What I Did For Love

I was glancing through the April 4, 2016 People Magazine in the bathroom today.  It’s the one with Princess Kate on the front cover. Okay, that doesn’t tell you much.  Princess Kate seems to be on every other cover of People Magazine lately.  Let’s torture her just like we did Princess Diana.  That’s another story.

On page 74 I came across stories of unlikely pet friendships.  The photo of a little girl hugging a duck caught my attention.  It seems that the five year old girl has had many pets.  But, she has really bonded with her pet duck, Snowflake.

Snowflake is your average looking duck.  The article is quoted as saying “Snowflake has joined in on everything from family beach days to sledding and even apple picking.  He loves car rides.”

Get a grip people.

You take a duck to the beach?  You put a duck onto a toboggan and give it a big push?  You perch a duck in an apple tree and tell it “let ‘er rip”.  You stand underneath with a poncho extended catching all the apples?

You take it on car rides?  “Come on everyone!  Let’s go get an ice cream.  Yeah!  Hey?  Where is the duck?  We can’t enjoy a cone of ice cream without the duck!”

I notice the little girl on her knees hugging the ducky love of her life.  She lays her head gently on top of his downy head.  One hand holds his neck gently it seems.  The other hand has his beak firmly shut between her fingers.

I think that hand laid gently on his neck is ready.  It’s ready to grab him around the neck when he goes for her eyes.

That tells me all I need to know.  Even this little loving girl does not trust this duck not to try to rip her face off.  The duck’s eye stares at the photographer.  “As soon as she lets me go, you’re all mine Mr. Cameraman!” his look says.

I don’t trust ducks.  They are mean.  They are slimy.  They are devious.  I need more than this photo to tell me that ducks can be nice.  I need video.  I need hours of video.  I can’t be bothered watching hours of video.  But, there needs to be proof.  And, no editing.

Why is this little girl holding the beak shut with her hand?  Because this duck has made her bleed in the past.  The hat is probably covering up the scars.

I had a good friend on Columbus Street.  Her family never had a pet dog or cat.  I always thought that was a little strange.  Every house needs kids and pet dander to really be a home.

Then one Easter someone gave her a duckling.

It was cute when it was tiny paddling around a plastic kiddy pool.  It was cute waddling around behind her.  Cindy was completely enamored.  I didn’t really get it.  You couldn’t really pick this creature up and get any love out of it.  It would struggle every second you held it.  It didn’t purr or shed on you.  Instead, it pooped all down your shirt.

Still, I figured a duck was better than nothing.  And nothing is what she had lived with for many years.

Cindy would spend the night at my house.  I lent her my cat.  Goldie was good about spreading the love.  She would lie on Cindy at night and purr herself silly.  Goldie would purr Cindy to sleep just as I was gearing up for us to watch the late movie on TV.  I forgave them both.  Sometimes a girl just needs to be purred to sleep.

We left Goldie to an outdoor only existence when my family spent our two week vacation in Vermont.  She was fed on our roofed porch by a neighbor.  She had my old pillow to sleep on.  She would make the rounds of the neighborhood looking for love and attention.  Everyone knew her. Everyone knew us.  They’d pause during their day to give our poor lonely pussy cat a little attention.

The neighbors would count the days down for Goldie.  Only six days to go pretty girl!  In six days your people will come home.

Cindy’s father was not an animal lover.  He told me over and over he absolutely hated cats.  I tried to forgive him that.  I figured something had happened to him during his childhood to make him hate all felines.  Perhaps one had tried to smother him in his crib.  That could scar you for a lifetime I suppose.

He told me that the kids had let my cat into his house while I was away on vacation.  “I made myself a tuna fish sandwich.  I turned away for one minute to find the pickles and your cat was up on the counter. She ate my sandwich.  I wanted to put my hands around her throat and choke her but I didn’t.  Because, she’s yours.”  he said to me one day.

“You didn’t kill my cat because she’s mine?  Why?”  I said in shock.  I meant why would you kill a cat.

“Because!  I think the world of you you silly little twit!” he yelled in my face.  His face got really red.  “Now, get the hell out of my house.  You do have a home to go to don’t you?” He was like that.  He was one mean SOB most of the time.  But, I could charm him around to anything if I put enough time and energy into it.

When he screamed at me to get out of his house?  I just went up to him and gave him a kiss on his red, hot face.  “Thank you for not killing my cat.  I love you too.” I said as he shoved me out the door with a smile on his face.  He slammed the door hard behind me to show me he was still the boss.  He didn’t want me to think I could buy him with kisses.  I could.  We both knew that.

Cindy’s duck got bigger.  It got meaner.  She kept him in a hand made cage against the back of the house.  The enclosure was big enough I suppose.  But, what an existence.  An hour playing with Cindy a day.  23 hours of sitting inside a wire mesh cage held closed by bricks on top.

No wonder Crackers the Duck was so mean.

I would go over to hang out with my friend every day.  I had to put up with her duck every day too.  He was her first and only pet.  I got that.  I made allowances for that.

Crackers hated me.  Cindy got a kick out of that.  Too big a kick.  For the first time ever I saw a mean streak in her.

Cindy and Crackers hung out on the back kitchen stoop.  She fed him little pieces of toast.  He liked his bread toasted. When I mentioned that toasting his bread was a little ridiculous he spread his wings and beat me with them.  I know his brain was the size of a pea.  Half his brain was taken up with contempt for me.

She had a little plastic golf club and ball.  She would bat the ball around the yard and he would chase it for her.  I would get wing beaten if I tried to join in the game.  She would laugh until she almost peed her shorts.

My eyes would narrow.  I’d head down the driveway for my house.

“Oh, get back here!” she’d say.  “Are you afraid of a duck?  He knows you don’t like him.  Show him some love and he’ll love you back!”

I tried to pet him.  He turned his vicious beak on my ankles.  That really hurt.  I’d run.  He’d chase me.  He’d clamp onto my toes if I hadn’t bothered wearing shoes.  I hardly ever bothered with shoes in nice weather.

I’d eventually get sick of the torture.  The duck hating on me and Cindy getting such a kick out of it was awful.  I’d head home.

“F*ck that duck!” I’d yell over my shoulder.  I hardly ever used that word as it was a big no no.  But, it rhymed so great.  I just had to.

“Language!” screamed Cindy at my back.  She laughed hysterically.  The duck honked.

The duck was mean.  But, worst of all it was a bucket of slime.  It shot poop out of itself all the time.  On a warm day it really, really stunk over there.

One of Cindy’s jobs was to get out the hose and spray down half the yard after playing with Crackers.  She had to do the driveway and the front stoop where she had fed it toast.  Her father got home from work about 4 pm.  If she had lost track of time and didn’t spray down the steps?  Whoo!  You could hear him yelling all the way to the top of Columbus Street.

He was pretty graphic about what he was going to do to that duck next time he came home to this kind of mess.  He never threatened to actually eat the thing.  But, he was very inventive in the many ways to kill a duck.

My mother would listen for a minute.  “Oh, Jim and that duck.” she’d say as she closed all the windows at the front of the house.

You could threaten and even actually murder a duck on Columbus Street.  We just didn’t want to smell it or hear it happening.  Thus, the shutting of the windows.

Cindy overplayed her hand with me.  She shouldn’t have let her duck torture me.  She shouldn’t have gleefully watched it happen.  The family was going on vacation in a few weeks.  She was given the task of finding someone to care for the duck while they were away.

She came to my kitchen door.  I opened it.  She handed me a cookie.  Okay…………cookie delivery.  This is new and different.  “So, we’re going on vacation in a few weeks.” she started with.  “I need someone to take care of Cr……………”  I slammed the door in her face.  Then I opened the door a crack and threw the cookie back at her.

She tried again the next day and the next.  I avoided her for a few days after that.  Eventually I had to deal with the situation.

My mother had let her into the kitchen.  I came down the stairs when my mother called me down.  She and Cindy sat at the table with their hands folded.  They both stared at me.

“No!” I said.  “I am not taking care of that freak of an animal.  It hates me.  It hurts me every time I go near it.  You think it’s funny.  Why don’t you stay home from vacation?  You can stay with us because I am not taking care of that God Darned Duck!” I yelled.

“Language!” my mother and Cindy said in unison.

“Sit down and listen to her.” my mother admonished.

I had taken the Lord God’s name in vain in front of my mother.  I had lost any leverage I had with her.  Oh, who am I kidding.  I never had any.

Cindy looked me in the eye.  She started in on her poor pitiful soul story.

“No one else will take care of Crackers.  You’re not the only one that he’s mean to.  He’s only nice to me.  Because he’s mine.  And we love each other.  I’m sorry I laughed when he bit you that time.” she said.

“Weak! Lame!  He bit me that time?”  I screeched.  “There has never been one time where he didn’t bite me!  And you think it’s hilarious.  Take your sob story someplace else.”

She switched gears.

“Okay.  I love him.  He loves me.  He’s a nasty nasty creature.  No one else will even go near him.  My father says if you don’t take care of him he’s going to get rid of Crackers.  I don’t know what that means.  You know he could end up in the trash along with the old newspapers.  My father is that mean.  If you don’t take care of my duck I think he’ll end up dead.  A ………..dead……………duck.” she exclaimed in a low desperate voice.

Then she hit me with the big shot.

She picked up the hair off of her forehead and took her finger and ran it over and over her eyebrow.  She ran her finger over a year old scar under her eye brow and winced like it still hurt.  We had been team mates at the same end of a ping pong table.  I had gone for a spike and hit her with the edge of my paddle.  She had bled like a pig and gotten a few stitches.

A tiny little scar under her eyebrow.  A tiny little scar that no one would ever see in exchange for a week’s worth of taking care of a slimy stinky duck that hated me.  Life is so not fair.

“I’ll try to make sure he’s still alive when you get home.” I said.  “Now, take your eyebrow and get the hell out of my kitchen.”

She dropped a handwritten page of instructions on the kitchen table and walked out with a big smile on her face.

I picked up the instructions and gazed at them.  I was mostly interested in the dates.  I was so pissed at her right now I wasn’t going to be at the end of the driveway waving off their station wagon as was usual.

I was not going to feed toast to that duck.  If he didn’t like bread plain he could lump it.  I pointed at the instructions.  I flapped them in my mother’s face.  “She expects me to take that duck out of it’s cage twice a day for a half an hour and PLAY with it!  Play with it!  Mom, no kidding!  That duck is homicidal!” I wailed.

“Well, that’s what we do for friends Darlene.” she replied.

“Well, Duck that!” I said as I swept up the stairs to my room and slammed the door.

Mom stood at the bottom of the stairs and yelled “You watch your language young lady!”

“Duck it!  Duck it!  Duck it!” I screeched and kicked my rolling desk chair across the wooden floor.

The family across the street left early the next Saturday morning.  Their faces all shone with excitement.  They were envisioning the beach.  Sand, sun, salt water taffy, clam rolls, sun burns and Popsicles.

I was left with a paper route and a shitty duck.

I fed it.  I watered it.  I sat on the steps twice a day and read a book while it honked around the yard.  Play with it?  No, I’m not nuts.  I kept an eye on it so it actually stayed in the yard.  I sprayed down the poop.  If it still stunk I kept spraying.

Getting it back into it’s cage twice a day was the problem.  It saw play time was over.  It saw me coming for it.  Crackers would dive under a bush or behind some yard furniture.  He made me work for it.  I cupped him under the throat with one hand and held him under the belly with the other.  I held him the way I’d seen Cindy hold him.  If he struggled too much?  I applied a little more pressure at the throat.  I was in charge.  He knew it.  He hated me all the more.  He let go all over my new white shorts.

I piled the bricks on top of the cage.  We kept this up for one long hot summer week.  Cindy was going to come home to a live duck.  He could die on her watch.  But, never never again.  I’d cut her other eye open with a ping pong paddle if she ever tried to get me to do this again I thought.

My hands were purple with bruises.  My arms were bruised and scraped.  My ankles were a mess.  My toes on my right foot were sore.  Worst of all my mother said even bleach couldn’t get the duck crap out of my favorite white cut off shorts.  What a fiasco.

Cindy and her family came home from the beach all brown and relaxed.  She tried to pay me with money and salt water taffy for taking care of her duck.  I took the taffy and told her to keep her money.  I hadn’t done it for money.  I had taken care of Crackers because I loved her.  I still hated her duck.  No, I didn’t want to hang out today.  Let me have a few days to myself.  I am that pissed.  She looked at my bruised and cut ankles and feet and she went back home.  She didn’t seem to find it amusing anymore.

A month later the Daddy of their house came home.  There was some bellowing going on over there.  I saw Cindy get the hose out and spray down the stairs and the driveway.  The family piled into the car to go somewhere.  It was dinner time.  I’m thinking they were going to McDonalds.  The father rolled down the driveway without her.  She was going to be punished for duck slime on the steps.

He relented at the bottom of the driveway.  She threw the hose over her shoulder and jumped into the back seat with the rest of her brothers and sister. I noticed she left the kitchen door open.  Perhaps I would go over and fix that in a few minutes.  After I finish this chapter I thought as I sat on my front steps.  No need for her to take another ration of crap over an open kitchen door.

I heard the Good Humor truck start to descend Columbus Street.  I tensed to go and grab some money.  I decided against it.  There was a half a gallon of new ice cream in the freezer.  I went back to reading.  The truck glided gently down the street at a sedate rate.  No one was home to stop it.  It continued past me with it’s music playing softly in the summer air.

It was almost at the bottom of Columbus Street when I looked up.  I noticed Crackers was in the middle of the street waddling after the Good Humor truck.  The truck put on it’s left blinker to go down Bolton Street.  I watched the duck take a left after the truck.

I looked down at my white shorts.  The duck shit stain was almost gone.  I stared after the duck.  No, I wasn’t going to be a hero today.  That was a long way back to Cindy’s house carrying an irate duck.  He would slime me good.  I would just pretend I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing.

Oh, who was I kidding.  She would come back from wherever they’d gone.  The duck would be gone.  She would realize she’d lost her pet because she had run off without bricking down the cage.  She was eating french fries and licking the salt off of her fingers when her beloved pet disappeared forever.

How guilty would I feel while helping her search?  How guilty would I look while tacking photos onto telephone poles.  LOST DUCK!  Please help find my duck.  REWARD.

Oh, Duck It!

I got up and trotted down to the end of Columbus Street.  I shielded my eyes from the early evening sun.  No one was interested in ice cream on Bolton Street.  It was almost at the curve where I would lose sight of it.  The duck was still following.

I ran for it.  The pavement was very hot on my bare feet.  I silently kissed my white shorts goodbye.  I came up behind Crackers and I scooped him.  He was not pleased.  He had been enjoying his evening waddle behind the musical truck.  He tried to get his wings going.  I tucked him under my arm.  One hand at his throat and the other cradled his belly.  He struggled. He remembered this particular grip.  He stopped struggling.  He just let go all down my shorts.  It ran down my leg onto my right foot.

“Well, at least you’re good for something you little SHIT!” I yelled into where I thought his ear might be located.  Who can tell with a duck?

I deposited him back into his cage. There was no water in his bowl.  I added that.  I piled the bricks on top.  I said what the hell and sprayed myself off with the hose.  I finished the stairs for Cindy.  I looped the hose back up onto it’s holder.  I shut the kitchen door and went home.

I never mentioned the Good Humor save to Cindy.  I probably didn’t want to get teased.  “You really secretly love him don’t you?” she would have said.  Ugh.

Winter was coming.  A duck in a cage in the back yard didn’t make sense with snow coming.  The cage was moved to the basement.  I’m sure Crackers made one hell of a racket all night in the basement getting used to that.  A second night proved that this was not going to work for anyone.  Duck included.

Cindy was very quiet.  I inquired why?  It seems the duck situation got out of control. Her Dad had a friend at work.  The friend’s parents owned a farm.  Cindy had accompanied Dad out to the farm.  She had set her pet down next to a flock that looked just like him.  He had happily joined his feathered friends at the pond.  The barn looked nice.  He would be happy there.  She could visit him anytime she liked.  Her father had promised to give her a ride out there.  He even meant it she said.

And then she cried.  And she cried.  I let her.

I said “I’m sorry.  That must have been really hard.  I’m so sorry.”

She turned her grief and anger at me.  “Oh sure!  Like you’re sorry!  You hated Crackers!  You hated every minute of being with him.  You hated taking care of him.  He ruined your clothes and he made you bleed and he chased you and I laughed.  I’m sorry I laughed.  That wasn’t right.  He hurt you and I laughed.” she wailed.  She blubbered and her nose ran down her face.

“I am sorry.” I said.  “I’m sad for you.  I know you loved him.”

I ran out of things to say.  There was nothing else to say.  When someone is grieving?  And you can’t find anything to say?  I’m sorry will do it.

“At least you can go and visit him.” I said quietly.  I didn’t know if she was done lashing out at me.

She cried so hard she started to hiccup.  It was that awful crying without much sound.

“I can!” she cried.  “I know that.  But, Darlene!  There were at least two dozen ducks.  They all look the same!  It’s not like he’s wearing a collar.  It’s not like he’s tattooed!  I wouldn’t even know which one he is.” she wailed.  She wiped her nose on her sleeve.  I didn’t have a tissue to offer her.

“Yes, that’s true.  But, Cindy!  He will know you!   He loved you.  Crackers will be the one that comes to you! ”  I replied.

She looked at me with big wet blue eyes.  I noticed the scar over her eye became red again when she cried.  I put my arm around her and let her cry some more.  I told her about the Good Humor Truck music and Crackers chasing it.  I regaled her with visions of Wanted Posters.  I teased her about how much the reward would have been.  I told her about my favorite shorts in the trash when my mother had just shaken her head in defeat.

I was relieved to hear her finally laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Doorstep

I’ve adopted many animals in my life.  Mostly cats.  Back in the day a cat would show up on the door step.  It wouldn’t go away.  I’d find myself looking for it.  I might ignore it for a while but daughter usually wrangled a way for the cat to get into the house.

We already owned two cats when Baxter showed up.  He stayed alive during some very cold nights by huddling next to the inflatable snowman on my front porch.  The thing was inflated by a motor pushing air past the big lightbulb into the seven foot body.  I noticed the cat hanging out near it at night.  I didn’t unplug it.  I wasn’t heartless.  I just did not want a third cat.

College tuition.  Dental bills.  Three vet bills?  No, thank you.

Soon the cat was named and living on a pillow on the front porch.  It started getting water in a bowl.  Next, came the little dish of kibble.  My daughter worked on me.  No!  Do not bring that cat into my house I yelled at her.

One the third day she waited for her moment.  Her soft touch of a Daddy was home.  I was at the grocery store.  She batted her big eyes at him.  Didn’t take much.  He likes cats more than she does.

I came home from the store to find a very long gray and white cat luxuriating on my sofa.  I eventually got used to three cats twirling around my legs.  Baxter turned out to be a good boy.  He didn’t ask for much and he was always grateful.

Twice in my life a friend or a neighbor has shown up at my doorstep with a kitten in hand.  Put a bow on it and call it a gift.  Do it right in front of one of my little children.  I didn’t stand a chance.  What’s the matter with people?

We lived in Idaho.  A friend descended upon the house the day before I was taking a long trip.  She handed my children an adorable little Siamese kitten.  Three pairs of blue eyes looked up at me.  Oh, what the hell?

I flew out to Vermont with my two kids the next day.  We visited my parents on Lake Champlain for three weeks.  My husband was working long hours back home.  He felt like an orphan without us.  He was spending a lot of dinner times with friends.  People stopped me in the grocery store upon my arrival home.  “Thank God you’re back.” they said.  I guess he is a bit of a grumpy bear without his family around.

The first thing I noticed upon arriving home was that a cat can grow a lot in three weeks.  Then I noticed the smell.  The kitten had been peeing on my living room furniture for three weeks.  The busy man that was my husband hadn’t really noticed the untouched litter.

I fought valiantly to keep the cat for a month more.  I took it to the vet.  Does it have a bladder infection?  Is there something wrong with it’s kidneys?  Nothing wrong with the cat he told me.

“Do you have a big house?” asked the vet.

“Not huge, but it’s a tri-level.” I answered.

“I think you have a very lazy cat.  A litter box on each floor might do it.” he said.

Yeah.  Didn’t do it.

I cried in frustration.  It was a sweet little animal.  Turn your back for a minute?  It would take a dump behind a potted plant.  It would pee in the middle of the dining room table.  Anywhere but it’s litter boxes.  Plural.  There were three of them.

I gave up.  I called the local Humane Society.  They didn’t have a building.  They were an extensive collection of people that would foster animals in their houses.  No one wanted an out of control pissy cat.

I happened to mention it was a Siamese in passing during the phone call.

“Oh, well then!” said the woman.  “If it’s a Siamese I have a place for it.  A farmer near you keeps a lot of Siamese in his barn area.  They have the run of the farm because they are extremely good mousers.  Your cat won’t be worried about litter boxes living in a barn.” she said.

My poor cat!  It had been “worried” about litter boxes.  Oh, dear God.

I got directions and had my husband take the cat over that night.  The kids barely waved good bye to the little thing.  They knew how much trouble it had been causing.  They were tired of seeing me scrub furniture with a baking soda solution instead of watching Sesame Street with them.

My husband left the house with the cat carrier.  I cried at the dining room table.  My four year old daughter came and stood beside me.  She patted me on the back.  All these years later I remember her little voice.  “Oh, Mommy ,don’t cry.  We could all see this coming.”she said.  Those are the moments that make you look at a child and wonder if she’s been this way before.

Bounce ahead thirty years.

My daughter and her husband were visiting for Christmas.  Some how the topic of that little Siamese kitten came up.  I remembered back to that sweet little face.  I said out loud I hoped it had had a good life on that farm.  I hoped it had turned into a champion mouser.  The pissy little thing.

My daughter put her head to the side and gave me a bit of a condescending smile.

“Oh, Mommy.  Cut the crap.  We all know what it means when you say you “took the kitten to a farm.” she said as she poked around the Christmas cookies.

“What?” I asked.  “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Mommy!  I’m not accusing you of dumping it into a potato field and running!  I don’t think you drowned it.  But, come on!  Took it to a farm.” she replied.

So, I had my husband describe the place he took it to.  The man that showed him around.  The large cage he kept the newer kittens in.  He left them in the cages for two weeks until he was sure they had a good smell of the place.  Then he let them at it.  The older cats showed them the ropes. He only fed them when the mice population was almost non existent.

She smiled in a condescending way again.  “Don’t worry about it, Mommy.  We could all see it coming.” she said as she patted me on the head as she made her way to the kitchen for something else.

She still doesn’t believe me to this day.

 

 

 

Driver’s Test

Every young woman needs to learn how to do it.  We figure out how to ward off unwanted attention from the opposite sex.

My mother’s parenting was very hands on.  She was nosy.  She had very attuned ears.  I think she could hear both ends of my phone conversations from a room away.  She had advice.  Usually it wasn’t asked for.  “You’ll see!” she’d say.  “You’ll see that I’m right.”  She usually was.

My father’s approach was a little different.  He was watchful but not intent.  He was close enough to yell help to.  But, he hardly ever got involved unless asked.  Even then?  He might turn me down.  Life is teaching you a lesson.  Go learn it.

Believe it or not; I was a pretty shy little girl.  My wise ass mouth was born when I became a teenager and I started getting hit on.

Men and boys would hoot and holler at the fifteen year old paper girl.  I reserved hand gestures for them.  I even made up some of my own. I eventually knocked that off.  It usually only  got them going worse.  I played deaf a lot.

I could handle boys my own age.  They were usually nice boys that asked me to a movie or to Shady Glen for something to eat.  The answer was usually no.  I wasn’t interested in partnering up the way kids did in high school.  I didn’t want some boy thinking he owned a part of me or my time.  The ones that didn’t take no for an answer?  Well, I usually came up with a good retort. If they were stupid enough to keep after me in front of their friends I took them out in hilarious but embarrassing fashion.  They’d turn a blind eye to me after that.  Thank goodness.

Grown men could be trouble by the time I was fifteen.  What were they thinking even approaching me?  Freaking idiots.

Weddings were the worst.  I escaped one Knights of Columbus Hall reception to breathe some real air.  The cigarette smoke was thick in there.  I noticed my father helping out the groom near the edge of the parking lot.  He was a young man that had hit the booze a little too hard.  My father was patting him on the back and handing him some gum.  The guy was green but he looked like he could go back into the party.

One of his groomsman sidled up to me.  He started up with the chat.  I went deaf and dumb.  I could not stand a man of 30 hitting on me.  My age put me out of his league.  A jail cell could do the same thing.  Idiot.  On top of that he was hitting on me big time with my father about five feet away.

The drunk in the tuxedo put his hand on my shoulder to turn me towards him.  I elbowed him the gut.  I still hadn’t said a word up until that point.  I leaned in close enough to hiss “Next time it’s a knee in your gnads you frigging pervert.”

I shoved him away from me and entered the building.  My father followed with the groom.  My father actually had a smile on his face.

You think this is funny?  Daddy!  I would have thought the Marine in him would have struck out.  Nope.  Weird. Had he missed that whole scene?  Possible…………… it was pretty dark out there.

I got in the back seat for the drive home a few hours later.  My father carefully placed his suit jacket in the back seat so that it wouldn’t get wrinkled.  He leaned into the car and gently laughed.  “You were going to kick him in the gnads?  Gnads?  That’s a new term to me.  But, I’m thinking I can guess what it is.”  he said quietly so my mother would miss it.  He didn’t want to get her going.

So, he had seen and heard.  Daddy was letting me handle it myself.

I was huffy with him at breakfast the next morning.  I didn’t say anything.  He could guess what I was so pissy about.  So, he just brought it up.

“You’re going to have a lifetime of that pretty Little Girl.  I’m not always going to be standing five feet away.  Alcohol can make some men plain stupid.  Seems to me that wasn’t the first time you’ve had to do that.  The elbow was a mighty blow.  Next time you use the elbow? Don’t stick around.  Move then.” he said as he sipped his coffee.  Glad Mom was in the backyard dealing with the clothes line right about then. I didn’t need the hassle.

The next time I amused my father like that was when I went for my driving test.  I was sixteen for a few months before I bothered.  My father told me he had a day off and would get me down to the DMV.  “Get your license, Little Girl.  So, you can get yourself to Round Table for rehearsals.  You can use my second car.  Just put gas in it once in a while.” he said.

A nice lady gave a table full of us the written test.  I passed just fine.  I filled out the application.  I stood in line to hand the corrected test and my application in.  Then I could have the driving part of the test.  My father stood a few feet behind me out of the line.  He just gazed around.  He usually found something interesting to look at no matter where we were.  He didn’t bore easily for such a smart man.

That’s when the man behind the counter started in.  He was about 25 and he was a very handsome guy.  He had a Spanish accent and was quite the snappy dresser.  He stopped the line dead to flirt outrageously with me for a full five minutes.

He was a difficult case.  I played deaf.  I played dumb.  I stared him in the eye.  He tried both English and Spanish on me.  I stared some more.  I stopped blinking.

I had the most beautiful wavy hair he’d ever seen.  The color of my eyes reminded him of the ocean on a windy day.  Peaches and cream couldn’t describe my complexion.  People started to shift around in line behind me.  They were moving to other lines.  We could all tell he was just gearing up.

When he started to describe how well I filled out my jeans I found my voice.

“Jesus!  Are you out of your frigging mind?  You hit on 16 year old girls while you’re at work?  Doesn’t anybody here have a problem with this? ”  I geared up to get noisy.  That last remark was aimed at my father.

Daddy smiled at the ceiling and moved a little further away from me.

The good looking man leaned deeply over the counter.  “I’m so happy that you noticed my name tag.  I love to hear my name coming past your beautiful lips.” he said with a voice dripping honey.

I looked at his name tag.  It said Jesus.

Crap!

He started to recite the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.  Yes, even at that age I recognized it.

I backed away a few feet.  I opened my mouth and yelled “Supervisor!  Supervisor over here right now! I’m not shutting up until I see a supervisor!”

An older woman came over.  She pushed Jesus aside with her ample hip.  She said under her breath “Take a break, Jesus.  Take your break right now.” Except she pronounced it the correct way.  Hey-Zues.

He walked away after giving me a big wink.  I would have loved to grab him by his string tie and choke him right about then.  She took a quick glance at my paperwork and stamped it at the bottom.  She put her initials there and pointed to a line of chairs.

“Sit there and the next available road test agent will come and get you.” she said.

“That’s all?” I hissed at her.  “That’s all?  Your little Hey-Zues idiot hits on me for five minutes.  And that’s it?  You approve of his behavior?  You think this is cute or funny?  I’m about to make a big stink lady.  If you’re the top of the food chain here, then I’m about to write letters.  I write very concise letters.  I have very expensive stationary.  I’ve got your name too Mrs. Betty L.”

She rolled her eyes at me.  She sighed heavily.

“I know.  I know.  He’s a problem.  It’s been a week since he went off and started reciting Shakespeare at a young woman.  You’re very pretty.  Maybe you get this all the time?” she asked hopefully.

I stared at her.

“He’s this close to moving up to being out in the driver’s test cars.” she said as she pinched her fingers close together.  “He’s this close to being someone else’s problem.”  she said as she nodded me over to the row of seats.

I sat and got my blood pressure under control.  My father eventually grabbed a Popular Mechanics and sat across the room.  He gave me the thumbs up sign.  I glared him down in return.  His shoulders shook as he laughed.  He thought Jesus and his poetry had been a frigging riot.  You handled that just fine his body language said as he crossed one leg over his knee.

A big guy with a name tag that said Ernie L. Supervisor came to get me for my driver’s test.  He looked at my paper work.  He hardly glanced at me.  Just the way I like it.

I got in my father’s station wagon that was like driving a bus.  I put the keys in the ignition and awaited instructions.

“You look a little shook up, Miss.  You want to sit her for a minute?” he inquired.  He was a nice guy.  He looked like a mechanic that got sick of getting his hands dirty.

Honesty.  Hit him with honesty I told myself.

“Yeah, I’m a little shook up.  Your boy Jesus in there just hit on me for a full five minutes.  He hit on every point of my anatomy before he started quoting Shakespeare at me.  He thinks he’s Romeo and I’m his Juliet.  I’ve never been so creeped out in my life.  All the while my father is listening to his line of bullshit.  I’m thinking Dad is going to let me handle this.  Or, my Dad the ex-Marine?  Might have jumped that counter and killed him.  Glad he let me handle it myself.  I called for his Supervisor.  You know her?  Betty L.?  Oh, her attitude is boys will be boys.  And, she is looking forward to him being your problem when he becomes a test giver.  You looking forward to that?  I see lawsuits in your future.  Some pretty teenaged girl is going to get in a car with him.  He’s going to start his line of sexist bullshit?  She’s going to scream rape or she’s going to drive them into a telephone pole to shut him up.  You ready for that?” I asked Mr. Ernie L. Supervisor.

He stared at me sitting in the driver’s seat.  He saw me now.

“Well, um………Miss Anderson?  You’ve given me a lot to think about.  I’ll have a word with Betty when I get home.  She’s my wife.  And she is not going to push that little trouble maker off on to me that easily.  That little shit deserves to get fired.   Now, let’s buckle our seat belts and get started on this test.” he said.

“I’d like to.  But, this station wagon is a 1962 model and there are no seat belts.” I replied.

His eyes got big and round.  He ran his hands over the perfect red leather like seats.  He fondled the glowing dashboard.  Yes, he used to be a mechanic.

“This car is a 62?  Oh, my God.  It is beautiful.  It is phenomenal.  Can you hit the hood lever?  I’d love to see the engine.” he said as he hopped out of the car.  He stood in front of the car like a little kid waiting for Santa to show him the wonder that was the Mercury engine.

I popped the hood.  I’m glad my father had tried to teach me how to check the oil.  I knew where the little handle was.

He leaned in and took a deep breath.  He stared in wonder.  You could eat off that engine it was that clean.  He started talking parts to me.  Duh? All I heard was blah, blah, blah.  All I needed to know about a car was how to turn the key.  If  it started and moved I was satisfied.

My father noticed his car being inspected.  He was in the big front window of the DMV.  He moved out onto the sidewalk.  He spread his arms wide.  His stance and expression said “What’s the problem?  What’s he doing to my car?”

Oh!  Now, I’ve got your attention I thought.

I got back into the car and Ernie exclaimed over the beauty that was the station wagon he was sitting in.

“Mr. Ernie L. Supervisor?  Are you going to start quoting poetry at me? I just do not think I can handle anymore of that today. Can we get this over with, please?” I asked in a plaintive voice.

“Sorry.  Sure.  Just drive around to the other side of the parking lot and you can parallel park for me.” he said as he started to pay attention to his clipboard once more.

I said, “Well, Ernie?  I am not going to do that.  This wagon is driving like a bus.  I will never parallel park this unless I’m parking in an airplane hangar.  I see a spot behind me over there.  I am willing to back into that space for you.  How does that sound to you?”

He winked at me in a fatherly fashion.

“Well, Little Lady.  Thanks for your honesty. I wouldn’t try to parallel park this beauty either.  Good eye.  You’d never want to scratch the paint on this Goddess.  You back into a spot and I will be totally satisfied.” he said with another wink.

“Did you just wink at me twice, Mr. Supervisor?” I asked in a quiet voice.

He was mortified.  He felt guilty for twitching his eye. Twice.

I glanced in all the mirrors and put it into reverse.  I grinned at myself in each of those mirrors.  I had passed this test without even leaving the parking lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop, Drop and Scream

I paid attention in school.  Okay, I paid attention when a teacher wasn’t boring me to tears with repetition.

I remember Give A Hoot Don’t Pollute.  The owl told us it was not okay to litter.  All the kids told their parents that when Dad went to throw some wrapper out the car window.  I’ve seen the road sides of Ct. lately.  I think it’s time for that program to hit the grade schools again.

I remember Stranger Danger.  Don’t go off with someone you don’t know.  Don’t get in a car even if you do know the adult.  What is their reason for trying to get you into their car?  I listened intently to that one.  I had no idea why someone would want a little girl like me.  But, I paid attention.

It was a spring morning.  I was finally rid of my winter boots.  Every scrap of snow had to be gone off of the roads before my mother would allow me to wear regular shoes to school.  My walk home only took four minutes.  I could hear the late bell in the morning.  I lived so close to the school I couldn’t bother being early. Those that lived the closest were always late.

I played kick a stone all the way to and from school.  I probably went many feet out of my way to kick the same stone all the way home.  But, it was fun.  It was nice scuffing my velvet tie up shoes in the sand that was leftover from winter.  The spring air felt great on my face.  Art work covered in pussy willows and glue fluttered in my hand.

I was intent on the rock and how it tended to kick to the right when the car pulled up.  It was a normal Mom looking lady.  She told me to hop in.  It was catechism day and my parents couldn’t get me up to the church. She was told to give me a ride.

I backed away from the car.  It was Friday.  It was not catechism day.  I continued walking.  The car rolled gently beside me.

“It’s not catechism day.” I said.  “Go away.”

“But, it’s a long way home.  I can get you there in a minute.” she replied.

I crossed to the other side of the street.  My kick the rock game was forgotten.

I glanced at the lady driving the sedan.  She looked perfectly nice.  She looked perfectly normal.  But, it wasn’t time for church school.  I could walk home in another three minutes.

I remembered my mother’s voice in my head.  “If anyone ever tries to grab you?  Fall on the ground, kick your legs and scream your head off.”

I continued to walk towards home at a faster pace.  She had her window down so she could communicate with me.  She was driving on the wrong side of the road now.  She was crowding me.

I yelled over my shoulder.  “I am about to fall on the ground.  I am going to kick my legs and I am going to scream my head off.  Right about now.” I ran into a distant neighbor’s front yard.  I sat down.  I could tell that I would be rescued because their garage door was open.  Someone was at home.

She coasted by me.  She rolled up her window.  She didn’t look to be in any hurry.

I gathered myself up and went home.  I told my mother what had happened.  She came up with a dozen scenarios.  Who it could have been.  Why they had done it.  It must have been my imagination.  My imagination is extremely active. She didn’t listen.  She didn’t believe me when I told her I had been in danger.  I think it is the only time I remember my mother failing me.

I never forgot it.

I had children of my own.  They had karate lessons.  My daughter could take out a grown man when she was 13 years old.  My son took the same lessons. But, there were many years before that when my children were vulnerable.

I taught them that they should only respect those that respect them.  I told them that adults don’t always deserve respect.  I told them to trust their instincts.  I told them how to get out of difficult situations.  I told them to call me.  I would come and get them in the middle of the night if something felt off at a sleep over.  I told them they could tell me anything.

I told them that I would always believe them.  Always.

I taught them a password.  If anyone wants to give you a ride because I can’t be there?  They will know the password.  I don’t care if it’s your next door neighbor.  I don’t care if it’s my best friend.  If they don’t know the password?  Walk.  Go to a safe place.

They listened.

One day I was at the checkout line at Walmart.  We had just put the clocks forward.  I had forgotten.  I hadn’t changed the clock in my car.  I noticed the real time on my store receipt.  I got home as quickly as I could to find my daughter weeping on the bench on the front steps.

She had been waiting for a half an hour.  She had to pee really badly.  How could I abandon her like this?  She had been an orphan during the end of times for a half an hour.  She’d never forget it and she’d never let me live it down.

The neighbors had heard her wailing.  They all offered her a warm place to sit for a half an hour.  But?  None of them had known the password.

As an adult she will retell the story.  The wind screams.  The snow comes down in curtains.  The wolves howl in the woods.  They are hungry.  They’re in the mood to eat her off of the front stairs because she is dressed in red.  I think in her story she is Little Red Riding Hood.  Never mind that she’s never owned a red coat in her whole life.

She hasn’t eaten in weeks.  She tries the locked door knob one last time before she expires from starvation.  She’s trying not to pee in a puddle.  A neighbor with fangs for teeth asks if she’d like to stay warm next to his fire.  He doesn’t know the password.  She says no.  She will die on her own door step thank you very much.

Good girl.  She was listening.  I’m willing to take full responsibility for her bladder bursting apocalypse story because I’m glad she was listening.

She was only out there for fifteen minutes in all actuality.  I fully accept her version of things now.  I realize that’s how she felt.  That’s how she felt the first time her mother let her down.

 

 

 

 

An Easter Promise

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Easter came early that year.  We all wore our spring Easter best to church.  We all froze our butts off in the parking lot of the church.  The little half jacket that covered my dress wasn’t cutting it.  The wind whipped right though it.  I didn’t stand near the statue of the Virgin Mary outside of St. Bridget’s for my annual photo.  She couldn’t feel the cold.  She was made of marble. I was flesh and blood so I ran for the warmth of the station wagon.

We had to hurry home anyways.  We were having company from Worcester, Mass.  My Auntie and her family were coming for the holiday.  My mother left the scalloped potatoes baking at a low temperature.  We needed to get home to stick the ham in and raise the temperature of the oven.

I had made a cake shaped like a bunny.  It was covered in coconut.  I had used jelly beans for the face.  I had drawn whiskers with frosting.  It had come out really nice.  I would try not to cry when someone actually cut it and ruined it by eating it.

Our Worcester cousins came through the door and we all had a wonderful time.  I loved spending time with all of them.  I didn’t get tested on my  Connecticut accent when they were on my home turf.  They were the ones with the funny accent here.

We took a walk towards the Parkade.  I caught hell because no businesses were open on a Sunday.  Easter Sunday remember.  It seemed the blue laws were a bit tougher in Connecticut than they were in Massachusetts.

They left my accent alone. Instead I got tested on Ct. blue laws.  What if it is a Sunday and you need a bottle of milk?  You’re out of luck I replied.  But, what if you need to buy a bottle of tonic they wanted to know.  Drink iced tea I answered.  They shook their heads.  We were neanderthals and they let me know it in no uncertain terms.

I had school  the next morning.  I had waited until the last minute to finish a diorama.  I was making a small replica of a Japanese home.

I started with a small box.  I had cut the sides down to a few inches.  My father had cut me a wooden floor out of an old piece of paneling.  I didn’t tell him what I was doing.  My father was a World War II veteran.  I didn’t say the word Japanese within his hearing unless I had an hour to hear what he thought of them.

It started to snow gently.  All the aunties and uncles and cousins continued to party upstairs.  I sat in the basement staring at my encyclopedia.  This Japanese home diorama was doable.  Only because their essentials were so bare minimal.  I could pull this off I decided.  I started to weave a floor covering to go underneath the foam bed.  I needed to make some privacy screens out of toothpicks and a few layers of waxed paper and I would be all set.

My cousins came barreling down the basement stairs.  One put some records on the record player.  The other was banging out chop sticks on the piano.  They lost interest in what they were doing after two minutes.  It was much more fun torturing the little hick cousin from Connecticut.  The little cousin who couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread because it was a Sunday.

“What are you doing?” asked my oldest girl cousin.  I told her.

“Oh, God.  Why do teachers make this kind of stuff due the day after vacation.  Like anyone cares what the inside of a Japanese house looks like.  The teacher doesn’t even give a crap.  Give it a rest and come upstairs and play the hockey game with us.” she said as she tipped over the little vase holding flowers in the corner of my mini Japanese house.

“I can’t.  It’s due tomorrow.  I waited until the last minute.  I didn’t think you would all still be here.  Why are you still here at this time of evening?” I asked.  It just occurred to me that they must have school the next day too.

“It’s snowing like crazy out there.  We’re not going anywhere.  Come up and play.  You won’t have school tomorrow.  The news says a foot of snow is coming.” she said.

“I can’t take that chance.  I can’t turn anything in late.  This teacher is on to my last minute bull.  I’ve been warned.” I answered as I picked up the weaving.

“Give me that.” she said.  She picked up my little loom and her fingers flew.  “What else do you have to do?”

I pointed to the toothpicks and the waxed paper.  A bottle of Elmers glue sat next to them.

“I need two privacy screens around the bed.  Two layers of wax paper glued together will do it.  The toothpick at the end will keep it stiff and then they stick into those tiny little holes I had my father drill, right there.”  I added.

My other cousin picked up the paper and started cutting.  She glued the wax paper together and drew beautiful blue birds on the screens.  She scratched at the wax to make it look like etching.  I guess these two had made plenty of dioramas in their own school days.

“Ta Da!  Done!  That should get you at least a B.” said my oldest cousin.  “Can we get the hell out of this basement now?  I’m getting hungry.  I think it’s time that you made me some ham sandwiches and warmed up some of those cheesy potatoes.  I’m not in the mood for cake.  I want FOOD!” she said as she pounded up the stairs

I went up the stairs and blinked at the bright kitchen lights.  I don’t know why I had been worried about school and dioramas.  I guess I hated being last minute all the time and disappointing myself.  But, this time it had been worth it.  Those two cousins of mine had whipped out a woven rug and two walls more quickly than it took me to think of them.  Wow!  They were something.  It’s probably because their whole world doesn’t shut down on a Sunday in Massachusetts I thought.

I promised to warm up some food for them. But first I was told to run upstairs and find them some clean pajamas.  My mother rooted around in the bathroom cupboard looking for new spare toothbrushes the dentist always sent home with us.  They were all going to spend the night.  The snow was furious.  I even heard my father say “Even if Pratt doesn’t cancel tomorrow I am not going in.  I have plenty of vacation time.  Who wants another drink?”

“Whose deal?” my mother yelled from the bathroom.  An all night poker game is just what she adored.

I came down from my room with a pile of clean soft old pajamas.  I stopped in the living room.  The only light on in there was a dim glow from the corner lamp.  I stared out the picture window at the snow coming down in soft white sheets.  It was really a beautiful Christmas scene.  But, it was Easter.  The snow was so gorgeous in front of the street lamp outside of our house.

We were snowed in together and it was wonderful!

I want to remember this forever I told myself.  I want to remember how I was so worried about this project.  How my cousins stepped in and finished it for me.  I want to remember the laughing and the voices of my aunts and uncles.  I want to remember the smell of ham lingering in the air.  I will eat this jelly bean so I can remember this taste too.  I want to remember the warmth and the love and the promise of a snow day.  I will never forget this.

“Hey, Darlene!  Where are my freakin’ ham and potatoes? ” a cousin yelled from the kitchen.

I want to remember that forever, too.

And so I have.

Happy Easter!

 

Confidant

I had the same room mate for the first two years of college.  We met the first day of freshman orientation.  Her parents came through the door huffing and puffing.  They dumped arm loads of clothing already on hangers on the bed.  She kissed them on the cheek and threw them out the door.  If I remember right she said “Oh, quit weeping and go the hell home.”

She couldn’t wait for them to leave so she could start her new life.  I missed Columbus Street and my parents already.  I was 17 and away from home for the first time.  I had been watched like a hawk my whole life.  I’m surprised I didn’t go absolutely wild with the freedom I had.

I went home to Manchester to work a few shifts every weekend.  I made my own spending money.  I didn’t have time to go wild.

My room mate was mouthy.  Thank God I found her to be really funny.  She could swear up a storm and then turn into a refined lady when needed.  She was picky about the way the room looked.  Four dirty coffee cups on my shelf would make her throw balls of paper at my head.  She’d point her polished nail at the dirty dishes and I would go down to the kitchen to remedy the situation.

She studied a lot more than I did.  I was an English Major so I did a lot of writing.  Now, that would have terrified her.  I helped her with her essays quite a bit.  I might have even taught her something.  She never asked for help with the first draft.  She was conscientious about keeping up with the reading.  She had lots of ideas.  She wasn’t a reader in her spare time so she wasn’t a natural writer.

She’d sit on her bed and stare at me while I wrote away on some poem.  She’d stare until I felt it.

“What?”

“Do you have time to help me? This is my third draft and I can’t get my grade past a C+.  I can rewrite this thing and turn it in every day.  I want at least a B+.” she threw the paper on the floor in my direction.

This was before computers.  I was the only one that owned an electric type writer on our floor.  She was horrible at typing so the paper was written in her best loopy left handed penmanship.

“Okay.  First.  Let me read it.  Then I need to see your notes.  Tom Sawyer?  You’re reading Tom Sawyer in college?” I said out loud.  Then I shut my mouth.  She obviously landed in a very beginner type English class in college because she hadn’t done college level English courses like I had in high school.

Her notes were very concise.  She tended to try to write down every word the teacher said.  I had told her that was a waste of time.  She needed to go for main points.  I skimmed her notes and the teacher was really going on about the times these character’s had lived in.

One main point was Tom Sawyer and his parentage.  Why was he living with Aunt Polly?  Blah, blah, blah.  Oh, go paint a fence Tom Sawyer.  I was struggling with Chaucer. Shakespeare was a piece of cake compared to some of the stuff I was being force fed.

Her face was a bit stormy after I read her essay.  I told her to can it.  Rip it up right now.  You have no main point.  You are meandering around.  You’re going up and down paths.  You have no beginning, no middle and no end.

She stormed out of the room.  She kicked a metal trash can.

I opened the door and called down the hall behind her.  “Jesus!  Calm down!  You only need a one page essay.  I have ideas.  We can fix this in an hour.  And, this time type it for Christ sake.  Your hand writing is horrible!”

A one page essay and she was kicking trash cans and banging her fists against the institutional walls.

She came back and stared at me again.

She was majoring in Social Work. I told her to write about what she knows.

“What do you know about child placement now a days when parents are incompetent or absent?  How does it compare to Tom Sawyer living with an aunt?  Go!  A beginning , a middle and and end.  One page.  Do not put more than one idea in any paragraph.  Have a good lead sentence.  Don’t write about anything and then drop the idea.  Make it simple.  You only have one page to get it out. ” I said as I went back to my book with thousands of tissue paper pages.

She did her best.  I read it.  I pointed to her second paragraph and told her that was her ending.  I accepted her first paragraph.  I told her she needed a middle.  Give this paper some guts I said.

She tried again.  We were both sweating at this point.

“What’s another word for a great friend?” she asked.  “Someone you tell your secrets to?”

“Confidant.” I answered.

I re read it.  I tweaked the middle.  I didn’t change a lot.  I switched sentences around.  I put the name Tom in when she used ‘he’ too much.  She had good things to say but she was not a writer.  I  read it again.  I thought about the topic and the book she was reading.  I figured this was such an improvement she would get her B+ at least.

“You can use my type writer if you can find some paper.” I said.  “This should get you your B+”.

“Could you type it for me? Pretty ,pretty please?  And, then I’ll leave you alone.”  she begged.

I typed it for her.

She turned in her paper and came back to the room with it a few days later.  She had an A in red ink at the top.  The word confidant was circled three times in red ink too.  Her face was just as red as the ink.

She threw herself down on the bed.  Phew!!! came out of her mouth.

It seems her paper had changed a lot.  Yeah, we knew that.  Seems the professor thought she had plagiarized. I took that as a compliment.  She said that no, her room mate was an English major.  She said I had thrown her first essay out as being rotten.  She told him that I had urged her to write about something she knew about.

Professor had then accused her of having me write it for her.

I stood up.  “Where is this asshole?  Where is his office?  You got an A and you deserve it.  Now, this twerp is going to spend all year thinking you’re a liar and a cheat?  Let me at him!” I yelled.

“Oh, calm down.  His big test was that word.” she said .  She pointed to the word Confidant circled in red.  The circles indeed looked angry.  “He asked me if I even knew what that word meant.  I told him it meant a friend that could keep your secrets. He calmed down after that.  He put the A at the top and told me to get lost.”

Dusty old professor with his attitude.  But, she could handle him.

We went to the same African History class.  It was the only class we ever shared.  The professors were a husband and wife team that had spent most of their lives in Africa.  They wrote the text books.

Again, my room mate took copious notes.  I sat in class and listened.  I circled chapter titles that they got stuck on for two classes in a row.  Must be important.  Will be on the test.

We had a test worth ten percent of our grade.  You could retake the test over and over if you weren’t satisfied with your grade.  A lot of professors that taught freshman did this.  You grabbed as many points as you were willing to work for.

The test was on four chapters full of African Folk Tales.  They have been told orally for centuries.  There were lots of names of people and places.  Again roomie came away with a C+.

“What did you get on that test in African History?” she asked.

Uh, oh.

“I got a 98.” I answered quietly from my bed.  I put a pillow over my head because here it comes.

“A 98?  A 98?  How is that possible?  You never even freaking studied!  I study for two days and I get a 76?  I can not believe you!” she yelled at my pillow.

Again, it was essays.  I asked to see her light blue test book.

I read her answers.  They weren’t looking for the best writer in the world in this class.  They were looking for content presented in a decent fashion.

“This is oral history, hon.  You didn’t do bad.  You got the gist of the stories.  You will never get over a C+ until you go back to the stories and learn the character’s names.  You need to learn the names of the places.  You can not say “in the village” or “he” so much.  Oral history is all about remembering the people and places.  Play word games with yourself if you have to.  Then you can forget it after you take the test again.  The rest of it is good.  You let yourself down by not bothering to learn the names. Learn the names and you will get your A.”  I explained. “Oh, and you have got to hit the moral of the stories a bit harder.”

“How did you study the names?” she asked me.

“In all confidence?” I asked.  “My secret to you my dear sweet roomie?  As your confidant?  I read the stories once and I remembered them.  I glanced through once more before the test and zeroed in on names for five minutes.  Sorry, just the way my brain works. And, my essays will always be graded higher than some because I am a good writer. They read my essays and they hear birds singing.  They hear harp music.  They look at the beautiful sky and they say Thank God!  A kid that can actually write a concise sentence. Look at those paragraphs!  That last paragraph where she wrapped it all up?  It makes me weep with joy! They hear the Hallelujah Chorus!  That’s how I pull A’s.”

She beat me with my pillow.

 

 

 

Time Heals

Time heals all wounds they say.  Who is they?  I don’t know.  I don’t think you know either.

Yes, that saying makes sense is some ways.  A paper cut can be painful and bleeding one minute and hard to find the next.  A body usually heals.  Scrapes and bruises go away.  A surgeon can give you a pretty exact estimate how long it will take you to bounce back from a certain kind of surgery.

But, grief?  Time doesn’t heal you there. Time just lets you get used to a loss.

It can hit you at any time.  It can hit you any where.  A song can make you cry.  A smell can make you lose it.  The sight of a pair of gloves that would make a perfect Christmas present for someone that doesn’t need gloves any more can set you off.

We’ve all seen people out and about when they get hit by the wave.  We’ve all been that person.  Grief is timeless.  It is like a wave that gets sucked out into the ocean.  Some day at any minute it will crash into the shore again. It will leave you gasping for breath.

That is okay!  Cry it out!

Not all of us are weepers.  My son wishes he could cry.  Grief hits him in a different way.  He can’t keep food down for a few days when it first hits.  I saw him finally cry at a funeral the other day.  I thought “Oh, good.  Finally!  His stomach can settle down now.”

I read a letter out loud the other day at a funeral.  I read it for someone that is too shy to do so in front of a crowd.  I am an actress.  Crowds of people staring at me don’t freak me out.  I did not feel nervous at all.  But, first my hand started to shake.  When I noticed the hand shaking the other one did too.  The shake moved down the trunk of my body and hit me in the knees.  It was not because I’m a nervous “performer”.  An audience of one up to a thousand does not bother me.

I hadn’t had a chance to cry yet.  My body reacted in a very weird and foreign way.  It’s the first time in my life I have shaken like a leaf.  It wasn’t nerves.  It was grief.

I cried for my nephew today in the car on the way home from the grocery store.  My body was gentle about it.  I was not forced to pull over.  I could still see.  I let it out vocally also.  No one was in the car with me.  I screamed.  I screamed until my voice was sore.  I feel better.  Until the next time it happens.

My mother has been dead since 1998.  I cried plenty when she first left.  My body and soul could not imagine this world without her in it.  Everything felt foreign.  It made me physically ill.  I could hardly tell up from down a week after it happened.  A doctor would call it an inner ear problem.  I know better.  My soul was getting used to this world without my mother in it.

I settled down eventually.  I started eating again.  I went about my daily routine.  I stopped picking up the phone to call her.  Time healed me?  I just got used to being without her.  I know I’ll see her again.  If someone asks how long ago my mother died?  I just say I haven’t seen her in eighteen years.

That’s how I put it because I’ll see her again some day.

I wept less for my father when he departed.  He was very old and he missed my mother so.  He had lived a good, long, complete existence.  He was tired of being weak.  He believed deeply that heaven awaited him.  I wasn’t sad for him.

I was sad for me.

Still, I can bump into one of his favorite things in a grocery store.  I have to find a private corner to have a cry.  It’s not a hiccuping wailing sort of cry.  It’s just a huge wave of sadness that runs out of my eyes and my nose.

I’ve experienced grief in my life.  I haven’t lost my husband or my children.  I can’t imagine that kind of pain.  The kind of pain others that are close to me have lived through.  I hope if it happens I’ll be strong enough to persevere.  They would want it that way.

There is no time limit.  I can feel as sad today as the day my mother died 18 years ago.  I would never rush anyone through their grief.  I would never expect someone to snap out of it after a set amount of time.

Time heals all wounds?  Sometimes the wound goes deeper than anyone around you will ever know.

If I see you crying in a grocery store or in a theater?  I may be compelled to walk around you and leave you in peace.  I may be compelled to give you a shoulder to cry on.

I hope I make the right choice.

I hope you’ll do the same for me.

 

 

The View from My Window

I grew up on Columbus Street in Manchester, Ct.  The neighborhood was new and all the families were original owners of the houses.  I can still shut my eyes almost 60 years later and put last names to all the houses.  We knew more about each other than just names.  We were all involved in each other’s lives.

I’ve lived in this neighborhood in upstate NY for twenty seven years.  I’ve got some great neighbors.  I’ve seen some houses be sold over and over.  It’s a great place to raise kids.  It’s probably just the times but we don’t seem to get as involved in each other’s lives like my parent’s generation did.  Women are busy working now a days.  They don’t have time to be bored or look for company. I think that’s the main difference.

I glance out my front window at a nice house.  The family that lives there are probably very nice people.  They’ve just never had any use for neighbors.  I don’t know why that is.  I’ve made overtures.  I have been rebuffed.  I wonder why but I don’t let it get to me.

The family hadn’t lived there long.  I was out planting some flowers and I heard a bang bang bang.  I looked across the street. The man of the house was banging the crap out of the side of his cement stairs with a sledge hammer.  Six cement stairs lead up to the front door of the raised ranch.  I grabbed my husband by the arm and pointed this scene out to him.

My husband is not the type to get involved unless asked.  Especially if he sees some grown man making an ass of himself.  He couldn’t help himself this time.  He had to know what the hell this guy was up to.

It seems the water pump had stopped working.  He asked those that know “Where is this water pump?”  They said under the stairs.  They meant the closet under the stairs in the basement.  This one thought the water pump was encased in cement under the front stairs leading up to the house.  I don’t know why.  I don’t like to call any one stupid.  But,  taking a sledge hammer to your cement stairs?

My husband pointed his mistake out to him.  He came home shaking his head.  “That man has three children to look after. That’s just plain scary.” he said.

“People like that have extra guardian angels, honey.” I replied.

They’re very busy across the street.  Two of their kids have been old enough to drive for years.  The cars pull in and out of the driveway in a very intricate design so that people don’t have to switch cars around.  Someone over there is pretty smart to have come up with the idea.

The young men do all the yard work.  I only see the mother once in a great while getting in or out of a car.  I wave to her and she pretends to be blind.  Again, I don’t know why.  My husband’s guess is that we witnessed her husband doing something extremely weird.  We must be ignored.

I’ve stood at the bottom of the driveway to get Good Humor treats off the truck.  One of the young people from the house will stand next to me.  I will say Hi.  I get a glare in return.  Still, I just don’t get it.  They have company over there once in a while.  Someone somewhere finds them worth visiting.

We had a big snow storm a few years ago.  My husband had half the driveway done when his snow blower ran out of gas.  The can was empty.  The roads were pretty clear by this time.  He walked across the street and asked the young man for a few cups of gas to get the snow blower going again.  Then, he said he would take both our and their cans up to the gas station and fill them up.  The young man said “No.”  He said no and turned and walked away.

I’m starting to think  Alien Transplants by this time.  Your neighbor needs a bit of gas for his snowblower and you say no?  There was something very non human about them to me now.

Every other year they put a BBQ grill down at the bottom of the driveway.  There it sits for weeks before they figure out how to find the dump.  Sometimes these grills look pretty nice.  Surely, with a little know how it can be fixed.  They do sell parts.

Then I get a big AH! moment.  These people are aliens.  When the grill stops working they don’t realize you have to take that big bottle of gas and exchange it for another at Lowes or Home Depot.  When it runs out of gas they replace the whole thing.

Now, as I write this I am looking at a full suite of living room furniture sitting on the bottom of their lawn.  I guess maybe the Easter Bunny will help them out.  Maybe he’ll twitch his whiskers and make it disappear.  I mean there has to be magic involved as it’s been sitting there for almost two weeks now.  I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon.

Tonight at dinner I am going to take down guesses from my family.  How long do you think that furniture is going to sit there?  We can all throw money into the napkin basket.  We might as well turn this horrible view into some fun.  Someone can make five dollars out of this at least.

I was excited for them when I saw the furniture store delivery truck bringing them new furniture.  Good for you!  I thought.  I had no idea I’d be forced to look at a huge dirty tan sectional for weeks.  Or months?  It’s any one’s guess.

Even before it got rained on for three days in a row no one was going to want this stuff.  The cardboard sign that says FREE in nice block letters is the nicest thing about the whole set up.  The furniture is gosh darn awful.  No one in this neighborhood wants it.  We’re all being forced to close our eyes when we drive by it.  It’s that ugly.

I figure it’ll all be still sitting there come June.  The oldest boy will add it to his weed whacking list.  “Don’t forget to get the weeds around the living room furniture, honey!” the mother will yell out the front door.

Dad’s gas grill will run out of gas around Father’s Day.   That will make a nice addition to the suite of furniture.

If they were friendly I’d bring across a bottle of gas and a potato salad.  We could have a neighborhood party out there on the edge of the street.  Hot dogs.  Hamburgers.  Another fun neighbor might bring over some Sangria.

But, no.  I’m dealing with aliens that don’t know how to load a truck and go to the dump.

I don’t think aliens eat potato salad.

I could deal with all of this  I suppose if they would just wave and say Hi once in a while.

My guess is June 19th.  That’s Father’s Day this year.  That is the day I’m going to be five dollars richer.

Update:  April 7th.  Furniture is still there.  It looked glorious covered in three inches of snow on Monday.  Been there about six weeks now.

Update #2:  Finally.  April 16th the furniture was removed.  I don’t miss it.

 

 

 

Sucker!

The Birthday Club girls were scheduled to arrive at our house.  It was my mother’s turn to host the group of spies that were the mothers of our street.  I stood on a chair and handed down her best glasses.  They were only pulled out once a year so they were dusty. She washed and I dried.

They were white glazed glassware with pretty fruits and flowers underneath the clouded finish.  They would be filled with high balls that would loosen tongues and get the secrets moving.

There was a fancy urn of coffee served also.  The coffee was always dumped almost untouched down the sink. Every time. These ladies preferred their drinks with ice cubes bobbing around in a glass.

I would make myself scarce when the ladies of the neighborhood descended upon us about 7 pm.  I didn’t have to lie on my hardwood floor with my ear pressed against it to hear.  They were always uproariously loud when they were together.

They were especially loud when something half secret and half juicy was being shared.  That woman had the floor and the rest listened.  That voice always trumpeted right up the stairs.  I heard every word.  The only aggravating part was that I couldn’t give my opinion.  I wasn’t part of the group.  I do believe all these years later that I would have been a voice of reason if I had been included.

They would not have appreciated that at all.  Quit being reasonable.  We’re having fun here they would have screamed in my face.

The lemon bars were being passed around.  My mother was mixing drinks with gin and vodka.  She knew nothing about either one of those libations.  It’s a good thing that every one wobbled home on spaghetti legs.  No one had to drive.  Some of the ladies that lived at the top of the hill could be seen pushing each other up the hill by the hips.  They had no steam of their own after two of my mother’s high balls.  They were lethal.

I lie on my bed and crossed my legs.  I read a Teen Beat magazine.  I swung my leg back and forth.  I had too much energy in my body to be sent to my room this early at night.  I finished the magazine and threw it on the floor.  It landed in a pile of dirty and clean clothes.  Books and magazines spilled out from among the underwear and sweaters.  I was a slob.

I was bored.  I couldn’t start playing my music.  I wouldn’t be able to hear the latest.  I wanted to know what delinquents all my neighborhood friends were.  Who had been caught smoking.  And what they were smoking.  Who was on a grape fruit diet and had gained ten pounds anyways.  Whose boyfriend was caught sneaking through a bedroom window. Who just had a really ugly baby.  Really!  It looks just like a little wrinkled up yellow raisin I heard a voice say.

Ew!  But, I appreciated that neighborhood lady’s visual.  A wrinkled up yellow raisin. I had a new appreciation for this one even though she was a terrible tipper when I delivered her newspaper.

I lie on my side and made sure my pillow didn’t cover my ear.  I thought things were about to get good.

Someone said “Ellie?  Do you have the latest Woman’s Day Magazine?  There is an article in there that we should talk about.  It has to do with the new little raisin baby up the street.”

I jumped softly from my bed.  I landed as lightly and smoothly as a cat.  I didn’t want them knowing I was up here listening.  I didn’t need them to shut up just as it was getting good.  I wanted the vodka to take affect and stay that way.

I went through the pile of dirty clean clothes and came up with the latest Women’s Day Magazine.  I tip toed down the wooden stairs.  I inched the door open and deposited the magazine on top of the others on the bookcase at the bottom of the stairs.  I pulled the door shut an inch at a time just as my mother went to the pile to grab the glossy periodical.  She didn’t notice me inch the door closed towards me.

Phew!  That was a close one.

“Here’s the article I was looking for.” yelled a neighborhood lady.  She was at the bottom of her second drink.  She screamed like she was at the end of a very long tunnel.  Wow!  That one is lit.  I wondered how she could focus her eyes to read a magazine.  I didn’t bother going all the way up to my room  I sat on the third step from the bottom in the dark.  I leaned against the cold wall to learn more about being a woman on Columbus Street.

“It’s all about Post Partulum Depression.  You have a baby and you can’t get out of your sweat pants.  You don’t wash your hair.  You start to smell.  You won’t eat.  You run away from home.  That is if you can walk.  You are so depressed you jump off of a bridge.  Sometimes you take your ugly little raisin baby with you.  This is sherious ladeesh.  It’s sherious.” she exclaimed as she started to slur her s’s.

“The one up the hill?  She had that baby by chesherean section.  They split her from stem to stern.  They stapled her together.  From her chin to her knees.  She was in the hospital for a week.  Her husband had to carry her into the house over his shoulder.  She’s split from stem to stern and she’s deeply deeply depressed.  She can’t even make a meat loaf.  Oh, those poor poor people.” she ended with.  She wept a little into her high ball glass.  I think she was mostly weeping because it was empty.

The ladies all started to exclaim at once.  It sounded like a farm yard full of turkeys.

I banged my head gently against the glossy painted wall of the stairway.  Oh, my God.  The woman up the street was split from her chin to her knees?  Thank God they have sex education in school now a days I thought.

My mother was sober.  She didn’t like vodka and she didn’t like gin.  She was gunned up on coffee.  High Test.  She grabbed a pad of paper and started a list.  She signed each of the ladies up to take dinner to the ugly raisin baby’s family.  One a night.  She even jotted down meatloaf, pasta, pork chops, pizza on their slips of paper.  She kept the master list so she could call their drunk butts up the next day to confirm.

There always has to be a sober person ruining every party, right?

They all cried into their empty glasses. They wondered if the raisin family was still even alive up there.  They’d been home from the hospital for two days now.  How long can a grown man survive eating corn flakes a neighbor lady wondered out loud at the top of her lungs.

Depends if there is any milk in the house or not I thought from the third stair.  My butt was starting to fall asleep.

They all fell out the front door about 9:30 pm.  They had to get their cherubs off to school in the morning after all.  Yeah, right.  Kids all over the neighborhood would be tip toeing around trying to find matching socks in the morning.  We all knew not to awaken the dragon called Mom the morning after a Birthday Club Meeting.

My mother was signed up for ‘pork chops’ on Wednesday.  She cooked up the chops along with scalloped potatoes that were usually reserved for holidays.  She steamed enough green beans for a family of twelve.  She enlisted my help carrying them up the hill.

She knocked at the kitchen door with her knee.  The husband of the house answered.  He looked alright to me.  Corn flakes must agree with him.  A pitiful little trembling voice called out from the downstairs bedroom.

“Oh, Lewis?  Who is that?  Tell the paper girl the paper was late by five minutes on Tuesday.  I do not tip when a paper is five minutes late.  That girl has got to learn about timeliness.” she said in her best whine.

Yup, you guessed it.  I was her paper girl.

Really?  You and your ugly raisin baby have to read the paper exactly at 4:45 pm?  4:50 just won’t do?  I almost dropped the potatoes on purpose.

“Put that food into the refrigerator and go home, Darlene.” my mother said.  She didn’t need one of my scenes.  Me and my wise mouth might make this postpartum lady jump off of a bridge.  I couldn’t for the life of me think of any bridges close by.  I might have pointed one out to the new mother if I could.

The man of the house helped me shove food around in the refrigerator.  The Birthday Club had come through.  Ugly raisin family was going to have to host a buffet lunch for the whole neighborhood or start throwing this stuff out soon.

I went home.  My mother swept into the bedroom.  She took one look at the poor pitiful sliced up soul in the bed.  She swept the blankets back and made her go take a shower. She ran around picking up dirty clothing from the floor.  She started a load of laundry.  She poked at the sleeping raisin.  It was still alive.  He wasn’t looking as yellow as she had imagined.

She heated up some food and force fed a man that wasn’t hungry.  She ran around the living room putting all his school books into piles. He was a teacher.  He wouldn’t be able to find anything for a week after my mother straightened up his house.  He sat there and chewed.  He tried to swallow.  He didn’t complain.  Like any smart man on Columbus Street he was a little terrified of my mother.

My mother arrived home an hour later.  Her face glowed red from exertion and martyrdom.  She had gone up to the neighbor’s house and had made a big difference. They were all still alive.  They now had a freshly made bed.  The dishes were done.  The dryer was humming.  The new mother lie in bed in a clean nightgown bottle feeding the raisin.  The husband had pushed her out the door with many thanks.

I sat at the table with my chin in my hand.  I was hungry.  Forget pork chops and fancy potatoes.  My mother dumped some frozen chicken patties onto a tray with a few handfuls of frozen french fries.  I thought of the huge batch of green beans that had just walked up the hill.  I mentioned a vegetable to my mother.  She said if I needed something green to “go suck on a pickle.”

My mother returned the next day to be their savior.  They loved it.  She loved it.  I ate peanut butter and jelly.

I had spent a life time with my mother listening in on my conversations.  Didn’t matter if they took place in the house, on the front door step or on the phone.  If I got wrangled into doing something a little above the call of duty for a friend she would call me a “sucker”.  She warned me about being too good and letting people take advantage of me.  She speechified at me.  Eventually she just shortened it to a big loud “Sucker!” as I hung up a phone.

My mother became a sucker.

The mother of the raisin baby was not suffering from any kind of depression.  She may have been sore getting out of bed for a few days.  She was perfectly capable of doing what needed to be done.  She saw my mother the sucker coming up the walkway and she would mess up her hair and jump back into bed.  My mother would let herself in to find a baby alone in a basinette.  The lady of the house would lie back in a swoon with little moans emanating from her throat.

She enjoyed having a maid.

My mother did the hero thing up there for weeks.  The husband of the house kind of liked her cooking better than his wife’s.  He liked having ironed shirts to wear to work in the morning.  He liked the smell of Lestoil coming from the clean bathrooms.  He hired my mother to stay on for a month at the huge sum of $20 a week.

I told my mother she could make more by delivering newspapers.  Okay, it would be a big route but there would be no toilet scrubbing.

I got a look at this wilting maternity flower a few times.  My mother would call me on the phone to do some fetching for her.  I walked to Stop and Shop and back because the little Mama was in the mood for some fresh lemonade.  We were about three weeks in to this debacle at this point.

I walked home carrying a bag of lemons.  I decided I needed to take this woman out.  I wanted my mother back.  I was sick of fish sticks and no vegetables.

I delivered the lemons.  My mother stood at the kitchen counter squeezing them into a pitcher.  She already had the sugar measured and the water poured.  The house was squeaky clean.  A meatloaf was baking in the oven.  I hadn’t laid eyes on a meatloaf in weeks.  I love meatloaf.

I went to the bedroom door.  The new mother lounged on a freshly made bed in a frilly nightgown set.  She wore little slippers with pink feathers on the toes.  A small baby lie next to her in a little cot sucking on his bottom lip.  She read a fashion magazine.  She knew I was standing there.  She ignored me.

Smart woman.

She took two glossily painted red fingers and picked up a chocolate from a box.  She bit into it and turned a page.

Okay,  I’d seen enough.

“Hi!  Mrs.  O’Leary.  My!  What a beautiful baby!  And you!  You look like a movie star in that get up of yours.  A big box of chocolates and freshly squeezed lemonade!” I exclaimed.

My mother stopped moving in the kitchen.  She knew I was starting up my own personal brand of bitch fest.  I was famous for them.  She didn’t run to stop me.

Hmmmm.   That is telling. She wasn’t trying to stop me……………..that was permission in my book.

So, I continued.

“Now, I hear you had a difficult birth.  I know all about c-sections.  I’ve read up on them.  You should have been all healed up about two weeks ago.  If you haven’t?  You really need to see your doctor.  But, your color is great.  Your makeup is perfect!  Not a hair out of place.  This doesn’t look like postpartum depression to me.  So, why don’t you cut the crap and get out of that bed so I can have my mother back? She’s my mother.  She’s not your slave girl!  You got it lady?”  I asked.

She glared at me with her mouth in an O and a chocolate halfway to her face.

“Oh, and I won’t be delivering your newspaper anymore.  I just can not handle the bull  that you shovel out every minute of every day.  I am not a sucker.  Get off of your pampered backside and take your baby for a walk in that shiny new stroller I see over there in the corner.  Stop and buy yourself a newspaper if you want to read one.” I said as I shoved off the bedroom door.

I clapped my hands together to say that I was done.  To also denote washing my hands of a dirty situation.  The woman on the bed swallowed a chocolate whole.

My mother stood there with a spoon in her hand and a shocked expression on her face.  Believe me when I say she could have stopped me after my second sentence.  She would never admit it but she could have shut me up quickly if she had wanted to.  She had plenty of experience doing it.

She had the power.  She didn’t use it.

I walked past my mother and her spoon.  I opened up the oven and took out the meatloaf.

“How long does this have left to cook, Ma?” I asked.

“Ten minutes.” she answered quietly.  I don’t think she was afraid of me and my mouth.  I think she was kind of of in awe.

I opened the cupboard and found a plate.  I cut the hot meatloaf in half and put it onto the plate.

I turned to my mother and said “I’ll put some potatoes in to bake.  I’ll add this meatloaf the last fifteen minutes.  You’ll be home in about an hour right?  After Mr. O’Leary gets here to take care of the crazy fruitcake in the bed?”

“Darlene!” my mother hissed softly.

“So, is that a yes?” I asked.

“Yes.” she answered as she watched me walk out the door with the meatloaf.

It didn’t end there.

My mother wanted to quit.  Mr. O’Leary begged her to stay for at least another month.  His wife really needed the help.  Yeah, right.  She didn’t need help snapping her fingers and telling my mother the living room was getting a little dusty.

Manipulative witch.

My mother was pulled in two different directions.  Mr. O’Leary was so nice.  I think he was just afraid of being alone with his own wife and that little baby.  You’ll be happy to hear my mother stayed long enough to see the baby lose it’s wrinkles.  It was plump and healthy.  And, pink.

Mom had a few weeks left to go.  I was no longer allowed near the house on the hill except to throw a newspaper at the porch.  I was forced to continue delivering the paper.  I came home on a Saturday and my mother was in the kitchen dressed in a sheet.  She looked like a plus sized Greek Goddess wearing a toga and Desitin ointment.

I threw my newspaper bag onto the kitchen floor and stared at her.

“What the hell, Ma?” I moaned.  “What is this all about?”

“I’ve got itchy red bumps all over my body.” she wailed.  “I can’t put clothes on.  I want to tear my own skin off I am itching so bad.  I think they must be infested with fleas up at that house.” she said.

“Ma!  They don’t have a cat or a dog.  They don’t have fleas up there.  Show me!” I demanded.

She dropped the sheet low enough to show me her shoulder and upper arm.  She had hives.  Big red itchy welts.

“Ma!  You have hives.” I said as I went to the medicine cabinet.  I found some anti-histimine and shook them out into her hand.  I handed her a glass of water and made her take them.

“Sit!” I said as I pointed to a kitchen chair.

“Hives?  Hives?  I’ve never had hives!  What makes a person get hives? ” she wailed.

“Calm down!” I said as I looked her square in the eye.  “I have a friend at school that is petrified of taking tests.  Every time we have a test in school she starts to itch and she breaks out in big red welts.  She takes the test and they go away.  It’s all in her mind.  It makes her break out in big itchy spots.  These look the same.”

“Why would I break out in hives?  I don’t get it.” she sighed.

“When I told that woman off up the street?  I took half the meatloaf that day?  Didn’t you want to quit and follow me out the door on that day?” I asked.

Yes!  she shook her head yes.

“You are allergic to being a sucker, Ma.  You want to quit but you don’t know how to do it.  You don’t want to wait on that little missy up there anymore.  But, you wonder if she’s capable of looking after a baby herself.  She is you know.  And, then here comes her husband begging you to stay because he’s never had it so good.  You have got to stand up for yourself.   When you do the hives will go away.  Just you see!” I said as I put my paper bag away behind the cellar door.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number written on the wall.

I handed her the phone.  She stood up nice and tall.  She clutched her toga to her chest.  It was the man of the house that answered.

She put on her “I mean business” voice.  My mother was from Worcester, Mass. and didn’t usually pronounce her R’s.  When she meant business she hit the R’s very hard indeed.

“Mr. O’Leary!  I hope you’re having a nice weekend.  Yes, I’m fine. Actually, no I’m not.   I’m in a bit of a mess.  I have a bad case of the hives.  Yes!  I am overtired.  I am not taking care of my own family.  My own house is a mess.  Your wife and baby are coming along very nicely.  It’s time you told her to get out of that damned bed and get a grip.  No, I won’t be back.  No, keep your twenty dollars.  I never did this for the money.  I did this because I am one big sucker.” she said as she hung up the phone.

‘Woooo!” she yelled at the ceiling.  “That felt so good!”

Her skin looked clearer already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tap Dancing Priest

I was on Broadway in Saratoga Springs dressed like a nun again.  I’d done many Nunsense shows.  If we performed in August we hit the streets to drum up ticket sales.  We were in full habit on a hot August day.  I gravitated towards the shade.

I can’t describe how hot those habits are.  I fully appreciate why real nuns have taken to knee length skirts and blouses.  I don’t go for their orthopedic shoes.  But, I get the change.

The first hour in habit we had been at an outdoor Bar and Grill.  We were guest bartenders.  We stood out there holding buy one drink get one free tickets.  People saw what they thought were real nuns handing out pamphlets.  They crossed the street to avoid us.  I pointed this out to the restaurant manager.  She brought us in to deliver trays of drinks to the tables.

We stayed in character.  I was asked to bless people’s endeavors at the Saratoga Race Track the next day.  I did this willingly.  Only if the person promised to donate at least 25 percent of their winnings to a Catholic charity.  Only God knows if they did.

I was wearing a sign board around my neck for much of the outing.  “Nuns on the Run!  Catch us at the City Center” said the sign.  The dates and times of the show completed the ad.  Still people thought I was a real nun.

I am Catholic.  I have a lot of respect for nuns.  My mother drummed that into me.  She had known quite a few.  I had known a half dozen.  They were all wonderful women.  I knew what kind of reaction people have to nuns.  They might be terrified of a verbal exchange.  Or, they want to take you home with them.  I was careful with what I said.  I was in character but I wasn’t a wise ass.  I never knew what kind of soul I was dealing with.  I didn’t know what they wanted from me when they approached.  That’s how real I looked.

I was sweet and funny.  But, I was careful.

One man told me his favorite nun joke.  I just laughed and told him to clean up his language.  One man had bet his best friend $50 that he was about to kiss a nun.  I ducked out of his way but he eventually landed a kiss on my cheek.  He put out his hand and received his money.  I told him he should donate the money.  He asked me where.  “Saratoga County Animal Shelter” came out of my mouth.  $50 can buy a lot of kibble. And you really should not lay lips on a nun without her permission.

One of my fellow actresses walked around town with a ruler in her hand.  I get the age old story of nuns smacking people across the knuckles with a ruler.  My father in law told me that is for real.  She wasn’t hitting people.  She was measuring the length of skirts.

It was August.  People were on vacation.  Lots of pretty women were out in their tiny little sun dresses.  This ‘Sister’ was measuring how far above the knee the hem landed.  She had the women laughing like hell.  I did notice a few when they walked away.  They were all tugging at their skirts trying to make them longer.

“God gave you that beautiful butt.” Sister said.  “But, have some modesty!  Quit flashing your bits to the world!” she told the young women in their summer finery.

Our Reverend Mother actress was speaking in an Irish accent.  People love that.  I turned to see her talking to a young man.  He was chewing gum.  She put out her hand and he put the gum into her palm.  Oh, boy.  You can’t even chew gum in front of this one!

There were many sidewalk sales going on.  I couldn’t buy anything.  Even fake nuns didn’t seem to have money on them.  We crossed to the shady side of the street upon my insistence.  I didn’t want to be forced to rip off my wimple and veil because I was getting light headed from the heat.

We stopped at a table full of summer hats built to be pretty and shade the face.  A lot of people stopped to take photos of us modeling the newest in Saratoga Hat Fashion.  We’re probably on the cover of some Nun Calendar somewhere.  I didn’t do anything too outrageous that day.  Every time I moved someone was taking my photo.

We got down towards Cold Stone Creamery.  I asked who had any money.  One of us did.  She had enough to buy two paper bowls full.  We all grabbed a spoon and shared.  Nothing has ever tasted so good.  Again, the cameras flashed in our faces. Nuns eat!  I didn’t know nuns eat ice cream.

Hey, we’re people too!

I had my photo taken many times that day with my arm around older ladies.  Many were Canadian.  They cried at the sight of me.  They held my hand and told me about their favorite nun growing up.  I prayed for patience about the tenth time this happened.  I pulled the chatting women into the shade.  They had no idea how uncomfortable I was.  I saw almost every one of those ladies later at an actual performance.

Our group of nuns entered Congress Park.  It is full of flowers and green space.  Ducks and people that aren’t supposed to be feeding them.  There is also a gorgeous carousel there.  It is old and has been refurbished.  It lives in a glass house at the edge of the park.  We needed to get some publicity photos of us riding the horses.

Thank God!  This part of the park was now in shade.  A nun can not pick up her skirts and  flap her skirt around to cool herself off.  I was very tempted.  I had some decorum.  I just sweat instead.  My rosy cheeks were not makeup.  I was about three degrees away from heat stroke.  But, the ice cream had helped tremendously.

Thank You, Jesus for this shade.  I am truly thankful.

That’s about the time fake Reverend Mother zeroed in on the real priest.  He was a young man.  He had three older woman around him.  They held his hands.  They gazed adoringly into his face.  They couldn’t get enough of him and what he was saying as they stood in line to ride the carousel.  I’m guessing I was looking at his mother and his two aunts.

Actress Reverend Mother went right up to him.  I followed.  Remember, I was trying to keep the peace with all real Catholics.  I wasn’t taking the job lightly.

“Oh!  Father!” she said with her hands on her hips.  She was going to scold him in her very good but fake Irish accent. ” What ever is the matter with you?  You could have ridden with us.  Didn’t we take out the convent van half empty.  Why didn’t you tell us you were coming here today?”

He looked at her up and down and he just blinked his eyes slowly.  I think he was trying to blink and make her disappear.

“What are you?” he asked very quietly in his very real Irish accent.  “I thought you were dead!  I know you’re dead!”

He was dressed all in black with a very real clerical collar strangling his adam’s apple.  He swayed.  I grabbed him by the arm and turned around and located a bench.  Four people were devouring Ben and Jerry’s on the bench in the shade.

“Excuse me.  Could you move?”I asked.  “Father is feeling a little light headed from the heat.” I said.  They scurried away and left the bench to those of us dressed in black.  They hung back behind the bench as they didn’t want to miss the show.

“Father!  You need to breathe deeply.  Or, you need to put your head down between your knees.  Breathe!  In and out.  No, slow down.  You’re hyperventilating.  That’s not good.  Breathe in slow.  Breathe out slow.  It’s alright.  You look better already.  I think my Reverend Mother over there gave you a scare.  It’s alright.  She’s not real.  You’re not going crazy.  She’s an actress playing a part.” I said as I breathed slowly along with him.

I eventually let go of his arm.

He turned towards me and said “What kind of a nun wears mascara?  You have very beautiful eyes.  But, what the hell are you?”

I put my head back and laughed like hell.  I don’t know why people just saw a nun.  Why did none of them see the big advertisement hanging around my neck?  Up until that point I just thought it was the devoted that ignored the obvious sign.  Now, I knew it.

The carousel line hadn’t moved.  In the meantime our Reverend Mother had the three ladies in stitches.  They hooted and howled and slapped their hands on their thighs.  They were trying to pin point the fake Irish accent.  They had her down to the protestant section of Ireland.  How on earth did she ever end up a Dominican nun they wanted to know.  Okay, they were still under the assumption that she was real.  Their problem not mine I thought.  I was dealing with a poor hyperventilating clergyman.

“I suppose I look like an old fashioned Dominican nun to you, Father.  That’s what I’m supposed to look like.” I said as I picked up my sign and pointed to the word Nunsense.  “I’m an actress playing a Dominican nun.  Reverend Mother over there? She’s doing the same thing.  She may look like someone you used to know.  But, her real name is Ida and she lives ten miles from here.  She is an actress playing a part just like I am.”

He put his head back and he breathed deeply.  The air was starting to cool off.  He was feeling better.

“So, you’re an actress playing a nun.” he said in his beautiful Irish brogue.  “And, are you really Catholic?”

“Yes, I am.” I answered.

“And, you are running around town dressed as a Dominican.  Are you being respectful?  Do you know what you represent?” he asked in all seriousness.

“I certainly do know what I represent.  I’ve had old Canadian women weeping all over me all day.  I represent Sister Mary Elizabeth, Sister Mary Francis, and many other Sister Mary Somebody.  These people loved their nuns and I’m giving it back to them as best as I can.  I can’t speak for the rest of the actresses.  I am very respectful.  I was brought up in St. Bridget’s Church.  I would never do anything to make you ashamed of me, Father. The show itself is very fun.  It is not risque.  The writer cast his very first show with very real nuns.  They stood in line for hours to audition.  We sing and dance and tell jokes.  But, the writer kept in mind where he came from.  There is nothing disrespectful about these shows.  And Sister Amnesia is in very good hands with me.  I am the one that ad libs with the audience for fifteen minutes.  You have no worries.”

The carousel line started to move.  We both needed to move with it.  Even though I think his mother and his aunties had almost forgotten about him.  They were being entertained by a pro.

The ducks were swarming around our ankles.  We had nothing to give them but little kicks with our black clad feet.

That’s when the folks behind us finished their Ben and Jerry cones.  They threw their remains into the trash can.  They stood right in front of us with their sticky hands.  One of them picked the sign up that hung around my neck.

“Does this show open tomorrow?  I can not wait to see it!  Is the City Center the big building down the street?  I’ve seen some of these Nunsense shows.  This is a new one to me. ” she said in an excited voice.  She jotted down the ticket hotline number.

“Obviously it’s not just you girls in this show.  This show has a priest in it!  You may have overcast this part, though.  This one here is too young and good looking to be a real priest.  And , your Irish accent?  It’s pretty good but I’m not believing it!  I suppose you’re a really good dancer though, right? You’ve got such long Tommy Tune legs.” she exclaimed knowingly.

They went on their merry way.  Father and I stood up to get back into line with our people.

I turned to him and said “I don’t suppose you really know how to tap dance , do you Father? We could always use a good looking priest like you in our show.  I’ll arrange a spot light just for you.”  We both laughed.

He turned to the lady who was his mother.  “Mother, this lady wants to know if I can tap dance.” he said in his flowery voice.

“But, of course he can!  Didn’t I pay for ten years of dance lessons for this one?  I thought he’d become a famous River Dancer.  No, he decides to become a priest.  There are no tap dancing priests as far as I can recollect.” she exclaimed.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I replied.  “I’ve met a few.”