Labor
Day Weekend 1989
These cloudless, cool,
sunny-blue skies just won't let up and I'm into my second day
of all work, no play. The thought of running my pamphlets from
coffee shop to coffee shop for the open reading at L'Elizabeth's
next Sunday is keeping me from total despair. Just have to get
out of this kitchen. The famous L'Elizabeth cake and a chocolate
cheese are finished and cooling. ''Why did I lend my car out for
the weekend?" ''Fifty. That should do it." I grab the pamphlets.
''And don't forget your mail, keys, shut the windows..... What
a pain in the ass all this is. " Resentment is following me like
a plague every step of the way. I'm trying to water it down with
my grateful list which is like soaking the Sahara desert with
a wet noodle. Why did I give my car up? Why did I turn down the
ride to the boat this morning? Why am I in this victim role once
more? But most of all, why is it I feel so abandoned? For years
now, when September comes I plunge into this depression. My happiness
seems to fade with my tan. The wet noodle must be having some
effect because one foot is still in front of the other. I went
back up to join Only the Lonely Club that sits in front of the
coffee shop pretending, ''Isn't this great?" Well, the sun was
almost hot and there were more people in town than I realized,
so I did not feel like the only poor soul in town on one of the
sunniest Labor Day weekends on record in years. My cup had already
run over by the company I was sitting with when I spotted my Dende
lady. I call her that because she is from Ireland, and once while
in L'Elizabeth's, she commented on my fruit cake: ''Too much fruit
for me. In Ireland we use very little fruit, more raisins and
currants. It's called a Dende cake." And because I'm so bad with
names, I have referred to her ever since as the Dende Lady. Dende
is 78 years old and drinks her Irish coffees and smokes her cigarettes
like a teenager. I am drawn to her spunkiness and spirit. She
was sitting behind the telephone pole with a much younger woman.
''Well hello there'' I said after zigzagging my way through the
maze of actor's chairs. Dende looks up at me, then this big smile
comes over her face. "This is Elizabeth from the L'Elizabeth's....
This is my friend from Dublin.'' (Dende's hometown.) She is on
holiday from Jamaica and teaches in one of the universities there.''
Dende is feeling very animated with all her company. Anyway, we
got the hugs and kisses out of the way and went right into our
usual stimulating conversation. ''This coffee shop makes one think
like you're in a European cafe.'' Dende commented, feeling quite
sure of herself since in her youthful fifties, she owned a bookstore
outside of London where cafe sitting and chatting with artists
and activists was her cup of tea. I don't know why, maybe because
it was the 21st anniversary of the night I spent in jail, that
I mentioned it. Maybe I felt it would cut a slice out of the thick
self-pity I had been carrying for days now. ''Night in jail! gasps
Dende." '' Yes. Twenty-one years ago today was the morning after
my night in jail.'' ''That a story I haven't heard," she said
as she paused to release the smoke from her lungs. So I indulged
her. ''Well, it was like this. I was very upset on that Labor
Day Weekend, and like this weekend, I was locked into too much
work and felt very deprived. So after a few drinks, I called this
Hawaiian Restaurant that I was working in, back in the late 60's,
to get the night off. I think, I called for the night off. Now
after drinking too much, I was making demands on my husband to
take this unreasonable women out for dinner. When he refused,
I went into a rage and climbed out the window with the car keys
but no money. I don't want to bore you ladies with the details
of what was to follow this act of self-will run riot, but what
I do remember is that I was wearing a white lace pant suit from
I. Magnin in San Francisco, very Vogue at the time, with silver
Cleopatra sandals from Emilio Pucci that had three large aqua
stones that rested on the front of my foot. Somehow I ended up
at this amusement park where these Hawaiian dancers were going
to be the last act of this Labor Day Weekend show. I was easily
spotted trying to get into the dancers' dressing room by this
police officer who was not in tune with Europe's high fashions.
He refused to believe me when I told him that these dancers were
friends of mine. I became a bit indignant, but when he made a
comment on my outfit, ''What do you have on lady, your pajamas
?'' My rage, I was told later in a court of law, was expressed
in a loud ''Fuck you''. ''This "fuck you" gave me a free ride
in the town paddy wagon. Having the pants suit on instead of a
skirt came in handy when climbing up those high patty wagon steps.''
I won't bore you ladies with a description of the accommodations,
my midnight to ten in the morning suite. So, really I ought to
to be more grateful than I am. At least I'm not getting out of
a jail today. Two weeks later, I put the drink down for good,
and the 17th of September will be 21 years of freedom from acting
out destructive emotions . With all Dende's worldliness, she surprised
me when she looked at her friend and said, ''Well, you just don't
know who you're sitting with.'' I'm sure she was just trying to
put some spice in our tete a tete, but those Dublin ladies' capacity
for raw truth on a Sunday morning came as little surprise to me..
Somehow I did get through the day and the night. The next day,
Tom and I took a ride out Rt.146. The road started to get familiar.
We passed this large building that was in the shape of a milk
can. It triggered off a memory somewhere in the past, almost 40
years ago. I was pregnant with my first child. Dick, my first
husband, and I were taking a Sunday drive with another couple.
It was something people used to do back then. I was just a kid
myself, and this milk can building must have made quite an impression
on me. ''Tom,'' I said. ''What month is it?'' ''September.'' he
said. ''My first born was born on Halloween.'' I started to count
the months in my head... October.... Sept. ''He left at the end
of the summer." ''Who?'' It's just came to me, and all these years
I had believed I hated the end of summer because that was the
end of my drinking and that night in jail. But no, that wasn't
it at all. It was the pain of the abandonment, of him leaving
me when I was sixteen and seven months pregnant. Why? I must have
asked myself a thousand times why he left, but no answers came,
just pain. Fall must have been trying to get in on that hot summer
night he left. ''That is why I feel this way when September comes.
The end of the summer triggers off the most painful time in my
life." My God, that was forty years ago. And I thought Roseana
Banana (my shrink) was out of it with this "let's go back" stuff.
I cried a little on that ride, that brought on the revelation
of an anniversary memory on this Labor Day Weekend of 1989. Next
September, when we start the 1990's, I feel I won't be afraid
ever again. I understand what abandonment is and since I parent
myself now, and I'm a good parent, my fears of September are gone.
''Funny," I thought, "Dick died in September last year."
Copyright; Ruth Mahoney
September, 1989
