How I Deal with Life.....

How I Deal with Life.....

Friday, December 30, 2011

My Mom Is Evil (and you wonder where I get it from??)

As I have mentioned before, my dad has Alzheimer’s. Nasty disease (I hate it’s fucking guts). Dad retired from work eight years ago and has been a professional piddler every since. Pay sucks, but it’s fun and he sets his own hours.
            Anyway, about three months ago, my usually early morning rise-and-shine-with-the-sun mom slept in. Mom and dad woke up at about the same moment. Mom looked over at my dad and told him, “You better get up if you don’t want to be late for work”. My dad, already confused enough as it is,  looked at her in wide eyed wonderment and asked, “I have a job???”
            Mean mom.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Human beings are stupid. They have always been stupid. From the story of Adam and Eve eating that damned apple and having us kicked out of paradise to the most recent Darwin Award nominees, which include a man protesting the use of motorcycle helmets at an anti-helmet rally- he sustained severe head injuries when he wrecked his motorcycle at the event- to an English teen who electrocuted himself stealing in-use copper wiring from a local business. Then there are actual Darwin Award WINNERS (losers?), like the young man who decided to white water the newly created rapids brought on by recent flash flooding. Only problem was that he attempted this while riding a foam mattress. Said mattress, naturally, became waterlogged and sank, taking its occupant with it. Rescuers found the man's body the next morning wrapped around a tangle of trees.  Had enough?
            Human beings are not only stupid, but almost insanely stupid. I am surprised we have reached the over 7 billion population mark. The odds clearly show that we never should have lived past the building of the first pyramids.  Of course, the first pharaohs didn’t keep records on how many people died building these great super structures, but historians estimate that pyramid building was more lethal than planking on a busy freeway; at least a million people died while building tombs for a wealthy and powerful class of people who believed that they were going to take wooden horses and stale beer into the afterlife.
            Just how stupid are human beings REALLY? Well, we are systematically destroying the only planet we know of where we can exist. We are poisoning the water supply, the air, and our food.  We elect politicians who can’t spell “potato”, don’t know what the definition of the word “is” is, and continue to drag our country into bloody wars in which we have no game plans or exit plans. In addition, our scientists continue to invent quirky little life ending items like nuclear weapons and then can’t tell us how to get rid of the radioactive waste left from the manufacture of these toys. (“Fred, let’s just shoot it off into space and make E.T deal with it”).
            And you might know, dinosaurs existed for about 250 million years. That’s a long damn time. Human beings, according to scientific data, not biblical, have only been around for about two million years. I doubt we’ll make it to 250 million years. Call me crazy, but dinosaurs didn’t yell out “Watch this” and then do some stupid shit like bungee jump and not make certain the cord was tied correctly, or start the car in a garage to get warm and then decide to take a short nap. They didn’t walk down a busy thoroughfare road at night clothed all in black, put a funnel into their open mouth and allow other dinosaurs to pour two entire quarts of Jack Daniel’s down it at a tail gate party, or fry themselves in the shower while attempting to dry their hair (you know some asshole somewhere did that. I mean that’s why hairdryers come with a huge label warning consumers NOT to do it!).
            I have managed to live for almost fifty years. I should not have made it past the age of five when I thought it would be great fun to tease the fierce looking HUGE dog down the block. Happily, I only ended up with a severe shredded bite on my calf and wet ruffled panties (when I was a child my bladder did weird things when I was scared).  Or what about the time I was fourteen and refused to tell my parents I was sick because I had third row seats to see Black Sabbath in concert?  I ended up in the hospital with an emergency tracheotomy and to this day I have not rocked out at a live show with Ozzie.  But I did almost die.
            I give human beings a hundred years max on this earth. Two hundred if we stop huffing noxious substances for fun and lighting our farts.  

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

la, la, la- a Bitch and Moan.

Received a detailed report from the Mayo Clinic doctor I saw on December 13, 2011. After numerous costly tests, I find I am slightly anemic, have a vitamin D deficiency, and I have some increase in my gamma globulins markers that are not indicative of lymphoma (nothing serious- just need to be looked at annually now), and some degeneration in lumbar spine from the psoriatic arthritis. Otherwise everything looked normal.
            So, why do I feel so not normal? Why does my entire body feel like I went eight rounds with a very pissed off Mike Tyson?  The doctor had one explanation: pain amplification syndrome. Different from fibromyalgia in that the pressure points do not follow the usual pattern for a diagnosis of fibro. “Amplification” would be the word for how my pain feels. The past four days have been especially bad. And it was Christmas. I toughed it out, cuddled grandbabies, laughed, participated- all with a little help from a half a loracet twice a day; just enough to dull the pain, not get rid of it. I HATE taking painkillers. I will now spend the next week recuperating.
            I am sick and tired of hurting for no good reason. I want to rip my entire ribcage out and toss it in the trash (that is where 90% of the pain is located), but tonight my friend, Scott, told me if I did that then my head would be sitting on my ass. He has a point…
            I’m getting very angry about it all and feeling overwhelmed by the pain. Then I feel guilty because there are so many people out there worse off than me.. I am snappy, tired, and just want to hide. Trying my best not to do that.  
            Back to the Mayo in February.  Ding Ding! Round Nine!!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The New Year's Musings of a 21st Century Middle-Aged Woman

Winter days and the coming of the New Year always make me wistful. The bare branches on the trees; another three hundred and sixty five days- days lost in the past; the goodbyes to dear friends; the arrival of new babies, faces unlined, hearts untouched, all cause me to sink into a dearth of melancholy meanderings.   
            Like Prufrock, I seem to be measuring out my life in coffee spoons; a bit here, a bit there, until now almost fifty years have passed and I don’t know where the years have gone. I should have heaped my life out in gravy ladles, rich and overflowing- taken more chances, ran a bit faster, climbed more trees, loved fiercer. The realizations that come with age are an ironic joke played upon us all sooner or later. Just when we have gained the foresight to apply the lessons we have learned, life is almost over. I look at the young and shake my head in voiceless exasperation. They don’t know, and are too young to know that they don’t know.
            I watch twenty-somethings in their daily struggles and know that the stumbling blocks in their paths are mostly ones of their own creations. I see the perplexed furrowing of their brows, hear the confusion in their voices over the occurrences of life, watch them as they become blocked by the debris of their choices, and I am unable to clear the path for any of them. They have to stumble as I did, as human beings have done since before recorded history. Nothing is new under the sun, although we like to think differently. And it goes on and on circling on a merry-go-round.
            Of course, I still make poor choices, but the difference from my younger self is that I no longer attempt to rationalize my choices or explain them away. I no longer heap the blame on other’s doorsteps. I have learned that most often, I am to blame. And I don’t waste precious time in dwelling on the mistakes or berating myself too deeply. I simply accept the reality of them, tuck the lessons away, shrug and go on.  After all, how many minutes do I have left on this earth? If I am lucky, I have approximately sixteen million minutes, or thirty years left to have the wind touch my face, fall asleep on cool sheets, get lost in the notes of a perfect melody, touch the faces of those I love, and spoon the ice cold creaminess of pistachio ice cream onto my tongue.
            In my fifth decade, I listen intently for the song of the mermaids singing each to each..
             

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Autumn Again


It is a perfectly beautiful, calm October day. My little Maltese dog, Truman, is curled asleep on the floor where a streak of sunlight is warming his nine year old bones.  There is vegetable soup simmering on the stove, full of potatoes, corn, leftover peas, and plump skinless tomatoes. I am dressed in my “doing jack-shit” uniform: a boys’ size 14 striped button up shirt, jeans, and fuzzy socks.  The entire day is unfolded in front of me and I have no idea what to do with it. Should I read? Maybe clean the bathroom?  Or perhaps write that long overdue letter to my sister-in-law? I don’t feel like doing any of it. I just feel like being in the right now without having any tasks, enjoyable or not to take up my time. Time, which as I near fifty is becoming more precious, that I waste.
            I waste it by sitting on the front porch listening to the sounds of small town traffic that echoes from two blocks over and the slam of house doors down the street. I waste it by staring out the window in my study wondering if the bird sitting on the mulberry bush can see me. I waste it reading the news that never seems to change. I waste it thinking about what I want to do with the fifth part of my life, knowing that often plans come to nothing.
            Life is broken down in sections or parts. No one has the same amount. Some people have three, some as many as ten. It is all dependant upon how many times people reinvent themselves, shedding old skin like a captive boa in a pet shop.  I happen to be entering my fifth part. It is the first time I have been aware of the parts.  I didn’t count them before, the way I do now.
            In the first part of my life, I was a child. No worries except if Bennie was going to find me in the game of hide and seek, or if mom and dad had bought me that new doll for Christmas. In my sesond  part of life , I rode the wild teen years, trying to fit in, coughing and laughing as I sent a tightly rolled joint down the line at a Ted Nugent concert, wondering if Kent really did like me. Fast forward to my third incarnation- motherhood and marriage. Giving birth to and raising three children, loving every minute being with my children,  aching for a full night’s sleep, keeping watch whenever illness struck, watching as they grew and changed a bit more each day, trying to be a good wife and severely  failing. The fourth part of my life was all mine. Going back to school earning a degree, diving head first into a career in teaching, being inspired by my profession and then becoming disillusioned, seeking better, and building a new life with a good man..
            I thought each part of my life would last forever. Now those lifetimes seem like someone else’s. Each separate, each distinct. Each belonging to four different people. People I don’t know. I lift the quilt that covers the small bed in my study and from underneath the bed I drag out a cardboard box.  It holds the various photographs that I keep promising I am going to organize. I plunder through the photos, and time slips through my fingers. Each of these lifetimes is memorized in photographs. Here is a photo of me pregnant with my third child, my wedding to the childrens' father, my high school graduation, my three children dressed for Halloween, my daughter’s first Christmas, my ninth grade school photo with braces shining. The photos are strewn on the floor, and the concept of linear time breaks down and instead begins to exist like the photos. Scattered, unevenly, like a haphazardly unwound ball of yarn. 
            I scour flea markets when I am in one of my moods that doing nothing cures.  I have a distinct affinity for old postcards and photographs. I buy the ones that capture my eye- for fifty cents, a dollar. . Some of the  postcards are etched on back with handwritten sentiments that mystify and entertain me. “We are in Washington today and going to New York Wednesday. Love Uncle Bill” (1937), “The luaus and shows are something to see. Don Ho show tomorrow” (1974), “No horses are here they are all illegible. No place for you here J.S.H” (1915).   
            I turn them over, study the pictures, turn them back over, reread the message. Why was Uncle Bill in Washington? Was the trip for pleasure or business?  
            Was the Hawaii trip a honeymoon for a newly married couple? If so, were they happy? Did they stay married? Have children?
            Why was it so important that there were no horses in Washington, D.C, and why is there “no place” there for the recipient of the postcard?
            The postcards give me a glimpse into lives lived so long ago. I can almost hear their voices in the writings, and each life..
            As for the photographs, I never buy them. I can’t bear to separate them from their nestled boxes or scratched frames, or the common smell of time that pervades the places that sell lives outlived.  I merely look at the photographs, scanning the faces to see if I can decipher any emotion. I study the clothing, the backgrounds, and the eyes of the subjects. Are the people shown long gone and nothing more than the images they have left behind, or do they still exist somewhere in that ball of unwound yarn? What does that hand resting on that young woman’s back mean? Why is the old man looking at the younger one that way?  Whose car is that the woman is leaning against? Is the young man in the World War II uniform coming back or going to war? The stories are lost. The people frozen in sepia tones or flat black and white.
            What will become of my photographs after I am gone? Will a restless woman, starting to realize the preciousness and instability of the years, thumb through my photographs one day and wonder? Will she look into my frozen in time eyes and attempt to translate a portion of my life?  Will she note the ring on my left hand or the way my gaze is off to the side, pulled at the last moment of photographic capture by the voice of my granddaughter?  Will she perceive the questions etched into the lines on my face and feel a kinship? Will she sigh, go back to her life, sit on a porch, stare into the color of her life and attempt to become a part of the sounds around her, the way I do?
            It is a perfectly beautiful, calm October day.  It is a fifth chance to be me.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line (short story written on a rainy day)UNREVISED

Heaven help me. I think I killed the son-of-a-bitch. I go into the kitchen and run the tap water until it’s cool. I grab one those plastic tumblers that’s supposed to make you think of cut crystal, and fill it to the brim. I drink the water in one long breath, letting it slide down my throat. I sink to the floor and throw the tumbler against the wall. It bounces off and lands back at my feet. Fuck. Now what do I do? I can’t break a plastic tumbler made in Korea, but I can kill a man? That’s screwed up nine ways to Sunday.
    I look at my hands. I didn’t mean to kill him. I mean, who knew? I was only trying to hurt him a little. He spent all night trading googly eyes with that little slut at the bar last night. I just wanted to teach him a lesson. Not kill him.
     I start to sob. What am I going to do? My mascara has probably run all down my face. I know I look like a raccoon. I bring the ends of my hair to my nose and sniff. Cigarette smoke and stale beer.  I have to take a bath. But wait. What about his body? What about Lester? I gnaw on my bottom lip and contemplate the situation. Oh hell, he’ll keep. Not like he’s going anywhere. I chuckle, then start crying again. 
    I fill the tub with scalding water, pour in some of that lavender Bath and Body Works stuff Lester gave me last Christmas. I rip off my jeans and t-shirt. Throw my bra and panties in the corner and test the water with my toe. Hot, just the way I like it. I lower my body down. The hot water stings, but in a good way. I spy Lester’s razor on the sink. I start to cry again. I sink down into the water and give in to my grief and anger. That stupid fucker. Why did he die? He did it to get back at me I know him. Oh, God. I miss him already.
       I give into my tears. But pretty soon my face starts to sweat from the hot water and I can’t tell the difference between the sweat and tears. It’s counterproductive to cry and not be able to feel the tears on your face. Kind of like fucking for peace. I hiccup once and stop crying. I know I probably look tragic like one of those busting out of her bodice women in those books I get at the WalMart. I inhale and thrust my bosom up. I take a deep breathe and exhale. My bosom is heaving.  
       Time to get to work. If I don’t get rid of Lester he’ll start stinking soon. I wrinkle my nose. I just had the carpets cleaned. Damn. I’ll never get Lester’s blood out of it. I towel dry my hair and get dressed in an old work shirt of Lester’s and a pair of cutoff shorts.  I go into the living room, sit in Lester’s recliner and stare at his curled up body. I figure rigor mortis might set in soon and I’ll never get him straightened out, so I kneel down and unbend him. Just like playing with Gumby when I was a kid, only heavier. His arms are curled into his stomach so I unbend them.  I roll him over. His legs flop down and splay. I push them together. I lay his head back and cross his arms over his chest. I sit back down in the recliner. No, that’s not right. I kneel back down and move Lester’s arms by his side.  A little better.  His eyes are wide open staring at the ceiling, but the face below the eyes is gone. I turn away. He looks kind of gross.
     Now what to do with him. He’s too big for me to get in the back of the SUV, but what if he was in little pieces? I could move him then. I glance at the clock. 5:45 a.m. I could work all day; it’s Saturday. I don’t have to be to work until Monday morning. I could sneak him out when it gets dark and then think what to do with him.  
         Can I even start the chainsaw? I’m scared of the chainsaw. It makes a lot of noise, plus the Thompson’s, who live a quarter mile down the road, will probably hear it. Hand saw? Maybe. I go into Lester’s “shop” in the garage. There are five hand saws. One has a pretty red handle and looks nice and sharp. I take it and at the last moment grab a pair of wire cutters and pliers, and a rolled up sheet of clear plastic. I dump it all in the garage.
     I go back into the living room and stand over Lester. Poor Lester. There’s a big ole hole where his nose should be. I aimed for his leg. Lester always did say I was a piss poor shot. Now his face is all messed up. He had a pretty smile. That’s the first thing I ever noticed about Lester. That and those big ole boots he always wears. I hate those damn boots.
      I unlace the boots from Lester’s feet. I pull them off and throw them across the room. I ask Lester, “What you gonna do now?”. His eyes just stare up at me. He don’t say nothing. He won’t ever say nothing again.
      I pick him up by his feet. His socks stink. I turn around and start dragging him to the garage. I get to the garage and his head thunkity-thunks over the threshold. It hits pretty hard. “Sorry, Lester”, I apologize.
     I get him in the center of the garage and go peer out the closed garage windows. No one in sight. Good. I roll out the clear plastic on the garage floor. I pick up Lester’s legs to drag him on the plastic, but every time I get him on it, the plastic rolls up underneath his dead weight. I squat on the cement floor and think. Bricks. I need bricks to hold the plastic to the floor. There are several stacked against the back wall. I go over and get two at a time until I have ten of them. I place them around the plastic and attempt to drag Lester onto the plastic again. The plastic still rolls up. Shit.
      Super glue! That’s it!  I go to Lester’s work bench and look for the bin labeled “glue”. He might throw his crap all over the house and leave dirty dishes in the living room, but he’s a regular neat freak when it cam to his work bench. I find the bin and there are about five different glues in it; cement glue, wood glue, sealants. I find five tubes of Superglue. They’re pretty tiny.  Maybe they’ll be enough. I uncap one and spread a thin line of the glue onto the concrete floor. Then I take an edge of the plastic and hold it down on the glue for a minute. I try to pull it up and it sticks! About time something went right. When this is over I’m so going to go to Panama City for the weekend.
      I go around the perimeter edge of the plastic, one foot at a time and secure it to the floor. When I’m on the last two feet I try to pull my hands away from the plastic and can’t. I glued my hands down. Don’t panic. I pull and feel my skin ripping against the plastic. It hurts like a bitch. I plop on my ass, my hands plastered fast in front of me. I pull again. Again the ripping on my skin. Lester’s neck somehow turned when I was moving him around and he is staring at me. Shithead.  I pull again. Nothing. I bend down and rip the plastic with my teeth until I am free from the floor but still glued to the plastic. I gnaw between the sheet. Now I can move my hands, but I have two sheets of plastic stuck to them.  It’s okay. They look kind of look like gloves. Might keep my fingerprints off things.
        I get Lester on the sheeting and undress him. His clothes are bloody, but I can probably get it all out and donate them to Goodwill. I put them in the washing machine, fill it with Tide and that Oxy shit stuff they sell on T.V, and close the lid.  I look over at Lester. His dick looks like one of those German sausages they sell in the processed meat aisle at the Piggly Wiggly. It’s shriveled and gray.  Not as tasty though. I know that for a fact.
       Got get Lester into tinier pierces.  I start with his legs. I figure those will the hardest. I remember when I was back in tenth grade Mr. Williams, the history, teacher told us how doctors back in the Civil War would amputate legs with hand saws. I figure if they could do it, so can I. At least Lester won’t be squirming around.  It takes about two hours to saw through the legs and then saw them into four more pieces. I had to use the wire cutters a few times for some tendons and muscle that were a bit stubborn, but I did it! I am staving to death.  I strip off my bloody clothes, go to the bathroom and get in the shower. The blood runs off my hands and arms and whirls down the drain in pale pink ribbons. When I am fairly certain I have most of the blood off my body, I dry off and go into the kitchen. I am still naked, but I’ll be damned if I will ruin any more clothes because of Lester. I make a bologna sandwich with mustard and eat it so fast I’m not even sure I chew. I open the liter bottle of Dr. Pepper and gulp it down, warm.
    Time to finish this job. Getting Lester’s head and arms off is easy. Takes less time than the legs. I pile Lester’s parts in the middle of the plastic sheet and cut it free from the concrete floor. I fold the plastic over and then duct tape it all together. I use an entire roll of that silver duct tape Lester swears could fix anything from a washing machine hose to my vibrator. I go into the bathroom and soak my hands in nail polish remover. I inch the plastic away from the glue on my hands a bit at time. But I ruined the manicure I got yesterday at the Curl Up and Dye. After about an hour of sitting on the bathroom floor working diligently, I get most of the plastic off. Only tiny strips remain here and there. The bathroom reeks of nail polish remover, I used up two entire bottles.
     I take another shower. This time being careful to get good and clean. I wash my hair, condition it, and then dry off. I put on my makeup and blow dry my hair. I blink in the mirror. More mascara. I apply another coat and then go through three outfits. The jeans make my ass look big, the green top has a stain on it. I finally settle on the cute black jumpsuit I bought at J. C Penny’s. I look hot in it. Lester always thought so. I add a wide red belt and slip on my red flats, the ones with the silver buckles.  Now to get Lester in the car.
        It’s getting dark. Another two hours and I can get this done and get to bed.  I head out the front door and back the Chevy Tahoe as close as I can get without actually hitting the garage door.  I push the button on the outside wall that opens the garage door. It squeals on its rusty wheels. We hardly ever open it. I go out and back the Tahoe into the garage until only the nose is sticking out. I peek around. All clear. This is going good. I open the back of the Tahoe, and drag the duct taped package over. Now how in the hell do I get Lester inside?    
       I lean up against the Tahoe and think. My eyes fall on Lester’s leaf blower. That’s it! I ransack the work shop cabinets until I find the big box of black leaf bags. I undress and fold my cute outfit over the hood of the Tahoe so it won’t wrinkle.  I slip out of my flats. I get the scissors and start cutting away at the duct taped bag holding my dearly deceased husband. I get it open and gingerly place poor Lester’s pieces into the leaf bags. Just a few in each bag. I don’t want the bags to be too heavy to lift. When I finish, I duct tape the bags closed and go take another shower. I have taken so many showers and baths today I feel waterlogged. I rewash my hair, recondition it, reapply my makeup and blow dry my hair. I squirt some Poison perfume on for added measure, then pad out naked to the garage and get dressed again.  This time I can heft the bags into the back of the truck.  I finish loading the bags, go get my purse, lock the doors to the house, and pull the Tahoe out. Last, I hit the button on the key ring to close the garage door.  The mess in the garage and house will have to wait until later.
      I drive to Mama and Daddy’s house making sure to keep under the speed limit. It’d be a bitch to get pulled over, especially if it was by that gossipy deputy, Horace. If I was arrested for murder the whole town would know by sundown. The paved road turns to dirt and the Tahoe’s shocks bounce and stutter.  Finally Mama and Daddy’s house comes into view. An old farmhouse that’s been in the family for years. A barn, horse pasture, chicken coops, and far away from the house out back are the hog pens.  Mama’s car isn’t here. Good.
     I go into the house and holler, “Daddy?” Daddy comes out of the kitchen wiping his grease stained hands on a cloth. When I see him I start to sob again. “Oh, daddy.” I wail.
     “What’s the matter, sweetheart?.” He asks. He pulls me into his arms and shushes me.
     I look up at him. “Daddy, I did something bad.
    “Bad? Sweetpea, you couldn’t ever do anything bad.”
     “But I did” I wail. “I killed Lester.”
      Daddy stands stupidified for a moment then takes me in his arms again and pats me on the back. “Well, I’m sure he deserved it, baby. Where is he?”
      “I sniffle, “In the back of the Tahoe…. in pieces”.
     Daddy seems to take this in stride. “Baby girl, I tell you what. Take the Tahoe down to the hog pens. Your Mama’s at the beauty parlor, but she’ll be back soon. Let’s be quick. I’ll meet you down there”.
      I bump the truck over the rutted dirt road the mile to the hog pens. I can smell them before I see them. I hear the oinking and snorting of the hogs as soon as I step out of the truck. Daddy drives up in his old pickup. He gets into the Tahoe and backs it up to the pen that holds the largest hogs, the ones almost ready for sale.  He opens the back of the Tahoe, grimaces and looks back at me. I shrug. He gets in back and pushes the leaf bags into the hog pen where they land with a dull thunk.
       He walks over to me, looks over at the hog pen and says, “Well, that’s that. Won’t be much left in a few hours.  Go get some shut eye and I’ll be over after dinner. I’ll tell your Mama I’m going to the pool hall.  You and I will get the rest of the mess cleaned up.  I’ll bring that new fancy rug shampooer your Mama just bought." he pauses.  "There is a mess, isn’t there, honeypie?”
     “Yes Daddy” I whimper.
      “Okay then". He hitches up his pants. “Be on your way. I’ll be there directly”.
     I kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, Daddy”
     “That’s what I’m here for, baby. Now go”.
     All the way back home I blast Lynyrd Skynyrd on the C.D player.  I punch my arm in the air a few times and yell, “Fuck you, Lester!”  It feels good. Daddy will be over later and he’ll help me.
    I get home, climb in between the cool sheets on the bed. Before closing my eyes I repeat the words Mama taught me when I was just a little girl.
     “Now I lay me down to sleep…..”  

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Bitch is Back (musing)

Living with chronic pain is like living next door to a snarling, pissed off  dog that someone has chained, beaten and mistreated. Most of the time he stays on the leash and just growls and snarls when you walk out on your porch. You know he’s there, but you also know the chain is holding him, so he exists in your periphery. But, every once in awhile, the phrase, “Who let the dogs out?” takes on an entirely new meaning and that damned dog breaks the chain or some asshole sets him free and you are left covering your head helplessly while he rips at you. And there’s not really much you can do except wait for someone to come chain him back up again or become so angry you do it yourself. Sometimes this takes quite a while.
     My dog is named “Arthur” (psoriatic arthritis). He’s a mean, sneaky son-of-a-bitch.  There are times he curls up in the shade and goes fast to sleep, and all is quiet. He’s harmless and benign when he’s sleeping, and like all sleeping things I eventually forget he’s even there. I go about my business, write, go to work, exercise, travel, and think smugly, “Well, Arthur’s gone”. This thought only occurs during long term remissions though, of which I have had several over the past ten years. For the short term remissions, where I know he has one eye peeking open watching me, and he’s not so very benign, I am scared shitless waiting for him to break free.  My arsenal against him is meager: drugs, that often have such bad side effects that I try not to even think about what they are doing to my body over the long term;  doctors, who are like a dice game in a back alley with a bunch of hoods (you seldom roll snake eyes, but when you do it’s the best snake eyes you ever rolled); exercise, which is good for me but afterwards can make me feel like a wheezing Pinto on the Cadillac highway if I overexert; support from family, which I know they get tired of doing- hell I wouldn’t want to live with someone who suffers with chronic pain. I know I would be thinking “What a little whiner he/she is”.
     In the past year, Arthur has been more than just a nuisance. I have been going to doctors for months whining and complaining, my body feeling like I’ve gone eight rounds with Evader Holyfield, and generally making my doctors cringe when they see me coming, but all I’m trying to do is communicate the harsh reality that my long remission is over. Arthur has stretched his snarling self awake and he’s really pissed. I’m tired of whining, but I need certain parts of my life back. I want to know how to fight this dog, or dogs (I think I have acquired another to go with Arthur, but I don’t know his name yet). I am ready to kick ass and take names. The pity party is over.
     The dog is off the chain, but after months of covering my head and running directionless around the yard while Arthur bites my ass, I am ready to go “balls to the wall” and find the aluminum baseball bat that will beat him into submission. I used it nine years ago to bash him into unconsciousness. I know it’s still around here somewhere….

Sunday, September 18, 2011

And So It Goes (poem)

And So It Goes
I tore three pieces of fruit from the hanging branches.
One almost overripe in its knowledge of the world;
The second so perfectly formed it created an ache when it touched my lips;
The third so pure, so silent in its ripening redness, showing the blush of promise.

I ate all three.
Chewed them.
Swallowed them.
I tried to hold them in my mouth, but they wouldn’t stay.
Like a wound they bleed out and spread in three directions.

One seeped so far away- carrying its filled self to distant places.
The second curled under my feet, stinging the soles of my feet with the bile
mixed from our two selves.
The third slowly inched away like a silent rain- not wishing harm.

It is early evening.
I stand under the tree.
Three tiny shell white flowers
hold another promise.
But I wither smaller and smaller;
I won’t be able to reach the branches when again they bow.

I settle silently on the prickly grass,
consigned to observe.
Not to speak.
Not to pluck.
Not to eat.
I taste the memory of the fruit
on the tip of my heart.

Teri Coley Adams
September 18, 2011

Sunday, September 4, 2011

How "Arthur" entered my life

      Getting the Hep B vaccine was a huge mistake. Two weeks after getting my first shot I developed a mild case of alopecia; two weeks after that I woke up with intense pain to my breastbone that spread to every tendon in my trunk area; two weeks after that I broke out in a horrible skin eruption on the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands that looked like ant bites.  They would blister, pop, then ooze. Afterwards they would crust over and flake away to revel tender not ready for air skin that split and bled. I continued to work, although the pain caused me tp miss a lot of work. I went to doctor after doctor as my body continued to deteriorate
     The boys at the Youth Detention Facility where I worked  were curious. They were locked up; the staff often their only source of entertainment and link to the outside world. They wanted to know why I was wearing bandages on my hands (the skin on my palms would break apart and droplets of blood would smear onto my paperwork), why I was walking “funny” (the pain radiated into my hips and vicious spasms would grip my hip muscles in a blinding wall of pain). Some of the more heartless boys would insist, “Someone fucked her good”.  I finally collapsed on the floor in my classroom, thankfully while the boys were at lunch, and I was driven home by another teacher. It was two months before I was finally able to go back to work. Two months of doctor visits and pain medicines that left me a dribbling fool, and still pain addled.  I was reduced to using a walker part of the time.
      One doctor told me he thought I had M.S. He stuck electrodes in my legs and sent jolts of electricity into my muscles. Not comfortable, but not painful; not productive either.  Finally he told me that he wanted to perform a spinal tap.  I didn’t go back. One doctor told me it was all in my mind and if I didn’t think I was in pain, I wouldn’t be. Thanks for telling me doc. Let me plummet you with a brick and then you tell me it doesn’t hurt, okay? Fucker.
      9/11 happened. I found myself seated in my living room recliner, barely able to twist my body without debilitating spasms periodically locking my body. I watched the 9/11 news coverage over and over again. I watched the towers crumble. I watched the people run. I watched the tiny figures hurl themselves from one death to another. Grief and helplessness washed over me. The towers falling became personal and reflective of my own crumbling body. The towers came to represent everything I saw as hopeless and nonsensical. I cried so much that my dad came to my house and turned off the television. He told me not to turn it back on for awhile. I complied. I was too worn out with crying not to.
     I spent most of my days in a fog of pain medicines. When the pain became too much to bear and broke through the Loratabs, mom and dad would come to my house, slowly walk me to the car (sometimes half carry me), and drive me to the E.R where a doctor would inject me with demoral. That was the only thing that gave me even brief periods of total release.  One doctor who saw me admitted that he really didn’t know what was going on. At least he was honest.  He did give me the name of a doctor who he insisted was a great diagnostician. Three weeks later I had a diagnoses that sounded plausible and felt right; psoriatic arthritis. I was put on a cocktail of immune suppressant drugs, placed on a waiting list for a new biologic medicine and I set about trying to incorporate “Arthur” into my life. I wanted to go back to work. I wanted to go back to “my boys” .
     All of that happened over ten years ago. I no longer remember what it feels like to not live with a chronic autoimmune disorder. Some days, mostly the rainy barometric fluctuating ones,  I ache with trying to be normal in a world that doesn't understand that this is as normal as I get, and that it isn't faked or contrived, or preconceived. I didn't do this to myself. It wasn't my choice.  Why would anyone want this?.
     Did the Hep B virus vaccine cause it? Probably not in itself. Probably a combination of genetics, stress, and the vaccine. Anyway,  I can't go back and undo it, so why conjecture?   I live with it, or "Arthur" lives with me. Take your pick. Either way, we are now life life companions, and I will not "go gently into that good night". Nope, I'll fight him, just as I have fought since he arrived. I have a life to live.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

excerpt from novel in progress " Miss Kate" (I'm not good with titles...)

      
The child sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, balanced on the wicker seating of ladder back kitchen chair.   Her name was Sara. More a young woman than child. Just on the tottering rim of adulthood.  In the kitchen corner, hunched over a stove that tottered on a slight downward slope, stood a stooped, ancient woman with gray wisps of hair tenderly escaping a thinning bun. She worked wordlessly; patting flour, Crisco, and buttermilk into a kneady mass. Trickles of glistening sweat dotted the skin of her crepe neck and the faded cotton housedress stuck to her underarms where wetness bloomed like roses. The sounds of a pig snorting and the smell of chicken shit drifted through the lone rusted screen covered window.
    The old woman, Miss Kate, pressed the flour mixture in the bowl, while Sara watched silently waiting. The old woman was the only friend she had in the small Georgia town. A month ago her mother has packed a few of their belongings in three large black suitcases in the dead of the night while Sara’s father  had slept . Her mother had called for a cab, and they had taken the Amtrak all the way from Texas to this dusty sleepy town where her mother’s “people” were from.
     Miss Kate stopped working the dough, and squinted at Sara.  “What you want, girl? A story? Lord, child, you the most story starved person I ever seen. Why don’t you watch the T.V like other young’uns?”  The old woman sighed, turned back to the comforting, mindless work of pressing dough and began to speak.

     I been in this here house for over seventy years. Been sitting on my front porch all that time too. That’s on and off. I mean, I don’t stay out there on the porch all the time, just when the weather is good and the sun is warm on these old bones of mine. Yessir, I reckon I done rocked a million miles already and if the Lord be willing, I’ll rock a million more. Might be I’m the oldest person in these parts. I’ve seen a lot of going ons in all my years. Things people don’t even know I see. But I see, yessir, I see, and I keep my mouth shut. I don’t truck none with all them flap gum women in town who tell everything they know, and some they don’t know. Take a bit of advice from me, young’un: Gossip is like an ole biddy hen that will eat corn out of your hand one minute and peck you on the ass the next. I’m too old to be pecked, so I keep things to myself.
     Most people think I’m deaf as a doorknob, but I ain’t. I hear right good, only I don’t let them know it. I heard you when you walked up today didn’t I? Use to be, when people thought I could still hear they’d come around at all hours of the day and night for advice. I reckon they thought since I’m just about as old as God, I might have some answers for them. I don’t. So I just started pretending I couldn’t hear ‘em and directly they stopped coming around. I like my peace and quiet”.
     Miss Kate looked back.  She waggled a dough encrusted finger in Sara’s direction.  “I’ve always kept the dirt in my yard nice and swept. That’s something I take pride in. No matter how old I get, that yard’s gonna be swept good each morning. That’s what I was doing the day Davey Masterson and his new bride moved in next door”.
     Sara squirmed. “Who were they, Miss Kate?”
     Miss Kate let out a loud sigh. “That’s the trouble with you young’uns. Always interrupting. Can’t learn much until you first learn how to listen. Want me to finish this story or not?”
      Sara didn’t answer. Only pulled her arms tighter over her legs and promised herself she wouldn’t interrupt again.
  
     They weren’t nothing but young’uns.  Not much older then you, Texas. Davey was all of eighteen and that little Velma weren’t but sixteen. Davey worked over at the mill on the night shift. He’d come home each morning around 7:15 covered in lint ‘cause he worked the loom room. He was a sweet boy, even if he did seem to be thick as a brick in the head. That first morning after they moved in, I was out sweeping my yard and he walked right up to the fence and handed me a little paper bag.
     “I seen you dipping your snuff Miss Kate and since I go by Walt’s store on the way home I thought you might like this.”
     He was shuffling his feet in the dirt. I opened that bag up and there tucked inside was a red and white tin of C&C snuff. My brand, alright.  I told that boy that I appreciated it, and told him how hard it was for me to walk down to Walt’s sometimes.  
     ‘Weren’t nothing Miss Kate. I use to buy it for my grandma all the time.’
       I told him, ‘Let me pay you’, but he only shook his head and said, ‘Oh, no ma’am. This one’s on me. You can next time.’
      And that’s just what I done. Every Monday morning Davey would walk up to the fence and tell me how good the yard was looking and hand me that little paper bag. I always had the money ready in my apron pocket. He was a good boy. That’s about the only time I ever saw Davey. Didn’t see his little wife much. She kept in the house and didn’t never sweep her yard. I can only imagine what the house must have looked like inside. Never smelt no side meat, cornbread, or turnip greens cooking. I don’t think she was much in the way for housekeeping. She was pretty though. Had hair the color of golden corn and the bluest eyes you ever did see. Not that old blue that looks all milky and weak, but blue the color of violets. Deep, deep blue. She was a little bitty thing. Didn’t weigh no more than 100 pounds soaking wet. She wasn’t skinny though. Had good birthing hips on her for such a tiny girl. When she walked it was like the air parted for her.
     She was delicate but you could tell that underneath there was a distractibility to her that Davey didn’t see. She never spoke to me, even though I called out “Hey” over the fence a time or two when I’d see her carrying in groceries or whatever. No, Davey never did see the other side in her until it was too late. He was devoted to his little Velma. Always came home straight after work and always handed her his paycheck on Friday. He didn’t go out drinking all weekend either. Whenever there was overtime at the mill, Davey was the first to volunteer. Told me one time that he wanted to save up so he could buy Velma a little house in town with a white fence and blue gingham curtains in the window. He loved that girl. I didn’t doubt it then and I don’t doubt it now.”
     Miss Kate paused, spit a dribbling stream of snuff into a tissue stuffed can placed decisively on the kitchen counter and then continued, “After about two years, I started noticing things. I’d sit and rock, take a dip, spit in my cup, and watch. Not much changed on the outside. Not much that anybody else would notice, but I did. First there was the music. Davey had bought Velma a little radio. She didn’t play it much in the daytime when Davey was sleeping, but at night after he had left for work, lord that radio would go on all night long! I can’t tell you how many times I sat on my front porch and watched as she sashayed around like one of them dancing girls in her living room. Her windows would be wide open and that music would float out like that sweet perfume from the wisteria does. Velma liked that country music. She was always singing along to one of them radio singers. She had a pretty good voice too. I’d see her whirling around that living room while she sang her little heart out. I remember the words to one of them songs. Let’s see now. ‘It was just one of those things. Just one of those crazy flings”. Of course, she sang it better. Velma sounded so lonely when she was singing, even when it was a snappy song.  Maybe she was just lonesome for her kin. She was from up around Atlanta and didn’t get to see her people much. But lonesome don’t account for that low down Ben Watson that she took to sneaking into the house after Davey had gone to work. Guess that little radio wasn’t enough company for her. Maybe it was all them cheatin’ songs she had been hearing on the radio that made it seem alright.
     Ben Watson was a snake. He was a hard drinking man who had that bad boy charm that young girls find hard to resist sometimes. He had hair like coal tar and was tall. So tall! Must of been 6’5”. He had a pretty smile with white even teeth, that is when he took a notion to smile. And talk! That man could of talked a hog into the chitlin’ pot. He drove a brand new Chevy that he bought from Harold’s Chevy place out near Macon. I heard them commercials on the radio. Ben made decent money working for the D.O.T. Heard one time he was also running moonshine for Cap Adams and his boys.
     One time I seen Ben threatening Miss Marshall ‘cause she was behind on her furniture payment with Brusters Furniture Co. He made an extra buck or two sometimes running down delinquent bills for the local businesses who didn’t have the gumption to do it themselves. I seen him clear as day that morning standing on the porch, yelling at poor Miss Marshall that if she didn’t have the payment by next Thursday there weren’t no telling what kind of fox might get in her hen house and have himself a high ole feast. Miss Marshall’s hen house was the only income she had in the whole wide world. She sold eggs and fryers to Grathams’ Grocery. Them hens had caught some kind of spell and hadn’t been laying for about two weeks.  
     Miss Marshal was crying and begging Ben to give her another week. Said she was expecting some money to come in the mail from her boy up in Birmingham.
     ‘Just don’t hurt my hens,’ she cried. Ben just glared at her and looked innocent all of a sudden. Miss Marshall told me later that Ben had siddled up real close to her and whispered with his hot breath in her ear, ‘Why, Miss Marshall, I’d never hurt your ole hens. I was just saying that I heard there was an egg eating fox on the loose. I was just warning you to watch out.” 
     Then he winked at her and strolled away. Winked, I tell ya!  Don’t know about a man who would threaten the means of an old widow woman, but that was Ben for you. I heard tell  that before he went to work for the D.O.T that he had spent time in Jackson for armed robbery, but I couldn’t ever get the story straight enough to say if I believed it or not. Probably true. Like I said, he was a snake. And that old snake got into Davey’s house before you could say boo!
     I seen Ben the first time he come sniffing around Velma. She was carrying groceries up the walk and he pulled that shiny Chevy up by the curb, throwing dust every which a way, and hollered out the window, ‘What’s a pretty thing like you doing carrying them heavy bags?’ Velma turned white as a sheet and hurried on in the house like a wasp had gotten into her bloomers. That car took to driving by the house after Davey had gone to work. Ben would stop in front of Velma’s house and rev that motor up loud. It’d be so loud it’d scare Miss Marshall’s chickens to death and they’d start squawking. Velma would peek through the curtains and Ben would wave and rev that car up more. Then when he was satisfied that Velma had gotten her eyes full he’d scream off down the street burning rubber from here to the mill. Pretty soon, Velma got where she’d come out to the porch and wave back. Stupid girl! No more sense then a flea bitten bitch in heat.
     Wish I could of warned her but she didn’t take to me and maybe wouldn’t have listened. Many time at night before I fall asleep I wish I had of at least tried to warn her. Maybe things would have turned out different. About two weeks later I saw them together. Velma was getting out of Ben’s car and he was carrying her bags up to the door for her. She kept looking around to see who might be watching. She looked guilty as Eve, but I don’t think at that time she had anything to feel guilty about. That didn’t come `til later.
     I did notice something that day though that was real out of the ordinary. You see, Velma didn’t go in much for bright colors. All her dresses was light blue, light yellow, or some other pale color. That day though, she had a bright orange and red silk scarf tight around her neck. It looked kind of ridiculous. Didn’t go at all with her little pink and white checkered dress. The next week I went into the hospital with pleurisy and when I got home, six days later, ole Ben was set up like stink on shit with that pretty little Velma. Don’t know what all happened while I was in the hospital getting poked and prodded, but whatever it was, Ben had worked his charm and was using that girl just like he used all his women. Only this time, he had tangled himself up with a married woman. A married woman with a crazy in love husband. I always said you have to watch out for the quiet ones like Davey.
     It was getting on summertime and I’d sit out on the porch and try and catch a breeze or two in the late evenings. I’d burn rags in an old oil barrel to keep the mosquitoes and gnats away. Didn’t always work though. Being summer time, it didn’t get dark `til about nine or so, and the street was always full of young’uns playing kick the can or riding ole chinaberry branches pretending to be Tom Mix. Davey got to where he’d come over to the fence to say hey before he went to work at the mill. Started seeming to me like Davey’s heart wasn’t into going to work. He never said nothing, not to me anyways, but there was a sadness in his eyes. One morning, as he was coming from work, he stopped at my gate.
     He asked me, ‘You ever been married Miss Kate?’.
      I told him, ‘Sure was, Davey. For thirty years, up until I lost him ten years ago. Me and Jasper had some good times together, but marriage can be hard, Davey.’
     He got a right peculiar look on his face and asked me. ‘Why’s it got to be hard?’
      I thought a moment and told him. ‘Don’t know. Maybe God is just playing with us, boy’.”
     Davey turned to go, but not before he said, ‘I wish to hell he’d stop playing with me.’ That’s the only thing he ever said that gave a notion to the fact that he knew what was going on between Velma and Ben. Maybe he knew it was Ben, and maybe he didn’t, but he knew something was up. You see, that Velma had got right bold. She had the fever bad for Ben. Davey wouldn’t no sooner be gone for the night shift and I’d hear that new Chevy pulling up behind Velma’s house. Not long after that the back door would slam and the lights in the house would go off. Thought they was being sneaky. They thought nobody knew. Some nights my head gets all swimmy and I can’t sleep. On those nights I go out on the porch take a dip of snuff and sit in the dark and rock and spit. One night I heard laughter coming from next door and saw Ben coming around the house buck ass naked with Velma hot on his trail. Her hair tied up in that bright orange and red scarf. They was playing like young’ uns. Another night they fought and Velma followed him out on the porch begging him to come back. Said she wouldn’t ask no more questions. About what I don’t know. He told her to shush before they woke the whole damn street, and then he followed her back in the house. I didn’t hear nothing else from them that night.
     In the morning, I went over to ask Velma if she had a cup of flour so I could make some hoe cakes for breakfast and when she answered the door I saw she had a bruise on her cheek. She mumbled something about running into the door. I knew that weren’t true, but I didn’t say nothing, just took my flour, went home, cooked up them hoe cakes, soaked ‘em in cane syrup, and minded my own business.
     Velma started coming and going more in the daytime when Davey was sleeping. I knew she weren’t doing her grocery shopping ‘cause I never saw her with no groceries in her arms when she came home. She always came home about an hour before Davey got up. She’d come home either dancing down the street or looking like her world had ended. Talk was starting to get around, too. I heard them talking in the Piggly Wiggly and the Post Office about Velma. People in town was saying some right ugly things about Velma, but you’d have thought it would have been Ben they was saying ugly things about, but it weren’t. The man don’t ever get the blame when it comes to town talk. Why you reckon it’s that way?”
     Sara shifted. “I don’t know, Miss Kate”.
      “Well I don’t neither” She cocked her head and listened with intensity, “Lord that ole pig out there’s gonna root himself straight to China”. Miss Kate laughed.
     Sara unfolded her legs, pushed out of the chair, walked over to the window, and peered out into the dirt yard.  Sure enough Daisy was digging up a nice piece of the yard with her snout and front hoofs. 
      Sara turned back around and leaned against the window.
      Miss Kate’s hands stopped working the dough, and her eyes focused beyond the faded blue pattern of the kitchen wallpaper. “I don’t know if Velma had many friends and those she did have kind of quit coming around. She was so wrapped up in Ben Watson, she couldn’t have seen the sun if she hadn’t felt it shining directly on her face.
     I think that Velma and Ben was planning on running off together. That’s what the rest of the town thought too. I’d been overhearing talk at church and at the Piggly Wiggly.  With all that talk, it was only a matter of time before Davey found out. Three months had gone by and I got to noticing that Velma wasn’t hanging out as many of her underclothes at mid month like she always done. Usually around the fifteenth of the month that clothesline would be full of her white step-ins flapping in the wind.”
     Sara interrupted, “Miss Kate, what do underclothes have to do with anything?”
     “Lord, child, underclothes has a lot to do with a lot. You see, most women still wore them bulky pads during their monthlies. We didn’t have no Tampons , like you got today, and if we did, nobody bought them much. Them pads back then were bad about not catching everything, if you know what I mean, and when a woman had her monthly, naturally her underclothes got messed up a bit. Well, of course, this meant more clothes to wash. More underclothes hanging on the line. Know what I’m talking about?”
     Sara nodded, “Yes’m. Velma was pregnant. Whose was it? Davey’s or Ben’s?”
      Miss Kate shook her head, “Guess we’ll never know. Guess we’ll never know for certain if she was even with child, but it was mighty peculiar about the mid-month wash.”
     “What happened, then?” Sara asked.
      Well, I got a bad toothache one night. Couldn’t sleep to save my soul. Got up and crushed up some aspirin to put on my tooth. It was a Monday night too. I remember because Davey had brought over my snuff that morning before he went in to bed. I seen him leave for work about nine thirty that night ‘cause I was outside on the porch talking to Miss Marshall. She was having a time with that son of hers. He had come back from Detroit and was causing all kinds of problems. Didn’t a month go by but that Miss Marshall wasn’t calling the Sheriff to cart that boy off to the jail to sleep off a drunk.” Miss Kate shook her head at the memory.
     She scooped up another handful of dough out of the bowl, rolled it into a neat ball and placed the dough ball on a beat up aluminum pizza pan.  She spit into the snuff can, wiped her hands on the rag tied around her waist, and continued with the story.
     “Davey walked out of gate that night, stooped and looked back at his house all mournful like. He didn’t even call out good evening to me the way he usually did before he set off to work. Just stared at that house of his, put his head down, tucked his lunch sack under his arm, and walked off slowly towards the mill. It was a nice summer night. I remember that. I sat out until about ten o’clock with Miss Marshal, then she said she had to get home. She had brought me a jar of that blackberry jelly she used to make. I went to bed right after that but got up again around three in the morning because that toothache struck, so I went back out on the porch to sit ‘til it wore off. There wasn’t no body in sight.  All the houses on the mill was dark. Every once in a while I’d hear a cat fighting or a hoot owl hooting from the trees by the river. It got so quiet that you could hear the humming of the street lamps. My tooth had just started easing of a little when I heard Ben’s car pull up behind in the alley way. Velma’s back door slammed shut. That snake had slithered back, alright. I heard a dog bark down the block, then another, and another. That don’t happen unless someone’s walking the street after everyone has gone in for the night. I thought I saw a shadow of a man creep up on the side of Davey’s house. I got kinda scared. Thought maybe I ought to try and make my way across the street to Miss Marshall’s house and call the police from her phone. I didn’t have no telephone. The windows was wide open at Davey’s so the night breeze could travel through. The back door slammed again and I heard Ben’s voice from inside the house and then, to my surprise, Davey’s. He only spoke one word real loud, and I knowed it was him. He said, ‘Why?’. That’s all. Just that one word. But that one word carried more weight and sorrow in it than any I had ever heard. Velma started crying a little. Not loud sobs, just little girl whimpers. Ben hollered out one time, Velma screamed, but then it’s like the scream just died off before it really got started. Then it all grew quiet again. It all happened so fast that if I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought I imagined it all. Davey came out on his porch, sat on the steps and cried like a baby. He never knew I was sitting in the shadows on my porch, not more then seventy feet away from him. That boy’s hurt traveled all the way across my yard and hit me right in the marrow of my bones. Directly, he got up and went into the house. The back door slammed four times, then the sound of a trunk being closed by someone who thought they was being quiet, and then the engine on Ben’s Chevy roared. I heard the car take off. About two hours later, I saw Davey walking down the street. By this time, the sun was casting the beginnings of pink wake up rays on the street. Davey walked up to his porch and went inside, but not before he turned my way and said, ‘Good morning, Miss Kate. How you doing?’. I told him I was doing fine, thank you, and he went into the house. The next night Davey got up as usual, got dressed and walked down to the mill for the night shift. All was normal for about a week and then one day the Sheriff pulls up at Davey’s. Before he went to talk to Davey, he sauntered up to my house with that gun slung low on his hip like he thought he was Bat Masterson or something. ‘Hello, Miss Kate,’ he said to me, ‘I need to ask you something.’ I was out in the yard planting that wisteria you see wrapped around that oak tree there. ‘You seen Velma lately?’ he asked.
     I pretended to think for a minute.
     “Well, not lately. I did see her one day last week when she was hanging out wash. Come to think of it I haven’t heard her radio playing in a while either.”, I told him.
     The Sheriff squinted down the road and then lit up a cigarette. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally he spoke.
     ‘Thanks for your help.’
     He started to leave but I stopped him.
     I asked him, ‘Sheriff what’s the matter?’
     He chewed on a toothpick in his mouth for a second and then told me, ‘Oh, probably ain’t nothing,’ he said, ‘Her folks called from Forsyth and said they hadn’t heard from her. They’re just a little concerned. They talked to Davey on the phone, but they wanted me to come by the house and check on things. Davey told them he hadn’t seen her. I wouldn’t worry about it none, Miss Kate. You know how things go sometimes.’
     I told him I sure did know and to let me know if there was anything I could do to help.
      He told me to just call the station if I happened to see anything, but he also said he didn’t thinking I would.
     The sheriff left and walked over to Davey’s. I don’t know what he and Davey talked about, but whatever it was, it must have satisfied that Sheriff ‘cause he didn’t come around no more. A few days later at the Piggly Wiggly I heard Miss Juanita tell Betty Ann Miller that Velma and Ben had run off together and wasn’t it sad about poor old Davey?
     Davey worked at the mill for another two years, then he met a girl from around Augusta that he ended up marrying. Last I heard he was running her daddy’s auto parts store and doing pretty good. Nobody ever saw nor heard from Ben and Velma again. My money says that if you were to go to the old sawmill and dig around where they use to pile the saw mill shavings you’d find two bleached out skeletons, and that one of them would still be wearing a tattered orange and red silk scarf around its neck. That’s just what I think though. But I’m just an old woman, so what do I know?”
     Sara was silent for a long time. Miss Kate didn’t say a word either.
       “Why didn’t you tell? Sara asked. “I mean that’s murder. That’s wrong. You should have told somebody what you heard that night”.
     Miss Kate looked at her a long time then quietly said, . “I don’t know. I don’t know why I never told. I should have, I reckon. Life’s full of a lot of should haves. Too late now.”
            “But why didn’t you tell the Sheriff what you had heard?”, Sara asked again. 
     “I don’t know, child! Lord.  It wasn’t something that I thought about. When that Sheriff came up and asked me, I didn’t know what to say. And afterwards… well. And I did like Davey. Still and all, Davey probably killed Velma and Ben. Later, after I thought about it, it just seemed better to let sleeping dogs sleep. Reckon when I go sit at Judgment Day, God will have a thing or two to say to me about it.”
     “Married people don’t really do that anymore, do they?”
     Miss Kate laughed, “Yes, but they do it in court now. They drag all their dirty laundry out, use the young’uns as weapons, and take each other for everything they can. Some people can be civilized about it, but not all. Worse than killing someone, I reckon.”
      “Think my mamma and daddy will be civiilized if they get a divorce? They barely speak to each other now.”
     “Well, if they ain’t civilized, you just call Miss Kate and I’ll straighten them out.”
     “They never even look at each other anymore”
      Miss Kate reached out her hand and ran it through Sara’s lank brown hair.” Well, Texas, your mama and daddy sound like they got some troubles that don’t have nothing to do with you. Things’ll work out. Don’t you worry. Just let them decide what’s best for them, and then it’ll get better for you too.”
            “I know, Mama told me that right before we came out here.”
            “Then believe it. Believe it and do the best you can. At least they won’t end up doing something crazy like Davey done. Things were so different back then. Times have changed a little. I always thought that if Davey had felt like the town wouldn’t have labeled him a coward, he would have just let Velma and Ben run off together and wished them good riddance. Back then though a man had to think about his reputation. Davey didn’t want anyone’s pity, so he took the only way out that he knew and then started over. There’s a mite fine line between love and hate.”
            Sara sighed. “That’s sad what happened to Davey and Velma.”

     Miss Kate bowed her head, closing her eyes for a brief moment in what looked to Sara like prayer.  After a moment the old woman turned back to the dough and finished rolling it into half a dozen little soft balls. She placed them haphazardly on the cookie sheet, opened the oven door, and placed the pan inside. She wedged a dishcloth just inside the oven door before she closed it.
“Oven don’t close like it used to. I guess a lot of us don’t”.

      Sara went home that night and dreamt about white rounded clouds, sad songs, lies, and doors wedged shut with pretend smiles.