© 2000, 2001 Channel49_________                                        

From the thoughts of a man who would be a hero if not for himself and circumstances…

 UMBERTO’S MANIFESTO

Discovering one has fallen in love can occur anytime. While laughing together, or glancing into the other’s eyes. But to Umberto, discovering that love had gone came in shopping center parking lots. When the mundane had overwhelmed his expectations. Too much eyebrow knitted across the forehead. ‘Who is this person and what have I done?’

Possibly whimsical, he was still compassionate. Falling out of love was hard on him. He tried not to choose love again. He tried distracting himself with novelty, hoping to save his heart. Nothing worked. Eventually he wanted to fill the emptiness of his hopes again.

But the women were not agreeable. They either were not interested or gave themselves too quickly. He knew. Yes, Umberto thought he understood. That to love a woman would change her perspective. An evening of warmth would spread like the milk of passion and soon she, or he, would be convinced of destiny. How does one know destiny? Can one stalk destiny, or does destiny fall upon one with either the subtlety of a fifty dollar bill floating in the wind or the suddenness of a train collision?

From when he was a child he imagined fate rewarding him in two ways: Giving his play meaning which he could call work, and opening his eyes with that sudden, heart-stopping shock as he saw the only woman who would see him. The only thing fate had rewarded him with was the passage of time.

So fate had not been what he imagined. Perhaps work was what one did for a paycheck and love something else entirely, and not a gift to all creatures. He cursed himself for foolishness and vowed to be a hungry entrepreneur of the human spirit, but some flaw in his makeup made him demur, and made his pursuits something to be abandoned as he awaited perfection. Yet serendipity did not come to him, frenzy did, to make up for all the time he had wasted waiting for it.

Sometimes Umberto was lazy. Sometimes the weight of the sun over moisture in the air was enough to send him to a grassy bank. Maintaining a smile was all the burden he could bear to carry. Sometimes he needed the warning of winter to motivate him. The premonitions of lost daylight, when squirrels and seagulls put in for early retirement by standing in the roadway and letting cars plow into them, either that or face another bleak and barren season. But this was spring, the planting season, and the air had an exciting impermanence to it. And, yet, still he glimpsed timelessness at the edge of the sky.

Maybe the laziness was a speck of depression. A droplet of self-doubt melted by the warmth of life. In a dream he met his imaginary lover. He kept wondering why she was smiling so pervasively. He felt foolish. A man who had struggled unsuccessfully to become a clown and now was failing at being taken seriously. He thought too little of himself to be happy, and too much of himself to be satisfied.

***

If he couldn’t be an artist at least he should be an opportunist, he thought. But Umberto was a bad opportunist. If he was at a restaurant it would be his very last thought to capture the check in order to retain the receipt as a potential tax deduction. If a woman should say hello it was never his first thought to get between her legs as the instinct of a predator seeking combat with its prey or an adversary. He spent too much time in the moment ruminating the past or fantasizing about the future. In terms of work he disliked taking orders as much as giving them. That was why his life seemed like a blur of memories rather than a register of accomplishments. He took pride in having matured (finally) from a teenager who stormed ahead without looking either way to someone who held doors open for other people. He wondered if that was to be his epitaph.

He castigated himself for such inappropriate behavior, trying to be nice in a world of absolute focus and achievement. He pondered way after way to make up for so much lost time. Meanwhile Umberto spent hours in a particular library. Learning, relaxing, wasting away more moments. It seemed to him that the librarian was someone more unhappy than himself. She was very tall, with an awkward gait, a poor selection of suits and dresses. Flaxen hair that could not have been dyed its color, shaped by static and inattention, possibly combed (with spit?) Her eyes seemed opaque, focused inward, her fingernails like Umberto’s, simply there at the end of her fingers, sometimes gray from print. Lips that held her teeth inside and spoke when spoken too. She was helpful when she must, as Umberto asked her a question or two. Her last name was the same as the library’s. He actually remarked about it once. Waiting for an old periodical to be rescued from its tomb while standing before her name plate at the reference desk. ‘My Grandfather donated the foundation grant,’ she had sighed, so heavy with the knowledge she had grown up under a regime of disciplined affluence with no desire for anything but escape. Kind of like Umberto, he supposed, knowing oneself, yet with such limited ability to change. Even the pearls around her neck were thrown there to distract from the pulls on her sweater blouse which had seen too many washings.

If, idly, while daydreaming, he had seen her place books onto a shelf, and assumed that she had haunches under her dress and that possibly here ( a ridiculous thought) desire might be kindled, that’s the most he ever thought about it. No, Umberto kept telling himself to investigate more entrepreneurial paths, seek out glamorous companions and reinvent Umberto in a more serpentine mode. Then one night he had an absurd dream in which he married this woman. A reader taking his own librarian? Even in this dream she could not smile, and her eyes often avoided his. But once she did look at him, and a torrent of astounding thoughts raced through his head. He struggled to awaken and keep those things with him, but they quickly receded, washing away like a lost tide, leaving only a vapor of their remains. It was hard for Umberto to look at her the same after that, and for some weeks he avoided this library.

On his return he tried to ignore her, realizing that an obsession fueled by nothing could spring forth. Ironically they had a conversion. She was holding too many books in an aisle they were both passing through. The thought occurred to go around, but this would have been silly. She dropped a volume at his feet and Umberto picked it up for her. As she was busy juggling the remaining books, he had a moment to pass. The book was about Anglo Saxon literature. He flipped it open. Beowulf. Umberto remembered something but found the verse impenetrable. "Ah, the poor monster… what was her name, Gwendolyn?" He said, finding Robyn Hode and being able to comprehend that.

She laughed. Yes, she could laugh. "The beast was Grendel not Gwendolyn, a dragon I think."

Umberto laid the book upon the pile she had gained more control of. "Now, why did I think of the beast as female?" He queried.

"Maybe because life is a beast and life is female," she said edging passed him.

It was the rudiment of a possible discussion but she was already gone, leaving him alone in the aisle. He considered pursuing her to the reference desk to continue, but didn’t. She seemed so intent upon her duties.

He read for an hour and on the way out stopped before her desk. She seemed aware of him but would not look up. There were no engagement or wedding rings on her hands (he didn’t think so). Umberto waited a moment for the excitement to clear from his throat. "Hi."

Finally she looked up. Who knew where her thoughts were? They were not in front of her as Umberto was. He suggested going for coffee sometime. It seemed as if he were recommending exploratory surgery. Agitation showed on her face. She didn’t know what to say. Not being smooth himself, Umberto smiled, shrugged and slowly backed away. He felt sad ascending the steps that this might be the end of his library visits.

***

He lay sleeping, this Umberto character, in dreams of turmoil. Colorful renditions of remembrances that may not have happened. Ah, the perversity of a dream-past that mutates with the moment; scenes, nuances, backgrounds merging, ameliorating, deteriorating. Such restlessness. So much adversity. At every turn deadlines missed, exchanged glances with potential lovers who are never seen again. Challenges, undefended and indefensible. Demands placed upon him by powerful others. Toil in the uncertainty of reward. Everywhere rejection. Small solace taken in provinces of alienation, passing time in unknown jobs with tasks undone, awaiting a certain dismissal, passing through an endless night on journeys of empty excitement and vague despair. At last he saw a face that he believed could be recognized in a work-day’s reality. An expression that betrayed an inertia of thought. The countenance of a woman who does not care for her own looks. Tall with flaxen, nearly shapeless hair. Her body was also shapeless, hidden under a long dress.

He went into the day already drained of resolve the way one feels after napping following a luncheon of wine. Umberto took the train into a larger reality. He was like the other journeymen and knights outfitted with pagers, cell phones or PDAs fastened to their belts like swords. Umberto attempted to hide from the waste of time behind a newspaper. The words formed meaningless dots in his mind as the joined cars clattered quickly over the rails entering a tunnel and howling like a wounded entity to the ears of anyone who would listen. Looking up, Umberto noticed that the men held blank faces and the women looked inward or far away. He folded his paper into his lap as there seemed no harm in watching. No one would see him.

Out of the dismal wailing of the tunnel all travelers were greeted by a vision of the city. The train emerged into daylight two stories above the street and there, spread before them was an immense apparition of buildings and looping roadways both below and above them. The layers of architecture spanned almost a century and with an impeccable gradualism constantly changed. After anticipated delays that often seemed longer than they were, the day seeming so close yet still beyond the grasp of the coach doors, a great exodus erupted as all fled to their myriad destinations.

*

Lunch-time and Umberto ate the goods of a street vendor on the way to a bookstore. The store held more humans than usual. Perhaps some activity was about to take place. He meandered, giving up on the notion of finding a seat, or even a book. He didn’t seem to have that much appetite for commitment. Suddenly someone was talking to him. He felt sheepishly defensive as if a sales clerk had descended upon him.

"I know who you are," she said. She looked no more than 19 maybe even younger. So much smile. She did not seem to have the personality of a sales clerk. Not very tall with long dark hair. Very thick hair. Hair that lay in a loose braid as if it would do nothing else. He wondered why he should even notice this.

Umberto was slightly flushed. "Yes?" he asked, having no idea what she had said.

"I know who you are."

Excitement. Either he was going to be embarrassed by not knowing who this person was, or vicariously embarrassed for the person who shared so much smile with him for no good reason. Or perhaps, he would find out who he was; a concept that had been eluding him for quite awhile.

"I hope someone does," Umberto quipped.

She nodded happily and pointed to him, child-like, "I forget your name… I mean I knew it but seeing you here. It just left my mind."

"I am Umberto."

"Yes," Her smile deepened with accomplishment. "I knew it was something like that."

She seemed to be in awe of him which he found bizarre, yet was enthralled by her candid shower of happiness. He couldn’t help himself.

"Listen, I know this is a big imposition," she began, "because you don’t, you know, know me at all. And I’m just coming up to you like this, but there’s this project I’m working on that I’d like you take a look at…"

"Oh I would love to," Umberto said, "No imposition at all. But I’m very certain you have confused me with another Umberto or someone like that…"

"No, it’s you…" she said, wavering slightly though pointing at him again.

"Well, if you say so. But I have no notoriety. I am the Director of the Foundation for Lost Souls, a part-time position which I invented myself. I am outside," Umberto motioned with his hands as if to show a box which he was not in, "almost everything, though I do work during the day…"

She shrieked, not hearing his last phrase at all. "It IS you!" She said, covering her mouth to contain her glee.

She began speaking in general terms concerning what his philosophy had meant to her. Umberto could barely hear her as his own head was screaming out suggestions on how to part company. But he tried returning her smile and continued to nod as she spoke.

Then she retrieved a small pad and pen from inside the voluminous satchel she lugged and began scribbling things for him. "It’s only a coffee house in the ‘burbs. But, oh please! Come see and tell me what you think. Okay. I’m there Thursday nights. Please, please, please! Say you’ll come. Please! I agree with practically everything you believe in."

"I believe in very little. Maybe God, and that you should try to be polite, that is if you can’t run away," Umberto remarked off-handedly as he accepted the note paper. She laughed.

"My name is Lori. Please come see me. Please?" She almost whined.

"Of course, provided I won’t have to go to Timbuktu." He read the address. The town was actually near him.

"Bye," she said waving with one hand, the other side of the scales of justice holding her satchel. It was a handbag one could live out of. Maybe she did.

Remembering his pledge to live as if possessed with desperation, a man on the edge of his soul with a thirst for life before time absorbed it, Umberto raised his voice an octave, "I shall see you!" After all such a thing had the makings of an incongruent adventure.

***

© 2000, 2001 Channel49_________                                        

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