Dead Dancing Women by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Page B

something else. The ultimate threat. Castration. What a dandy word. Martin Gorman as eunuch. I had to stop myself before I’d drawn and quartered poor Gorman, because I’d made him look too much like Jackson. I went back to the window where I could look out on the wild leaves blowing in the wind and get the evil meanness out of my soul—yet again.
    The thermometer attached to the outside of the window said thirty-nine degrees. It looked as though the benign part of fall was almost over. Next came the first blasts of winter—maybe even a little snow. And then a few warm days before the real cold settled in with a vengeance. Ice storms. Snow piled up over the window sills. I hugged myself and shivered, though the little gas fireplace in the room behind me kept me fairly warm.
    Over the last week, I’d heard predictions in town of a bad winter, snow, ice, wind that would howl and curse every human being in its path. Thinking of the predictions depressed me even more than Jackson and Martin Gorman did. Each year in autumn I made myself miserable worrying about the electricity going out and me freezing to death; or ice on the drive so I couldn’t get to buy food—and me starving to death. I thought of long dark days, seeing nobody, hearing from nobody, me going crazy. I stood there and felt sorry for myself. Poor me—all alone. Jackson coming to visit. Dead heads in my garbage cans. Could life get any worse?
    Emily Dickinson knew it …
    There’s a certain slant of light,
    on winter afternoons,
    That oppresses, like the weight
    of cathedral tunes …
    Oh yes—that certain slant of light. Cathedral tunes …
    And Jackson Rinaldi.
    Truly oppressive.
    I took a really deep sigh, one that could be the beginning of a series of sighs. I thought thoughts Dolly had planted—about growing old alone, becoming like Mrs. Henry, tending my flowers, watching soap operas, speculating about the weather, reacting with fear to strangers. Then I thought of my Brazilian friend, Erica Weick’s, poem:
    As it stands,
    I do not wish to have a nation in me
    no more.
    As it stands,
    I do not wish to be a city
    (urban legends to soothe me)
    no more.
    Brick on brick I wish for open ended walls
    to meet the breeze on swaying grasses,
    in open fields
    the sweat and speed of common labor,
    the piercing thought of thought in common,
    the common bond
    the common beat of human heart.
    And given that I will then create
    a nation of one with my surroundings …
    Her words often roamed around in my head. She was so right. “ … a nation of one … ”
    Something so much deeper than Jackson or the newspaper. Something atavistic. What is it really that can drive a woman away from others? Maybe a low tolerance for disappointment. Maybe a need to think without interruption. Sometimes living like a rock isn’t a bad thing. Three years now of rock living and still I hadn’t had my fill. I was where I needed to be. Maybe in the next few years, when my money got low. Maybe then.
    But not yet. “ I do not wish to be a city … no more. ”
    How I missed friends like Erica, since I’d moved up here and she had moved to Maryland; but how I would miss this place, should I ever have to leave.

    Back up at the house, while my omelet formed in the pan, a glass of wine sat waiting, and my slice of nutty bread, from Bay Bakery in Traverse City, rested on a pink place mat on the counter, I put on Mozart’s Requiem . Long, slow, mordant music. Perfect for my mood.
    I sat at the counter and ate to the “Kyrie.” On to the “Sequentia,” as I sat on the couch with a second glass of wine. “Offertorium.” “Sanctus.” “Benedictus.” Third glass. “Agnus Dei.” “Communio.” Fourth glass.
    After that I must have closed my eyes for a minute or two because it was 3 a.m. by the kitchen wall clock when I awoke. There was a noise on my porch,