“Dead of Night” © Digby Beaumont
Stranger
I was an hour late but he was still there waiting for me. Dark, solid, reproachful. Sitting with the other Middle Eastern guys on the dark green floor of the light green hallway, layers of paint muffling pitted concrete. Perhaps the building had been through the war. Walls half a meter thick. Called me Fräulein. He stood close enough that I could see his tiny pores. I had little German, he had less. The school of Deutschesprache für Ausländern, na klar, U.S. and Persian, we were foreigners both.
Invited me to tea. Actual tea. His landlady brought us a tray with dark tea and Bauernbrot and butter and pectinated jam. He had a sunny room, floaty white curtains, a couch that was a daybed under a worn blue cover. I loved that coarse dark Bauernbrot but I refused it because I wasn’t eating bread or meat that week. I’d lost 20 lbs in three weeks, eating only peaches my first week. Peaches was a word I could remember and there were the actual peaches on the cart in front of me, and they were fragrant and juicy and so sweet. What do you eat then, he asked, Um, fruit and vegetables, I answered. No idea that I was prefiguring vegan, or anorexic. He got up and wanted to kiss me. What kind of Persian girl in Persia would do that? Not this kind, and I wasn’t even in Persia.
I pulled away, I slipped away, I walked away down the dark hallway. The hallway was lined with mounted heads of rodents: rabbits, squirrels, also something smaller. Serious little expressions. Little heads on little plaques. Rows and rows. Was it only four years later, my German degree behind me, heading into psychology. Coffee and bagels at my clinical interviewing prof’s new house, walls bare except for the rubber chicken mounted over his fireplace. What’s with the chicken, Dr. Mehlman? I hunt.
Never know if he was sincere or performing? Andy never broke character. This guy, though, he just floods you with those off-the-wall bits. Andy lip-synched Mighty Mouse. This guy doesn’t even pretend. He outright has his people set up deep fakes for him. You gotta marvel at the volume.
People start walking out around 3:30. Can you blame them? It’s a helluva show, but it’s been such a long night, and there’s no sign of dawn.
Karen Greenbaum-Maya is a retired clinical psychologist, former German major and restaurant reviewer, and three-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. Her work has appeared all over the place. Her collections include three chapbooks, Burrowing Song, Eggs Satori, and, Kafka’s Cat (Kattywompus Press), and, The Book of Knots and Their Untying (Kelsay Books). A collection of poems about her late husband’s illness and death from lung cancer in 2018, The Beautiful Leaves, was published by Bamboo Dart Press in 2023. Bamboo Dart Press will also bring our her sixth collection, Eve the Inventor in July 2025. She co-curates Fourth Saturdays, a long-running poetry series in Claremont, California.
Digby Beaumont is a self-taught artist. His artwork has been published extensively in collaboration with writers of fiction, poetry and music. His subjects include portraits, figures, urban scenes and still lifes. He aims to convey a subject’s character, as well as a good likeness. His pictures sometimes suggest elements of a story. He uses techniques of acrylic painting, pen and ink drawing, screen printing and mixed media. Digby is also a widely-published writer. His stories and poetry have appeared in more than 100 magazines and anthologies, including The Best Small Fictions. Previously, as a textbook author, he had numerous publications, including international best sellers.