Her name was Diamond. She died at the ripe old age of ninety-five. Her name was a difficult one to live up to. But in her long life she did manage to accomplish three things:
1. Publish a paper hypothesizing that some animals pondered their future.
2. Named Metropark, New Jersey the best place for barbecue.
3. Loved her great-grandchildren so fiercely that they all moved to Mars. (Accomplished by hugging them tightly and telling them to reach for the stars,)

Deep canyon-like voices, conveying tiny truths, while sunlight streams, light that is impervious to its irritating effects on me. Too much light makes it hard to read in this particular corner of the stacks. I want to know what Agatha Christie has come up with. But the light doesn’t give a fuck. Which then has me thinking that the sun doesn’t give a fuck either. Which concludes that Universe doesn’t either. The murder has yet to be solved.

But the books surrounding you are like friends. And that helps. And of course I can move to another part of the library. But there are so many people occupying the other tables and you are just taking more a chance with their idiosyncrasies than the rest of the Universe.

I turn the page, having given up on the current one. I squint on, finding phrases that lead me forward, toward other truths.

I’m at Morningside library and a homeless woman sits across from me and I have to move because she smells. I wish I could stand bad smells. I can stand the smell of horse poo. I can see that others can stand it too–people in Central Park who are actually paid to shovel it. How much do they pay? I might be willing to do it. That might be a good sign.

The next time I go to the library, the homeless lady is busy having a conversation with herself.  I decide to sit next to her. In doing so, I startle her, but only for a moment before she reconvenes her own private conversation. I try not to breathe.  I wonder: How long can I go on like this? No one is paying me to be here, I remind myself,  my face contorting. Finally, desperate for breath, I start to move away. But she is quicker. She bolts up and leaves. I breathe as much for a oxygen as for a sigh of relief.

But then, moments later, I am aware of another smell–one I haven’t noticed before.

How much would this one pay? 

It’s around this time that she put away her faith. Purposely she folded it up and put into an old Dartmouth folder that held a jury summons and a old ticket stub from an Avengers movie. Faith could easily be found there, when–if–she needed it. Christmastime was one of those times. She retrieved it from the folder and examined the abuse of its non-use; it looked as flattened as a flower smashed into between the pages of a book. Still recognizable, but with no smell, she hung faith up on her tree. The final ornament. She then then turned on the Christmas lights. The lights outshone faith of course.

It was a Christmas party I threw every year. And every year my friends told me I should say “holiday” party. Nevertheless they came, with their children. Some of the children I liked okay but some I just couldn’t stand. There was one little boy who always demanded I open one of my presents that sat underneath the Christmas (holiday) tree. I told he, I’d rather wait until Christmas. He then stomped off to his father to tattle on me. The father came sauntering, drink in hand, asking “Hey, what’s the big idea?”

To which I told Benjamin that the present was mine and I would open whenever I goddamn chose.
Well.! The father exclaimed in shock and dismay.
But his response wasn’t good enough for me. I told him and his kid to get the fuck out of my house. The little boy cried out the door, startling the other guests.
I do not consider myself a Scrooge or a Grinch. Somewhere in between.

I’m a paid companion. I watch old folks, stroll around with them in the park, sometimes help them to the toilet. But my trick to avoid the inevitable is that I can tell when they are making what I call the “NIN” or the downward spiral as I tell my friends. Sometimes you can tell when an old person is going to change into another old person. It’s something in their eyes. A look of “Oh, fuck it.”

This is what I like: the quiet before the children arrive from school. I love my children, don’t get me wrong and more than anything I wanted to take them along on this adventure I’d undergone with my friend Josie. The adventure, ironically involves another child. A boy I gave up for adoption many years ago.
Maybe not so long ago, my friend Josie says She says I am still young and it’s never too late to to start a new relationship with one’s son.
I am now finding him at another school about a hundred miles away–who knew he’d been so near yet so far?
We are parked right in front of the school. This is also my first day as a substitute teacher here. This is really the only way to see him without it being such a big deal.
Josie says it will be a big deal no matter what. Be quiet and just be an observer she says as I start to gather my purse, coat, umbrella. It’s going to rain today.

I comment on how small the school is.

Yes, she says because she went to this school at one time. It’s so small the gym and the cafeteria are combined.

They eat in the gym? I ask.

Yep.

Okay, I say as I leave the car. As an observer?

Yep, she says again.

But I want more. I want to know he is well-cared for, at his other home. I want to know he’s happy now. Does he have a girlfriend? Is he on the honor roll? Captain of the football team? Is he handsome? These are things I will find out today so help me God.

Goodbye Caroline, Josie says just as I turn from the car and see a sheet of rain coming toward me.

The moment was ripe with possibilities and Caroline knew she needed to act fast. Already the plans had materialized at the south end of the hall, where the men gathered,whispering, looking over at her every now and then and whispering some more.
It occurred to her only after fifty years of wrist wringing and deep breaths and her whole life flipping through her mind like tarot cards, that she could just walk up to those men. Right now. If she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. Too much history with them, too many words and actions seared into everyone’s brains. When they saw Caroline they only saw trouble.

Well then, she though as her legs took over, as if they’d been emancipated from the rest of her, then maybe I am trouble. Or at least part of her was.
As she reached the mean (men), they stopped whispering, looked up at her and smiled.

She did not return their smiles.

Here it comes. The No People. I can’t Yes enough to them to stop them.
Yes!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Fine. You win.

The little girl shrugged after writing her sentence and handed her short paper to the kindergarten teach.
The teacher read the little girl’s sentence: the The saw the That and then that.
And then the kindergarten teacher said, “No.”
But the words the little girl wrote were now out there and there was no way to unread them.