By John Dufresne
1.
“We were together virtually all of the time,” Celestia Bell told me. She was talking about her boyfriend, Pen. “And then, all of the sudden, he was dead.”
Penrose Abel Beeman, 27, was born in nearby Kodachrome, the only son of Ted and Maisy (Crudup) Beeman and moved to Anastasia when he was hired three years ago to teach composition at Anastasia College.
Pen, who had earned his MFA at the University of Arkansas, was a critically acclaimed poet whose work had appeared in national literary journals, including West River Review, Bugsville, White Hot, Real South, Super Happy Big Eyes, and Like Fun. His first and only book, Trust, published by MidTown Publishing, won a Gold Medal at the Florida Book Awards.
Celestia told me that Pen sent her a new poem every Friday morning. And every Saturday night they watched a movie together while apart, Pen in his apartment on Cycad Avenue and Celestia at home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. One of them would choose a movie. They’d place a FaceTime phone call at 7 CST, so they could be in two places at the same time, so they could watch the synchronized movie on their computers and look at each other at the same time, so they could quietly comment on the drama and the performances.
Pen made a trip to Sioux Falls to see Celestia and to meet her parents, the Reverend and Mrs. Prentice Bell, with whom she lived. Of the visit, Celestia, who admits to being acutely shy, says she was a bit uncomfortable with Pen being always within three feet, preferring herself the bliss of distance.
When asked about their tragic last night, Celestia cried, excused herself, cleared her throat, and said, “We were watching Dr. Zhivago. I must have drifted off. I noticed that Pen wasn’t whispering his comments. I said hello. I noticed his face was not on my phone. I said hello again, and then I called 911. I said, no, I want the Florida 911. I told Daddy and he called the Anastasia police.”
Pen leaves his mother, his special cousin Frances Cahalan, his devoted students, and readers. A memorial service, open to the public, will be held on Friday at noon in the Flagler Room at Anastasia College. You are asked to bring a favorite poem of Pen’s to read.
2.
Pen and Celestia met, predictably enough, on an online dating site, thatsamore.com. Pen sent photos. Celestia sent selfies. He was always smiling in his; she was always impassive in hers. Pen may have mistaken vacancy for welcome. She told him she was living with her parents after getting a degree in elementary education and then realizing she didn’t like teaching and didn’t like kids. She worked part-time in a stationery store.
They met for the first time in the flesh when Pen flew to Sioux Falls and rented a car. Staying over at her home was out of the question, but he could stay late. He took a room at the Thrifty Lodge. He brought along DVDs so they could snuggle on the couch in the den and watch The Big Lebowski together while her parents busied themselves elsewhere in the house. Celestia said, “The guy’s a bum. Why should I care about him?” They went for a drive and ended up at the DQ on North Kiwanis where Celestia chatted with some old school friends but didn’t introduce them to Pen.
They drove to the Falls and parked in the lot. Celestia preferred not to climb the rocks to see the cascades she’d seen a million times, thank you very much. She braided a strand of her blond hair and sucked on it. When Pen asked her what she hoped to do with her life, she told him exactly what she was doing now, and asked him to roll up his window, please and thank you. She was freezing.
Pen said, “I meant what do you want to accomplish.”
She twirled the strand of damp hair around her finger. “I have no ambitions.”
“None?”
“Not one.”
“How can I work with that, Celestia?”
She shrugged and smiled. “What is the point of just sitting here?”
So they drove downtown to the Phillips Avenue Diner, sat at the counter, and ordered chislic, which Pen raved about.
“It’s just chislic, dude. Why do you have to be so enthusiastic about everything? It’s not normal.” Celestia went back to sucking the straw in her butterscotch milkshake.
On the drive to Celestia’s house, Pen told her he was having an epic weekend, and you could hear her eyes roll. She had to work in the morning, she told him as she hopped out of the car but would be home by two.
The next day Pen went back to the diner for lunch and more chislic. Then he bought two books at Zandbroz Variety, So Long, See You Tomorrow for himself, and My Unsentimental Education for Celestia. He drove to her house at two, but she was late for their second authentic date. Pen sat in the living room with Mrs. Bell. The Reverend Bell was upstairs in his study downloading his soul-stretching Sunday sermon from the Internet on the topic of “Life Is Hard, But God Is Easy.” Mrs. Bell told Pen that Celestia was probably at her sister’s watching TV. “They like to catch up on their soaps on the weekend.”
“I could have gone there if I’d known.”
“What size shoe do you wear?”
Pen looked at his Toms, wiggled his toes. “Ten.”
Mrs. Bell picked up her cell. “Let me give her a shout.”
“Your daughter’s quite the young woman.”
“Is she?”
“She just hasn’t found herself yet.”
“She hasn’t been looking.”
When he asked Celestia if he could kiss her, she said no, he could not. “What do you think I am?”
“A girlfriend.”
“Well, slow down, Usain Bolt, I’m not the hundred-yard dash.”
After Pen had said goodnight and was headed back to the motel, Mrs. Bell walked into Celestia’s bedroom, tickled the gerbil under his chin, and said to her daughter, “Didn’t your last boyfriend have larger feet? Why would you date someone with smaller feet? Your daddy’s a fourteen double E.”
The last thing that Celestia said to Pen on the night he died of a pulmonary embolism was “What’s with all the snow?”
3.
Celestia is at home ignoring her children as best she can, but one of them, the chubby blond, keeps massaging her feet. She worries that he’s going to turn out to be a creeper, but the massage does feel both soothing and stimulating. The girl with the wandering eye says she’s bored and can we please do something besides watch people yap on TV. Celestia tells her to go bother her father for once. He’s sleeping, the girl without the wandering eye but with a loose front tooth, says. He’s sleeping his life away, Celestia says. She looks out the window. No school tomorrow either. What’s with all the snow?