The Meeting, Part 2

The Carrot and the Mule
By Joseph Foti, Esq.

(Page 3 of 5)

My grandmother learned from his death and never trusted anyone again. She repeatedly warned me to be wary of those that profess their love too quickly. She taught me never to let the clamoring of the masses determine what I would become. On a happier note it was she who introduced me to the sea.

At the age of five while most children played with their toys, I drew the sea. My grandmother would take me down to the seaport and sit there knitting, as I spent hours drawing everything I saw. The sea enchanted me with both its vast beauty and deep complexity. Its ultimate lesson being that greatness lies below the surface. Those who understood this and respected it were shown great beauty and power, while those who mocked it suffered the same fate as the H.M.S. Titanic.

My first experience with its splendor came courtesy of a twentyfive cent ride on the Staten Island ferry. I remember running to the bow and being greeted by that first gust of crisp sea air in my hair. It was there at the age of five that I first experienced the feeling of pure happiness and not until I met Sara, eighteen years later, would a person ever equal that purity.

Unfortunately, my grandmother, a woman who never smoked or drank, would succumb to cancer, thus leaving me to face the world alone at the age of nine. The victim of an unscrupulous doctor, whose fervor for pharmaceutical kickbacks superseded his duty to warn his patients that the hormone replacement therapy he prescribed for menopausal hot flashes was a known carcinogen.

Immediately following the funeral, my mother found me a job as a box boy, thus initiating me into the wonderful world of manual labor. Although I hated treating my body like a mule, the job did have its benefits. It kept me away from my father and ultimately provided me with the means to flee that world. At age eighteen my hard work paid off, as I escaped to a small New England University where I earned my degree. From there I went on to law school, where I met Sara.

After finishing college, I was accepted into one of the best law schools in New England and I should have been thrilled; however, I was not. Those around me, supposed friends and well wishers, talked about it as some great achievement and of course tried to take credit for it. To me, however, it meant nothing. My childhood had taught me three lessons. Never trust anyone, every choice has a cost, and never celebrate before a task is done. The ultimate goal was graduating, passing the bar and becoming rich and powerful. None of these steps had been completed yet so there was nothing to celebrate.

This is one of humanity's problems. People always spend the profits before they have them and then cry like children and expect help and pity when things fall apart. I never expected anything from anyone and thus blamed only myself for my failures or successes. I had met Sara at the beginning of my first year of law school, nearly a quarter century ago, at an orientation dinner. Most people use these occasions to assess who they deem usable or "network," as it's called. I was there for the free food only although nothing is really free. The price I expected to pay for this meal was a night spent with lying vultures, casting their false smiles while secretly plotting to use me for anything they could get out of me. To my surprise at this gathering of vultures I would find an angel. She stood in the center of the room and was surrounded by every male there, from the delivery boys to the drooling retired professors. All with one goal and one goal only. I went over of course to see what could compel these highly touted legal minds to act like drooling mongrels. Sadly, I had always been disappointed because although I usually found some toothpick like goddess in a tight dress, one look in her eyes always ruined it for me. While they saw a trophy to obtain, I found a shallow pathetic creature who's supposed beauty did nothing for me. I unfortunately could see the woman beneath the facade and it always disgusted me.

I'm not saying that in the past I had not chased creatures like this. After all this is what society tells you to want. In the past I had tolerated shallow girls like this mostly to be the envy of my supposed friends, yet the intended goal brought little joy. Many a time I would lie awake in bed while one of these supposed goddesses slept at my side. Ironically instead of an afterglow I would feel nauseous. My sole want would be for morning to come and take with it this wretched creature. None of these empty conquests could ever compare to the pleasure I felt that morning when I was five years old and the ocean wind blew through my hair as I stood at the bow of the ferry. All this changed, that late September night, almost twenty-five years ago. As I made my way through the masses, my eyes fell upon what I expected to be just another shell of a woman. Alas to my amazement, I found something I had never come across before or since then.

About the Author

Born and raised in New York City, Joseph Foti graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1998. During this time, he worked in the Sex Crimes and Domestic Violence Bureaus of the King's County District Attorney's Office. He is a published poet whose work has appeared in several anthologies by the National Library of Poetry. These include The Space Between, Best Poems of 1995, Best Poems of 1996, and Best Poems of 1997. "The Carrot And The Mule" is Joseph Foti's First Novel. He has written several short stories.