Writing Life

If you’ve been married for a long time and think you know everything there is to know about your spouse, take her to an antique mall; she just might surprise you. My wife and I have been married for 29 years, but every time we go antiquing we learn something new about each other. Today we went to the historic Niles District of Alameda County. The district is home to about 15 antiques stores. Along the area’s main drag, just about every other doorway opens onto an antique emporium. At the first place we visited I spotted a framed copy of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If.” Julie saw me intently examining it and asked me what was so fascinating. I told her that an identical copy of the poem, in an identical frame, had hung on the door to my bedroom throughout most of my childhood. “My grandmother gave it to me when I was about eight or nine,” I told her. “I guess she thought it would inspire me to become the kind of man who can command the attention of crowds of commoners and yet still hold his head up alongside Kings. Unfortunately, all it inspired me to do is become a poet.”

“So this is the culprit,” Julie said, as if she were experiencing an “ah ha!” moment. “I have this to blame for the fact that you’re not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, earning two million a year and keeping me draped in furs and jewels.”

I nodded. “Dr. Seuss’s books were the first poetry I ever heard. But this is the first poem I ever memorized. I used to recite it all the time, not for inspiration, but just because I liked the way it sounded.”

“Are you sure this isn’t the actual copy of the poem that used to hang on your door?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure my copy is tucked away in my parents’ basement somewhere, under thirty years of accumulated stuff.”

“Well why don’t you buy this one anyway, and put it on the door of your writing room at home?” she asked.

“You don’t think the poem has already done enough damage to our household finances?” I said.

“The damage is done,” said Julie. “Go ahead and buy it.”

As it happened, I didn’t buy it. The seller wanted $85 for a framed print that was maybe three inches wide and five inches high. The print was mass-produced and of no intrinsic value. Its only value to me was sentimental. And I figured I would someday see it selling for a lot less than $85.

Julie asked me if I thought I could still recite the poem by heart. I turned my back on the print and attempted to recite the poem, but I was able to recall only the first stanza:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

I stopped then, and told Julie, “I can’t remember what comes after that.” And so she recited the next line: If you can dream – and not make dreams your master…

“Well there’s the problem,” I told her. “I allowed my dreams of literary glory to master me. If I’d been able to internalize just one more line of the poem, I might have been a different man entirely. I might have become that Fortune 500 guy you were just fantasizing about.”

But Julie assured me that her desire for the Fortune 500 guy was just a passing fancy. She’d take an aspiring poet over successful business tycoon any day. We left the framed Kipling poem hanging on the wall and wandered off to look at more antiques.

That happened at the very first shop we visited. At the final shop we visited, Julie saw an antique Coca-Cola dispenser that stopped her in her tracks. Since she has never shown any interest in Coca-Cola memorabilia, I asked her what was so special about this particular piece. She explained that when she was twelve she had a horse named Star. She kept him boarded in a stable near her family’s home in Marysville. One day, while walking Star through the barn, she stopped and tied his reins to a Coca-Cola machine identical to the one she was just now staring at. “I knew it was wrong to tie up a horse by his reins,” she told me. “And I knew it was wrong to tie him to a Coca-Cola machine. But I had to go to the bathroom and I was too lazy to take Star all the way back to his stall. I figured it would be safe to tie him to the Coke machine for just a minute.”

But she was wrong. When she came out of the bathroom, Star was gone and the Coke machine was lying on its side about thirty feet from its usual spot. Obviously, Star hadn’t liked being tethered to it and had dragged it down the midway of the barn until his reins had broken free of it. Before Julie could register what had happened, the owner of stable came into the barn and, seeing the machine lying on its side, began yelling at Julie. “Did you tie that goddamn horse of yours to the Coke machine?” the owner demanded. Julie was too scared to lie about it. She admitted that it was Star who had damaged the machine. The owner cussed her out and then called Julie’s mom and told her to come pick Julie up immediately. She was banned from the stables for the rest of the day. And now, standing in the antique shop, staring at an identical old Coke machine, Julie told me, “After that day, I used to feel sick to my stomach every time I went into the barn and saw that damn Coke machine. And even if I was dying of thirst, I would never buy a Coke from it. I was afraid to go anywhere near it.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this story before?” I asked her. “We’ve been married for 29 years and only now do I hear about The Day Star Dragged The Coke Machine Through The Barn?”

She told me, “I don’t think I’ve thought about it in 30 years. But this Coke machine is identical to the one Star dragged through the barn.”

Repeating the question she had asked me earlier in the day, I said, “Are you sure this isn’t the exact same machine that you tied Star to all those years ago?”

Julie nodded. “I’m positive. The one Star knocked over had a great big scratch down the side of it. Star put it there when he dragged it through the barn.”

When we left the antique store we walked up the street to a restaurant called Bronco Billy’s Pizzeria. When the waitress came and asked us what we’d like to drink, I told Julie, “All that talk back at the antique shop has put me in the mood for a Coca-Cola. I think I’ll order one in honor of Star’s memory.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. “I’m having a beer.”