The Short Stories of Jim Stallings
Phillip Green .....by Jim Stallings
A Short Story from
The Residuals: Tales for Commuters
& other time travellers
(Volume 1: The Residuals)In the long run, and everything seemed elongated, there was distance for Philip Green. Distance and therefore space- filling movement. One might say Philip Green was a long distance mover. His body and mind were the cargo in question.
Philip was tall and lanky. When he curled about a booth in a cafe or draped himself over a chair or perhaps hung to a building like a bat to its cave wall, Philip was simply expressing his love of space.
When he hooked a shot in the basketball tournament and felt the slow-motion twirl of his body over the heads and shoulders of the other players and the deft touch of two points, Philip was discovering newer meanings of his personal paradigm.
Later Philip discovered new geographies in the body of his first lover. Stretched on the grass of the deserted football field he studied her silky curved contours with his fingertips. His lips traced circles on her soft smooth skin. He felt the tremor in the flesh and its drifting away into unknown lands. He entered into lovemaking like an adventurer into uncharted terrain. It was an age for heroes and mysterious passages through long dark nights.
He survived it all.
In middle age Philip Green raced into distance through his ambitions in the social world. He bought a house, made a handsome fortune in lumber yards, and raised three children with the help of two wives, who came, appropriately enough, in serial order.
The first wife was loyal and hardworking. She believed in the long distance dream and lay awake at night wondering about the dream's terminus. There was just going on and then going on some more. She had no complaints but deep in her heart she had to admit: she didn't get it. What was propelling Philip Green?
Philip of course had no clear notion himself. It was after his first wife had left him--in search of her own destination--that Philip Green sat down and looked at his journey.
Well, movement, he reasoned, movement is change, and everything is change, so...I'm doing the thing that is most harmonious with the way the world is. My life is a matter of distancing myself from what was...the past. It's the past I'm running away from...no, no, not running away. I'm running toward better changes...but on the other hand...
And that was about as far as Philip got in his self-study. Then he married wife number two. She loved wild sex with Philip, she delighted in his money and his physical energy. What she didn't understand was "this running into the wind" philosophy. After three months of marriage she pulled him over: "Phil, sit down. What's the hurry? Where are you running to?"
"That's what my first wife used to ask me."
"Good insight she had too. You're never still. Your body is always in motion, like a...uh, boa constrictor."
"I wouldn't say I'm a snake. An eagle or greyhound, yeah. Something fast and sleek."
"Excuse me, so we're an eagle. Guess what I am?"
"What?" he wondered, trying to imagine her as an animal totem.
She anticipated him. "No animal at all. No, I'm merely a sultry princess. I like lying around on my cushions and waiting for my prince to drop by the tent. So why don't you roll up your magic carpet and rest your eagle on this soft pillow."
The taming of Philip Green was no easy affair, but his second wife was just the courtesan to clip his wings. He learned to play again, to curl round his wife as if she were a floating cloud, to drift into the unspoiled distance without the wink of a slumbering eye.
In old age when he was a widower, Philip Green lived alone in the city but maintained a network of girlfriends in the neighborhood. It was true he was a different man than he had been; still, Philip Green was uniquely himself. Early in the mornings he would fit on his running shoes and head for the park. Round and round the playing fields he would trot.
One of his girlfriends had a condo overlooking the tree-shrouded park. She liked to watch him doing his ten laps. She could practically set her watch by him. She put on the coffee by the fifth lap. His place at her table would be set as he came huffing and sweating into her kitchen. She thrilled at his manly scent, the flush in his leathery cheeks, the sparkle in his old gray eyes. He would kiss her on the lips and hug her, and when her back was turned fixing toast, he would playfully try to grab her.
"Oh Philip, stop that!" she protested lamely. "Why don't you grow up?"
"That's what you need," he would growl. "To grow up."
She would dance away out of reach.
"I'm your prince," he once said. "You're the princess in the tower and we're all alone. I've slain the dragon and I'm here for my just reward. You don't know it, but I've traveled far."
"Oh pooh, you rode the elevator. That's not so heroic."
"My lovely princess," Philip Green intoned with chivalrous pride, "for your love I've been running all the way."