In Only A Moment

Several years ago, I attended a writer’s workshop in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, that was not for the faint of heart.  The dozen present had already completed manuscripts and were raring to get to the next anticipated step—publication.  There was much more to the program, which was led by a seasoned mentor who put us to work.  During the week, he had us practice-writing, self-editing, edited by others, and critiquing from all around the tables, which were set in a big square in a large room.  Our efforts were read aloud, which always gives a different inflection to the written word.  Even well-known authors and literary agents came to hear our pitches and gauge our wares.  All told, it was well worth the time and expense, and we would leave satisfied with the experience. 

This all took place in the Hilltop House, a classic hotel and historic edifice, where the hill on which it sat sprawled down through vegetation and rock formations to ease up against the lapping shores of the legendary Shenandoah River.  It was a scene for which the word “picturesque” was coined.

Four days in we had a break from workshopping.  Class would be held at an old vineyard with seating under the dappled light of a grapevine which, over years, had inched its way to cover a broad trellis.  But the pastoral setting did not diminish the intensity of what we were trying to accomplish. 

When the afternoon session came to an end, we returned to our hotel.  The cavernous lobby was vintage turn-of-the-century, with a massive fireplace as the central feature.  Sofas and easy chairs were scattered around a heavy wooden coffee table.  Adjacent to the registration desk in the back, with its thick registry book swiveling on a lazy Susan, was a wide staircase.  It was just like in the western movies, where smoke filled the air and a piano would be heard plinking over in the corner.  But here it was a peaceful setting, clean air and quiet.  Most of us chose spots to relax for a few minutes.

A couple of evenings later we went to what serves as a chic restaurant in West Virginia, with a welcoming atmosphere and tasty fare.  One of my classmates heard I have a skill in reading signatures and she inquired about it.  Divided between those seated on the long, cushioned bench and those across the table in chairs, she had everyone’s attention.  Then, eyes turned to me.

I explained some of my history in the FBI and that interpreting personalities from handwriting is an important part of psychological assessments.  My particular forte was in reading signatures.  I said that, while I could not tell whether a person liked the color blue, there is much to be learned from the mere act of writing out one’s name.  I explained the signature is a project, and the first and last names are their own mini-projects.  Highs and lows, views of the world, and other personality traits are there to be revealed if one knew what to look for.  Last, I said, “and, this is not a parlor trick!”

Now it was a question of who would volunteer to be the guinea pig.  The table went silent, each one seemingly in apprehension of what might be revealed about themselves.

Then one daring young woman gave a throat-clearing cough and spoke up.  “I’ll do it.  I don’t give a shit what it says.”

All laughed and a ruled page was slid in front of her with a pen on top.

She didn’t seem to give it another thought and scrawled out her normal signature, slam-bam, then shoved it diagonally back across the table to me.

In only a moment, I saw something that gave me pause.  I announced that signatures can indicate aspects about the signer that they might not want revealed in public.

I raised my eyebrows to the woman, which was all that was needed to ask if she wanted to go through with this.  She gave me a devil-may-care shrug.  Fine.

I told her there was a lot I could say, but what stood out the very most was one particular aspect that was startling to me.  I was reluctant to reveal it, no matter how nonchalant she seemed to be about this whole affair.  

I looked to her, again.  Nothing.

She happened to have the letter “T” in her last name.  After she had written her first name, nice and smoothly, even quite femininely, she had run fairly roughshod over her version of her last name, followed by the crossing of the T, but she hadn’t stopped there.  She crossed it again, and then back and forth about seven times.  In fact, the horizontal lines did not just cross the T—they harshly crossed out her entire last name!

I furrowed my eyebrows and made the comment that our first name almost always refers to how we feel about ourselves, quite personally.  The last name, however, is something very different, especially for a woman.  It could represent a family name and a revered father, or an abusing stepfather who was as much hated as feared.  It could be a newlywed’s new name she was just getting used to, or even the name of a husband from whom a woman was recently divorced.  In all these situations, there are different ways the last name is presented, but I had never before seen what this lady had done, although I understood its meaning immediately.

I looked up and, with hesitation, said that if her last name represented her husband, she had such a detestable opinion of him that it wasn’t clear why they were still married.  I even mentioned this was something like how Lorena Bobbitt—who had famously performed a penectomy on her husband with a knife while he was sleeping—would have written her signature—so intense was the feeling emanating from the page.

The author of the signature took no issue with my analysis, and calmly stated that she couldn’t stand her husband.  The only reason she was still married to him was for the insurance coverage for their son who had a disability.

There were approving head-nods from almost everyone around the table.  What had not been a secret, but had not been known to anyone present, had been revealed through signature analysis.  Of course, there was much more in her signature, but this one example certainly made my point.

Down and across the table, a bit farther from me, was one of the other four men attending the workshop.  His expression was not at all like the others in the group.  Rather, he had a smirk and a headshake which matched the pair of yellow glasses he was not wearing, but were certainly the color of the lens through which he saw the world.

Greg was a political consultant—of course—and he had worked on various national campaigns.  His manuscript was set in this milieu, and a lot of it involved Washington, D.C.  Earlier in the week, he said he had even inserted an encounter between his protagonist and a KGB officer from the Soviet Embassy.

I spoke up at hearing this, mentioning I had not just worked counterintelligence in the FBI, but I had been assigned to several undercover operations and had met with actual KGB intelligence officers.  Further, if he wanted me to look over the vignettes in his book involving the Russian spy, I would be glad to do it.  

He seemed very appreciative at the time.  Where else could you find a person to edit such information and give an assessment from first-hand experience?  We planned to get together before the conference was over. 

But now he was a non-verbal naysayer to my signature-reading skills and his expression did read, “Parlor trick!”

Our colleagues jumped into the fray, each one urging Greg to write out his name on the same piece of paper to see how the contest would be resolved.  It was a boisterous set of moments, but he was having none of it.  He gave the impression that he wouldn’t stoop to give his signature for such an experiment, intimating it would be beneath him.  He thought I had a real carnival act, and that was that.

Our tablemates were booing him under their cumulative breaths.  Then I had another idea, which I decided to toss out onto the table.

I regained the floor and told him, “You know there is a lot that you can learn about a person from only a moment, if you pick the right one.  For instance, I think I can tell you some things about yourself that you have not discussed with anyone this week, and that might surprise you.”

I had thrown down the gauntlet, and he didn’t even have to pick up the pen to write his name.  He just had to sit there and take it, although what the “it” was, he had no idea.

Taking this as a reluctant acceptance of my challenge, and with the rest of the table now all giggling in anticipation, I leaned back to compose my presentation—still no reaction from Greg.

I told him we all knew he was from Ohio, but what the others did not know was that he was a baseball fan—a huge baseball fan.  His team was not the Cleveland Indians, rather it was the other major league team in his state, the Cincinnati Reds. He was not just interested in them as his hometown team, no, it was much more than that.  He was interested in who was pitching each game, who had what batting average, and even so far as to be interested in the new right-handed pitcher, who was being traded, and who was going on, or coming off, the disabled list.

At this point, Greg’s brow had begun to furrow.  He was not denying anything I had said, but his opened mouth didn’t seem to be able to come up with anything to say, either.  It just stayed there, agape.

The rest of the table was silent, watching this mini war-of-wits, and they, too, were agog at Greg’s reaction to my words.

I sat silently, deciding not to cross my arms in a moment of finality to a victory, but just stared back at him.

Finally, he was able to mouth only, “How?”

I said nothing.

“How could you possibly know that?” he finally said, his admission of the truth of the matter imbedded in his question.

I made him wait just one more excruciating moment before I revealed my hand.

I explained that two days before, when we had returned from the vineyard, everyone spread out in the hotel lobby, and so did he.  He took up a place on the sofa right near the coffee table, and spotted the Washington Post laying there.  

Our studies and preparing for classes had been so intense that none of us had the time or opportunity to read a daily newspaper, and this was about as far west as one could find a delivered copy of the Post.

He had picked it up and flipped through it, pulling out the sports section.  Then he leaned back and opened it up in front of him with his arms spread wide in the air.  Quickly, he turned past the second and third pages to the fourth and, still, it was held way up in front of him.  

I had taken up a position standing beside the register desk, just down from the old wooden stairs, about fifteen-feet off to the right and over his shoulder.  It happened to be a general vantage point, and this is where I observed how Greg chose to spend the few free minutes we had of our break.

The upper-left portion of the left page had, in big letters, “American,” meaning the American League in baseball.  He had seen that and quickly lowered his eyes to the bottom half, his face now staring midway down the page.  That is where the National League teams are reported.

Then, his eyes, and the direction of his head, went even lower on the left side, and his head moved back and forth for a few lines.  Then he looked over to the right side of the page and focused on something there, again, his head moving with the lines he was reading.  Then he folded up the entire section and laid it back down on the table.

I said that in the Washington Post, while major sports stories make it to the first page, it is farther back on page four where the nitty-gritty facts and statistics about baseball are reported: team standings, leaders in homeruns and runs scored, batting averages, pitchers’ earned-run averages, etc.  Then, right below are individual blurbs about the games played the previous evening, for the standout moments.  Farther off to the right are paragraphs that refer to each team and their administrative situations, like trades for a right-handed pitcher, and disabled-list information.

After he had consumed all of that, there was nothing else of interest to him, and he tossed the whole thing back onto the table—Greg, the big Cincinnati Reds fan.

Our tablemates had listened, just as Greg did, and they remained just as silent.  For them, they were entertained.  For Greg, it was something else, entirely.

Now his head was shaking, even more than before.  While the rest of the restaurant was filled with normal dining sounds, glasses and plates clattering, mixed with chatter and laughter in the background, our table was in suspended animation.  Greg was the focus of everyone’s attention, but he didn’t seem to realize it.  His mind was racing over the events of two days ago, and his eyes began to dart back and forth, just as they had when reading the bottom of page four.

He furrowed his brow again, and quietly said, “But that was only for a moment, maybe ten, fifteen seconds…how could you have seen that and….”  His voice trailed off.

I didn’t need to answer.  I had just explained the how of how I had done it.  Maybe he needed the why, but that didn’t matter.  It’s what I do—watch, observe, and then file stuff away—everything within sight or hearing that I can.  This is the kind of person I would need to be in order to do what I did with Greg, but I had never anticipated this conversation would take place.

I was hoping he would get back to me with questions about his KGB officer, but he never did.

Plantation, FL

July 28, 2017