Wallyworld was closed when Chevy Chase finally managed to arrive, and so was the closest bar-be-cue joint by the time I got there. I breathed in slowly through my nose, like I was taught to do in yoga. It wasn’t the end of the world, this was a first world problem, but just what I wouldn’t do for some pulled pork and slaw. My one and only coworker had grated on my nerves all day, badmouthing our President and leaders, poking his nose in ALL of my business, pretending he knew me better than I knew myself. It’s a dang wonder I hadn’t thrown my stapler at him. On top of that, I had an appointment with my accountant after the grueling day at work. I despise doing adult things like that. If I never have to see another lawyer, doctor, or banker, that would be just fine by me. As a matter of fact, I decided on the spot, if I ever hit the lottery, they’d be the first people I’d do away with. As quick as I could get me a financial adviser nailed down (Monte B, I’m looking at you), the next person I’d hire would be someone to manage my other business. I would never have to schedule another appointment or ask questions about my money. I could literally just drift along on the high seas from the balcony of my yacht. I could be awakened by my massage therapist every day, and sip French 75’s while my chef prepared me a spinach, mushroom, and cheese omelet. We could sail to wherever my adopted sea turtles were hanging out and I could go ashore whenever I felt like shopping for new books and shoes. Or we could port and I could just order some things off Amazon, like I do now. Sitting there in the empty parking lot, the neon sign no longer blinking and buzzing, I shut my eyes and imagined I could feel the wind on my face, the salt on my lips, and the coconut drink in my hand. I wanted it so badly. I was going to be 70 before I could retire. SEVENTY. Nobody in my family lives to see 80!!! I’d been working full time since I was 17, had never drawn a dime of unemployment. I deserved a break.
Well, nothing was going to change sitting here getting mad about it. I started home, and on a whim swung in the oldest gas station in town for a Mountain Dew Icee. I had a bottle of Vodka that needed a friend. I sat the cup down on the counter and sighed, looking over the lottery tickets behind the plexiglass. Bright colors, bold graphics, designed to catch your eye.
“Which’ns you want?” the grey haired, snaggle toothed lady asked me.
Well, I didn’t know. I didn’t think I wanted any, I was just looking at them, but since she’d went to the trouble of asking….I’d played the Powerball exactly one time. But I figured I could manage scratch offs.
“Gimme five of those Triple Sevens,” I instructed her. “What’s the Powerball up to?”
She jerked her thumb at the screen rolling with green numbers.
386 million.
That was enough. I always say I’ll play whenever it’s over 286 million and never do.
“Put ten on that,” I added. The computer shot out a curling receipt. I would have to #1) keep up with the blamed thing, and #2) remember to check my numbers. I didn’t even know when they were drawing, but I had Google.
That was another thing I got tired of: people asking me if I’d seen this or that on the news, then acting flabbergasted when I told them I didn’t watch the news, that it was depressing. Not one thing in my life would be different if I watched the news. They blow weather totally out of proportion; every rain is a flood, every little bit of snow is a blizzard, and every thunderstorm is a tornado. I’d be afraid to leave my house for the murderers on the loose and rabid dogs and possums. Not to mention the flu epidemic! Don’t use public bathrooms, don’t touch door handles or copy machine buttons. I could make my assistant watch the news, and brief me. On second thought, I didn’t plan on speaking to anybody ever again if I hit the lotto, so that wouldn’t matter. Strike that. She can get busy on my card catalog and deleting some of my 7,300 emails I’ve never bothered to open.
I sighed. Wouldn’t it be nice to only have to worry about the weather, and where you were traveling to next? I sighed again. And again, for good measure. Not that my life was so bad. But any life can use improvement. And my closet could sure use some new shoes.
I opened the front door to a very exuberant puppy dog and scratched him behind his ears. I’d only been gone fifteen minutes, but if you asked him he would tell you it was fifteen weeks. Sweet thing. He didn’t even care I didn’t have barbecue. He always gets the hush puppies first thing. I went to the kitchen and plopped part of the Mountain Dew shushy into one of my favorite glasses and stirred in a couple shots of vodka from the local distillery. Then I flopped down on the couch to watch Big Bang Theory reruns.
Sometimes my life copies Penny’s so precisely I want to email the writers and request royalties.
I idly thumbed through my Facebook feed and decided to check about the Power Ball drawing. It was tomorrow night. Better wash my face then. Couldn’t pay to have a facial to undo what residue my makeup left behind.
I rubbed my dog’s ears and fell asleep on the couch, as had been my habit for the last few weeks. I get good and warm under my blanket and it’s just too much trouble to move.
The following day at work, I daydreamed all day about my winning lottery ticket. I went so far as to make a list of all the places I wanted to travel.
- Ireland (castles. The land of my people. Maybe I could be like Scarlett O’Hara and buy my own town)
- Scotland (maybe I would run into a strapping Highlander)
- Australia (please clear my path of snakes)
- Galapagos (because of the giant turtles, of course)
- Bora Bora (in one of those huts on the water where you can watch fish from your bed)
- Paris, the city of light…with a translator firmly at my side. I wanted to see all the museums and eat all the cheese
- Venice (riding around in a gondola and taking pictures is fine by me)
- Alaska (the weather should suit me just fine. And lack of people)
- Greece (all the old stuff)
- San Francisco and up the coast to Seattle
- Nova Scotia (I read about a Christmas Tree farm there and it was fascinating)
Maybe some other tropical places. I started thinking about seafood and pastries and got sidetracked. And then I began building my wardrobe and all was lost. I didn’t even have passable luggage anymore. And would I have enough to buy a home in New Orleans? Or Savannah? Or maybe St. Augustine, I hadn’t been there yet, but I was sure I was going to love it. All that old stuff…and where would I live? Not here. Perhaps I would settle on the Oregon Coast in a house with a widow’s walk. Or maybe a snug little cabin up in the Idaho wilderness. Better buy some quilts….
I drifted off while adding to my Wayfair shopping cart.
The next day, it was all over my Facebook how the winning lottery ticket had been sold in my little ol’ hometown. I’d already sorta forgotten about buying it, I’d gotten so carried away with my fantasies of spending money I didn’t have on things I would only need if I were to hit the lotto. I clicked a link to show me more, while humming Brandy Clark’s “Pray To Jesus & Play the Lotto”.
There stood a local newscaster out front of the store where I’d bought my ticket from the surly cashier. My jaw dropped. The money hadn’t been claimed, she reported, so the identity was unknown as of now. The story ended with the winning numbers displayed. I dug around in my purse, finally coming up with the ticket.
And I felt all the blood rush to my face.
Don’t pass out, don’t pass out, don’t pass out.
Step 1. Call a lawyer.
Step 2. Wait. Find a lawyer I trust.
Step 3. Abandon hope of finding a worthy lawyer and call Monte instead.
Step 4. Don’t have Monte’s number, but call on all my wits to find him on Facebook, then his company’s name, then his number.
He was in a meeting.
Well, if I’d made it this long, I could certainly wait another hour or two.
I tried to read but my hands were shaking too badly. Then I got scared I was going to have a heart attack before I ever got to spend the first red cent. I couldn’t simply drive myself to Nashville to claim it, I would need a driver.
Or better yet, a PILOT.
My fortune wasn’t going to last no time, I could hear my elders scoffing.
And I didn’t care. #YOLO
None of this would have happened if the barbecue joint hadn’t been closed.
Writers are weird. I know this. I know I’m a tad peculiar. I’m a bit standoffish, and I’m not much for small talk. I can’t write on command, and when a story is done, it’s just done. I don’t KNOW what happens to the characters. When I started this one, I didn’t know it was going to turn into this. It just happens. But this is pretty close to what I would do if I were to hit the jackpot. I’ll probably never have to worry about it, though. Because I really don’t ever play. I do have a ticket for the Power Ball in the front cover of the last book I read. I doubt it’s worth the paper it’s printed on. All I know is that it wasn’t the jackpot
Let me begin by saying I loathe Valentine’s Day. Read that carefully. Loathe. NOT love. It’s pure hokum, all these guys put under pressure to get a ooey gooey card, roses (double gag), and an expensive, romantic dinner out. It’s utterly ridiculous. And I don’t play. Never have. Don’t participate because it’s required of you. Make your person feel special on a regular day because you want to.
Now that that’s out of the way.
My day began at the office, like any other Thursday. I was in full Valentine’s Day attire, because if you wear black people accuse you of being bitter and hateful. Even if it is true, I don’t need to hear it. Plus, I like pink and glitter. And that’s not always acceptable on a Thursday. But on Valentine’s Day it is! So I donned my heart print Lularoes, XOXO Y’all shirt, red shoes, and off I went.
I also had a pink light up flower for my hair, but even I will concede that’s a bit much for the morning hours.
Baker the Baker popped in with some delicious morsels right off the bat, flitting through like Cupid.
It wasn’t long before my momma showed up, bearing gifts. I had already warned her I wasn’t in the mood for sweets. I’ve been hauling my fat ass to spin twice a week and killing it, even though I don’t have anything to show for it. I was not going to backpedal. Quite literally.
But she had a surprise in store for me, yesiree. I got something I’ve been wanting for a long, long time.
All the hearts. All the books. Yes, yes, YES. There were other non-fattening treasures in the bag, but this was definitely my favorite.
Then she asks me if frog alley is still in existence.
Me: “Yes, you’re basically almost standing in it.”
Mom: “I knew it was close, but I didn’t know if they cleaned it up like everything else.”
Me: “Nope. Still here. Just go straight through that stop sign right here, and you’re there.”
Mom: “There used to be a monkey chained to telephone pole down there.”
Me, whipping around, : “WHAT?!?!”
Mom: “Yeah, they used to fight him.”
Me: “WHAT?!??!”
Mom: “Yeah, he used to box. They’d take bets and men would fight him. He had a big ol’ loggin’ chain that he was chained to the telephone pole with. He was MEAN!”
Me: “Ya reckon??? How’d they get him loose to fight him?”
Mom: “He was a chimpanzee. He was so mean!”
And y’all think MY stories are crazy. So there’s that. If anyone remembers more, feel free to comment. I feel like there is much more to this story.
I had to go get icing for the cupcakes I was going to make, and you can imagine what Food City looked like. Harried looking men dashing around, shoelaces undone, hair mussed, holding a dozen roses in one hand and a heart shaped steak in the other. What a bunch of malarkey. THREE chocolate covered strawberries were $11.99. I could eat a lot of tacos for twelve bucks. I got my icing, I got my bacon, and I got the h-e-double hockey sticks OUT while the gittin’ was good.
Came back here, found a sick Amber (my DC), fixed her some chicken noodle soup out of a can and handed her a pack of stale crackers to go with it. I didn’t know they were stale until after the fact when she returned them to the kitchen with only one or two missing from the sleeve. I tasted them and realized. They’d never been opened, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I fixed myself two chili dogs with onions because I wasn’t gonna be doin’ any kissin’. And then I realized in order to make cupcakes, one must have a cupcake tin. I had one, but it was 15 miles away. No cupcakes today, after all that stress at the grocery store.
Then it was time for my daily promenade around the block with Aquaman. I just made that up. It’s not REALLY Aquaman, because if I was walking around with a superhero it would be Batman and we wouldn’t be walking, we’d be riding in the Batmobile and I would have on his cape and be throwing spikes at annoying people. I digress.
On this trek that we take nearly every day, we have run across many interesting things: a bird’s nest, a geological survey marker, a water bottle painted up like a pig (complete with corkscrew pink pipe cleaner tail), a lemonade stand, a heart shaped stump, a postcard with a picture of a bear and a trash can but no message…you get the idea. Today, we had just begun, and here’s all this crap piled out by the curb. We’re picking our way around it and notice there’s some pretty good stuff there. A couple of walking sticks, a comforter that would match my pillows on the couch, all sorts of treasures. I’m terrified of bedbugs after working at the Co-op so long and selling chemicals to seemed like everybody in the county, so there was no danger of me taking anything but then I saw a book.
“Hey, look, a Grisham!” I said.
“Take whatever you want, this lady moved and left all her stuff. I’ve been cleaning out,” a man said, coming around the corner. I recognized him as one of my former customers, and asked him how his dog was. It was ever-present.
“She’s good, she’s right there.”
The beagle ambled out, trotting to keep up with him.
My attention was diverted by Aquaman heaving a big white trash bag bulging with books to the top of the pile.
He grinned.
“I’ll help,” I offer, opening the bag to see the bounty. All kinds of Grishams! And more. He got three, we tied the bag back up and walked on. He blew cat hair from the covers. Why I did not take a picture of this, I will never know.
I could not stop laughing. Only WE would ever dig through somebody else’s trash to find books. Good Lord. We’d just been to the BOGO sale the day before for our “exercise”, but did that stop us? Noooooo. I elbowed him in the ribs as we walked. Then I told him the story of the man we had just spoke to. He makes a world famous meatloaf for his neighbors.
The secret ingredient is Science Diet dog food.
I shit you not.
In roughly a mile our walk concluded, with plans to meet back at the library for the speaker at 5:30.
I made a call to Ray Ball to check and see what sort of sound equipment he needed for my conference coming up. We chatted a minute, but I hated to hold him up while the sun was a shinin’, I knew he was trying to work.
“I love you,” he said just before we said goodbye. So SWEET. I love Ray Ball.
Most women could be found shaving their legs or washing their hair yesterday evening. I was sitting attentive among a few good friends at the library, waiting for Art Bohanan to start imparting his knowledge of forensics in local murders, both of the solved and unsolved varieties. I didn’t go to gain tips on murder, either, just so you know. Although I certainly picked up a few helpful hints. I put my light up flower in my hair for the event.
Art is very down-to-earth, to be so famous. He’s extremely likable and began his talk by right away bringing up the “Kmart Indians”. Everybody knew exactly where he meant and it set the mood for fun in the face of this gruesome horror. The room was packed and he had everyone’s undivided attention.
The hour and a half chat flew by. We drank coffee and munched on cookies provided by the library. It was a purely delightful time. Especially since the cookies were clearly labeled. I don’t like mystery nut cookies, so my selection made me absurdly happy.
After it was over, I stepped around to hug my friend Malinda that I’ve not seen in a couple of years. “I just love you,” she said when we broke apart.
The emotion I felt in that sentence made tears spring to my eyes immediately. What is it about that sentence? You can tell when somebody really means it.
I got home and bantered back and forth with a Hispanic I used to work with. He told me he was my #1 fan, which made me laugh super extra hard, and that I was good, good people. Which made me smile and shake my head. I’m a mess, is what I am. Not even a hot one. One that does her best, has always done her best, and realized she fell short on many occasions. I’m not a beautiful disaster, I’m just a disaster, trying to do better. I don’t learn from my mistakes (not even about bringing a bag for my book sale haul) but I just keep moving forward. Because I have to. You have to. We all have to.
That’s the thing about Valentine’s Day. I found love in unexpected places all day. It was the best Valentine’s on record.
What’s love got to do with it?
Absolutely nothing, and absolutely everything.
P.s. I made my cupcakes today, a day late. They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination (I ran out of cupcake liners) but I think they will spark joy. Angela, I’m sorry I didn’t offer you something to drink with them. I’m not a good hostess, obviously. 
Because it’s been so rainy and generally gloomy….I felt like we needed a reminder there are “better” days ahead.
It’s the sunshine glaring off the windshields, temporarily blinding you as you make your way out of the grocery store. It’s that rush of super humid, super hot air that takes your breath the moment you step outside. You wish for air conditioned pants. You want to go to the lake, but really even the thought of lake water isn’t cooling enough to bother. Then there’s the pool….but baking on concrete and then jumping into chlorinated water isn’t really worth getting your hair wet for, either. You sweat standing in your air conditioned bathroom straightening your hair, which will undoubtedly frizz as soon as you think about going outside. Dogs dig out the earth for a cooler place to lie, and rise slowly from their shaded resting places to bark halfheartedly at strangers.
It’s so hot you can’t even bear to think about wearing black for a funeral, but remember you bought those black and white palazzo pants just for these occasions. You question the sanity of those girls who wear fashion scarves. You barely refrain from rolling your eyes at those who wear a sweater in the office against the chill of the air conditioning. You debate on moving your chair directly over the vent. It’s too hot to move, other than to get new ice for your drink. There is no baking going on, and if you need to deliver a meal to someone, it’s either going to be pasta salad or something from the crock pot.
If you maintain a garden, you know to get out there early to hoe and spray for bugs and water the tomatoes. Already the sweat runs down the nape of your neck and you briefly wonder what the weather’s like in Maine. Or Mars. You wish you had an outdoor shower. You break beans and wonder why you thought you’d need to plant two rows. You also google squash recipes and stop perfect strangers at the grocery store from buying them, so you can give them yours.
You love the sunshine, but it’s brutal on your upholstery and hardwood floors, so you invest in heavy curtains to save them. Plus it helps cool the house, opening them only for company or Saturday morning airing-outs. You tint your car windows for the same reason, and put the reflective visor up religiously every day. You drink sweet tea from dawn till dark, because it’s too hot to think about coffee. It’s complaining about how hot it is and praying for winter and football and campfires.
You wait till nearly twilight to go fetch the mail, and think maybe you could stand sitting on your porch swing a minute to listen to the cicadas and tree frogs. But the mosquitoes are out, and no bats are coming to save you because Marsha and Tim down the road tore down their old barn a colony used to reside in. Because they scared their precious little boys. Their boys could use a little toughnin’ up, in your opinion.
It’s hay season, and you may be grateful you no longer have to endure those extra sweaty miserable days for the sake of feeding animals all winter. In the hay field, you must wear long sleeves to protect from sticky stems. The dust sticks to whatever it can, though, including the shirt you’re sweating through. It gets in your eyes and up your nose. You can’t drink enough water to replace what you’re losing, and you’re too tired to eat by the time you make it in from stacking bales in The Loft Where No Air Moves and dreams of a farm go to die.
But it’s not all about the heat. Sometimes it’s about the smell of charcoal grills and newly mown grass. It’s yard sales and car washes to raise money for band camp. It’s honeysuckles on the fence and bluebirds at the feeder. It’s horse shows and rodeos and back roads and beer. It’s refreshing evening summer showers that make everything sparkle and kids playing basketball in the street and flip flops for a dollar. It’s falling in love on fair rides and hiking across mountains to a waterfall. Ponytails are the only sensible hairdo, and maxi dresses are as fancy as you get for dinner. Boardwalks on beaches and $7 ice cream cones. It’s tent revivals and tacos on patios and just a good time, all summer long.
I hope I made you remember, and I hope I made you forget.
{#907 You are the main attraction at an old timey carnival side show}
I was born a siren eighty miles off the coast of the Emerald Isle. The waters were cold, but my beauty was a flame that kept me warm. I swam wherever I wanted, only mindful of the big wooden ships steaming out for America every day. I batted my tail up sometimes, quick as a hiccup, making the sailors wonder if they saw anything at all. Maybe it was just the glimmer of the sun on the water. Maybe they missed their girl already. I dreamed of having sparkling jewelry made of diamonds and sapphires, not these devoid of color pearls. I wanted legs to dance on. I wanted a life on land.
There was one way to obtain it. I could trade my fin forever by luring a man to his death. Girls did it all the time, we were known to be mesmerizing. And we would possess the same beauty on land as we did in the sea, just without our giant, beautiful tail to propel us along. We would be known as vixens.
It would be easy enough: wait for a foggy night with a still sea, begin my enchantment by singing my siren song, beckon them closer, closer, until his eyes go gooey with lust, and then catapult out of the water like I was going in for just a kiss but really going for his heart. Or his legs, be that as it may. He swims with the fishes, I’m launched onto land with the shapeliest legs a girl could ever hope for.
I had the perfect plan; it had worked for countless others for hundreds of years. What I hadn’t planned for was a captain who was more shrewd than I ever thought to be.
I had him, tall, dark, with blue eyes nearly as piercing as my own. I was “caught” in his net and as he worked to bring it aboard I pitched forward nearly into his sinewy arms. He gasped and staggered back. I flipped my mane of hair, sure to fling a few droplets in his face. He squinted, unsure it could really be what he thought he was seeing. I beckoned him closer, edging toward the side of the net to leap out. His fingers clutched the rail, mouth agape. I smiled tantalizingly over my shoulder, patiently tapping my tail like an obedient dog. I tilted my chin and arched an eyebrow. I had him! He was just throwing his leg over when a voice boomed behind him.
“What in the Sam Hell do you think you’re doing?”
“There’s a girl out there! She’s trapped in the net!” He pointed to me, where I was in a straight up tizzy trying to get out of the net. I had swam deeper than I intended and now that the net was almost out of the water I found myself quite trapped.
“Haul away!!!” the man bellowed and the creaks began as the rough net closed around me.
Needless to say I was in a dire panic. I thrashed and somersaulted and clutched at the ropes, searching frantically for a weak spot to tear through and escape. They mistook this for drowning and reinforced their labors. Moments later, I was deposited on deck, where I lay gasping.
“Well, well, well, what have we got here?” The big man walked slowly around me, smoking a pipe. I narrowed my eyes and batted my tail under his legs but he wisely moved away.
“This will do just fine, just fine. Men, put her in the front hold.” Several went off, hopefully to see to my accommodations. He regarded me with steely black eyes over a flat nose. “Can you talk?”
“Of course I kin,” I replied haughtily. By this time, I had my bearings and had propped myself as upright as possible on my forearms, my tail stretched its full length before me. My scales glinted beautifully, iridescent in the moonlight. I was most unceremoniously lifted and carried away by men who reeked of stale pipe smoke and dead fish. My tail dragged painfully across the splintered boards of the ship deck. They dumped me in a hole, filled with chilly seawater. I barely had room to turn around.
Three days later, we made port. It had been full steam ahead since they made their catch, and for that I was grateful. The door was always bolted and latched, they were taking no chances with me seducing them to their drowning deaths, or propelling myself out. But that left me in the dark most always apart from the few moments it took to throw food down. The dashing figure I had almost lured overboard went around with a look of shock, occasionally tossing me some morsel or another. I just bided my time. As long as I was near water, there was a chance of escape. It would be a long swim back, but maybe I could catch a ride with a pod of whales. The men only spoke to leer at me, no kind words were forthcoming. They fed me a varying diet of boiled seaweed and sardines. I was feeling a little green around the gills. It was most disgraceful.
The port was a flurry of activity, everyone bustling around, children and old folks alike jostling to get a peek at me. I hid my face in my hair, but there was nothing to be done about my tail. That was what they were there to see, anyway. I understood I was sold prior to being unloaded to a man with the circus. He regarded me from above my hold in his top hat and spectacles. The bearded man negotiated for some time, and once they reached an agreement, they shook hands and smiled.
Still I waited.
My tail began to fade, it was now as lackluster as the pearls at my neck. It used to be as green as the grass on the Isle. My water grew stagnant, now that it wasn’t being circulated through the voyage. Algae grew up the walls of my enclosure. I longed for the open sea. How stupid of me to desire legs! Now I had lost both lives.
Finally, finally they hoisted me out and into a new enclosure. It was much bigger and took a team of twelve to pull it. It had beautiful shimmering curtains all the way around for privacy and I could swim three lengths without hitting a wall. Compared to my former prison, this was a palace. I swam jubilantly back and forth as the horses snorted and pulled the burden of my new home through the forest.
I was made a spectacle. There were posters with my likeness in every town where we stopped. I kept alert for the smell of the sea, but we were far inland. Children sucked their thumbs and regarded me with wonder, men raised their eyebrows and their browbeaten housewives would pull them back by the arms when they got too close. I batted my eyes and twisted my tail and prayed for Poseidon to intervene.
One day, about two years into this gig, a group of women stood at the back of the crowd, whispering to each other behind handkerchiefs. I recognized them immediately. They were sirens, too. Except now they had their legs.
And they would find a way to save me. I just had to wait.
{#378 They say revenge is a dish best served cold. You’ve waited ten years for this moment}
The following is a work of fiction. I’ve always said fiction has a good dose of fact, mixed with some fantasy. I’ll let you determine what’s what. Enjoy!
I come from a long line of rage.
My lawyers tried to get me off on a insanity plea, but I told them like I told everybody else in that courtroom I wasn’t crazy and I damn sure wasn’t sorry. I don’t think that helped my case. But I’ve been taught my whole life there’s nothing wrong with the truth.
I’ve also been told on numerous occasions to keep my mouth shut.
I’d had all I could take. The literal love of my life expected sympathy for his foolish decisions to take a lover that has bankrupted him. That’s after what I got. I didn’t feel any sympathy, I felt a maniacal fury towards him and the last ten years of my life. I’d warned him over and over again to just shut up. My head pounded, my teeth chattered, my hands clenched.
When he reached for me, I scuttled backward like a crawdad. Crawdads aren’t scared, you know. It’s just self preservation. They will fight. They will pinch you seventeen ways to Sunday if you have the misfortune of picking them up in a way they can twist and get their claws into you. Crawdads are, pound for pound, meaner’n shit.
Like I said, I’d warned him on countless occasions. He knew about my family: my Great-Grandmother, the granny witch, who was really just a gardener and healer but would drown kittens or slam them against a poplar post in a Kroger bag for population control. My grandmother, who saw a psychic like she saw her hairdresser, and cast spells on those who crossed her. The whole family on my Dad’s side was crazy: his mother killed both her husbands, one with poison in his soup, the other she shot point blank but got off because she said he was strangling her. Funny how they didn’t look for bruises. One of his brothers killed two girls after they pickpocketed his billfold in a bar he shouldn’t have been in, anyway. Felons aren’t supposed to go to drinking establishments. Ran them off the road and stabbed them like they were potatoes going into the microwave. Another brother was constantly in and out of Brushy Mountain for aggravated assault and rape. Drugs, robberies, murder. They had it all.
And I learned how to castrate pigs and calves when I was eighteen.
He should have known better.
The moron bought me a gun, even though I already had three of my own. He bought me a pretty pearl handled Case every Christmas, too.
Everything about him made me crazy. His hateful mother, who, for some reason, never believed I was good enough to marry her son. I guess because I wasn’t willing to pop out a baby for her to spoil. How utterly ridiculous for a grown man to wear Slayer t-shirts and collect Star Wars memorabilia. Yet he did. How positively foolish for these fifty year old men to go out camping in the woods once a month, usually even in the rain, without the benefit of a tent. They ate beanie-weenies, smoked pot, and drank moonshine and cheap red wine. They shot guns and swung from a grapevine pretending to be Tarzan. I’m sure they had a Jane visit multiple times. These whores, these absolute disastrous males who are bored with life after the war, too settled of an existence after what they lived in the eighties. Why did he pick me? I was never going to be wild. I was value and tradition steeped in sweet tea.
But push me…..push me. I’m the wildest cat you ever had the pleasure of petting.
And then it was all over.
Just a little blood. Just a little bleach. Just a little lie.
The last two months of rain made the digging easy.
Good friends ask questions and help you find solutions. I have a great many good friends.
Best friends keep quiet and help you dig. Of these, I have two.
I blame the moon, because I always blame the moon.
Where better to bury the dead than a graveyard? It was past midnight, because nothing good happens after midnight, so that’s when I insisted it be done. I had my charms from Savannah, and the bad juju from New Orleans, and all I could think was how the stupid son-of-a-bitch should have listened. I rolled my eyes in the dark.
There was a church nearby, close enough for us to hear the bells toll the hour. How ludicrous for church bells to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for their melody. But they did. I rolled my eyes and kicked him again under his camo tarp. A nice touch, I might add.
I warned him if we couldn’t come to an agreement, I’d get my payment one way or another. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like if, when you heard a song for the first time, you could see into the future? If you knew, in the blink of an eye what you would be doing and where you’d be the rest of your life when you heard it again? Wouldn’t that be the weirdest thing ever? “Semi Charmed Life” comes to mind. It always takes me straight back to the first week of June, 1997. We were at the beach, in a convertible, riding down the strip on the way to dinner. The air was warm with promises of what was to come, not only in the immediate future but for the rest of our just-being-shaped lives.
Yesterday, I went to the movies to watch Dirty Dancing on the big screen. Prior to the showing, the projector ran a series of facts about the film. Jennifer Grey was 27 when she was cast to play the 17 year old Baby! She had the part immediately after the audition. Patrick Swayze didn’t have dancing listed on his resume, and was nearly looked over. Val Kilmer was offered the part of Johnny Castle, but didn’t want to be branded as a “hunk”. I do not understand this reasoning, I am merely stating the facts.
The lights dimmed.
“That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me Baby, and it didn’t occur to me to mind.” A cheer went up.
It was fun being in that theater full of 40+ year old women (and a select few men). We hollered and sang and swooned. I was transported to my seven-year-old self, sitting on my lilac purple with rainbow interior sleeping bag at Amanda McCarter’s house, watching it for the first time. It was my first ever slumber party. It was the time of my life.
I remembered a few years later, under the gently rotating disco ball, hearing the Academy Award song again. My skates beneath me, rolling smoothly on that polished hardwood floor, the sound of a hundred bowling balls making laps. Round and round and round.
When will I hear it again? Probably driving down the road, just catching it on the radio. What will be going on in my life? I doubt it will find me at a pivotal moment but one never knows. I hope to be having the time of my life.
This is an old story, one I have held off on publishing. I had originally called it “But”, however when I came to this writing prompt, it was a perfect fit.
He never laid a hand on me.
It’s been ten years, but the memory of him still breaks me out in a sweat.
When he meets people and finds out they know me, I’m brushed off with a, “Oh, we went out a few times.”
I lived with him for two years. We traveled the continent together. We talked nearly every day for over six years. I loved him, because he made me. Because I didn’t know any better. I thought the constant struggle for air was a form of love.
This story is nearly impossible to write. I’ve had him out of my head for quite awhile, until a month or so ago, when in walked the director for the Women’s Center in Jefferson County. I try to make conversation while plugging in information on the QuickBooks invoice because it makes people feel more comfortable and it makes time go faster. There ain’t nothin’ quick about QuickBooks.
She was so confident in her mannerisms, just the way she carried herself and the way she spoke. She was approachable but businesslike and I found myself confiding in her.
“So what does your organization do? Provide shelter to women coming from domestic abuse?”
She nodded affirmation and told me a little about how many they had room for, some demographics of her clients.
“I was in a relationship like that once. It’s hard to walk away. You think they’ll change, you hope they mean it when they say they’re sorry. But they’re not sorry, they’re just biding time. They’re small men, who don’t have the courage to pick on the person who’s really angered them.” I kept inputting information as my eyes welled.
His eyes were like liquid chocolate when he was pleased with me. They twinkled when he teased me. But they were squinted and were the mud brown of a snapping turtle when he was angry or jealous.
“You’re a smart one,” she told me. “So many of these women keep going back, even after they know better. We keep taking them back and each time they’re a little more broken, a little more vulnerable.”
I thought of all the times he berated me for not having prepared the right dish for supper, for making an innocent comment about a guy I used to work with that pertained to something we were watching on the news. I remembered tapping my foot along to some music at a KFC way out in the desert of New Mexico. I shouldn’t have been drawing attention to myself.
“They’re jealous because they know what they’re doing behind your back and know you’re capable of it, too. They want to have the upper hand. They’re terrified if appearing vulnerable so they mask it with rage and paranoia,” I said.
“You’re exactly right,” she said. “The victims know it but they think if they act perfect enough, he’ll leave her alone and things will improve. One day they may not be able to break free. They’ve established a pattern.”
Patterns are hard to break. You see them as security, and the only stability you know. Your family is estranged because they wrote you off long ago, the first time it happened and you went back. Forgiveness is only an option so many times. You make your choices, you are accountable for them. And if you’re stubborn, you don’t want to admit that they were right. And sometimes the abuse is coming from home, too. You just fled one type and gained another. But these agencies are full of non-judgmental souls who understand and who can help you step to your next better life. People who will help you get your feet under you and be nothing but a supportive web to catch you and urge you on. There IS an escape.
I’m reading a book and the author says, “But I don’t go there anymore. That was in my other life.” I once had a different life. I had a life that everyone thought was an absolute blast- I traveled, I didn’t work, I lived on a farm with my horse, a goat named Daisy, and my longhorns named Gus and Clara. I went fishing.
He put on a good front for those around us. But I saw the cut of the eyes when I spoke and I knew what it meant. It meant shut up, or there’d be hell to pay later. But never a hand, only the mouth. I sometimes wish his words had left bruises, so people could see the pain was real.
But when he calls, I usually answer. I keep him at more than arm’s length. It’s not easy to talk to him. He knows he hurt me, but I want him to see he doesn’t have that power anymore. I’m happy. I’m healthy. I’m most definitely whole. And he should know that I’m not going to run from him. He should be the one to feel powerless. I try my best.
You have to stay strong. You have to say no every single day. It’s like any kind of addiction, they look so good at first, and you think you can have just one bite, just one piece, just one snort and walk away. But you can’t. You walked away once, don’t make yourself go through it twice. Just stay away.
If you go to church, you’re familiar with the preacher saying, “This message is for somebody. Somebody here needed it this morning. God laid it on my heart to share, and there it is.”
Somebody does need this message. As long as you’re drawing air, it’s never too late to get out. But don’t wait until it is too late.
I sat on a salt worn, splinter ridden, slate grey deck outside a restaurant in Newport Bay, Oregon. I ate a Cobb salad and couldn’t resist sharing with the sea lions scattered on the rocky beach below me. Tomato and bit of egg for me, lettuce for you. Cucumber drenched in ranch dressing for me….more lettuce for you. Between their barking and the squall of seagulls, the waves breaking onshore were nearly drowned out.
Perfect background noise for this dismal June day. Dismal only because it was June and June is supposed to be bright and just becoming uncomfortably hot. Not rainy and 50 degrees. But the Pacific Northwest isn’t known for enchanting weather. Majestic trees and rocky shorelines, yes.
And, of course, The Goonies.
I was supposed to be setting foot in Ireland right about now, but instead I was watching seals on a buoy a few hundred yards out. It wasn’t so bad. The temperature was probably about the same. Less bars and yuppier people, but that was okay too. I wasn’t in much of a mood for socializing. I wondered about the seals on the buoy. Did they swim out there, away from their counterparts for a bit of a break? Did they aim to stake out a claim on their own private real estate only to be accosted by “friends” who wanted company?
I’m glad I was alone on my deck in the overcast weather. I didn’t mind at all. Misery doesn’t always love company, you know. Watch the eyes.
Of course seals have those almond eyes and can’t really squint them at you. So maybe they can’t communicate their I-want-to-be-left-aloneness. But I wonder. And how many seals would have to pile on before it sank? I counted three, but there wasn’t room for any more.
Maybe the initial seal wanted company and encouraged its two comrades to swim out with him. Maybe he didn’t want to be alone. Maybe seals aren’t curmudgeons like me. I swear, people just need to Leave. Me. ALONE. If I don’t answer my phone, your texts, or a Facebook message, take a hint. I don’t want to talk to you. Especially if you’re asking a bunch of stupid questions. Or prying questions. Everybody seems to be freaking out back home since I just up and decided to move out here to the wilds. Well, that should tell them something, that I’ve moved away without warning and I’m not answering calls, texts, emails, or any other forms of communication. I just want to be left alone. I’m fiiiiiiiine.
The most persistent are the ones I was most desperate to escape.
Yeah, sea lions probably don’t feel that way. They seem to be of the herd mentality. Maybe they’ve never been left alone long enough to know they’d prefer it. And probably, if they traveled alone they wouldn’t attract as much attention from sharks and may have a shot at a longer life. How is that determined, anyway? “Hey, Helen. Noticed you’ve got a weak flipper. Care to take one for the team today?”
I don’t know. I’m out here, on my buoy, just wanting everyone to leave me alone and mind their own business. I’m not a seal. I’ll bare my teeth and squint my eyes and do more than bark if you try to join me without an invitation.
Get your own buoy.
