green silk dress stood in the doorway looking down at me. She was waiting patiently for me to say something, anything.

          " Young man"... She cleared her throat..."I am speaking directly to you..."
            
          "I...I...I have a package from Wilcox Jewelers to be...to be...delivered personally to a Mrs. John B. Wood... and none other.... per directions of Mr. Dalton..."



           I could barely stammer and the package in my hand felt like it weighed 500 pounds. I wondered what would happen if I had dropped it and I shuddered at the thought of it. I thrust the box at her without thinking.

           "Oh yes. I was expecting it.  Indeed I am Mrs. Wood and I need you to wait whilst I write a check and do a sketch of the piece I want designed for Mr. Wilcox. Do you have a place where you can go to wait for the time it takes me to gather my accoutrements about me?"

           "No ma'am."

          "Well, I shan't send you down to gentleman's lounge, nor shall I have you wait in the lobby...perhaps the men's tonsorial. No, that won't do either. That barber is too mean to everyone."  

            "Yes ma'am."

            "Would you come in and sit in the kitchen for a few minutes?"         

 My eyes darted in the direction of the laughter.

            "No ma'am."

             She turned and spoke over her shoulder: " Young ladies , more decorum, a little less enthusiasm please, and a lot less noise. Well, that settles it. Come in young man and I shall find a place for you."

              "No ma'am."

              "Oh, but I insist. Please. Your mother would be upset if I left you to freeze in the hall. You must come into the parlor and so you will, young man, I demand it."

              I no longer had a mother, but I declined to mention it.

           Mrs. Wood all but dragged me through the door. We passed through the kitchen where the Irish maid and another girl, an exact copy of Mrs. Wood, only shorter and plumper, were busily engaged in making a gingerbread house. We went down a long hallway, past rooms with all the doors closed, into the parlor, the most beautiful room I had ever seen. My eyes focused on a wonderful gold mirror high on a sidewall in the huge room.

             "Now, my young mister," said Mrs. Wood, Are you able to settle yourself whilst I go about my business?"

              "Yes Ma'am."

             But I was twisting my head around to see all the things in the mirror. How clear the glass was, almost as if it were a window looking into the apartment next door.

             Mrs. Wood crossed her arms and stared at me, then she frowned . "I'll be sitting at that desk right over there." She pointed across the room. "If you wiggle or squirm like most boys you will be delayed getting back for I must ask you to wait in the hall."

             She gestured at a small fancy chair in a far corner that looked as if it would barely hold the weight of a fly. "You will wait there and shush. Let silence be your little ship of gold and you will have gained the victory."

              At the far end of the room facing Genesee Street there were windows that went almost to the ceiling, the edges of which were draped with a beautiful soft cloth.

       

            I imagined it might have been used to make a rich ladies dress or coat as I'd seen on the elegant women at the Butterfield House when I went through the lobby selling newspapers. The windows were so large that enough light shown through them to leave the room bright, despite the draperies. And there were sconce lamps on the walls that didn't flicker and the gas mantels seemed overly large. From the ceiling hung the most ornate and unusual gasolier such as I imagined would be in the Lafayette Opera House and it struck me then that this must be electricity! Electric lights as invented by Mr. Edison and I couldn't sit still. I felt as if my head would burst from the wonder of it all.

                                                      (  to be continued)



















                




             

 

Attachments:

[artsyone]

The tale continues!

     
      Mrs. Wood took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer and laid it on the heavy gilt edge blotter. I would come to know this in later life as gold leaf. It sold for a fair enough price in those days and the cost of that blotter alone would have been enough to provide potatoes and the coal to cook them with for my family for three months.  And I had never seen a wood floor so beautiful. All of the wood floors I had ever seen were made of 10 or 12 inch planks, sanded down and painted. Mrs. Wood's floors were shellacked and varnished in a rich honey color, and no one would ever cover up such a floor with a carpet unless it was one of the most luxurious available. I recognized it because there was one of similar weave on display in the window of Cox and Remmer on Fayette Street. People called them Persians; I had seen one or two at funeral parlors when one of my relatives died, but I never thought that Ide be looking at one on the hoof.

         And the chairs and couches, enough seats to hold my whole fifth grade class, if Brother Barnabas had them all squeeze in together. I couldn't get over the silk coverings of the furniture. It was fabulous, rich in color and some chairs had tufted leather backs.

          "Here you are young man."

          I looked up startled. Mrs. Wood was handing me an envelope. I had been day dreaming.

          "Please rush this back to your establishment and give it directly to Mr. Dalton and don't dawdle along the way, for you may loose it. And please tell your mother I said you comported yourself well during the visit."
            
          " Um...yes ma'am." I wanted to tell her that I no longer had a mother but I didn't know how or if I even should.

          Mention of Mam made me sad in that first year after she had left us. Most days were busy enough for me now and I didn't think of her until I got home to familiar things. Her checkered apron still hung on the hook on the back door. I could still smell the scent of her in the bathroom before me Da came back from the mill at five o clock. I know she was there. I could smell her, although the scent of me Da's cherry tobacco was quickly overtaking everything.

       I recall the final day Dr. Wellington called as she lay in bed gasping for air. I also knew how he and me Da were at odds about how her life would end. Doctor wanted to give her a dose of opium extract, but me Da was having none of it. The Catholic church absolutely forbade the practice.

        The doctor sat on the bed, leaned over and held Mam's head in his hands, then  he put his stethoscope down the front of her nightshirt and listened for  moment. 

         "It's fluttering" he said. "I'm afraid the end is close. Where is your Father?"
  
          I hung my head in silence and looked away, staring at me Mam's old  work shoes tossed in a corner near the frayed rag carpet. She would never wear them again, this I knew. 

          "He's gone to the Mill for his shift". I gulped back my tears. We needed the money. Rent was due and coal wasn't free.

          The doctor pulled a long tube from his satchel and without looking at me, filled it and squirted a dose into Mam's mouth. In a minute I saw her throat work over the dose and then her eyes close slightly. She seemed to be shrinking away before my eyes. I stared at the floor and when I looked back again, the doctor was pumping additional doses. With my silence I had helped him to kill my mother.

           I left the Genesee Flats by the back service entrance. When I was in the front of the building something made me look up to the front facing sixth floor apartment I had just left, and there stood Mam in the window, smiling as she gave me a little wave. Then, before I could blink back my tears, she was gone.

           What a shock it was to wake up a few days later, on March third, to the whole city blanketed with smoke and soot and to learn  later of the fiery holocaust that had taken the lives of both Mrs. wood and her daughter. I can't help but remember that beautiful living room a way up on Genesee Hill consumed by fire. What a horrible death for those women.

          For the remainder of my childhood and beyond, when assailed by sad thought's of  Mam's passing, I've brought to mind the memory of her standing and waving in Mrs. Wood's window. Somewhere in the Heaven's she has a beautiful apartment just like Mrs. Wood's. And Mam's living room cannot be destroyed because it's located on the eternal side of a Great Divide where she thinks of me, wait's for me and prays for me, all while seated on tufted chair cushions and surrounded by splendid appointments in what can only be the living room of her dreams.   

The End.

          


           

[clarencebunsen]

Thank you.

[artsyone]

Clarence Bunson: You are so welcome. it was my pleasure.

[clarencebunsen]

morecontinued.blogspot.com/2016/09/continued-lunatic.html?fbclid=IwAR13N0XXmcRDK-pF44IaDjZeKHtMs6RDXOss4sEprSc7zbZhIlAyztcWoH4

This came up in my Facebook memories today.