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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
January 8, 2012
Previously unpublished fiction.
© 2012 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Pak Lan, 2004
© 2004 by Bud Grossmann
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VISITORS STOPPING BY
January 3, 2012
What a lovely, bright winter’s day in frigid Fjord, Wisconsin!
This morning I greeted the second-most loquacious Jehovah’s Witness I ever answered the door for. The first was in Honolulu, shortly before I moved here, a woman who, before she even offered me a Watchtower, began to praise the fragrant blossoming tree in front of my Hawaii Kai home. (Oh, my poor Alzheimer’s! I can’t remember what that tree was called! I planted it on my birthday in 1993.)
Wait, yes, I think I do recall. Pak lan, “pahk lahn.” There is a non-Chinese name, too, but Vivian called it a pak lan. I wonder if the new owners of my house preserved that tree when they put in new landscaping. And what about my big, beloved mango in the back? Maybe, via Google Maps, I will take a peek at my old residence.
After the Jehovah’s Witness and I discussed the tree, while I remained in my entranceway one step up from where the woman stood, I remarked that I found pleasing the scent that she was wearing. The woman smiled, stepped close, and tipped her head to present her neck to me. She told me her perfume’s name, and I inhaled appreciatively. A silent gentleman had accompanied her, a man in a long-sleeved shirt and a necktie—attire seldom seen in Honolulu. He stood a few feet behind the woman and appeared patient and pleasant while she and I chatted.
Murmuring about a woman’s scent while another man listens, you can imagine, might put a well-intentioned Lutheran fellow a little bit off balance. I pressed the door jambs with both my hands. Watching a Jehovah’s Witness woman stray slightly from the path of her mission was positively intoxicating!
Today, when my doorbell rang at ten a.m. on this first Tuesday of the year, while the sun sparkled on the snow, the outside temperature was no more than fifteen degrees. On my High Street porch stood a woman, fortyish, I’d say, fiftyish, it’s possible, nicely dressed in browns. Booted, stockinged, and long-skirted, woolen-hatted, woolen-coated, neck-scarfed and wide-eyed, she offered to discuss the Bible at my door. I told her I have my own church, but she persisted in her pitch. I persisted in my refusal to allow her to complete it.
When she had gone, though, I had regrets. I wished I’d had the presence of mind to say one of two things. I wish I’d said, “I know it’s terribly cold, but you are so beautiful I’d like to take a picture of you! Will you wait here one minute more while I get my camera? The light on you is lovely.” She might have agreed to that. Or I wish I had said, “Would you care to come in from the cold? I’ll give you something hot to drink if we can keep our Bibles closed.”
But, alas, I did not feel ready to welcome a visitor. Although I had been out of bed for a couple of hours, I had not yet brushed my teeth, had not shaved, had not even put on my eyeglasses for the day. I was wearing white socks in my house zori, a pair of my mother’s navy blue bell-bottom sweatpants with the cuffs turned twice, a dark green T-shirt tucked into the waistband of those pants, and an unbuttoned oversized green plaid flannel shirt. Opening my mouth as little as possible, I cheerily sent the woman away. “Thanks for coming by,” I said. And I tugged my storm door closed.
♦
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This page was updated Sat, Jan 7, 2012, 8:48PM CST.
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© 2012 by Bud Grossmann
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