Hana Matsuri

Great is the matter of birth and death

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The pomelo is a fat, sunny yellow fruit that sits in your hand like a waterlogged softball. When you want to open it, you have to dig in with your thumbs the way you divide bread, down and out, and when you break through the puffy rind and start peeling, separating the thick white matting from the fruit, it makes a soft burpy exhale.

Inside, the fruit is barely colored, a spring fruit already drained. Wan, as if very very young and kindly ethereal, and it tastes exactly like that. As sweet as grapefruit longs to be, not pink and highstrung bitter – grapefruit being a pomelo’s New World hybrid offspring, further along the evolutionary conveyor. Pomelos originally blossomed in Southeast Asia but they flourish very nicely here in California.

I know all this because when I walked through the farmer’s market today there were yellow lopsided piles of them in all the stalls. It’s April and April gives us cheery early fruit the way children careen through the house while the parents are still sleeping. I bought a couple because I liked tossing one in my hand while deliberating. At the bottom of my bag, they settled doofishly, making the bag swing heavily on one side.

So check this out: Wikipedia calls that matting between the rind and the fruit glomish – a word I couldn’t find anywhere else. I was on my way home, and ok a little spring happy now, you might say pomelo-headed, looking it up, head down in my ‘droid. Glomish couldn’t be found anywhere, except GoogleBooks which cited a couple words like it in the Century Dictionary (1889): glome and glomerate. Both of which being preciously exact terms for balling yarn. As well as the deliriously trippy “a bottom of thread,” a definition begging for more study the next time you’re stoned. But it felt like we were on the right track here. Pith, the spongy white intermediary between rind and fruit may be more botanically accurate, but once again, I prefer the metaphor: a ball of yarn wound around the fruit.

Sensing a curb, I stopped. Good catch: red light. The wind turned brisk and annoying. Sharp and slappy. Its rampant swirl gussied up the blondish hair of a lady walking next to me and rattled up my sleeves, lifting my jacket off my back. Cold. I thought about coffee and when I made it into my neighborhood, I went for a cup.

Another petulant wind slammed the cafe door behind me. It startled a couple of hardworking laptop users nearby. And then back to their screens they went. I was now in the public office space, with cables on the floor and inaudible, dedicated people carefully, hermetically sharing space. All tables occupied. But in the center, at a table near the window, I saw my old friend Miranda sitting with her friend Columbine. Compared to everyone else, they were lounging and goofing off.

I knew Miranda from a job we had. We semi-dated and had some laughs but the whole thing was sort of vague and accidental seeming. Which was sometimes fun, especially when we’d bump into each other at parties and then go spend the night, but the rest of the time I didn’t like the feeling I had to keep up with her. We were really tugging in different directions. But it was good to see her. I knew we shared the same neighborhood, but always, apparently, at different times.

She used to talk a lot about Columbine without actually describing her, including her as an also-participant in almost every adventure. They went to school together and afterwards Columbine followed her out here, although I lose track over the rest of the story. I’d only met her once or twice, including one uncomfortable moment when my friend Burnsy said “oooh, that’s tough” and mimicked pistols and holsters when she told us her name. In the cafe, they sat slung down into their chairs, stretched legs passing each other under the table.

When I brought my cup over, Columbine lifted her eyes to me without commitment. I couldn’t tell if she remembered me or not. Miranda was busy, hunting with her finger down the screen of her tablet. With their bags, coats, coffee cups, wadded up napkins, twisted sugar packets, and two books left a-kilter in favor of Miranda’s little wishing well, her tablet, the available space was scanty.

I fetched my coffee and wandered over. I noticed a cloud move over the cafe and we lapsed into shade. Outside a lost sheet of newspaper was picked up and carried away with a swooning pirouette.

“Authorities suspect a homeless man whose body was found in a shed behind an auto parts store on Wednesday died of natural causes,” she read. Columbine nodded for her and sipped her full cup carefully.

Miranda continued. “Another homeless man found the body in a shed on the 500 block of Elysian Avenue, and contacted police about 5:35 a.m. A mattress and the deceased man's personal belongings were in the shed too, indicating he had set up a shelter.”

“It was cold last night,” Columbine said.

“My point,” Miranda said and looked up. “Hi!”

“Hey,” I said, and she patted the empty chair next to her. I shook my bag off my shoulder and sat. I also started to fish around in my bag for a pomelo.

“Like, the auto parts guys didn’t know a human being was living back there,” she continued. Columbine didn’t answer. Leaning over my bag, I looked up at her and she swung her gaze from what I was doing to something indefinite in another direction. Miranda had gone back to her tablet.

“Another. For your consideration. ‘A Sikh temple burned to the ground last night in a fire Abilene fire officials deemed suspicious,’ ” she read. “ ‘The temple, the second largest in the nation, had just been completed last month and had enjoyed a well-attended open house party for the entire community last weekend.’ Again, oh my god. They do everything big in Texas.”

“Like, ‘we open our doors to you and this is what we get’?” I asked, not sure what the game was. But I was willing to go along. To hang with Miranda sometimes means to transcend the hanging altogether.

“Precisely,” she answered. “The turbans rile up the yokels everytime.”

I pulled the pomelo out and put it on the little cafe table. It took up more than its allotted space. Columbine didn’t know what to make of it.

“What’s that?” she asked, budging a slim, knuckly finger from her crossed arms.

Miranda overrode the side conversation, finding no bottom to her outrage. “ ‘The renovations at the temple had cost $1.7 million and eight years of grass roots funding.’ ”

I said, “A pomelo.” The sun returned, briefly.

Columbine nodded. She didn’t look away and it made me think she either wanted to know more or was glad for the new distraction. I didn’t know what to do with both my coffee and the pomelo. I needed both hands to work the pomelo. So I held my coffee for a moment and let the pomelo sit under her scrutiny, which lasted only as long as Miranda was preoccupied, silent.

Then Miranda announced, “My favorite has to be the mural, though,” and straightened in her chair, done with the daily news, ready to give herself to us fully. Columbine was waiting for her and said, “Isn’t that like the yellowest fruit you’ve ever seen?”

“That’s like a grapefruit, right?” Miranda asked. I nodded. I told them everything I just told you. Both girls nodded. At one point a rogue eruption of wind banged against the window behind Columbine and the sunlight changed. A brief squall of cold eked inside. And then the sunlight was back.

When I was done, Miranda went back to her tablet, but Columbine lingered on the topic, saying, possibly to herself, “A ball of yarn sounds really warm now.”

She wore the darkest green, dark like forest undergrowth green, retro polyester warm up jacket, with a collar that rolled and tucked in on itself atop her shoulders, out of which stretched her pale neck, up from the fluted bones of her clavicle and an even brighter, sprightly green swoopneck tshirt inside the jacket. The taut polyester made her arms and chest seem slight, girlish and bendable. Now that she mentioned it, her whole body seemed incapable of generating any kind of heat.

“Want a piece?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Sure.”

I placed my coffee on the floor by my foot and tore it open. The puffy burpy peeling made the fruit seem like a little alien gift amid the formica, pre-packaged treats and professional veneer. It took a while to peel, and after a moment Columbine attended to Miranda. “If you look long enough, you’re going to find one, so ....”

“One what?” I asked. It sounded like she meant, “so give up.” Or, “enough already.” But Columbine didn’t answer, and Miranda held firm to her search. 

Eventually, she said by way of Miranda, “We have two deaths, and now with the homeless guy ...”

“Forty-seven,” Miranda corrected, waving away the offer of a pomelo wedge. “Remember? The car bomb in Afghanistan. Over burning a Koran. Though all they did was kill other Muslims. Plus the homeless guy. Forty-eight.”

Columbine added to the list. “The police beating.” She pinched at a piece of fruit between her finger and thumb and carried it to her mouth.

Miranda started at the beginning. “We have the car bomb, the death of the homeless man, the fire at the temple, the police beating, the motorcycle guy, the mural – “

“And I’m saying it won’t be hard to find a rape in there,” Columbine told Miranda, then corrected herself, deferring to her friend’s worldview. “Although maybe not.”

Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

“Exactly,” Miranda agreed, keeping the conversation just out of reach to me. “Another victory for the under-reported. I just want to find one to satisfy the category. Possibly not there.”

My eyes moved from Miranda to Columbine, unwilling to weigh in until I knew better. Together, we settled among the cafe’s busy-fingered stillness. A sunbeam beat through the clouds and landed, splayed, on our half of the place, mostly on Columbine. Who finally gave in, I guess, out of politeness and with initial, peremptory eye contact. “We’re listing acts of suffering,” she said, returning to pick at a polyester nubbin. “Or she is. I’m listening.”

Miranda looked right at me. “It’s Buddha’s birthday. You know that.”

“Oh right. April,” I said. Columbine nodded, in chorus. Miranda was already flicking at a pomelo peel from her end of the table, around a napkin, pushing past a straw, on the way to Columbine’s side. I ventured new info: “Hana matsuri.” Which didn’t go anywhere at first. So I asked, “What’s the motorcycle? The mural?”

“The mural is ... something like, a woman in LA paid some local graffiti artist kids – neighbor kids – to paint a mural on this long ugly wall in her alley next to her house. And the homeowner’s association had a fit and went out of its way to get the city to make her paint it over. And then fine her. The LA Times had this picture of her, just weeping. Probably from the wrongheadedness of the whole thing.”

“Wow,” I said, impressed.

Miranda wasn’t finished. The off-hand distraction of the peel flicking picked up slightly. “Though I like one of the kid’s reactions: I’m used to seeing my stuff painted over.”

Columbine said, with lo-fi comfort, “That’s so ridiculous.” She had moved from the nubbin and was spectating Miranda’s peel soccer when she asked “What’s Hana ...?” just as Miranda flicked the peel, sending it flying between me and Columbine. “Ooops, sorry. That was littering,” Columbine watched it fly past her and land on the floor. Then looked to Miranda. “I’ll pick it up,” Miranda said, and grabbed her tablet.

“As for the motorcycle, I have to read it to give it justice.” And she did, while jumping to her feet heading to pick up the peel. Her adroit coming-to, and the rattle of her bracelets made me take her all in for the first time: rich purple paisley blouse, gold jeans, thick heeled boots that were not in the least cumbersome and even strengthened her gait. Bold red knot keeping her hair back. She was in full, vigorous pique.

She read: “ ‘A man on a motorcycle died after he collided with a big-rig truck while trying to elude a Contra Costa County sheriff's deputy in Diablo Valley, authorities said today.’ ”

Tablet in one hand, she picked up the peel with her other, underutilized one. The sunshine swept away from the floor. Cupping it, lightly tossing it to herself, she strode to the push-bin garbage stand nearby, still reading outloud.

“ ‘The incident began when a sheriff's deputy spotted the motorcyclist riding erratically on Pleasant Park Boulevard near Ketchem Road at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, said sheriff’s Sgt. Chester Leem. The man refused to stop and ran a red light before turning south onto Ketchem, Leem said.’ ”

Push, deposit, reflexive hand wipe down her jeans. She pivoted and headed back. I have to say here: I really liked Miranda. Especially this memory of her, reading outloud amid the concentrating, ear-budded heads, passing over them, with an inappropriately audible voice suborning their day just a little. And now that I’m thinking about it, it may have been one of the last times I ever saw her. Only a year and a half later or so, she was dead, and Columbine and I were at her funeral, she more hollow and shocked, I think, than I was. It didn’t really seem a stretch that I or any of us would out live Miranda.

Still and though. There in the cafe, she continued. “ ‘The man ran another red light on Ketchem at Folsom Ave and continued south before he collided with a Coca-Cola big-rig truck on Folsom near the on-ramp to Interstate 680, the sergeant said.’

“ ‘The man died instantly in the collision, authorities said. His name was withheld until his family could be notified.’ ” Miranda was standing at our table.  “That’s suffering,” she reported. “All the way around.” A little whisper inside me reconfirmed that I had broken up with her, if that’s the right word. More like, distanced, I guess, but now ... ?

Half a mile up, a cloud moved and the sun broke through again, landing on Columbine’s shoulders. She and I were nodding, without much to say. So Miranda said it: “Happy Buddha’s Birthday!” She was almost laughing, but you had to know her a little. “A good time of year as any to pay witness to suffering. Maybe subvert it.”

Then she turned to Columbine. “Hana matsuri is the ....” then looked to me for support. “Flower....? Festival?”

“Hmm-hmm. Hana. Matsuri.”

“Josh lived in Japan,” she explained to Columbine, striding around to her chair.

“I taught English,” I added. “It was cool. During hana matsuri, you pour hydrangea tea on a statue of the buddha and that way you clean your soul.”

I was playing with the serrated paper sleeve on my cup, peeling it carefully in half. Then I realized Columbine had turned her attention to me. “I was only there a little while.”

“Yeah, I thought you went to Cambodia,” Miranda asked.

“First Japan, then Cambodia. Japan was too ... I felt like all I was doing was helping raise little businessmen. Cambodia – I thought I could help people. In a real way.”

The sun had been lingering successfully for a while, warming up the window and the air around us. A little too much for me, almost inducing a headache, though I’m sure it was just right for slender Columbine. She was sitting upright, fully engaged. “And did you?” she asked, like a reporter. And then answered herself, as if the question came from a neophyte, painfully obvious. “You probably helped like a whole village.”

She made me smile. She was blinking thoughtfully, having given up on coyness and already, actively, processing whatever it was I was saying to her. She was really pretty and I began feeling a little self-conscious.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess. You just plant the seeds, you know. And hope something comes out of it. If anything, it was the least I could do after bombing them to smithereens, burning their fields, raping their women.” Ucch. That was a bit much, I thought, and made it a joke. “Not me, I mean. My government.”

“Exactly,” Columbine said, I think about something else, and then dropped her gaze to pick up a straw and wind it around her finger.

“We wouldn’t think that of you,” Miranda said.

Columbine politely, momentarily, reengaged eye contact. “That would be totally ... totally cool. How did you, how does anyone get involved with that?”

Miranda jumped in quickly. “It’s not that hard.” And to me: “Right?”

“Nope.” Someone’s cellphone rang in, loud. “There’s a gazillion organizations.” I said opening my hands. “I could ... hook you up.” She cocked her head, easily dodging that, and I let it go, it being lamer than I intended, and we resumed our friendliness. Over the next several months, I think I saw her more than I saw Miranda. She wanted to get out, do something great, or at least try to, because those things are really quite hard, volunteering overseas. In the cafe, while the phone rang, we formed a secret, minute pact to be used later. Then she remembered it was her cell and broke away, fishing through her bag on the table.

“Hey,” she said, answering, and then got up. The sun that was warming the back of her head and her shoulders fell onto the table. Her other hand tugged down the white zipper of her warm up jacket.

Miranda was watching this new thing take place. “Boyfriend ...” she warned, tiltling her nearly empty cup.

I thought about making fun of her, protesting, but I gave in a little. “I’m sure. No harm trying.” She put down her cup with an empty thwok. Then her cheeks flushed a little. She knew that I knew that she knew I was looking at her. “Besides ...” I started to say and waited for her full attention. I really, really liked her.

/End

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A careful reader will note the clumsy choice of name for Columbine in a story about flowers. She actually predates this, belonging originally to another, longer story, not at all about flowers. This is more of a backstory sketch for her. A careful reader can be also a forgiving one, no?

"Hana Matsuri," © CMMartin, 2011