A Memory Resurrected
They say that memory is a kind of treasure house, but I’ve always thought of it more as a graveyard without monuments. It’s easy to lose track of what’s buried there.
Recently I was tidying up my study and came across a note for an essay I planned to write but never did. The note was written more than twenty years ago and refers to an incident that occurred ten years earlier. With a provenance like that there’s ample room for memory to play tricks. Here’s what the note says:
One Halloween, Eric Paul Shaffer—who goes by the nickname of “Reckless”—gave a poetry reading in the Davis City Cemetery. As a general rule, local police discourage literary activity in a graveyard—especially at night—but poets have their own ideas. Several dozen people showed up that evening to hear Reckless perform. One poem in particular—the finale—really fired up everybody’s imagination. It consisted of just two lines, which the poet delivered with his usual panache: “Poems decompose, / That’s the way it goes!”
But Reckless didn’t stop there. He kept repeating the lines, over and over. “Poems decompose, / That’s the way it goes! / Poems decompose, / That’s the way it GOES!” On and on this went. One by one, members of the audience were joining in, boosting the volume and deepening the rhythm, until their combined voices achieved critical mass. The poem took on a roaring life of its own: “POEMS DECOMPOSE, / THAT’S THE WAY IT GOES! / POEMS DECOMPOSE, / THAT’S THE WAY IT GOES!”
Things started getting out of hand and— frankly—became downright weird. If you happened to be a little kid out there trick-or-treating on the dimlit suburban streets—or if you lived in the adjacent trailer park and were quietly sitting on the couch watching The Cosby Show—and you heard this spooky chanting booming from the cemetery darkness, you too might have phoned the police. When the cops showed up, the poetry lovers scattered into the night like body snatchers caught in the act.
Even so, that reading by Reckless was a resounding success. It remains in people’s minds as the greatest poetry event ever conducted in the City of Davis, California. As for Reckless himself, I haven’t seen him in years. I heard he moved to Hawaii.
My old note ends there. But I am happy to report that, thanks to social media, Reckless and I are long since back in touch. Even though it’s many years since last we saw each other, we correspond regularly. When I found that note, I sent him this message:
Dear Reckless,
I came upon an old note of mine concerning a memory that involves you. Do you recall doing a poetry reading in the Davis Cemetery? That’s what this note suggests, but I have no memory of that now. Is this note of mine about an actual memory, which I no longer have, or is it a note toward some piece of fiction I was thinking of writing? What do you say, did that poetry reading in the Davis Cemetery actually happen? Or did I make it up? Or am I now planting a false memory in your imagination? Is it even proper to speak of memories being “true” or “false”? But anyways, let me know what you remember. Or don’t.
Reckless wrote back right away:
Aloha. Dude, I can’t remember twenty minutes ago. I left my briefcase on my doorstep today and drove all the way to school without it. Veronica was nice enough to bring it to me tonight so that I could give the students their graded papers. Memory? What’s a memory?
Now, I do not remember a reading in Davis Cemetery. I don’t even remember a Davis Cemetery. I don’t remember the location of an alleged Davis Cemetery. On the other hand, had the idea occurred to me, I certainly WOULD have done a reading in a Davis Cemetery had I had the opportunity. And you’re right, now that you have me thinking about it, I am actually either remembering or imagining that event. It is truly creepy how memories either seep up through the mulch of consciousness or actually uncover themselves or just manifest like the ghosts of stuff that never happened. I mean that: now I’m starting to remembermagine that I actually did that reading in the cemetery. Weird.
And you actually have notes. Hmm….
So there you have it, a memory resurrected, an event that may or may not have happened. Despite all the uncertainty, mystery, and doubt that shroud this recollection, it nevertheless has taken on a kind of poetic afterlife—at least for me and Reckless. And now maybe, for you too.
©John P. O’Grady
Originally appeared in The Mountain Eagle on November 13, 2020
