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The Collected Works of Jennifer Pastiloff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Intimacy of Bats I. It comes down to this: After thirteen years I am still in love with the same man who on my mother’s bed was as startled as I was to see a bat hovering near the ceiling fan as we made out in the way a 15 year old will make out with her 17 year old boyfriend. That proving that a 15 year old can and will move her body like a 17 year old. With my keen understanding that everything is a sign for something else, I should have understood then that under the graph of thin meshwork, under muscle strips covered by bat skin was a map of my life. A prophet, my future in the fabric of its wings, and I was blind-sided. I completely missed it. In the Orient, bats are a symbol for good luck. Here in the West, they’ve suffered a serious image problem. I appeal to the lost. I appeal to creatures who have to overcome darkness to get what they deserve. Bats trapped in houses are young ones who’ve lost their way. Bats In the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy play a vital role in the delicate balance of nature. All my life I have lacked balance. How was I to know that thirteen years later I would come to see myself as that bat- trapped in unknown surroundings, unsure of what to do next, of where to go, everyone terrified of me as if I’d harm them if I got too close. II. What I love about bats: their invisible sound Bouncing off objects, returning as echo. Leaving as one thing, coming back as another. They’ve mastered the art of taking: It may seem like they are giving away their sounds. They aren’t. They always get them back, And like some exclusive insider’s club: these sounds are too high-pitched for humans to hear. For example, one sound could be I love you and we wouldn’t hear a thing. What I have in common with bats: The small-footed myotis is noted for hibernating alone, not clustered like the more common little brown bat. I am not common. I too have suffered a serious image problem. I am haunted by myths. I know the art of taking. I return as echo, thirteen years later. III. I rely on echolocation, a seeing based on hearing. I am part bat. I listen for signs, I hunt in the dark. I have been sulfur at the tip of torches, I have leapt to fire when another flame came close, but finally I have found you, finally. How you are the same. Since you are such an honest man I still wonder: What is the line between honesty and cruelty? Is it as delicate as the wing’s patagium, the membrane with its two thin layers of skin, its high density of nerves? So I listen close, for signs. Give me something, anything! I listen as hopefully as blood draws to the surface I listen. I am looking for that kind of reaction that type of excitement- And as silently as we watched those hairless pale yellow wings become as still as our answer to the moon IV. What we answer the moon- Why, we answer the moon with a toast! A dirty martini held high, in thanks that bats have little in common with men except their knack at adapting. Unlike you, man, the flight of bats is not direct but undulating like a stone skipping across a pond. Like you, the bat is also both cruel and honest. V. The Louvre’s“Angelus”comes to mind So naturally, I spear a vodka soaked olive. Two bent women, pray over a fruit basket the man sad, his pitchfork stuck in soil. Millet raises the height of his figures so they are above the landscape, not subject to the land. Involved with the universe, they are part atmosphere. Maybe they will even take flight, if need be. Like you and I. For the duration of my visit our natures are unaffected by land, time, space. Were we a painting: Genius in terms of composition! They just look so right! We too are slightly above everything. Martini in hand we make another toast, to the years, to the nice weather for October in New York, to bats, to the glow in the sky in a Millet painting hanging in Paris. A toast to Millet’s grandmother who’d make them stop in the field and say the prayer Angelus for the poor dead ones. We say Angelus in our next toast, with our next drink. And the word was made flesh. VI. The artist is what he is because of the time and place where he lives. How can I still be so out of place? Here you are across the country and were I to tell you I loved you your reaction would be as it was then with the bat: full of terror. Oh, that poor lost bat! The intimacy of bats has escaped evolutionists But I am sure we could learn from these winged things. How to listen closely, how to love what at first looks frightening. VII. It comes down to this: People fear most what they understand least. Take love for example, God, death take honesty, cruelty, kindness even. Take bats, those shy creatures, so misunderstood. They love quietly, haunted by myth. At a very young age we decide who and what we love. That weekend she goes to her boyfriend’s and you lie on your mother’s bed kissing a boy as a bat hovers near the ceiling fan on a humid Jersey night is about the time you decide that you will love him, if not forever, at least until you meet him again three thousand miles away over martinis, until he tells you I am a simple man, the kind who cuts his losses. What you will want to say to that is That is so, so untrue. But you won’t. You’ll say I know you are, and a toast, another drink. Then later, much later, tell it to the moon! The bats, tell it to anyone who will listen, just who the man is that you love, and why if you hunt here in the dark, if you listen close enough, you can hear him, his wings a suggestion that he will make it through the darkness, a quiet declaration: in hopes his team will win, he will get what he wants what he deserves. j pastiloff |
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