Kim Jensen
 

Interiors

1.

A young girl is sitting on a dock looking out over a small lake at dusk.

A young woman girl with long legs and blond hair sits on the dock. Her back is facing the house on the hill behind her.

It was me, fifteen years ago.

Actually, it wasn't fifteen years ago, and it wasn't me. It was two of me: a child, a woman.

Actually, not me at all, but an angel image of someone I release
from inside and place out in the open
 

A young woman child is sitting on a wooden dock facing West. It's a warm summer evening in the far North of America. The sun has skidded to its beyond, leaving wisps and traces of purple and blue across the sky. The evening is full of potential let downs. She is in love--with the boy she has had a crush on every summer since sixth grade. He lives year round in a run down trailer on the "res" side of the lake. She's only here for one month each summer. He's got a little rowboat with an outboard attached. Sometimes, he swings by to take her for a ride, with friends. They've never been alone together. Will she be able to see him tonight? Will they meet up in the dark, and will she get a chance to kiss him for the first time? Probably not, unless she sneaks out behind her mother's back and her two uncles who, right now, are drinking martinis in the cottage.
 
 
 
 

Dreaming, in a landscape of unknowns. You live inside tragedy the way you live inside air--barely aware of it. A tall dark boy whispers "I love you" in your ear. You say: "Tickle the other ear too!" So he says "I love you" into the other. You both giggle. One piece of you is far behind. One is running toward the future in love leaps. The problem is you don't know where you are. There's a concealed geography, riddled with secrets, only you are too young to know it. You sense that you are surrounded by selfish nobodies. Trying to please them is impossible--because nothing makes them happy. This makes you want to cry all the time. Emotions are all you have, but you've placed your tears in the wrong basket.

A 40ish white man with tinted eye glasses and a brown 70's style leisure suit swaggers down to the dock, to sit beside "his favorite niece," carrying a Martini in one hand. He leans down first, then places his drink on the dock, then places his hand on the dock, then finally manages to sit down beside her.

"Hi sexy. Whatcha thinking about?"
"Nothing," she says. She likes her uncle's attention, but also hates it. She feels tense and bewildered, like she's been forced to join a game where she doesn't understand the rules.

"Dreamy teenagers. I bet you're in love with someone."
"Maybe," she says.
"Wish it were me," he pokes his index finger under her armpit and wiggles it, grinning and growling. His finger hurts her, and he smells like a mixture of alcohol and aftershave.
"Well that's slightly impossible" she edges away from him.

"You know," he says slowing down, taking a sip of his drink, "I actually came down here to tell you something. I've been wanting to tell you what a good mother you have. My sister is really one heck of a lady. And I want you to start listening to her. Stop driving her crazy..." The man is repeating himself and slurring his words, but the girl is not savvy to this. After taking another sip of his drink, he continues,

"Another thing you need to know is..." His voice trails off to nothing.
 
 

I know you're in love with someone. It's that Dupree kid, from the reservation. The muscular quiet one. He rides his little beat-up boat around the lake like he owns it. He better watch out, stay on his side. When we grew up there was always trouble. We were always told not to go there, and not to associate with those low-lifes. You don't know anything about anything. You have these silly ideas , which you will grow out of some day. Another thing: I wish I could make love to you. That's what I'd really like to tell you....

"What was that?" the girl asks him.

"Oh, I was just thinking about how much things have changed since I grew up. We used to respect our parents. You kids think you can do whatever you want. " He stares at her chest. If he could do whatever he wanted he would lean over and pull her blouse down, and bite one nipple, lick it, swirl it in his tongue...

"I'm going to go back up to the house now," he says, "Wanna come with me?" His voice is filled with flirtatious innuendo.

"No, I'll stay down here a while."
 
 
 

2.

The pain is too enormous. I can't go on.

This story should be told, but it evaporates each time I approach it. If it were only about the uncle, that would be easy. But it's about this girl. Her world is purgatory--and most likely she won't make it. The adults around her get a good laugh when she talks about plans and ideas, or the unfairness of the world. She doesn't even know she's being raped daily. But she feels, without knowing, that she is living in the center of a poison bubble. There are treats and favors too inside, but a scentless venom hovers everywhere, with no escape.

A young woman child is sitting on a dock facing a lake, a fringe of tree-tops, and the sky. The evening is filled with impossible longing. Sounds from across the water drift to her as if from another planet. Laughter rises and falls. Small waves from mid-lake lap at the dock. Each one has its moment, rolls toward the shore then splashes gently. She has one single desire (to run off and be with her sweetheart), but this desire is so infused with the evening's shapes and scents, that everything seems utterly complicated, overwhelming and melancholic. She whispers to herself a poem that she has been writing in her head

These floating unscented shadows
are suspended like veils of gauze, transient
like my space in History
which evokes my sole applause.

She listens to her own words on her own lips, like a prayer. The clouds are lit by a sliver of moon. The water seems mystical and haunted.

Behind her in the house, loud conversation begins to intrude on her thoughts. Then suddenly she hears her mother call out,

"Irene!"

The voice produces a metallic clash with the world of shadow and desire the girl feels welling up inside. The connectedness she feels to all the elements around her is ruptured in the blast of her mother's voice.

"Ireeeeene" the woman calls again.

The girl hears her mother as if from a million miles away. The voice comes from a place where she does not want to go or be. A place so well lived yet so cold, so full of efficiency and assumptions. A place where emotional let downs and a feeling of betrayal are a given; it's all there in a voice, in a word. Power is on the side of her mother; and anything the girl answers will always have a sarcastic edge there is no understanding between them.

For the life of her--much less than four score or twenty some odd uncountable years, she was a cripple. No motion went through her, made its way through heart or arteries. She was immobile, not as stone, but as blank paper upon which nothing had been or ever would be written. Nothing of her own accord. No impulse that she alone could take credit for. Puppet pulled, no will and no dawning of will, and

then one day the command came, "Rise sister! Pick up your mat and walk."

"Whaaaaaaaaat?" the girl calls out to the mother. She knows that in the next thirty seconds her body will move automatically. She will get up from this moment of reverie, against her own deepest wishes, and begin walking up the path to the house. Deep down she's always been an obedient child.

"It's time to come up now" the mother calls out again, "We have to talk about tonight."
"What's there to talk about?" the girl mumbles to herself. Pine needles from scrubby trees lay at her feet which slowly walk their way from the dock to the path to the house. Shadows from this Northern woods surround her, emitting rustling noises and cricket sounds. Frogs croak; daddy long-legs crawl along with carpenter ants, but nothing is quite visible in the almost pure dark.
 
 
 

3.

A young girl/woman is walking from the hiddenness of her own solitude into the lighted living room of family life.

A young woman with no love for rules, mealtimes, shallow conversation, opens the screen door, and in a single movement leaves the cool night air behind.

Actually she is scowling as she enters the interior world. She lets the door slam and enters the house with a grouchy frown.

In the brightly lit living room there sit her mother and the two uncles, all three with their feet cocked on the wooden coffee table. Even in this reclined position they appear to be showered, boozed up, ready to do something. She surveys the scene: several pieces of worn green and blue furniture, each holding one person; a wood burning stove unlit. A fake wood dining table in the background with a deck of cards on it distributed, as if a game of poker or rummy had recently been abandoned.

Her two uncles sit looking at her. Royce is scoping her tan legs with unfettered admiration. The other brother Clem, graying and overweight, is more or less wrapped up in the comfort of his drink, the soothing idea that soon he will soon eat a big steak for dinner. The girl's mother, an attractive middle-age, middle-of-the-road Mom is wearing fresh clean twill shorts and a tidy pink golf shirt. She is kicked back with her feet on the coffee table in a way that says, "Wherever I am, there I am." Or so the daughter thinks.

"We thought we'd go out for dinner," The mother says to her, "instead of cooking tonight."
"Well, you can count me out." The girl answers, "I'm not hungry."
"You have to eat something, Patty. I want you to come along."
"What if I'm not in the mood?" The girl does not look at her mother directly.
"You should come along just so I can look at your sexy breasts across the table, her uncle adds, "It would make my evening."
As usual, she has no response to these comments. She just stands in the hall looking up, down, around, anywhere but at her elders.

Sometimes it's like this: Mother says "Give me a kiss. I need a hug." And I do that to make her happy. Sometimes I feel a foot is stepping on my head and I'll never shake it.

Sometimes I dream the world is me and there's a knife pointed at my gut. The blade is locked in its vicious position slowly inching toward my body, and I too am locked, unable to move, unable to stop it.

Sometimes my uncle comes in my room at night and rubs my backside, whispering. " I love you. You've always been my favorite." He rubs my back, then reaches around to touch my breast. And says, "You better watch out for that boyfriend of yours. His kind always wants more than kisses. Save yourself for me." Smelling like alcohol he lies down on my back, pressing his groin into me.

"Well, if you don't come with us, you'll have to stay in. Don't forget you're grounded," the mother says matter-of-factly. The girl walks away, down the hallway with its orange shag carpets, and enters the darkened bathroom. In the dim light she looks into the mirror at her face

These floating unscented shadows
suspended like veils of gauze
transient, like my place in History
which evokes my sole applause...

Where are the boundaries of this night? Why do I feel so lonely? Once I rebel against a life of conventions and lies, then where do I go? If only If only is something I keep hearing inside my head. If only what? I keep thinking love will save me. The love of a beautiful boy with dark skin and a gentle way about him. He would never hurt me. But how could he love me? I who am fallen from a loveless tree?

In the dim light from a single hallway bulb she sees her face in the bathroom mirror. She does not see beauty. She sees a monster. Her face looks like a twisted piece of flesh, a heap of trouble. Fat, ugly , is what she thinks as she looks at herself with total hatred. She runs to her room and flops on the bed face down.

Forty two abandoned ancient legends.

The girl hears her mother in the next room getting ready to leave: slipping on a sweater and a layer of lipstick, combing her hair. In the far background of the living room she hears Royce saying, "I can't believe you're going to let her stay here, Bonnie. You know she's going to get into some kind of trouble. She is so spoiled. I'm going to have to teach her a lesson one of these days..."

The mother pokes her head in the bedroom door saying, "Get dressed. I want you to come. We're going up to Baker's Corner."
"No thanks" the girl responds into the pillow. The mother comes all the way in the door and sits on the edge of the bed. It seems like she's about to make a speech. Instead she strokes her daughter's leg for a minute, pats it three times, then walks out of the room.

With her face still in pillow, the girl listens to her mother bustling around the house, taking care of a few last minute things: clearing up some glasses, running the dishwasher, closing cupboard doors. The girl wonders why she is always doing these things. The uncles are already waiting in the car which is idling in the driveway. The mother sticks her head into the room one last time, "Well, get up and eat something, honey. There's some leftovers in the fridge" Then she closes the door and walks outside. The car pulls slowly out of the gravel driveway in a long drawn out goodbye. The girl listens to the crunching sound of the car until it reaches the main road and accelerates toward town. As soon as the car is out of earshot, she does get out of bed.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

4.

A young girl is paddling a canoe across a small lake in the almost pure darkness of night.

A young woman with strong arms is fiercely paddling herself across a lake toward the other side which is on the reservation. It is a divided lake, half in one world, half in another.

Actually the girl's trembling. The universe seems frightening and wide, and she's aware of her smallness in the vast eternal night. Alone on the lake in the little boat propelled by nothing but her own will she is scared

of the dark, of the wind, of the clouds whisking over the crescent moon. The lake seems to be haunted by some mysterious spirits that she doesn't understand at all. Whereas before, on the familiarity of her own dock close to home, she had felt a oneness with the hidden world, now she feels its terrible ruthlessness. She has the feeling that she could be engulfed in an instant by immense forces outside her control. This is her first time out alone on the lake at night. She's still a child, after all, scared of the dark....

But she keeps going, paddling almost as if someone were chasing her, quickly with heart beating faster than the rhythm of her strokes. The smell of the small lake is pondish, and silty, hinting at the lifeforms which thrive below the surface. She rows, quietly but almost ferociously, through the growing waves, toward the far shore. She finds herself paddling purely for the sake of feeling her arms pushing the water aside.

Freedom. Not to have to do anything, be anybody, or listen to any one. Freedom...Give yourself the world. A ticket to the farthest reaches of yourself. What will you find anyway in the farthest reaches of yourself? A spirit speaking in tongues? A glistening dripping pearl? The wild music of blood rushing in the four directions ? More likely...just fenced acres of farmland. Lies are the hidden geography of this region. It only feels like you are in the heart of wilderness. You don't even know there are no more forests from here to the border. On the other side of that rim of trees to the North is only...more farmland, cows, fences. Mystery has been mowed down with the trees..

Halfway across the lake the girl looks over her shoulder to see if there are lights on back at home. Her mother and uncles shouldn't be back for at least two hours, but just thinking about them causes her to shudder. She stops rowing the canoe and looks again at the cottage. She doesn't want to think about what would happen if they came home and found her missing...She doesn't like to upset her mother who would be worried. But her uncle Royce would only be angry; and he would definitely know where to come looking for her. She almost turns around to go back, but then she says to herself, NO!

Pushing the little wooden craft onward, she begins to close in on her destination which she knows so well. For the past four summers she has sat looking out from her dock to Julian's on the other side. From a distance she has watched him fishing. She's watched his shape lazing around on summer afternoons. She's watched him dangling his feet in the water; she's watched him get in his boat, hoping he'd come by to see her.

Sometimes he comes by with friends, and asks her to go out with them. They drive around as fast as the little boat can carry them, laughing about whatever. They buy beer at the gas station and then float into the lagoon and drink it. She gets a thrill if Julian stands up close behind her, or leans over to steer the boat with her, or even if he just says her name. Yesterday he came by with his cousin, Phil. They all laid down in the bottom of the boat looking at the sky, talking about exactly nothing. Julian reached out and held her hand for a minute and whispered "I love you" in one ear. She said, "Now tickle the other ear too."

Faster and faster, despite her arms tiring, the girl guides the canoe across the lake toward the other side. Soon she can make out the lights of his trailer on the shore which is surrounded on both sides by pitch black. His is the only dwelling on about 300 yards of waterfront on the western side of the lake. But as she approaches his dock she begins to panic. She suddenly realizes that she is a stranger to his world. That she knows nothing about where she is going at all. She's only once before stepped foot on the reservation and suddenly realizes that she's never been invited to his house. What if they don't want me? What if Julian's not home? What if he has another girlfriend? What if his uncle tells me to go home? Why do I suddenly feel that I am wrong, terribly wrong?
 
 
 

The questions go on in her mind. Then she remembers things Royce had said earlier. Phrases start spinning around in her head: "Stop driving your mother crazy. I sure would like to see those sexy breasts. She's spoiled, Bonnie. I'll teach her a lesson." She remembers him touching her at night. She remembers him whispering things in her ear, "Save yourself for me." She thinks too about her mother coming into the room, caressing her leg, letting her stay at home. She feels guilty about disobeying her. All of these things swirl in her thoughts, making her feel bad. The girl starts to think maybe she IS wrong, spoiled, only thinking about herself. The questions become so painful in her mind, she stops rowing. Caught there on the lake, rocking back and forth, she feels that no matter where she goes, up to Julian's, or back home that she will never escape the fearful message that a voice keeps sending her. Something about betrayal and defeat. Something about the impossibility of escape. Clouds scuttle across the windswept sky; and the waves are becoming large and almost dangerous. She puts the paddle down and the canoe begins to toss about on the wild undulations of the lake.

On the reservation, there were winding country roads that she'd see in her dreams. Dark green, soft and filled with gentle ruin. Seemingly deserted because every house, cabin, and trailer was a secret, shaded behind layers of leafy trees. To her, Indian land meant freedom--from golf courses, cocktail hour, custom designed homes with sparkling re-modeled kitchens; all the shining surfaces of middle class life. These green corridors, alive with barefoot children and stories of the past, seemed like a better place, a place where ancient legends could be kept alive.

Once Phil and Julian took her to a place on Indian land called "lost lake," nothing but a pond really. It was dark with no moon. They drank beer there and threw the bottles into the water, watched them sink slowly out of sight. Then they went, drunk, into the woods to pee together. These boys never made jokes about her squatting in the woods. They never said anything gross or mean. Julian said, "Reenie's not a girl, she's a woman" Strangely, this made her feel more like "one of the boys." But no one ever told her why the lake was called "lost." And no one ever told her that even if she pretended to be one of them, one of the boys, she never could be, not really.
 
 

As the first droplets of rain hit her face, the girl feels a crushing weight as if the whole sky were falling. This is the weight of the world, she thinks, when nothing feels right.

It's not that she won't go on to the shore. It's not that she won't walk to her beloved's door, throwing herself into the future as she must. It's that she is just beginning to understand, has somehow understood that the world beneath her is torn in two. The speaking world which is too cold and silent. The silent world which speaks only in the lapping of water against boats, in the rustling of beech leaves, in the tragic way sunlight hits a blade of grass at dusk.

Sometimes, in the very heart of evil, there's a safe place for a person to be. If you're quiet enough, and good enough, and keep your secrets inside, you can be safe. But once you hide yourself away, even from yourself, no one will ever find you. Ever.

Soon they will be coming for her, though. They are her family. They will be calling her name, knocking on doors. Soon enough, they will discover her hideouts. They will be turning on lights, even if she's caught up in the kiss that will change her life forever. If not now, then five minutes from now. If not five minutes from now then five years.
 
 
 

5.

A young girl is floating at night in a little wooden canoe on a stormy lake; her paddle rests in front of her. The lake's dreamy waves push her toward the other side, the land of a small Indian Nation.

Actually it isn't the waves at all but something beneath them, carrying her to shore.

A woman child, not paddling, but quietly listening to the sound of a million raindrops joining the water, begins to smile.

Though there is no one running to greet her on the other side, the girl, almost a woman, smiles, as she feels the surge of the lake carrying her to land. She knows there is someone, or something right below the surface offering her a sign.
 
 
 

These floating unscented shadows
suspended like veils of gauze
are transient, like my space in History
which evokes my sole applause.

Like reflections on dark water
which ignore the swaying reeds below
You'll remember surface images
of the things I cared to show.

Yet traces of long ago quivering souls
thought snagged on stark dead trees
re-awaken in their ancient whisperings
blown in an eternal mystic breeze.