PART 5 - Thelma and Her Daughter Together

In years to come, Joanna never said a word to her mother about the incident, even though she did marry Clive. At the wedding Thelma vowed sobriety to herself so strictly that she ended up completely plastered by nine in the evening, lying in the arms of a man dressed in a green suit, who suggested that they engage in lewd acts in the back seat of his Toyota.

The marriage lasted just under a year. Joanna could not find a job as a professor and so became a real estate agent in Oakland, California, where she makes a quarter of a million dollars a year. Thelma, Rafe and Ginny continue hopeful, intense and concentrated on that big win just around the corner. No one has heard from Clive since, though Rafe occasionally dredges up faint memories of the man with the mole when he mutters, usually after a losing day at the track, "How's Clyde?"

Joanna calls her mother every Sunday.


A. R. Taylor is an award-winning playwright, essayist, and writer of fiction. In her book Male Novelists and Their Female Voices: Literary Masquerades, she explores gender-bending narratives and what they reveal about male attitudes toward women. She received two Emmys for her work in public television, and has, just recently, finished a novel called Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion.

You can learn more about A. R. Taylor's work by visiting her website, www.LoneCamel.com. Click on the title of this post to enjoy a comic introduction to Anne's upcoming book.

PART 3 - Thelma's Drinking

"Clive, what the hell you mean, it's got to be Clyde, I'm tellin' you definitely. It's Clyde," Rafe pronounced,

"Rafe, I do think you might admit that my own daughter knows the name of her fiancé better than you do."

"Hell she do, you don't know, he could be shittin' her. It's Clyde."

Rafe, Ginny and Thelma were bound together by dreams, by the concentrations and obsessions of the gambler. Rarely did their conversation include anything external to those dreams.

"It is Clive Huntley, I'm telling you."

"It sounds like a name out of a play," Ginny muttered as she looked at the next day's racing form. "You know, 'bring me my whiskey and soda, Clive.'"

"It's Clyde," Rafe insisted.

"Rafe, I'm going to hit you in a minute," Thelma said angrily, as she took a big gulp of Jack Daniel's.

"Bring me my whiskey and soda, Clyde," Rafe said, looking down at several names he had circled in the paper.

"That does it, that really takes it. It's bad enough that she's marrying this guy, and now you keep saying he's Clyde. What if I said your name was Rade instead of Rafe?"

"It's not, it's Rave."

"Oh Christ," Thelma yelled. "First I'm listening to poetry about penises, then I'm talking to a deranged black man about names. Do I need this?"

Thelma walked a bit shakily up the steps to Clive's apartment, one of those Berkeley places she considered picturesque, with plants and trees twining around the top step. She had cut down on her alcohol consumption that day, knowing that she should be somewhat more in charge of herself. Thelma always looked a bit wispy and startled, but this evening her blonde-grey hair curled neatly around her face. She had on her best lilac dress. Lilac, the color of the soul, she thought as she had fastened the small buttons down the back.

It was a three-room apartment, and as Thelma entered, she glanced at a life-sized poster of a man with mustache, cap, and a generally gloomy visage. Mr. and Mrs. Huntley were already there. They rose graciously. Thelma lurched towards them out of nervousness and shook their hands rather harder than she should have, then backed down onto a chair.

"What would you like to drink, Mother Ryan," Clive asked with a too cheerful smile.
Thelma was so startled by the Mother bit that she giggled, imagining herself on a broomstick.

"What are you having?" Thelma asked as if she barely touched the stuff.

"White wine, that is, I think we are," and Clive looked around at everyone for confirmation. They all nodded.

"That'll be fine for me too, then." Goddamn, she thought. I should have known it, white wine drinkers.

The conversation had been interrupted by her arrival, and now Joanna started it up again, something about political systems and their relationship to ideology. Thelma now had a good chance to check out the Huntleys. The Mister was a bit portly, with grey hair and grey suit, altogether grey, period. Mrs. Huntley was something else again, short, not attractive, not colorful, unsmiling - she did have a small lump of a stomach that bulged just beneath the top band of her navy blue wool dress. Thelma hated stomachs like that and had often wondered what it would be like to carry around something bulgy like that up front. But then she couldn't hate her for her stomach, could she?

Another glass of wine was poured. Joanna was smiling at her, and once again Thelma vowed that she would not go over the edge - no going over the edge, no sir.

"The state of modern criticism, I'm talking now about hermeneutics, Marxist criticism, deconstruction - it's very healthy, active, a major contribution to the dialectic of modern thought," Clive intoned solemnly. Thelma stared at a white, hairy mole on the left side of his chin. What a pasty little man, with short, stubby fingers that looked like a baby's.

Mr. and Mrs. Huntley seemed to know what he was talking about and nodded. Joanna was in the kitchen, and wonderful warm, meaty smells were coming out through the door. Thelma looked around. The room was completely surrounded by bookshelves lined with books. Every book appeared to be arranged alphabetically. She glanced down at a shelf of records near her chair - all in order there too. For a moment, Thelma was stricken with a weird sort of awe.

Join us tomorrow for Part 4 of Anne's story.

PART 2 - Thelma's Daughter Reads Poetry

Thelma walked solemnly up the stone steps leading to the grey, vine covered building that looked like a castle. Inside, people swarmed about, chatting, filling glasses of wine for each other. Thelma stopped a moment, until she spotted Joanna deep in conversation with a man who reminded her of Humpty Dumpty. Hell, she said to herself, I do know poetry after all. Joanna turned and waved, excusing herself from the fat man.

"Oh, mother, I'm so glad you came. I know this isn't your sort of thing, but I'm very glad you're here." Joanna took her mother by the arm and planted her in a seat right at the front. Too bad, Thelma thought, I can't take a snooze without everybody noticing.

Soon everyone was seated, the readers in a semi-circle in front of the small audience. Joanna sat next to the fat man, then there was a stern looking woman of fifty, and a pink looking young man. Thelma glanced down at her black shoes, her best, and suddenly felt that she needed more Jack Daniel's, preferably through a straw.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to this extraordinary event. We have here two eminent practitioners of the poetic art, Mark Pincus and Sandra Godzinski, and two wonderful critics of their work, Joanna Ryan and Larry Orgel. Mark and Sandra will read from their work, and Joanna and Larry will also read, then comment."

The fat man began to read, in a deep, rumbling voice, a voice that Thelma associated with high-toned radio programs.

"The wake of the sea, in its blue wash, oh god, in its blue waves of --"

Thelma looked down at her shoe. Shit - there was a piece of scotch tape where the buckle had broken. She reached down to pull off the tape, very genteelly, she thought, when her eyes rose to that of the stern looking woman. They were fixed on her. Thelma frowned, hoping her deep interest in the poetry would register in her brow.

"The deep anguish of my soul, when that sea washed over me--" How did Aegean Queen do in the fifth, she wondered. Aegean Queen was out of Royal Dynasty, that should be good for something, Rafael Pedroza was up - she had dreamt that one, dreamt that she would win.

"Royal, imperial was that moment, there on the shore--" Royal Donna, oh goddamn it, that's the one, Thelma thought. It'll be Royal Donna for sure. Why didn't I bet on her?

The reading went on. The fat man sat down, beads of perspiration on his face. He wiped himself with a big white handkerchief. The pink young man stood up. Thelma must have drifted off.

"’Love's pinnace,’" he pronounced it ‘penis,’ "will keep our bark afloat - now that line has tremendous significance as far as the sexual symbolization of the poem."

Did I hear "penis?" Thelma wondered with a start. She looked directly into the eyes of the fat poet, who was looking at her. He smiled and unbuttoned the lowest button on his bulging grey vest.

What would happen if I started yelling "penis, penis, penis?" Thelma wondered. He smiled at her again. He could read her mind! He was a poet, and he could read her mind.

Finally it was Joanna's turn. She stood up and started speaking, in that low, wistful voice of hers. What a beautiful girl, Thelma thought, as she looked at the solemn blonde, long hair tied in a velvet ribbon and hanging down her back, in her austere little T-shirt and denim skirt. But she was afraid to listen. It had always been that way. Her daughter was so lovely to her, but so alien, that she could never bear to listen to her even when she was the fairy princess in the school play or the lead singer in the high school chorus. She was the lead in everything, Thelma mused, and every lead meant loss.

Joanna held her arm as they walked out through the front hall. "I'm so glad you came, mother. Did you enjoy it at all?"

"It was fine, honey, just fine." Thelma said and patted her arm. "I don't know how you do it, really."

"Do what?"

"Do what you do, I mean, say all those things. You know so much."

As Joanna helped Thelma into the Plymouth, she said, "Listen, mother, I've been trying to tell you--"

"What honey?"

"I've been trying to tell you about Clive. We're engaged. I hope you won't be upset, you know, that I didn't tell you before."

Thelma sat uncertainly at the steering wheel. "Before when?"

Tune in tomorrow for Part 3