“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the woman says, pulling back only the poodle and Basset hound. The mastiff works its nose deeper into my left pocket. “Regina must smell food.”
No kidding. I ease Regina’s nose out of my pocket and withdraw the slippery carcass of my honey bun, peeling back the plastic and offering it to Regina. A millisecond later, the honey bun is gone, plastic and all. I count four fingers and a thumb and smile.
“Regina’s really a sweet dog.”
Right. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Henry Milton’s place on Green Walk.”
She points to a gate across the street. “That’s Henry’s place. Are you a new friend of his?”
I extend a Regina-spittled hand. “Uh, yeah, I guess. I’m one of his writers, Peter Underhill.”
She leaves my hand hanging, lifting the leashes by way of explanation. I wouldn’t have shaken my hand either. “I’m Sibyl, dog-walker extraordinaire.”
“Nice to meet you, Sibyl.” Regina growls. I bet the plastic didn’t go down too well. Regina will be blowing bubbles out her ass later. “And you, too, Regina.”
“See you around,” Sibyl says as she breezes away, her blond hair bouncing in the wind.
I open the gate and find myself in a sunny courtyard with surprisingly green grass and a grove of laurels, whitewashed benches and outdoor couches spaced here and there around a small, empty in-ground pool. I hear a voice singing to a guitar and smell the oregano beginnings of an Italian or Greek feast. As I shut the gate, the wind dies down, and some amber accent lights begin to glow along the path. I’m almost to some stairs when I notice a man watching me from the roof high above.
“What are you—prophet, priest, or inventor?” he asks, his voice rising and falling like a seasoned poet. I count the syllables in my head—ten exactly. This must be the poet Henry was telling me about.
“Writer,” I call up to him.
He rolls his eyes. “You must be one of Henry’s many friends.”
I move up the stairs, smiling at him while once again counting his syllables. Ten again. Normal people do not speak in blank verse.
At the top, I find myself on a patio with a brilliant view of Great South Bay. “You must be a poet,” I tell him. “Do you always speak in blank verse?”
“Alas, it is one of the dying arts,” he says. He wears a white headband, loose green sweatpants, and an oversized white New York Jets jersey. He is also as tan as burnt toast, lines of white skin leaking out in squint lines around his eyes. “Welcome, Henry’s friend, to Elysium.”
“Peter Underhill.”
He nods. “You can call me the Poet, Coleman Muse.”
“Nice to meet you, Coleman.”
“Let me give you a tour of Cherry Grove,” he says, still speaking in blank verse. Coleman must be no fun at parties. “Over there’s where people drink to forget.” I see a pub or bar named Le Lethe. “Yonder lies the Great South Bay, shimmering.”
“Do you live here year-round?”
“No, because none of us has a fixed home.”
He’s good at making up blank verse, but this is getting creepy. I look to the south and see the waves of the Atlantic tapping the shore. “How’s the weather been?”
Coleman pauses a beat, probably to count his syllables. “Calm, cool, and serene, and Cherry Grove sleeps.”
Spooky, strange, and weird is this Coleman Muse. Geez, now I’m thinking in blank verse. “Uh, where’s Henry’s place?”
“I will show you if you will follow me.”
I don’t speak to Coleman on the way to Henry’s door for fear of another ten-syllable blast. I wonder if there’s therapy available for recovering blank verse addicts. He stops in front of a white door facing Great South Bay. “This, Henry’s friend, is Henry’s bright white door, and if you like we can parley some more.”
Now he’s speaking in couplets. I thank him, open the door, and see—Geez, I have died and gone to a blizzard in Alaska.
Henry’s studio apartment is bright white and all the same eye-blinding bright white. Henry could have had the decency to at least do his moldings and baseboards in antique white. I might get lost in here! White indoor-outdoor carpet. I didn’t know they made such an irrational thing. A white sofa, a white coffee table in front, a white library table behind. White curtains and shades, pulled down, of course, to keep all the other colors safely outside. A white bookcase filled with white seashells and unpainted Hummel figurines. A framed copy of the Beatles’ White Album. How tacky. A white dinner table with two matching wing chairs. A white kitchen counter and appliances, cabinets filled with opaque white glasses and fine china, drawers filled with white utensils.
I rip open the refrigerator and—Here’s some color. Lots of beer, soda, condiments, salad fixings. His pantry has color, too, each shelf covered meticulously with white contact paper and teeming with boxed goodies of every flavor of the rainbow. I search through the house for anything else visibly nonwhite and come up empty. Even Henry’s soap, soap dish, and shower fixtures are white.
I have entered a rubber room on the funny farm. I am in a snowstorm in Buffalo. I am buried under the surface of the moon. I will have to leave all the windows and the refrigerator and pantry doors open at all times or I will go blind. I cannot be Ebony Mills in a completely Caucasian apartment.
After moving the dinner table to a window looking out on Great South Bay, I set up shop. I boot up the laptop, which is gloriously black with glowing green lights, then litter the table with stacks of research notes and outlines. I make a cup of dark brown Earl Grey tea, using brown sugar to sweeten it. I slide Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life into the laptop’s CD tray, “Love’s in Need of a Love Today” breaking the silence. I am tired, but I am ready to write. I look at my working outline for Chapter 1 of my novel:
I. Back story: history of the Underhills
II. Back story: David and “Hel” Underhill
III. Back story: 1963–1975 (life with the Captain and “Hel”)
I sift through my notes on my family history, my fingers eager to begin my dissection of the hallowed Underhills, but nothing comes.
Nothing.
I start on the back story for my father three times, but I fail to grasp his essence, his character, typing then deleting “The Captain was a” three times.
Maybe it’s the light salt breezes blowing off the bay that I’m allowing inside to spoil Henry’s antiseptic apartment, maybe it’s the long day with the flight, the drive, and the ferry ride, maybe it’s me singing along with Stevie Wonder instead of writing, maybe it’s the fact that Henry’s apartment is one huge blank page haunted by a blank verse poet doing iambic pentameter jumping jacks on the roof above—
I can’t write tonight. I can’t latch on to any of the winged dreams and nightmares swooping through my mind. Edie, who had a classical private school education, used to call me the Fisher King whenever I had writer’s block. “You’re as impotent as the Fisher King,”