Restoration Poem by Morgan Michaels

It was Friday night, seven.

Standing before the door in the hallway of the 30th floor, Donnie rang the bell twice and waited. After two long minutes, the door swung open and there stood Larry, in his lab coat and head visor, sleeves rolled up. Larry had a home office that allowed him to deduct 20% of the rent.

'Come on in', he said, bowing. The lab coat covered a suit of brown tweed. Beneath it shone a dry-cleaned dress shirt, fresh that morning, closed at the collar by a bow tie. A man of talent, Larry was a fine dentist who'd toured the world's great cities as an organist and once was a protege of Nadia Boulanger. But that was long ago. Now, he gave Donnie his crooked smile. His large, myopic eyes swam behind his heavy spectacles. A phi-beta-kappa key hung from a chain at his belt.

The apartment- no smaller than the usual- was filled with the pheromes of its sole occupant, registering those of nobody else in terms of sights and smells. Classical music from the radio competed as a distraction with the mute TV.

'Are you alone', asked Donnie, warily.

'Perfectly', replied Larry. 'I was just feeding Lolly'.

Lolly was Larry's tortoise.

In spite of what you've heard, turtles have ears and can hear, and a tortoise is largely a turtle. At the sound of its name, the irritatingly bright creature knocked open the kitchen door and was straightaway underfoot, to Donnie's surprise and regret.

Larry bent down and picked it up, all legs and head, settling the roundish creature against his shoulder, the way you'd burp a tot.

'My sweet little tortoise', he crooned. 'My sweet little
Testuda graeca.

More and similar demonstrations left the reptile dazed with worshipful praise.

'Good, good boy. Daddy's good boy'.

Larry swung the tortoise to the floor and off it crawled, contentedly.

'Amazing', thought Donnie, 'we all need something- child, pet, spouse- -or even an idea- to lavish kindness on. Unhappiness lies in a failure of reciprocation'.

But the thought remained unspoken. Too serious and complex, Donnie was afraid it would go misunderstood. So, he swallowed it, the thought.

'I just love that little tortoise', said Larry, dreamily, watching it trundle off. 'Well, come in, everything OK? '.

In two or three strides Donnie crossed the cluttered floor and sank onto Larry's tattered Chesterfield. The TV lit the room, dimly.

Larry settled into a rocker, backed by dusty shelves of equally dusty books and tchotchkes; on the shelf over his head rested a sizable snow-globe. In the semi-dark, the men began to chat. Donnie kept an eye on the screen. Hilarious Home Videos was airing. He didn't mind the show, sometimes it was funny. The other eye he kept trained on Larry, listening patiently to his litany of complaints, many quite valid: a stagehand at the Met made an income three times his, with 22 years of education! Donnie did not mind the role of confessor.But, that was just the start.

'Yes', admitted Donnie, who'd heard it before.