{#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.
My Grandmother had died.
We were planning her non-funeral and trying to determine what to put on a headstone. She wasn’t a religious woman. Nothing seemed right, all these pat phrases about healing and peace and joy. She was probably a little mad about dying, to tell you the truth. She wasn’t done watching her stories, or watching her grandson grow up. She was pretty much done with me, though, I’ll tell you that. My grandmother was a PISTOL, right up to the end. I went to great lengths not to cross her.
She had everything wrote out, which my mother decided to blatantly disobey. She didn’t want her name in the paper under obituaries “because it ain’t nobody’s damn business when I die”, she didn’t want a funeral “because I don’t want anybody lookin’ at me while I’m layin’ there, dead” and she didn’t want a preacher “cause they’re all a bunch of liars.”
Well.
She swore she’d haunt us, but I didn’t think she would because she didn’t want to die in the house on account of me being afraid to live there. More on that in a minute. But mom wasn’t scared of her, and neither was Uncle Dale, so they conspired to give a memorial service. Nobody would speak, and it would be fairly informal. I don’t remember what we did about the obituary. I can’t find it online, so that tells me we didn’t have one.
But back to the matter of her gravestone. Like I said, she wasn’t religious, so the crosses and doves and the like were out. Doesn’t leave a lot to choose from, but she did love fall, and there were some leaves. And then…
And THEN….
We ran up on a football leafing through the pages of clip art that could be created. And that settled that.
She loved the Tennessee Volunteers and the Dallas Cowboys, so it was a no- brainer.
Now for a phrase…a lift-me-up, feel good about life slogan to be firmly engraved on your final resting spot. None of these sickly sweet “I’ll be the star in the sky” or this crap about beautiful sunsets and comforting winds at your back would do. Nothing about gifts of today or tenderness and kindness and loving words to soothe the soul. Nope.
She would have probably appreciated something about working hard for the money, or dancing in sparkly shoes while you can (I get it honest), or perhaps don’t bother with flowers, bring chocolate and Jack Daniels but those aren’t really appropriate. Even though Bette Davis’ says “She did it the hard way”. Why do funeral directors make you pick out an epitaph right away? You ain’t right in the head for a little bit. But maybe it’s better to just get it over with. So on we searched. Everything felt hollow, all these trite expressions and passages from a Bible she didn’t read. And then I just sat back and thought.
Live, laugh, love. A common enough expression, and one she was on board with. So there we had it. Off to the presses.
Below is the finished product. I hated to abbreviate the months, it felt so tacky, even though the lady assured us that how it’s done these days. I reckon I’m gonna save for a tomb, whether it be here or New Orleans and just be covered UP with words…some of my own, of course, and a few passages from Gone With The Wind. Yes, I know it’ll cost. I priced the mini palaces already. It’s like a car payment. But…worms.
Mom does all the decorating. I take no credit. I rarely even visit.
I never know with these word prompts whether I’m gonna tell you the truth or spin some yarn. Sometimes I want to do both. And I bet sometimes I could trick you on which one was true, if it wasn’t too far fetched. Of course, sometimes my life is so weird you might guess wrong!
Let’s picture it: pure white, uniform crystals that faintly glitter, mounded up like a snow capped peak outside Denver. Dense and easily confused with sugar, but smaller granules in common households. Representative of superstitions and a commodity throughout all the years of human existence. Found in every home, forever and always. Frequently given as a traditional housewarming gift known as a pounding: pound of sugar, pound of flour, pound of butter, pound of cornmeal, and a pound of salt. May their lives always have flavor.
My grandmother loved salt. She added it liberally to watermelon, beans, creamed potatoes, anything just about. After she passed, I couldn’t ever get my mashed potatoes to come out like hers and Uncle Dale laughed and said, “Pilgrim, you ain’t dumpin’ enough salt to ’em!” That was a fact. She must’ve used half a salt shaker at a time for a pot of them.
My cousin must have watched her cooking pretty close, because she decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies when she was around ten or so. According to her, she read the teaspoon as tablespoon….but I think she was channeling Grandmother and thought they would taste better with a copious amount of salt because everything else did! We tried to eat them….but they were decidedly disgusting. I couldn’t make fun of her, though. Us cousins don’t have the best track record when it comes to chocolate chip cookies. I had tried to make some in the toaster oven when I was older than I care to admit.
I have a friend now who just won’t eat it. He refuses to salt anything at all. Not potatoes, not eggs, not nothin’. I’m not a big fan, myself, due to everything having sodium already added, but I do have to salt my taters, maters, and eggs! I mean, it’s detrimental to the quality of taste. Pepper just don’t cut it sometimes. And butter tastes better salted. I’m not much of a baker, so it’s not like I’m screwing up some scientific ratio recipe (also why I’m not much of a baker). Now, I tell you what I don’t like. Saltwater in my mouth. Instant gag. I feel like when I’m swimming in the ocean I should take my Camelback out there just in case. It’s so gross, and all I can envision are the little microbes swimming around in it and all the nastiness that’s drifted over from Tokyo…ICK. This coming from a girl who remembers licking the cattle’s salt blocks in the pasture field.
That makes me think of all the thousands of discussions I’ve had over the counter at the Co-op about white salt versus trace mineral salt. Hint: IT’S THE SAME THING!!!!!!!!! Look at the label. There’s just enough copper in it to turn it brown. If you want a mineral, buy a mineral. but if you’re feeding quality feed in the correct amounts, you probably don’t need to. I’m gonna go ahead and quit on that note before I get my blood pressure up.
I thought I was doing so good, I was only buying the straight-outta-the-mountains Himalayan Pink Salt that you have to use a salt mill for. It’s supposedly “good salt” like avocados are “good fat”. Well, I’ve got bad news. According to my cardiologist, whom I trust implicitly, salt is salt is salt. Is salt. So just buy the cheap stuff. Don’t waste your time or brain cells. It’s all gonna kill us. Even though they inject potassium as a lethal injection, no doubt they could use salt. AND, we’d already be halfway to preserved. Remember Call packed Gus in all that salt to get him back to Texas from Montana? It is good for that. And tanning hides. I’m not talking about the kind we got growing up, but literal hides.
So. All in all, salt ain’t so bad. You gotta have it. It’s not necessarily life giving, but it’s life sustaining. One doesn’t say so-and-so “is the sugar of the Earth” or “the kale of the Earth”. No. they say “salt of the Earth”. Because salt is important.
There’s a whole book if you’d like actual facts about salt (not just my witless ramblings), and it was a best seller last year. Get it here—- https://amzn.to/2TI1MXr
I try to make my blog posts about me. Not only because I’m vain and self-centered (what? Y’all thought I didn’t know??) but because every English teacher I’ve ever had stressed that you have to write about what you know. And I know me. I was striving to name things I felt like I had conquered and it all seemed like such a sham. People tell me I’m competitive, but I don’t see it. I just want everybody to work as hard as me so we can get the desired result quicker. If one man isn’t rowing, it puts a strain on the rest of the crew to pull his weight. I can’t stand people who take up space and don’t contribute.
I realized I haven’t conquered much when I set down to it. There’s so much unfinished business out there. But let me tell you, I just finished a book by someone who has.
Jewel Kilcher.
She frankly amazes me. She fended pretty much for herself growing up in Alaska. She moved to Hawaii for a semester, staying with her aunt, just to try something different. When that didn’t work out, she got the money up and came home. She was yodeling in bars with her daddy when she wasn’t any bigger than a minute. She hitchhiked all over Alaska as a minor to go see her worthless mother. When she was 15, she raised the money to attend a private music school in the midwest for two years. Tom Bodett of Motel 6 fame helped her. She lived out of her beater car for a year, then a Volkswagon van. She showered in a stranger’s home who was running an escort service on the side. She spent several weeks or months (it was unclear to me) hitching around Mexico and contracted the first of many kidney infections. It’s a thousand wonders she didn’t die from one of them or somebody slashing her throat. Many times she was turned away because she wouldn’t work her body for her music. For someone who appears so fragile and sweet, she’s a dang fire ant, tenacious and determined, rebuilding and improving on anything she’s ever done. A philanthropist and folk singer, Jewel has truly built an empire from nothing. She seems so wispy and delicate but girl has got nerves of titanium. She gives credit to her ability to meditate her way through anxious times and distance herself from negative energy. She builds new pathways in her mind and refuses to get stuck in a worrying rut. I think she’s phenomenal. Even if you’re not a fan of her (pure) music, you could probably get a lot from her book. Here’s your handy dandy link: https://amzn.to/2HXkKrj I haven’t touched on hardly any of her accomplishments, but trust me, they’re there. And hard earned.
Jewel makes me think of Dolly, our local girl. She overcame so much and rose to the top like the angel she is. You would be hard pressed to find a single soul who has a bad word to say about her. She has charisma and charm in spades, not to mention a fantastic sense of humor and wit. Dolly grew up as poor as they come in a holler up the road from where I write. She had to fight tooth and nail against her brothers and sisters for a scrap of anything worth having. She got out of here to make somethin’ of herself, and boy did she! But girl worked for it. She’s a pretty as a speckled pup and bedecked in the snazziest dresses and jewelry possible, but still salt of the earth and humble. I don’t have to tell you about her awards won throughout her musical and film making careers. Everyone knows she’s fabulous, but did you know what all she does for the kids in this county? She sends them a book a month from birth to five years old through her foundation. When I went to the website to validate this, I found that this program now reaches children all over the world! I was astounded by how many books have been gifted since the conception in 1995. This act of wonderfulness touches my heart so much I can barely see to type. Read more at https://imaginationlibrary.com/ Dolly is truly something else. She also gives $1000 to each graduating senior at her Alma mater to encourage them to stay in school. Education and literacy are extremely important to her. It’s okay to talk and think like a hillbilly, but you better have some book sense to get through this world. After the wildfires in 2016, she also stepped up to help the displaced families in a very real way. With CASH. She is a true steel magnolia. Speaking of that, when the crew was filming down in Louisiana during the summer, all the actresses were frying. ‘The women were dressed for Christmas, and Dolly was sitting on the swing. She had on that white cashmere sweater with the marabou around the neck, and she was just swinging, cool as a cucumber. Julia said, “Dolly, we’re dying and you never say a word. Why don’t you let loose?” Dolly very serenely smiled and said, “When I was young and had nothing, I wanted to be rich and famous, and now I am. So I’m not going to complain about anything.” Taken from this Garden and Gun article: https://gardenandgun.com/feature/thirty-years-of-steel-magnolias/ Grace and beauty abound under all that makeup and sparkle. The God just shines out of some people, and she’s one of them. We’ll probably never know the extent to which she helps people, all the souls she’s touched.
Scarlett O’Hara, even though fictitious, is another strong willed, driven, courageous woman who conquered Yankees, Carpetbaggers, destitution, and starvation. All anybody gave her credit for was a pretty face. Scarlett raised her chin and got to work, doing whatever had to be done to not perish like so many after the War. Call her what you will, but call me back after you’ve birthed a baby with Sherman burning down the city around you, fled in a wagon with said mother and child behind a stolen mule to travel hundreds of miles of rutted dirt roads across enemy territory to find your home ransacked, your Momma dead, and your Daddy crazy. Tell me you’ve conquered life after you’ve thrown dirt in the face of a scallywag trying to buy your home, slapped the jawteeth loose of two Southern gentlemen (done!), picked cotton till your hands blistered and calloused, killed a Yankee deserter, stood up to the face of old Atlanta for decades, and buried two husbands and a child. When you’ve pulled yourself up by your bootstraps after you declare your true feelings to the loves of your life and they look right through you and leave. When you make a way for the rest of your life.
Yeah. I’d want Scarlett in my corner every time.
You better watch these women who seem to be all bosom and no brains. They conquer worlds.
{WP #815 the poem that won awards and sparked so many to love poetry again}
I sat down to write it, summoning Jesus (’cause everybody’s momma loves Jesus), Shel Silverstein (’cause grownups and kids alike love him), and David Allan Coe (’cause he wrote the ultimate country and western song). I had to be humble, and funny, and true. I had to please the masses. My success depended on it. No pressure, right?
It had to have music and roses and candlelight
To make everything just right
It had to be whimsical
And moody
And uplifting
But also rhyme and not be uptight
It had to say a million "I love you"s
It had to sing with all the joy everlasting
It had to be the one thing you could memorize
And let the world know you were sophisticated
It had to make you forget about your problems
And make you feel light
And graceful
And place stars in your eyes
It had to talk about all the ugly things turned beautiful
Because this is the perfect poem
The one where there is the gorgeous tree
And the luscious fruit
And the breathtaking ocean
And all the things we dream about at our desks at 1:30 in the afternoon
{WP #942 The City Behind the Waterfall}
My backpack weighed only eight pounds, but it may as well have been eighty. The mosquitoes were literally eating me alive, and I wondered how effective my malaria shots were if the swarm sucked all my blood and I had to have a transfusion from a native who had NOT had the recommended rounds of anti-malarial antibodies? Something else to worry about. Writing for National Geographic had been a dream of mine since I was old enough to look at the pictures, and I knew I was beyond fortunate to have this experience, but the tribesman scout that I had been assigned to was a brutal hiker and I was dog tired.
I missed my dog, speaking of dogs. I missed chili dogs from street vendors in Chicago. I missed going to the movies to see a chick flick. I missed my beautiful canary yellow Volkswagon Beetle. I missed getting all the electricity I needed from a wall socket. I missed makeup and uncomfortably high heels, and most especially, I missed my books.
I collapsed on a rock covered with vines. I didn’t have the energy to look for snakes. All I’d seen were lizards lately, anyway. They liked lounging on my tent. My Bushman stopped his whacking and faced me with the universal quizzical “How can she be tired already? Wimpy girl” look. I feel sure that if he knew how to roll his eyes, he would have. Or if he’d had a watch to tap, maybe that. As it was he looked up, maybe to check the weather, but giving me another view of the porcupine quill through his nose.
He snorted and vaguely gestured with his arm. In response, I chugged water and slowly brought my legs under me to stand. I was dirty and itchy and exhausted. We’d hiked ten hours to our campsite from the village the day before, and were on our sixth hour today into the jungle. I had been assured there was a waterfall of enormous beauty nestled in this region, and this particular tribe guarded its secret.
So we trudged on, wet leaves smacking me in the face, going ankle deep in soggy moss every 100 yards or so. My wool socks were most definitely causing blisters but I knew Patoi Pete here wasn’t about to let me stop long enough to change them. I was panting and thinking how this looked like Jurassic World when I thought I heard rushing water. I paused and I could feel the vibration from the pounding of millions of gallons of water plummeting off a rock ledge. I smiled with relief and charged after my guide. You never know, following these guys into the jungle. I’m sure Nat Geo doesn’t share everything they know…or don’t know. The key is to develop a rapport, and you just have to trust your gut. These secluded tribes have no concept of mind games or blackmail, so what you see is what you get. Sometimes it’s endearing; sometimes it’s terrifying.
This time it paid off and I wanted to throw my arms around his beaded neck. If I had carried a bottle of Scotch and a cigar, we would have shared the moment. But all I could do was stare in bewilderment and wonder. My guide lunged into the pool and started to cross the glassy water. He slapped it at me, indicating I should follow. I was busy taking shots and was trying to capture the moment in my mind. The smell of ions in the air, like after a thunderstorm. The mist at the base of the falls. The roar, almost deafening at this range. Everything was quivering, including my stomach. I unlaced my boots and peeled off my socks and left my camera next to them as I stepped in. The water was deceptively cold, and I tried to stop my teeth from chattering as I followed my fearless leader over to the veil. He swam under and I followed, soaking every last inch of my camo tank top.
We emerged at a glass wall.
I blinked, and blinked again. This couldn’t be. I was in a third world country. They barely had pottery, let alone glass. He motioned me up some granite stairs. This couldn’t be right. When we got to the top, I looked back and the waterfall was still there, but it looked like a river of diamonds. The sparkle hurt my eyes.
We passed through a curtain of sapphire beads and the smell of cotton candy enveloped me.
Was it a circus? Was it Las Vegas? It was too clean to be New Orleans and I had never been to Dubai but it felt so ritzy it had to be somewhere. It wasn’t just I had crossed behind a waterfall, I felt that I had changed dimensions, centuries, and location.
A champagne fountain bubbled to my right. Elegant people wearing elegant clothes holding elegant drinks gazed at art adorning the glittering walls. It was too much. The last thing I remember seeing was a Bengal tiger being fed white mice from a gilt cage by a small girl with golden hair. The music swirled around me. Beethoven? Chopin? I was never what you would call cultured.
I woke up in a straight jacket in New York City. The paperwork in front of me read “Hospital for the Insane of NatGeo”. I had the impression of being well above the city, even though there were no windows.
I took one each of the assortment of pills lined in front of me and laid back on a pale pink pillow. I dreamt of climbing a tree.
Sharkbait! Ooh-ha-ha!
I’m the first to admit I would just as soon my death be delivered via shark bite than a car wreck or cancer. My friends say I’m crazy. But think- how cool would it be for y’all to say, “I know a girl who got eat by a shark.” And you would relish in it.
The chances are pretty good it could happen, too. My preferred depth of swimming in the ocean is shoulders deep, because that’s right before where the waves break and I don’t have to get beat up by them. I like to be able to bounce off the sandy bottom when one is rolling in and then be able to stand flat footed the rest of the time. Evidently this is the prime feeding area for sharks. I also like to swim late in the day when the sun isn’t so intense.
I’m sure it would be completely terrifying. And it might hurt if he doesn’t hit a major artery first thing. But what’s worse- the terror of being trapped in your car and being cut out while everybody stares or being eaten by a magnificent creature? Slowly wasting away, getting weaker and sicker every day and everybody forcing you to fight it when you just don’t have any more fight in you? Watching their eyes go all liquid and heartbroken when you tell them? No thanks. I’ll take the shark attack. Let there be glory!
So, yeah. You might get to say it someday. Just remember, I died doing what I love. And it was better than the alternative.
Throw a big party. Smuggle booze to the funeral home. Tell your best Amy story. Have a great time, one last time, in honor of me: The Girl Who Swam With Sharks.
