PART 5

 Part Five

My Mosh Pit

Three Love Letters

I found two old, long-forgotten photos while rummaging

through an old shoebox. I also found three letters from a sum-

mer of long ago:

August 3rd

Dear J:

I want to tell you what happened on a hazy, hot, sunless

Sunday, in July, at Long Beach. A few feet from where an amne-

siac sat on the boardwalk eating hotdogs—a lady, a blue blood,

and a wanderer observed in the sand a mystical image. Well, be-

cause they were frightened that the startling sight might rapidly

disappear or be scrambled by an insouciant breeze, an attempt

was made by the lady to photograph the sight—to freeze and

thereby validate the remarkable event. The lady put down her

translucent parasol and a love letter that was written in Sanskrit

on an ancient, faded doily. And as a tow-headed child paddled to

shore in a teacup, a picture was taken and developed. It passed

from the lady to the blue blood, and then to the wanderer— from

whose tired, careless fingers it slipped. The wind carried the pic-

ture down and up, up and down; it danced the tango for a few

seconds before it collapsed in my open right hand. I swear, J, in

that photograph I saw the transmigration of a soul!

Kindest regards,

M

August 12th

Dear M:

I love you and want to marry you! Why didn’t you tell

me you were spending July out at Long Beach? I desperately

wanted you to know that I enrolled in a film workshop, and I

will complete the requirements and be eligible for a certificate in

film. By the way, the theme of my first project is reincarnation.

I wish you were with me, supporting my cinematic aspirations

and visions. Last Tuesday, while I dined at an outdoor sidewalk

cafe on Columbus Avenue, a lady passed holding a translucent

parasol. She was walking her Shih Tzu, and when she paused in

front of my table, she allowed her thirsty pet to take a few swigs

from a bottle of seltzer. I took a picture of the lady and her dog,

and I am sending it to you.

Love,

J

August 28th

Dear J:

Your letter was forwarded to me from the Long Beach ad-

dress. I am now staying in Westhampton. While I was having

dinner at a restaurant in East Hampton, I was introduced by a

man called Kevin to a group of young Buddhists. In the early

mornings, I joined them at a mansion for the recitation of five

prayers. I want to tell you what happened at the beach on a hot,

sunny Sunday in mid-August. A dilettante, a pacifist, and a code-

pendent led me to a spiritual man, who for a short time in July

posed as an amnesiac at Long Beach. He now conducts a series

of past life regression sessions, and I was persuaded to partic-

ipate. As I reclined on the Westhampton sand, a lonely seagull

flew overhead, and a tow-headed child paddled, in a teacup, to

shore. In time, I recalled a past life! I realize now, Jason, that we

were together as lovers during the French Revolution.

So, I will be returning to Manhattan at the end of August,

and we shall plan our wedding.

Love, xxxooo,

M

The Milgram Experiment and Me

I WAs part of the Milgram Experiments in the mid-1960s while

I was attending C.W. Post College on Long Island. I was re-

cruited for this role in my psychology class. I was Person A and

seated in a small room with some electronic devices. I was “the

teacher,” and I was instructed to ask questions to Person B, who

was “the student” and who was in another room. If my student

answered incorrectly, I was told to administer shocks. The levels

and strength of the shocks were my decisions. Oh, by the way, in

order to gauge how that shock machine worked, at the beginning

I was given the lowest shock. How rude! And there was a person

(experimenter) in another room reminding and encouraging me

to give high-strength shocks for wrong answers.

I will be very honest. I realized when I was introduced to

Person B before the experiment began that she was not really

going to be shocked. (Yes, we saw our “victims/students” be-

fore the questions and “shocks”). And during the experiment,

the person giving the instructions was weak-sounding. I was not

Marjorie J. Levine ~ 53surprised at the end of the experiment when my “student/victim”

and the “experimenter/voice” came out of the other room laugh-

ing. I thought the whole thing was a transparent farce. I wonder

how many other participants realized it was phony. I figured it

out right away.

The participants were both lousy actors. Despite the transparency, 

I gave minimal shocks, and I did not become a torturer,

perhaps foiling their predictions. It was just so not my thing.

Me and My Baby Teeth

Dentists are always surprised when they examine my teeth and

find I still have three baby teeth. They just never fell out. There

may be no permanent teeth under them, which might be the rea-

son they are still in my mouth. I love them. I have had them for

over seventy years. I fear I may have a huge cavity in one of

my baby teeth because it has been sensitive, and it hurts. It was

explained to me that the tooth cannot be refilled with amalgam

because very little of the tooth structure remains. They cannot

do a root canal on a baby tooth, and it cannot be capped. It might

have to be extracted. My fear is exacerbated.

I am very puerile and immature. I have the joie de vivre of

a much younger woman. Plus, I sort of do not look my age. Are

you with me here? Are you following this? You got it.

I fear that when I lose my baby teeth, I will rapidly age. A

few short days after my baby teeth are extracted, I will look all

wrinkled, bent, and wizened. And my youthful sense of self-dep-

recating humor will disappear.

I allude to a biblical story. Samson’s hair is what made him

so strong. Delilah found out it was because his hair had never

been cut. When his hair was cut, he lost his strength. Also think:

The Picture of Dorian Gray, but not quite… Yes, my baby teeth

are my Fountain of Youth. They keep me young. They may in

fact, contain Botox. They may drip collagen into my system.

Maybe they even produce a quickly absorbed form of Retinol.

But what concerns me most about the loss of my remaining baby

teeth is that I will morph into a boring, droll, and trite crone. No

longer will my internet fans be sweatin’ Da BAD SiNGin’ EDu-

CaTor, they will be watching Miss Old Biddy.

A Ghost Story

I WAs down in the basement doing laundry. As I was loading

a washing machine, a young, friendly woman named Darlene

(who lives on the second floor) came down. As she moved her

clothes into a dryer, she hummed a soft tune. She told me she

just moved in, and we started talking. I have lived here for de-

cades, and she asked me about the building. I told her many sto-

ries, and she seemed fascinated by the history of the place. I said

that some residents believe the building is haunted. She laughed

and groaned, “Shuttt uppppppp.”

I told her that in 1969, a man who lived next door to me

committed suicide. He played creepy music every night, and on a

stormy night, I heard screams mixed with strong howling winds.

The next day, his body was found in the back of the building in a

pile of wet snow. He had jumped out of the window.

Since then, many residents who have lived in that apart-

ment say they sometimes see a man covered in snow behind

their shoulder when they are looking into the bathroom mirror.

In the 1970s, on Sunday mornings, a group of fun guys

used to dance in the back courtyard to the soundtracks of differ-

ent Broadway shows. Sometimes they presented entire scenes

while dressed in elaborate costumes. West Side Story was their

favorite. Every so often, we hear theater music back there, and

nobody knows from where that music is coming.

Darlene and I continued to have a conversation, and soon it

was time for her to go back upstairs. I asked her to wait a minute

before she left, and then my expression became serene, and my

eyes must have appeared unfocused and glazed. Darlene stared

at me. I told her that tomorrow, when she tells people that the

night before she spoke in the laundry room to a woman named

Marjorie who lives in apartment 8S... they are going to tell her

that Marjorie died ten years ago. She screamed, and goose-

bumps appeared on her skin. She backed away and declared,

“Now THAT is not funny!” I never saw her again.