Author: melgrieves

People 55 and over move to new locations for various reasons.  Sometimes the reason relates to climate, perhaps health concerns, some may relate to job or volunteer opportunities, some people are ready to downsize, some want to be closer to family.  People here seem to have moved to this area for any or all of those reasons.  I moved here along with a lot of others to be around people of similar age.  A senior community seemed like a good fit for me.

I’ve found, however, even though people here are by and large a friendly group, that I don’t always feel overwhelmingly welcome.  I know everyone here and they are familiar with me.  They just don’t seem to look forward to seeing me all that much.  I don’t think it’s because they think I’m all that different or unusual or odd.  I’m not quite sure what it is about me that seems less than desirable.

I guess I am pretty noticeable in this neighborhood.  Most everyone sees me every morning and usually in the evenings too.  I am around a lot and I’m loyal to those I become close to.  But I get the feeling that some people just wish I were not here at all or at least not around them.   I really can be seen everywhere in this neighborhood.  I’m considered fairly well known and kind of groovy, I enfold you in love and happiness,  I express a full life with many joyful times, my lineage is prolific, I progress over time.  Maybe no one likes me all that much, but I’m here to stay.  I won’t be leaving anytime soon.  I’ll repeat, I’m loyal, I’ll never leave you, I’ll be with you forever. 

As I mentioned, most people see me in the mornings and in the evenings.  If you’re like most people, you get up in the morning, you probably shower, dress, brush your teeth, comb your hair.  Some of you like to put lotion or makeup on your face.  Some of you shave.  Throughout all those activities, you are glancing in the mirror to ensure you look presentable.  It’s only natural that the image in the mirror reflects back to you and whispers, ‘Here I am!’    

Do you recognize me now?

Your groovy forever buddy,

Wrinkles

I have a mini goldendoodle

Paisley is her name

She really belongs to my son

But I love her just the same

My son is on a trip to Long Beach

He goes each summer for some sun,

Horseback riding, mini golf, and hiking—

The whole family enjoys the fun

Paisley’s a “senior” aged dog now

And she can’t see much at all

So she walks around carefully

To protect herself from a fall

I can tell she has a good memory

She figured out my floor plan quite well

And remembers where the water is located

And the food she can quickly smell

Her hearing is also quite good

So she knows when I am near

I tell her when to “step up” or “step down”

So with me she has nothing to fear

I take her on walks to the mailbox

I’ve learned to bring a bag along

When her paws feel the blades of grass

She leaves a small present on the lawn

She’s not overly fond of other dogs

Probably because she cannot see

But she loves the attention of people

And being belly-rubbed by you or me

I have her for one week only

I’ll miss her when she is gone

My son picks her up on Saturday

Then it’ll be just me and my very clean lawn

© 2011 Melody Grieves.

Even with a tight grip on the walker his family insisted he use, Walter Pritchard nearly fell over backwards when his daughter walked through the apartment door.

He turned and snapped at his wife, Gladys. “Why didn’t you tell me she was coming?”

“We did tell you. Lotsa times. You just don’t remember.”

“Oh.” Walter knew he was losing his memory, but he kept forgetting that he knew it. All the old stuff he remembered like it was yesterday. In fact, the older the memory, the more quickly he could bring it into focus. He figured the most recent thing he remembered clearly was his 85^th birthday when he’d told Diana, this daughter who’d just stepped through the door, not to send him any more books because he could no longer remember what he’d just read on the previous page. That was his only clue that they weren’t lying when they told him now that he doesn’t remember something. How long ago had that been? Now Diana was here again, out of the blue, all the way from Seattle.

He dared not loosen his grasp on the walker as she gingerly hugged his shoulders. Her hair smelled wonderful, like pine trees and salt water. Or was he just remembering their trips west to visit her?

“Hello, Dad. How are you feeling?”

He tried one of his old lines, hoping to make light of the situation. “Okay for an old feller.” Then he forgot what situation he was trying to make light of. He felt tears come to his eyes. “What are you doing here, Di?” Then to his wife: “Does this mean I’m dying?”

“I just came to visit, Dad. That’s all. I have a few extra days off and thought it would be nice to spend them with you. Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Gladys raised herself from the sofa and limped across the living room to greet Diana. “Hungry, honey?” Diana followed her mother to the tiny kitchen.

Walter made his way to the table that separated the kitchen from the living room. He hated this cramped apartment and missed their old two-story house in town. “She’s here two minutes and already you got to start eating?”

“She’s here two minutes you gotta start with the criticisms?” his wife shot back.

Walter might be losing his memory, but his powers of observation, when he was awake, were fully intact. He saw the eye-rolls exchanged between his wife and daughter.

Walter reconsidered sitting at the table and tottered back to his recliner. More comfortable than the straight back chair and, if he switched off Gladys’ soap opera, he’d still be able to hear them talking. He straightened the granny-square afghan, carefully turned his backside to the seat and slumped into it.

“Every time he feels his heart skip a beat he thinks he’s dying and wants to go to the hospital. I don’t know how many midnight ambulance rides we been on. I think he just likes the attention.”

“Oh Mom. Something must be wrong. He’s not making it up, you know.”

Damn women talk about me like I’m not here. “I can hear you, you know! You’re as loud as you are fat!” He glanced up to see them both scowling at him, his aging wife of God knows how many years and the daughter who could have been her twin 35 years ago, if you could do that with time. In his mind, you could. He scowled back. “Well, at least maybe Diana will believe me about dying.” Then he lay back and closed his eyes.

The women’s voices faded and gave way to a parade of recollections marching through his mind. He remembered when Diana was a little girl, how she had loved to stretch out on the back seat of the Chrysler and pretend to sleep, but still listen to what her parents were saying up front. She told him once that the conversations sounded “dreamy,” like they were happening in another world, one degree away from reality. He smiled to himself. They were a lot alike actually, both dreamers in their own ways. Except lately, everything seemed dreamy to Walter, and he had trouble telling real from unreal.

Walter dozed off amidst the kitchen chatter and the smell of potato soup bubbling on the stove, then awoke with a start when he felt his heart alternately racing and stopping, pounding hard, then not beating at all. “Call 9-1-1! I’m having a heart attack!” He tried to sit up but couldn’t get the La-Z-Boy into its upright position. When he looked up, two women stood over him, one on either side, peering down at him.

“See?” Gladys said. “This is what I’m talking about.”

The other woman held his hand and felt his wrist for a pulse. He jerked away. “You’re not my nurse!” He squinted at her. “Diana! When did you get here?”

“A little while ago, Dad.” She pulled the chair handle and pushed on the back so he could sit up. Then she sat in Gladys’ chair beside him, still holding his hand, and asked him what he was feeling.

He tried to explain it, but could only point to his chest. He felt his hand trembling. He wanted to cry. Please, don’t let them see me cry.

“Okay,” she said. “Try this. Breathe in deeply. All the way into your belly. Come on, do it with me.”

Walter watched his daughter’s abdomen balloon outward as she took a long, deep breath. He couldn’t help matching her breathing pattern. She’s hypnotized me. When did she learn how to do that? Several more breaths and he felt calmer. His heartbeat returned to its normal rhythm. He reached over to stroke her hair with a steady hand.

This daughter used to hold my hand when we crossed the street, when she was just a babe, small and fragile. When did she become such a big lump of a woman?

“Come eat some soup, Walter. It will make you feel better.” Diana helped him to his feet while Gladys continued to babble. “I keep thinking he just can’t get no skinnier. Look at him. Nothing but skin and bones. I think even his bones are shrinking.”

It had been a marriage-long battle between them. Gladys adding weight while he lost it. Gladys forever trying to cook him the perfect meal she hoped he would savor and compliment, and he finding fault with every dish, screwing up his long nose in disgust and often leaving the table early. As Gladys and Diana had gotten heavier, he’d dwindled to lean, then scrawny, then almost anorexic. And even though he knew, in truth, that Gladys was a fine, salt-of-the-earth cook, he’d never been able to withdraw from the fight.

Walter sat at the table and waited for Gladys to serve his lunch. He felt the warmth of her hand when she lightly rubbed the back of his neck after setting a bowl of soup in front of him. Then she unfolded a paper napkin and tucked it into his shirt collar. Walter picked up a Saltine, broke it in half, set one half on the rim of his soup plate, and spread a thin coat of butter on the other. He dipped the buttered half cracker into his soup, and brought it to his lips, carefully testing the soup’s heat. He never wore his dentures when he ate. They hurt. He wore them only when he had to go out in public. Gladys usually took her suppers in the communal dining room of their assisted living complex. She loved people. He hated people watching him and ate most dinners in his La-Z-Boy with Dan Rather as company. He still missed Cronkite. He gummed the cracker and stared across the table at Diana. She grabbed half a dozen crackers and crumbled them between her palms and into her soup. Then she added a dollop of cold milk and a squirt of ketchup, extra salt and several grinds of pepper, and stirred it all into one mushy glob. It just about turned Walters’s stomach.

“I can’t eat this,” he muttered and reached for his walker.

Gladys reached for it too and pulled it away from him. “You have to eat, Walter. What’s the matter? You don’t want no lunch?”

Out of habit, he corrected her. “Don’t want any lunch.”

Diana touched his arm. “Really, Dad. You do need to eat. And you usually like potato soup.”

Did he? At that moment Walter couldn’t remember. “All I know is that nothing tastes the same anymore, Di. I don’t feel like eating anything.” He steadied himself with the table’s edge as he rose from his chair and his glare met Gladys’. She finally shrugged and pushed his walker back to him, and he shuffled off to bed.

* * *

Two days later Walter found himself feeling pretty good and checking his image in the mirror over the mantel. He noticed he was dressed to leave the apartment. He shifted the baseball cap that sat on his thick white hair, not greasy but clean today, patted the pack of Kools in the navy Polo shirt pocket, checked the fly on his khaki-colored Dockers, and then stared at his feet. What the hell are those monstrosities? “Gladys! Where did I get these shoes?”

Someone else answered. “We bought them Friday, Dad. Remember? The doctor said a good pair of walking sneakers could improve your balance.”

Walter smiled, suddenly remembering that Diana was visiting. “You’re still here.”

“Yes, for one more day. Have to go back to Seattle tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay.” He considered his apparel again and made a guess. “Are we going for a ride?”

“Just waiting on Mom. Any place special you’d like to go?”

“No, the usual.”

For years now, whenever Diana made a trip back to Michigan, they would climb into the current Chrysler — Walter always bought Chryslers — and take a drive over all the back roads, past farms where his parents and aunts and uncles had lived, through the town where Diana and her sister had grown up, the house they lived in for so many years, and out to Clear Lake where he and Diana had spent many a morning fishing for that elusive Mr. Trout. Today, apparently, their ride would be Chrysler’s latest invention, the PT Cruiser Diana had rented at the airport. He did remember, to his immense irritation each time he did so, that he’d been forced to give up driving when his wife and daughter had confiscated his keys and sold his last Imperial. Walter grunted as he crawled into the back seat. “I can’t believe Chrysler made this thing.”

“Brand new for the new millennium, Dad.”

“Hardly room enough to lie down back here. Good thing I’m a lot skinnier than either of you.”

Gladys frowned at him from the front passenger seat. “If you’d ever take time to notice, neither me or Diana is very heavy any more. You just don’t want to have nothing to pick on us about.”

“Don’t want to have anything,” Walter said. But as usual, she wasn’t listening.

Diana countered, “It’s okay, Mom. I stopped listening to Dad’s snipes years ago.” She revved the engine, checked the mirrors and turned on the radio, twisting the dial until they heard Ernie Harwell’s voice describing a double play like no other baseball broadcaster could. “Harwell’s retiring after this season. Did you know that, Dad?”

Walter didn’t answer. He had already stretched out as much as he could on the back seat and had snuggled in to that dreamy place. If he did fall asleep, he counted on Gladys to rouse him when they passed things he might want to see and when they stopped at Webber’s Country Market.

“You shoulda been a boy, Diana,” said Gladys. “Still nuts about baseball. If Uncle Will was still with us, I bet we’d be spending the day at the farm so you could go fishing and ride horses.”

Diana upped the volume on the radio, but Gladys kept talking.

“Who’da ever thought my pretty baby girl would grow up to be a fireman?”

“Fire fighter,” Diana corrected, for the millionth time.

Walter damn near giggled.

After a quick tour through town where they stopped in front of the old house and commiserated over its disrepair, they headed toward the lake via Territorial Road, so they could pass by Uncle Will’s old place. Walter remained upright during this part of the drive. This scenery brought back his earliest memories, still clear, so close he thought if he concentrated a bit harder he would be able to touch them. His teenaged summers spent working the fields, the huge farmhouse where he and his cousins lazed on the screened-in stone porch when it was too hot to play baseball, the kitchen where Aunt Polly “cooked for thrashers” during harvest time. Now those were perfect meals!

Walter was pleased to see that whoever owned the place now had kept things up. The barn was recently painted, the garden well tended, the house looking as proud as it always had, maybe even a little fresher. He wanted to ask Diana to stop the car so he could go press his hands into his father’s palm prints, left there for posterity when he had poured the cement for the stone porch, long before Walter had been born. But his gaze shifted to the lane ahead, the one that led from the back pasture to the road.

“Whoa! Stop! That pinto is loose out here!”

At the end of the lane stood a brown and white quarter horse stallion, not yet in the road, but looking as if he was considering it. Looking as if he owned it.

“Turn in!” Walter told Diana. “Turn in and block his path!”

Diana did as he told her. Thank God she’s not arguing, for once.

“Now just inch forward, get him moving back toward the gate.”

The horse stood his ground until the Cruiser’s bumper closed in. There was room to go around the car, but as Walter had guessed, the horse thought better of it, turned and trotted up the lane, snorting and tossing his head wildly.

“Keep going. Get him cornered down there at the end.”

Diana followed instructions and angled the car to allow less room for escape. The gate to the pasture was still open, but the horse made no move to go through it.

Walter, forgetting his age and frailty and feeling empowered by his new sneakers, opened the back passenger side door and literally hopped out of the car. He staggered hurriedly toward the horse, waving his arms. “Hyah! Get in there! Get!” He felt like a hero, protecting not just the horse from possible danger, but somehow his wife and daughter, too. Then he heard Gladys screeching at him, and then the Cruiser’s “ah-ooga” horn. He knew Gladys had been the one to honk the car horn. Diana wasn’t that stupid.

The noise was too much for the horse. It reared high and dangled its hooves over Walter’s head. His heart pounded and he felt faint. He tripped as he scooted backwards, and tumbled to the ground, rolling into a ball on his side. The stallion’s feet landed just inches beyond his own. Walter knew that horses preferred not to step on people, but this one seemed crazy enough to buck nature. He closed his eyes tight and opened them moments later to an incredible sight. Not to hooves hovering over him, ready to send him to his next life, but to Diana bracing her tall, powerful body in front of the stallion, punching the horse squarely in the chest and screaming “MOVE!” And the horse did, turning sharply and saunterint into the pasture as calmly as an old mare. Walter wasn’t sure which amazed him more — the horse’s sudden change in attitude, or his new vision of his strong and capable daughter.

Diana closed and secured the gate and ran back to kneel beside Walter. “Dad! Are you okay? Where do you hurt?”

“Where in hell did you learn to do that?”

“From you. From those stories you and Uncle Will told me, years ago. Never mind that. Are you hurt?” She gently tested his limbs, moving them slowly, and checked his head for bumps and cuts.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Soft grass here. Just help me up.”

By that time Gladys had wrangled Walter’s walker from the back of the car and hobbled over to them. Eventually they all made it back into the car, Walter and Gladys sharing the walker, and Diana supporting both of them.

After they had all settled back into the car Diana slowly backed down the lane. “You sure you’re okay, Dad?”

“I’m fine, Di. Don’t worry.” In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time. “Let’s get over to Webber’s. You women have some cooking to do.”

Suddenly the back seat of the Cruiser felt as comfy as his La-Z-Boy. The Tigers had won their game and Diana changed the station to easy listening. Gladys hummed along with Dean Martin. Walter made a mental note to say something nice about his wife’s singing voice, but at the moment he was busy practicing the deep breathing Diana had taught him. He eased into a light sleep and popped wide-awake when the car crunched gravel and came to a stop at the market.

“We’re here, honey,” Gladys chirped. “What you want for supper tonight?”

Walter had been dreaming about his Aunt Polly’s cooking. The all-time best meal she ever cooked was for his twelfth birthday. “I want pork chops with milk gravy, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, tomato pudding and cucumber salad. And apple pie for dessert.” He winked at his wife. “And no lumps in the mashed potatoes.”

Gladys smiled back appreciatively, probably savoring this tidbit of flirty good humor. But still she argued. “You know you can’t eat all of that. And you couldn’t eat corn on the cob even if you put your teeth in.”

“Let me worry about that, Mom. You make the pie, I’ll cook dinner. I know what I can do with that corn, but you’ll have to tell me how to make tomato pudding.”

Walter decided to stay in the car and let Gladys and Diana do the shopping. He waved a greeting to Pike Hendershot and Pike wandered over to say hello. They agreed it was a fine first week of September. When Walter told Pike about his supper order, Pike smacked his lips and said Walter was in luck. This was the time of year when late corn met up with early apples. Walter nodded to himself as Pike walked off. “Yessiree. A purely magical time.”

Diana raised the hatchback and deposited bags of produce, then plunked down in the driver’s seat.

“Where’s your mother?”

“She ran into Ruth Webber and they’re having a chat.”

“Oh Lord. We’ll be here for half an hour, at least.”

“That’s okay, isn’t it? You doing all right?”

“Sure, I’m fine.” Walter saw the doubt in Diana’s eyes as she squared around in her seat to face him. “Well, not fine. We know that. At least you and I know that. Your mother doesn’t seem to.”

“She’s just concerned about you, that’s all. We all are.”

Walter again fought back tears. “It’s hard some days to hang on, Diana. If it weren’t for Gladys, I’d have died months ago. I’m ready to go, but I worry about how she’ll get along after I’m gone. We were always sure that she’d be the first to go, with all her ailments.”

Walter hoped he wasn’t laying too much onto his daughter. But he figured if anyone had the right disposition to cope with his honest thoughts, it was Diana.

“But then I started to fail. I was doing great until I turned 84 and I had that little heart thing. I thought I’d get back to normal, but by the time I was 85, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.” He glanced up to see that Diana’s eyes were wet, too. “I’m sorry, darlin’.”

Diana sniffed and swallowed. “Well, it’s not your fault, Dad. Life happens. I’m just sorry that you’re having such a hard time.”

Walter let out a long sigh. “I’m so tired of living, Di. If it weren’t for your mother…”

“You don’t need to worry about Mom. We’ll take care of her.” After several minutes of silence she added, “I don’t want to lose you, Dad, but when the time comes, I want you to know you can let go in peace.”

Walter had a hard time meeting his daughter’s eyes again, overwhelmed by her compassion and generosity after all the years of his barbs and criticisms. If I were Diana, I’d be stomping me to the ground like that stallion tried to do.

“But with the way you’re acting and conversing today, I think you just might be on the mend.”

They smiled at each other, and Walter wondered if she really believed what she’d just said. He knew what he believed.

Gladys got into the car and chattered all the way back to the apartment, all the way down the hall and all the while they unpacked the bags, sharing the gossip she’d gleaned from her friend. Walter relaxed into his recliner, took in one deep breath after another, and purposely brought forth his oldest memories, until he could feel the harvest sun on his skin, hear his mother’s lullabies, smell the sweet smoke from Uncle Will’s pipe, and taste Aunt Polly’s Parker House rolls and freshly churned butter.

He dozed intermittently, awake often enough to keep track of the progress in the kitchen. Gladys schooled Diana on how much butter, brown sugar and tomatoes to add to the bread cubes for the pudding. They could bake it along with the apple pie, she said. Mmmm. I really should admit to Gladys at least once before I die that her piecrust is the best I’ve ever tasted. He heard Diana explain to her mother how she planned to scrape the corn kernels off the cobs and sauté them with a little green onion and minced red pepper. Maybe I’ll wear my teeth to dinner. He awoke at one point to a crash in the pantry when Gladys sent Diana in search of the potato ricer, her secret to lump-free mashed potatoes. When he smelled the blessed aroma of sizzling pork chops he went to wash up while Diana stirred up the milk gravy. He’d missed the mixing of the vinegary cucumber salad, but it was there on the table when he came out of the bathroom and sat down in anticipation.

Walter didn’t exactly chow down like his 12-year-old self, but he did eat a portion of each dish offered, and savored all of it. He even asked for a scoop of ice cream on his apple pie. Then, when he was more sated than he could ever remember being in his entire life, he smiled at the two women he loved most and said, “Thank you. That was a perfect supper.”

Gladys beamed, never having heard those words from him before. Diana looked at him a bit curiously and leaned in to gather up dishes. He tried to cover up a belch with his napkin, and they all laughed.

After he’d settled into the La-Z-Boy and pushed it to the far-back position, Walter closed his eyes and let go. Walter finally felt at peace.

When I was a kid, I thought “chiffarobe” was a silly word my mother made up. My father called this hulking piece of furniture an “armoire.” He was the smart one, not Mama. Neither of them was very educated but Daddy read a lot, took pride in speaking properly, and had a refined sense of style. He said that came from his British heritage and I believed I had inherited every bit of it. Mama hailed from German farm folks who tended toward poor grammar and loud beer drinking, and the only literature they took in were snippets of scripture and church bulletins on Sundays. I’ll give them this though: they knew how to work hard. If it weren’t for that quality, and the fact that I have the misfortune of looking exactly like my mother, I would swear we weren’t related.

We’re moving Mama into a nursing home next week and before we do, I’m working late each night to get her chiffarobe stripped and refinished. It’s the one thing she insisted go with her. That and her rocker-recliner so she can watch TV — and nap intermittently — in comfort. Stripping fine mahogany of decades worth of paint and human imprint is a slow process, requiring patience and attention, knowing you can just as easily ruin an old piece of furniture as restore it if you’re too heavy handed. And yet you have to be brave when you apply that first layer of paint remover. It’s strong stuff. Even with wearing gloves for most of it, my nails crack and my fingertips turn raw, but I’ll make this old thing beautiful again, even though I know Mama will most likely hate it. We never agree about anything.

Mama and I have fought from day one. She returned to her factory job as soon as she could after I was born, which wasn’t so common in the 50s, leaving me in my grandmother’s care each day. Frankly, I never thought Mama liked me much, and I guess I’d have to admit, I didn’t really like her much either. Long before I was a smart-assed teenager, I was convinced I already knew more than she ever would. But at some point I came across the word “chiffarobe” in Carson McCuller’s The Member of the Wedding. It was the first inkling I had that Mama might know something Daddy didn’t.

The chiffarobe is older than Mama, belonging first to her mother. It became mine for a few years before I left for college, when Mama got on one of her room-switching terrors. Three or four times a year she would rearrange the living room, and every now and then we would come home at day’s end to find that she’d reassigned a couple bedrooms.  When Mama was angry or upset, she could move mountains. Beds and dressers didn’t stand a chance. People in the outside world thought Mama was like a gentle horse, easy to ride, always willing to go with the flow. But those of us who lived with her knew her wild side.

I figured when she moved me into Daddy’s and her room, she got too tired to move the chiffarobe, or maybe couldn’t find my brother, Donny, to enlist his help, because it stayed behind in my new upstairs bedroom, which, in my opinion, was the best room in the house. They’d moved into the Main Street house the year I was born, when it was already over a hundred years old. Daddy had meticulously ripped down walls in each room and re-plastered. He’d had a string of unrelated careers, from selling shoes to trying his hand at farming, and somewhere along the way acquired skills in building and plastering. They’d also lived in a string of rental houses, and buying the old Victorian with the wages they earned at the new factory in town was the best thing they ever did, according to Mama. She said it was the first time she felt stable, and that Daddy’s job at the factory suited him since he got to inspect others’ work all day and he always liked to criticize what others did rather than to do it himself.

While I loved the work Daddy had done on all the other rooms — I could lie around for hours and seek out faces and objects in the sponged plaster walls — I loved my new bedroom best. It was the biggest room, situated over the living room downstairs, with three double-hung windows facing the street and two more looking out to the east. The wallpaper was still in good shape, as was the gold band of moulding that ran around the room, twelve inches down from the 9-foot high ceiling. Above the molding and on the ceiling, the wallpaper was a mottled white pattern, but barely a pattern. More like someone spent days blowing soap bubbles until their rainbow-colored shadows covered the entire surface. Below the molding, thin vertical stripes of the same mottled white and a deep, rich burgundy ran down to the original pine board floor. I loved the oak hardwood floors Daddy had put in downstairs, too, but these pine floors had stories in them.

I shied away from getting attached to the chiffarobe at first, for a couple of reasons. One was that I never knew when Mama would suddenly reclaim it and make my brother and Daddy haul it down to her own bedroom. She had always been fond of it. But maybe she figured that with the chiffarobe upstairs and her downstairs, Daddy might finally build that long-promised closet.

The other reason I didn’t let myself get attached to the chiffarobe was that, in a way, it reminded me of Mama herself. She was hitting the worst phase of menopause at the same time I was entering my worst phase of puberty, and we were at odds 95 percent of the time. I suppose it’s natural for girls to hate their mothers during this phase, but for us it seemed like second nature. Everyone assumed Mama and I were close, just because I happened to look like her. I tried every method possible to look different from her: slathering on fake tanning cream to combat freckles and fair skin; growing my hair long and ironing it straight (she wouldn’t let me change the red color); dieting and exercising to the point of exhaustion, which was pointless against the tall, big-boned frame and oversized appetite I’d inherited; and wearing a pair of minimum-strength drug store reading glasses that I thought made me look smart and studious, as if I belonged more to Daddy than to Mama. The chiffarobe was tall and big and square, just like Mama, just like me. Worse, a full-length mirror covered the inside of the right hand door, the side with space for hanging clothes. So I would stand in front of the Mama-like structure each morning, choosing an outfit for school that would make me look like the person I felt I was inside, and at the same time see my own half-naked Mama-like structure in the mirror. It made me want to cry.

On the other hand, I loved the left side of the chiffarobe with its shelves for shoes, drawers for sweaters and underwear, and especially the row of cubbyholes. Still, it was at least six months, after Daddy finally gnashed out a closet for Mama. Eventually I felt at home in my new room and bonded with the chiffarobe. I didn’t have big secrets, but there are things no teenage girl wants her mother rummaging through. I filled the cubby holes with school papers, pictures and news clippings, a diary I would restart every few weeks and abandon after three days, drawings and doodles done in dream states while Mr. Perry tried to teach us algebra. I framed the mirror with photos of The Beatles and my favorite Detroit Tigers, and found faces and stories hiding in the mahogany wood grain. For a few years, Mama’s chiffarobe became my chiffarobe, until the start of my senior year.

Each September, over Labor Day weekend, Daddy drove to Pennsylvania to visit the last of his known relatives, his Uncle Gilbert. Since I was six, I’d been allowed to go with him. My brother used to go, but at 13 had declared he had better things to do. Mama happily remained at home to do her fall house cleaning with none of us “slow movers” in her way, and I was grateful to have Daddy all to myself. On top of that, Uncle Gilbert’s wife, Aunt Ruby, spoiled me rotten for three whole days.

I was especially glad to get away that year. Mama had been on several terrors, nagging at everyone about every thing, and she’d started in on Daddy again about redoing the last room in the house, my bedroom.

“We been living here for seventeen years. Plenty of time to finish the job. Why can’t you ever finish nothing?”

“Anything.” Daddy responded out of habit.

Mama shot him a killer look.

“Why can’t I finish anything?” he explained, though I was sure she knew what he meant after hearing his corrections for so many years. She didn’t soften, so he took the next best approach, that being to humor her. “Well, let’s see.” He looked across the kitchen table at me. “What colors do you like, Lizzie honey?”

I cringed inside. I did not want to lose my soap bubble ceiling, nor my wonderful burgundy stripes, and please leave my pine board floor alone. He winked at me when Mama turned back to the stove. “Don’t worry,” he mouthed, and reached his hand out to smooth my hair, his signal that everything would be okay.

So I played along. Maybe we could stretch out this planning stage until I graduated and left for college. I would still hate for that wonderful room to change, but better later than while I still lived in it. I thought of the room I stayed in at Uncle Gilbert’s house, the cream-colored walls and dark wood trim, the drapes flecked with gold, and the forest green leather chair in the corner. I liked that combination. “Green and gold sound nice,” I told Daddy.

Mama didn’t say a word, didn’t stop stirring.

Daddy nodded. “Well, let’s consider that a while, shall we?”

I thought that would be the end of it. After all, my room wasn’t the only thing Mama had been nagging about. Now that there was a start on that issue, she’d move on to something else. And cleaning would occupy her while we were away.

We had a great trip east that year. Mostly we talked baseball and colleges and dream homes. How disappointed we were in the Tigers that season. What Daddy would have done with his life had he been able to go to college. The new plans he’d penciled for the ranch style house he wanted to build. And for the hundredth time — I would never tire of hearing it — all about his year with the Pirates, ending the story as he always did, holding up the too-small hands his manager said would never make it in the big leagues. It was pure freedom, zooming down the highway in Daddy’s refurbished Cadillac, the smoke from his Kool rushing out his open wing window, radio tuned to a big band station, dreaming our dreams.

But it was a nightmare when we returned home. First clue: the smell of fresh paint. I clambered upstairs without saying hello to Mama, then crumbled to the floor. The floor, pine boards covered with multi-tone rust-colored shag carpet. The walls, painted pea green. The ceiling, dark ochre. Mama’s vision of “green and gold.” Worst of all, the chiffarobe — emptied of its drawers and contents that now sprawled across my bed in illogical piles and stacks — the chiffarobe had been shellacked with olive green enamel paint and topped with a gold faux antique finish.

It’s hard to say all that happened next. I was so affected, it all seems a blur to this day. I do remember Daddy criticizing Mama for painting over wallpaper, how that wasn’t going to last, and Mama replying that she couldn’t wait forever for him to get around to it so she had to do it herself, like she had to do most things around there. She was proud of herself for getting so much done in three days, for going with the green and gold I had suggested — they did seem like royal colors, she
said — and for getting a deal at the carpet store.

And I remember screaming at her. “No wonder you got a deal on the carpet. It looks like vomit! Who else in the world would want it?” I pointed at the walls and ceiling. “Don’t you have any taste at all? There’s nothing royal or even the least bit attractive about that color combination. It looks like rotting lettuce and baby shit!” Tears came to my eyes when I looked at the chiffarobe. “And you’ve totally demolished any beauty that dumb old monstrosity ever had!”

Then she slapped me, hard, across the face.

* * * * * *

I’m amazed now by just how much paint Mama managed to get on this thing. Thank God she didn’t paint the inside, that wood remains innocent. Fumes from several quarts of stripper have made my eyes and nose burn, and now the tedious, careful sanding makes my arms ache, but finally the wood grain lives again. I wonder if Mama will appreciate this. Or will she lash out at me the way I lashed out at her when she painted it? Will she understand that I’m doing this out of love? We’ve had so few moments of mother-daughter love. Whenever one of us has tried to get close or share anything meaningful, it deteriorates into a screaming match.

In two days we’ll move Mama from the rehabilitation place into her room at the nursing home. I know she hates this plan, and I expect she’ll keep asking when she can come home to her own little house. Daddy never did build his dream ranch house, but he managed to situate Mama in a cozy Craftsman before he died. We’ll play along, my brother and I, when he bothers to show up to visit. But I don’t expect her to leave the nursing home. My brother can’t keep a job, because of his alcohol problem, and can’t be depended upon to take care of her, and my job takes me away from home too often. Otherwise I would move in with her for the duration. At least, I think I would. The way we go at each other sometimes, it might do her in before her time. Actually, we thought her time had come with this last fall and broken femur. But the doctor says it will likely be her weakening heart that gives out first.

The next night I rub oil into the bared wood with a soft cloth. I’ve decided not to use varnish, but to keep the finish natural, let the grain and texture speak its own truth. After the shellacking Mama gave it, I’m certain it is grateful to breathe again.

When the day of Mama’s move arrives, I reassemble the chiffarobe in the garage and wait for the movers. I spray Windex on the mirror and make it shine. When I look at my reflection, I see Mama. I’m about the age she was when she took an evil paintbrush to our favorite piece of furniture. It took me a lot longer to restore it than it took her to ruin it. It takes more work to fix a mistake than it does to make one.

When they wheel Mama into her new room, I have things pretty well put together, just finishing hanging her clothes in the wall closet. I’ve turned the closet side of the chiffarobe into a TV cabinet, and filled the drawers and shelves mostly with what she’d had in there before, including the things of Daddy’s that have been there since he died: a stick of Old Spice deodorant, the antique magnifying glass he’d resort to for small print, a well-worn silver cigarette lighter, the pocket knife I’d given him for Christmas when I was eight, and the prized baseball signed by his Pirate teammates. I like that his drawer still smells of Old Spice. Mama’s chair sits opposite the chiffarobe, for easy television viewing, and her bed sits along the far wall. “Far” is a relative term in this room. With these few pieces, plus the bedside table the nursing home provides, there’s just enough room to get her wheelchair in and out.

She appears smaller and more frail than I ever thought possible. I ask if she prefers the chair or the bed right now, and she answers that what she prefers right now is the toilet. The nurse wheels her into the bathroom and probably expects to stay in there to assist, but Mama shoos her out. “I can manage!”

Still my mama, I think. But when she comes out, I see the tears. She looks around the room and sobs. “This is all I got left.”

I stand behind her, stroke her hair, peach-colored fluff now that there is so much gray.  “You still have your chiffarobe,” I say, hoping to cheer her. It makes her cry harder.

I know she has much more to cry about than the chiffarobe, but I think focusing on that will help all the other memories and fears subside. “Don’t you like it? I spent a week of late nights restoring it.” I pull a tissue from a box I’d tucked into one of the chiffarobe drawers, but she beats me to the punch by snagging one from inside her sleeve.

“You never did like my paint job, did you?”

“I guess we just have different tastes, Mama.”

“Oh Lizzie, I wanted so bad for you to love me like you loved your daddy.” She blows her nose and looks at me with such sad eyes it nearly breaks my heart. When did those flashing brown eyes start to fade? Now I’m crying too.

“Honey, I don’t begrudge you loving your daddy. I loved him too, loved him first. But I doted on your brother and that left him to dote on you. And I guess that worked out okay. Funny though.”

I must have a strange look on my face, because she follows up with “Not ha-ha funny, but odd funny. The kid you didn’t want in the first place is the one who ends up being there for you in the end.”

I don’t know how to take that and hold onto my thoughts for now. In an effort to make a better relationship with her, I’ve cautioned myself to think before I speak when dealing with Mama. “You want me to help you into your recliner?”

She nods, but keeps talking. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you were young, Lizzie. I wanted us to get along better, and I tried. But nothing I ever did ever worked. It made me wonder if you knew…”

“Knew what?”

“When I got pregnant with you, we’d just started working at the factory and your dad was wanting to buy a house. I didn’t want another baby, not then.”

I half-lift her from one chair to the other, prop the footrest in the middle position, and cover her with an afghan. Then plop myself into the wheelchair to sit beside her. This is rare, Mama being so open and emotional. I fidget with the fringe on her afghan, waiting for her to talk. It’s unnerving, but I don’t want to miss a word. “I guess I can understand that, Mama.”

“No, I mean I really didn’t want you. I drank some stuff that was supposed to get rid of the pregnancy, but it didn’t work.”

“What stuff? Where’d you get it?”

“I don’t remember what it was, and it don’t matter who gave it to me,” she snaps at me. She looks like Mama again, the crying apparently over. “What matters is that you seemed to hate me so much, I was sure somehow you knew what I done.” She lets her head drop back against the chair and sighs. “I mean, what I tried to do. It’s been worrying me all these years.”

“So this is to clear your conscience now? Is that it?” I cross my arms and hug myself. “No, Mama, I didn’t know you tried to abort me. But I sure as hell knew you didn’t like me.”

I can feel us heading toward deterioration again. I don’t want to go that route, but damn, she can get to me. What on earth makes her tell me this now? I find the remote where I put it, close at hand for her in the pocket of the recliner, and switch on the TV. Flip through channels until I find her favorite reruns station. M*A*S*H is on. Good. One of our areas of middle ground. How we fought over Viet Nam, totally opposite opinions, as usual. But we can laugh together while watching Hawkeye.

I’m glad for the silence between us. I wonder where she’s headed with this talk. If she starts harping at me about the abortion I had, I’m out of here. Another horrible fight we had, at a time when I needed a mother desperately. She’d told me I was selfish and besides, I should have the baby so I would have someone to take care of me when I was old. I said I thought that was selfish, and besides, what if the kid turned out to be like her precious Donny and was incapable of taking care of himself, let alone anyone else? I’m glad I still have the Kleenex in my hand.

I guess I hadn’t been looking at the television, or my eyes were too blurry to notice that I could see the both of us in the mirror on the open chiffarobe door. I hadn’t thought about it when set I things up, that Mama would also be watching herself when she watches TV.  And so there we are, at once so close and so far apart.  And who knows how long we have together, if you can really call it “together.” And what will I do if I live long enough to be sitting in a wheelchair for real?

I see that Mama has nodded off. I get up and sort through the chiffarobe drawers, reorganizing. She wakes and catches me sniffing the stick of Old Spice. I decide to start over on our conversing. “I can’t believe this still has a scent.”

“I saved those things for you, Lizzie. You should have them. And you’ll take that chiffarobe when I’m gone,” she orders. Our eyes meet in the mirror. “You’ve gone and claimed it already anyway, looks like.”

Okay, I’d tried to keep the peace. I’d held everything in. But that does it. “Mama you just don’t get it. You say you did everything to get me to love you. Well, what do you think I’ve been doing for fifty fucking years? I know I’ve screwed up. Many times. But I keep trying. And you keep letting me know every chance you get that I’m the one who never does anything right. I just don’t know what to do anymore. You’re going to die one of these days and we’ll still be fighting.” I throw my body onto her bed, bury my face in the pillow and bawl, like I did when I was a kid, like I still do when that kid inside me feels overwhelmed.

Mama has never been the type to comfort me when I’m crying, and I certainly don’t expect it now. So I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel her hand on my shoulder.

I crank my head around to stare at her. “How did you get into that wheelchair and scoot over here without me hearing you?”

“Lizzie, you’re a very loud crier. Always have been, since you was a baby with colic and Daddy wore a path in the carpet, walking you around the dining room table. Nobody can hear nothing … I mean, nobody can hear anything when you’re in the middle of a cry.”

Now I’m laughing. Mama making an effort to correct her grammar at this stage in her life. She laughs too. One thing I have always loved about Mama is her laugh. It’s as loud as my cry, bold and full out. I make a mental note to bring in a video camera and get it on tape.

Mama strokes my hair now, like Daddy used to do, like I stroked hers earlier. “I am sorry, Lizzie. I’m sorry for how I was when you came along. But I’ve never been sorry I had you. And no matter what anybody says, I loved you and you loved me. We just ain’t good at showing it or saying it. Why I told you all that was to say that life is crazy and you should accept what comes and find a way to love it, because it might turn out to be the best thing that ever happens to you. Don’t cover up your love, Lizzie. I wasted too many years doing that.”

For once I feel no need for words of comeback. I reach out and hold her hand. I want to keep this moment going forever. But Mama, always on the move in one way or another, now has other needs.

“You think you can get up off of there and let me have a lay-down?”

Of course, she must be exhausted. While she naps, I’ll go shop for a lightweight robe, toiletries and something to dress up this plain room.

Mama settles on the bed and withinin seconds I hear her soft snoring, but she snorts awake when I fish my purse out of the chiffarobe. “Lizzie?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Lizzie, I like the chiffarobe. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Mama.”

I lean down to kiss her forehead and hurry to leave, afraid I’ll cry again. Who knows how long I’ll have her, or whether we can really restore our bond, if we ever had one to begin with. But today I’m thinking we stripped off that first layer of paint.

Before I close the door behind me, Mama practically hollers. “Lizzie! Lordy, Lizzie, put some lotion on them hands!”

“Pa, do you think we might never have our own home, again. I mean someplace we can stay for a long, long time?” I asked quietly.

I sat on the lumpy couch that served as my bed. The blankets piled on top smelled like mothballs, and the odor from old worn-out quilt was even worse. Cat pee was what I thought.  The dim flickering light of the gas lantern cast shadows across the small trailer house walls. I had just finished reading a Donald Duck comic for the hundredth time. It was my only one. I had thought about sending in some money to get some of those sea monkeys they advertised on the back cover, if I had any money.

My dad was just sitting in an old cane chair, staring at the floor, yet another Camel cigarette tossing swirls of smoke into his eyes. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the rolls covering over the rips and tears. The denim jeans, almost white from wear, displayed a few patches that he had sewed on himself. They ballooned out from his thin body. His wide striped suspenders, now off his shoulders, hung loose on either side.

He was a hardworking man, but he had his hand around a drink glass full of whiskey. Not his first of the night.

“I’m almost eleven years old and that would be something I would like for my birthday.” I said and began dreaming about it coming true.

“Maybe we’ll find a genie in one of them bottles laying all over the place and he’ll grant us three wishes and one of them wishes with be a fancy home with running water, and an indoor privy, and maybe electric lights, and…”

“Now hold on just a hair Henry, it’s nice to wish for all them things but you gotta quit daydreaming, ya hear.” His father said with a touch of sadness, and lifted the glass of brown liquid to mouth one more time.

“That kind of thinking just confuse reality, don’t ya know.” He added.

The deep wrinkles and tan, wild black hair, and hands that felt like sandpaper were a testimony to the farmhand work he had performed ever since I could remember.

I stared at my father’s face for a short time, then lay back on the couch.  I knew he was right, and I knew all those bottles I was talking about wouldn’t contain a genie. They used to be full of liquor.

I lay on the lumpy pillow looking up at the dark water stains above my bed or couch, depending on whether you are sitting or lying. There was a constant leak every time of rain, which wasn’t very often. Pa finally slopped some tar across the entire roof to mend the problem. I was mighty thankful I didn’t have to cover up with plastic tarp any more when I went to bed. I rolled to the edge of the couch and looked down at the floor. The linoleum was scuffed and worn out in places where people had walked. It just showed black now. We put some loom weaved throw rugs in a few places, but even they were just about as bad.

The air in the old trailer house was stale and the smell of the dust constantly wafted through the loose-fitting windows and doors. Along with that, the cigarette smoke and the exhaust emanating from the lantern send me outside on a regular basis.

I would usually go sit on an old picnic chair just outside the door, my rear end sometimes slipped right through parts of the plastic weaved seat.

I decided now was a good time to head in that direction.

 The soup pot and bowls were still in the sink waiting to be washed, but that never happened very quickly. Pa would start a glass of whiskey before we were even done eating, and that would be the end of him wanting to do anything the rest of the night. I would wash them up after I got some fresh air, I thought.

I pulled off my shoes and socks, stared at my toes as I wiggled them to give them a workout, and slipped out the door.

The stars were beautiful and the summer night was warm. I was just relaxing when I heard footsteps.

“Well, Henry Harper, whatever are you doing out here by yourself tonight?” She exclaimed as she had walked by the trailer.

Mrs. Jensen and her husband, Gaylord, were the owners of the place. Pa had worked for them for almost a year. She was a nice woman and treated me alright. Her husband was mean.

“I’m just star gazing, I guess. How you been, Ms. Jensen.” I answered.

“Doing fairly well, just wished we’d get a little more rain, but ain’t that the way always?” she said and smiled.

“You know much about them stars twinkling so far away?” she asked.

I didn’t say anything.

“Well, Henry Harper, lets see if we can learn something tonight, okay.” She smiled again and looked up into the darkness.

She stood next to my chair and showed me all the things I had been wandering about. I now knew about the Big Dipper, the North Star, and Orion’s Belt. Pretty nifty.

“If I find a book about stars and constellations, I bring it to you.” Mrs. Jensen offered.

“That’d be mighty nice of you, that is, if you find one that ain’t too expensive.” I countered.

She laughed and walked toward the shop where I could hear the other hired man, Willard, and Mr. Jensen talking.

I raced back into the house to tell Pa what I had just learned. My excitement turned to a sadness, which I would often feel, when I saw Pa passed out leaning on the kitchen table. I could never figure out why he drank like that til he couldn’t drink no more. I hated it.

I did the best I could to sort of drag him to the back of the trailer where his bed was, but couldn’t lift hm up. I grabbed a pillow, tucked it underneath his head, pulled the ratty divider curtain across the wood rod separating his sleeping quarters from the rest of the place, and set out to do the dishes then get to sleep. I was dang dog tired.

I was dreaming about being able to fly over a huge city but that got interrupted.

The banging on the door roused me out of a deep sleep.

“Charlie, get your sorry ass out here, there’s a fire in the swamp.” The voice bellowed.

It was Mr. Jensen, yelling for Pa, like he had done many times before.

“Dammit Charlie, you better be up and at em’ in five minutes or else you can pack your bags, I’ve had it with you.” I heard the voice fade as Mr. Jensen walked away.

I wasn’t too concerned; I’ve heard all that before.

I scrambled out of bed to wake Pa up. He was right where I had left him the night before. It didn’t look like he had moved an inch.

“Pa, get up, you got to get out into the field. Mr. Jensen is mad at you, C’mon, Pa.”  I implored as I tugged at his arm.

He didn’t move, so I threw on my pants and shirt, slipped on my worn-out boots and raced out of the trailer, almost losing my balance on the old railroad ties that served as steps into the place.

“Mr. Jensen, I yelled as I ran toward the retreating man, Mr. Jensen!”

He stopped and turned.

“Pa’s sort of sick and has kind of a fever or something. He says he’s going to try to make it out but just has to lay about for a little while.” I said, making up the best excuse I could think of.

Mr. Jensen looked down at me and narrowed his eyes.

“Son, you don’t have to say a thing. I know what the cotton pickin problem is and so do you. It’s a damned shame but that is the way it is.” He said with a bristle to his voice.

“You tell your father to come visit me up at the house when he feels up to it. In the meantime, I’ll pay you a dollar to pack up all them bottles and garbage around the back of that sorry trailer you two are staying in, and toss them into the barrel over by the big storage bin. Can you do that?” he asked.

I set off to work almost immediately, thinking about the money already in my pocket. He had paid me before I even started.

Pa stumbled, kind of dragging himself out of the trailer, looking pretty tough. He swiveled his head from the big house to the work shed and back, then promptly sat on one of the beat-up chairs.

“Where’s Willard, he hesitated, and the boss?” he asked.

“I know that Willard’s in the west breaking running the John Deere. I think he pulling the twelve-footer and some harrows.” I answered.

“And Mr. Jensen wants to see you. He’s kinda mad, I think.” I finished and went back to my chore.

My father sighed, lit up a cigarette, and sat for the longest time, just staring at his battered and scuffed field boots. Finally, and slowly, he pushed himself up and walked to the Jensen home.

I wanted to run away from the noise but couldn’t. I could hear Mr. Jensen hollering and bellowing. I figured it was at my father. I kept the garbage pickup going until the place looked pretty clean, dumped the junk, and headed back to the trailer.

Pa was sitting at the little kitchen table, and I thought, maybe he was just waiting for me to show up.

“Henry, get your stuff together, we’re moving on. Got let go from the place. Figure we’ll head on to up to the border, hope they is looking for farm hands.” He said quietly.

I thought about the fact that we were moving again. Another school after this summer, listening to all the comments and explaining why I only had two fingers on my left hand. And everything else.

“Pa, do we own a gun?” came my first thought.

“Now what do you need a gun for?” his father asked.

“I’d march over to the house and shoot Mr. Jensen. He don’t have no right to talk to you the way he did. I hate him, Pa.” I said and started to cry.

“Ain’t his fault my work’s falling behind. I think down deep you know that, too. I know I’ve been hitting the sauce and sometime I just go overboard, like last night. Seems I can’t help it. Don’t know what’s wrong, he admitted, but I don’t need you thinking thoughts of killing.”

It was the first time he ever had said something along those lines, but it still didn’t make any difference.

“Maybe you’re like Ma and ashamed of me cause I’m deformed and all. That why she left? And maybe you don’t like things cause you’re stuck with me. Is that it, Pa?” I cried harder as I asked those questions.

My father got up from his chair and rushed across to me. He grabbed both of my shoulders and bent down to be eye level.

“That is not true and will never be, so just get that thought out of your brain. I have never been ashamed of you for anything. Takes a special person to accept what God gave him and live with it. Why, you can do things with that short-fingered hand that some can’t do with their full hand.” He said in an even voice.

“Your Ma took off for a whole lot of reasons, but you weren’t one of them. Life just wasn’t what she thought it would be, so she went searching for something else. Hope she found it, too. I was the lucky one, I got you all to myself. Now let’s figure out what we need to take and get out of this place, okay.” He finished.

 My father pulled me to him. He held me tight for the longest time.

I stood, my face buried in his shirt, digesting what he had just said. Things he had never talked about to me. I tried to slow down my tears and feeling down. I looked around at our home for the last year or so. Pa was right, it was time to get out of this dumpy place.

Right at that moment I had strong thoughts of wishing I could go back to our house that we owned free and clear. It was little but had a nice kitchen and water from a faucet and a nice outdoor two holer. It was a safe, comfortable place. Damned bankers, Pa had called them, came out and evicted the two of us. Wasn’t making mortgage payments, they said. I was confused. It was our house or so I figured.

Pa explained that the farmland he was working was on a lease, and some other sonsabitches bid a higher price than he could afford, and took over the whole shebang. Lock, stock, and barre was what Pa had said.

So, we loaded everything in an old international pickup and took off. We slept underneath the chassis of that old beater for a lot of nights until Pa found some work. Of course, he was drinking almost the whole time, but we somehow made it.

Been a few seasonal jobs here and there along the way and I went to school whenever there was one around. The old truck motor blew up somewhere around Tulsa, and some of our belongings were taken by some low-down no-good thieves. We didn’t hardly have anything when Pa got this last hire. The Jensen place had been the most permanent place and now we were leaving.

Now, we didn’t even have a vehicle, so we had a couple of suitcases, and packs on our backs and got to going. Our entire belongings were being carried down the road.

“Henry, oh Henry, hold up!” I heard from behind me.

Mrs. Jensen was running up with a wrapped package and a cloth bag. She slowed as she got closer.

“I’m so sorry things had to end like this.” She paused, looking back and forth at the two of us. “But I packed some food for your trip, and Henry, this is the book I promised. Mostly pictures with night skies, but things you can learn.” She smiled and quickly turned away.

“Thank you much, Mrs. Jensen. I sure did enjoy the time here and good luck to you,” came an oddly pleasant statement from Pa.

“We got some things to work out, Henry and me, but appreciate all the meals, and the roof over our head all this time. Be seeing you, now.” He nodded and tipped his billed cap.

Mrs. Jensen stopped and stared at us for a moment. I waved and we took off down the dusty road to somewhere else.

Chapter 2

The old yellow and silver bus raced east on US Highway 64. It was the first time I had ever ridden in one of them big things. The seats were soft and comfy and I could lean back far enough to stare at the top of the cab.  A lot of the windows were pulled open to let all the cigar and cigarette smoke out.  I sat eating an apple and watching the world go by.

I imagined I was sitting still and the earth was spinning past, and at any moment I would jump across the roadway be swept away with everything else.

Pa was asleep and had been conked out ever since we boarded. I kinda think he was worried about our future buy didn’t say nothing about it.

My mind went back to a few hours ago.

“Where you two gents headed?” an old feller asked as we sat waiting for the bus call at the station.

The man had the biggest belly I had ever seen. The little short polka dot tie hardly hung down from his neck. And he looked like he was choking from that tight collar. His cotton pants were cinched up tight by a fancy green belt. They would never fall off. He was wearing a straw fedora that had a colored band around it. I knew what the name of the hat was because mean Mr. Jensen had one like that. One afternoon he ordered Pa to fetch his fedora in the shed. Pa didn’t know what he was talking about and got belittled. Another reason that I’m really glad we don’t work for that farmer.

“Don’t rightly know. Farm work somewheres, I guess.” My father had answered.

“You just get put off a job, then, huh?” came another question.

“Something like that. Put in my time and we kinda wanted to move on,” came another answer.

“Don’t know if this will help ya, but a few days ago, I stopped into a farm up Burlington way. Widow woman is kinda desperate for a worker. She’s been my regular stop for years. I sell Watkins products. Name’s Cyrus P. Carney,” the man said and stuck out his hand.

“I’m waiting for the bus to bring me another shipment of the finest products made. Coming from Winona, Minnesota. That’s headquarters.  Been selling for years. Folks know of me far and wide. Great products, yes siree, Bob,” he continued.

“We got all kinds of spices, baking materials, the purest vanilla extract on God’s green earth, and medicinals. Why, we make a pain relief salve that, after you slather it on, you’d be ready to take your sweetheart out dancing. Got a ton more things geared for the average folks in the area. Love my work, yes siree, Bob,” he finished.

“About the job?” my Pa said kinda interrupting like.

“Oh, lady named Williams, got a good size spread about four miles outside of Burlington. Ask anyone in town, they all know her,” he explained.

“And she buys plenty of my products. A good woman, that Mrs. Williams, yes siree Bob,” he said as he looked out the windows, then abruptly stood up.

Figured his shipment was probably coming in.

“Pa, do you think it might be worth a look see. I mean we got nothing else, do we?” I asked.

My father seemed a little stirred after hearing the salesman.

He turned with a smile. ”Yep, got nothing else.”

I ate a cheese sandwich and had a soda at the Kiowa bus terminal.

We had switched buses and got on US Highway 281 for a while, but Kiowa was the end of our riding. We had about seven more miles to Burlington and only a gravel road to get there. Three in the afternoon and getting darned hot, but we hoofed it.

An hour into the walk, a light green and black Mercury pick up truck pulled up beside us. Lady rolled down the window to talk.

“You fellas headed somewhere in particular?” she asked.

“Headed for Burlington, understand its not too far away.” Pa said.

“Still a fair way, but I’ll give you a lift as far as I can,” she offered.

The woman wasn’t real pretty, but had happy eyes. Her hair was kinda blonde and white mixed in and she was tanned. Not as dark as Pa, but I could tell she spent some time outside.

“Son, climb in the back and hunker down by those bags of chicken feed. Don’t be standing up, though, ya hear?” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am, I understand.”

“Well, what brings you to this god forsaken neck of the state?” she asked as Pa climbed into the passenger seat.

The wind whipped my hair around but it felt mighty nice. At least we weren’t walking. Pa and the woman were talking up a storm. Pa probably glad to talk with someone about his own age.

The truck slowed down and turned down a dirt road. I wondered why we got off the main trail. A few more minutes and we stopped. I jumped down and looked around. Someone’s place, I guessed.

“Henry, why don’t grab our belongings now and toss them over to me,” Pa said.

I must have looked confused as I looked to the woman and my father.

“Henry, meet Mary Williams, she’s our new boss.” Came the words from my grinning father.

“Son, this is what is called a coincidence, yes siree, Bob.” He grinned even bigger.

Chapter 3

“The most dangerous thing I ever did?” I repeated the question posed to me as a group of classmates sat outside the Burlington School for recess.

“Well, I’d have to say when I tried to pet a piranha fish and look what happened.” I smiled and raised his left hand.

That got laughter from my buddies. His deformity, he discovered was not a big deal after that first day of school.

“Boys and girls, I’d like you to meet a new student, Henry Harper.  He offered to stand up and tell us a little about himself,” Miss Offerdahl announced.

I stood up and looked around at the class of twelve other kids.

“My Pa and I moved around lots so I’ve seen acres of country, but never been out of Oklahoma. I don’t have a Ma, but we get along okay without her. I like reading books about constellations and space travelers and all that. But I’m not very good at math. Every time I try to count to ten on my fingers I come up with a wrong answer,” I said and held up my hands.

“Pa says I was born without a couple of fingers, but on the other hand, I’m just fine,” I continued as they laughed.

“Another thing is that it doesn’t take so long to choose which finger I want to pick my nose with.” I grinned as the class groaned approval.

“If any of you want to take a closer look at ‘the claw’ just come on around,” I finished.

I flexed my two fingers and thumb into a claw-like configuration and growled.

Nobody had said a thing concerning my hand after that day. I decided his short count of fingers was more of a badge of being—what had Miss Offerdahl said?—unique. I even had to look up the word and decided I was proud of being unique.

The school bus dropped me off at the Breckenridge turnoff. I walked about half a mile to get to the bunk house me and my father had been calling home for three months now. The pathway cut across a stubble field, then into a coulee, across a long dried out creek bed, up the other side, and another two hundred yards through knee-high grass and weeds.

I usually ended up picking off cockleburs stuck to my pants and socks when I finally reached the buildings. 

“Dang things, don’t serve no purpose at all except to irritate me,” I muttered as I reached for yet another one of the prickly menaces.

“What you sayin’ there, Henry?” came a voice from beside the chicken coop.

That was widow Williams, carrying a basket of eggs. She owned a fair spread and took Pa and me on as hired help. Her husband passed some time ago and I think she was happy just to have the company around. Pa said she was the best boss he’d had in a long time, treating us fair and all. Plus, we never cooked a meal at all. Both of us were starting to think maybe bigger pants was in order.

“Just complaining about these stickery things, not much, otherwise,” I answered.

“Yep, those things have always been a problem and no matter what my husband, bless his soul, did, those buggers kept coming back. Guess that’s their place to grow now.”

I decided they were little space ship pods and the only way they could travel was to hitch onto something with their tentacles. They were going to invade the whole farm someday.

“How was school, did you learn anything new?” came the daily question that interrupted my wild imaginative moments.

“Same old stuff, I guess, but we’re going to try story writing tomorrow so I got to think of something exciting to tell a tall tale about,” I announced.

“Your Pa is over on the south forty mending some fence. Those critters belonging to old man Calvert keep trying to get across to the planted fields. Those lush green shoots get their appetite a-rolling. He should be back soon I should imagine.” She turned to walk toward the house.

I noticed that my pa and the widow seemed to enjoy the company of each other plenty. Now she tolerated a bit of alcohol now and then in her house, but Pa hardly never drank a drop anymore. We talked a lot about things after he got booted by Mr. Jensen, and it seemed to straighten out a whole lot of happy living for the two of us. Pa even laughs out loud every once in a while. 

The story writing ended up being almost like a strange fairy tale. I started the project right after lunch.

A young man, his name was Calvin, was walking in the countryside, who found a strange shaped rock in a ditch, that shone a bright blinking light. He picked it up and rubbed some dirt off of it and immediately found himself standing in the middle of a little village in China. He wandered around for a while, not knowing anybody or the language. The village people, thinking he might be an outsider who might bring harm, chased him to the end of town. He stopped, turned around to them, and rubbed that rock once more. Like abracadabra, or shazam, he was flying into space headed for Saturn. He loved the feeling of flying but asteroids were blasting by him so he did his thing with the rock and finally ended up right back where he originally started. He didn’t know what to do with the rock, but decided to bring in back home and store it in the root cellar since its powers were dangerous.

“That was a wonderful story, and exciting too, but I’ll bet the class would like to hear more adventures about the mysterious rock and Calvin, wouldn’t we class?” Miss Offerdahl said with enthusiasm.

The other kids agreed, so I spent my free time daydreaming about what else could happen to Calvin. I was excited for the next installment.

The next couple of months I sent Calvin on trips to the Moon, different countries, and even back in time.  My trouble in my writing was that the poor guy never knew where he’d end up and I couldn’t figure out a way for him to control that. I talked to my teacher.

“Henry, the story you are writing talks about the unknown. I think it would be less interesting if Calvin was to know exactly where and when he would land after rubbing the mystical rock. Keep the audience, your classmates, guessing on what might happen. Writers call that a page turner. They want to keep reading to find out what happens next. Keep it simple,” came great advice from Miss Offerdahl.

The last Thursday afternoon of the writing project was approaching and I had to think of some way to finish the story. The answer finally came to me and I thought it was proper.

Calvin was walking down the road one afternoon when an old pickup truck stopped beside him. An ancient looking gent, bent over the steering wheel, stared at Calvin. Calvin could feel his brain waves flopping around in his head and got quite scared.

“Son, I think you have something that belongs to me. I’ve been looking for it for days on end. That rock you picked up is my only transportation back home to the planet Zeto-5. If I don’t leave earth soon, I will die. I look ancient to you but I am only twenty-five earth years old. Would you be willing to give that traveler signaler to me. I am willing to reward you handsomely.

Calvin did not hesitate but rode with the old man back to his home and retrieved it from its hiding place. He had had enough adventures with that thing. The out worldly visitor was too weak to walk so Calvin brought the rock to him.

The alien touched the rock and it began to glow brightly. In a matter of seconds the old man and the rock were gone. Calvin looked on the seat and saw another rock, the same size as his mystical rock, only it was a solid gold nugget. Calvin rubbed it just in case it might transport him somewhere. He didn’t move an inch.

Calvin sold that gold and used the money to fix up his parent’s house. The house now contained a library that was filled with Calvin’s favorites; stories about time travel and science fiction. Every once in a while, he would look into the night sky and wonder about Zeto-5 and what it was like.

I was rewarded with an A+ for my effort, and whooped when I saw that grade. The kids all stared at me.

Chapter 4

My father and Mary Williams got hitched during the last year of high school. I had never seen my father the way he was now. He looked healthy, stone cold sober, and happy.

The good news, too, was that I got the bunk house all to myself. Half of the place was full of books, strewn notes, pictures of planets and constellations, posters, and anything else I could find pertaining to science fiction. I had started, stopped, completed, or tossed away multiple story ideas I had put down on paper. It kept me pretty busy.

“Henry Harper, are you, or are you not gonna take me to the Harvest Ball?” Sherilynn Hayden demanded one day.

“I really hadn’t thought about it, I s’pose I could if you can’t find someone else to go with,” I answered.

I got a devil’s glare from her. She didn’t take joshing very well. She wasn’t really my girl, in fact, I didn’t never have a sweetheart. Too busy, I guess.

“You pick me up Saturday night at 8 0’clock sharp. And dress up, those old jeans and that ratty shirt won’t fit the bill,” she said as she sized me up and down.

“And get me a corsage from Anderson Mercantile back in the cooler. Light blue is perfect. And I want carnations,” she finished.

Girls can be such a pain.

I was late for my date. I wanted to finish War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells first. I had read it a few times but there always seemed to be new things on each page. A wonderful writer. I wished I could be like him.

I got spiffed up, wearing a tweed sport jacket that one belonged to my step-mothers’ first husband.  I had a white shirt, bolo tie, black slacks, and some nicely polished shoes. My black dress socks had a great big hole at the ankle but I used shoe polish on my skin and things blended right up. I looked pretty good. I used some goop to hold my hair in place and I was off.

The dance was fun with kids and parents dancing. Sherilynn laid her head on my chest as we dance close and slow to the record music. She dreamily looked up at me.

“What are you thinking right now, hmm?” she said softly.

“Honestly, I was wondering if a strong enough light was beamed into space could maybe some alien beings see it,” I answered.

“Well, I never, Henry Harper.” Then slapped my chest and walked off.

She didn’t even offer that I might give her a kiss goodnight. Some things I could never figure out.

Graduation was approaching. I had done okay in the sciences, math, and social studies, but the English and literature curriculum was my favorite. Learning writing premises, style, content, and characterization was, to me, like unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning.

I was encouraged to submit some of my writings to schools, in the hopes of receiving some kind of monetary scholarship. I had concluded I would, most likely, be working to help get me through each semester. College was darned expensive.

I received a letter stating they had approved my admission into Northeastern State University in Tahlequah. That was only a couple of hundred miles from the farm. I was ecstatic. NESU was my first choice actually.

The night of the graduation was a big deal, the whole town had turned out. The people were all dressed in their Sunday best, a big spread of food for after lay out in the back of the gymnasium, and an air of excitement buzzed about in the preparation room across the hall. All my friends, since I was twelve years old, were getting ready for the next great adventure.

I expected to get up to receive my diploma and that would be it, but when scholarships were announced, the school superintendent stood up to speak.

“One of our graduates has been awarded a full scholarship to their chosen college. I have been in contact with the English department Dean at Northeastern. He tells me that a submission by Henry Harper is some of the best writing he has read in years. So, it is with great privilege to award this to Mr. Henry Harper,” he finished.

Loud applause followed me across the stage. I was floating. I looked over where Pa was sitting. I waved with my left hand, our secret greeting. He had his handkerchief out and was wiping his eyes. I was so proud of him. I loved that man.

Chapter 5

So, here I am, situated at this table in the basement of Seattle’s famous Elliot Bay Bookstore, signing the inside cover of my new book. It all started with Calvin and the Mystical Rock, a story that went through many changes from when it was first written years and years ago. My target audience is kids eight to thirteen years old. My other Calvin sci-fi books, six in all, have sold well. Hopefully Calvin and the Arzod Invasion will continue that string.

I looked up from my writing and glanced at the most beautiful woman in the world leaning against a support post and smiling at me. Sherilynn Hayden-Harper, my wonderful supportive wife travels to all corners of the country with me. She lets me bounce ideas off her grounded down-to-earth brain. A tether, I would think, as my head is usually in the clouds. She finally let me kiss her and that was that.

Success, as I look back, came during a young age, and because of a need to escape this earth and all the worldly problems it was presenting. I was just a daydreamer. Still am.         

I was relaxing outside with my siblings and friends

When I felt a light touch and began to descend

I lost my balance and fell all the way down

And was perplexed as I curiously looked around

Then a breeze came along and I was lifted up high

And through the air I floated as light as a sigh

Then I fell to the earth in a irregular sort of way

And stayed where I landed the rest of the day

The place where I landed was roomy and cool 

I felt weak and tired like I needed to refuel

Warmer temperatures came the following dawn

And then I was buried next to the lawn

I was pushed down and down into the dark

And blanketed with something like you see in a park

I was down so low I couldn’t be seen

A bush was nearby and I think maybe a stream

This is where I stayed for a pretty long time

For awhile I just settled back in this brownish clime

And then I got restless and wanted to be out

I began to struggle and wished I could shout

I wanted to reach up and see all around

So I strained and fought to escape my bounds

I struggled and pushed with all of my might

And suddenly all around me was brightness and light

I felt free and at ease and as strong as could be

For I’d fought so hard, determined to be free

I stretched myself toward the warmth of the sun

My progress now was a satisfying one

I was reaching my potential—there were colorful hues

And people were drawn to all the red, white & blues

They said, “Isn’t she a pretty, colorful sight!” 

And I cherished those words every day and night

My life continues now as a beautiful flower

I look forward to the sunshine and occasional shower

My surroundings are peaceful and lovely to see

And I feel I’ve been planted in the best place to be

I’m a mommy now – I’ve had little ones of my own

They have fallen away and now they are grown

They’re in new spaces in the yard next door

Spreading their brightness and beauty forevermore

I used to wonder if I could fly

Would I look down on all from the sky

And let the wind keep me free

Above the earth that I could see.

I used to wonder what it would be like

To sit astride a motor bike

To have the wind blow through my hair

And breathe in all the countryside air.

I used to wonder if I would be tall

To stand up high above them all

To see over the head of those young and old

And watch the events around me unfold.

I used to wonder if I would learn

And be taught everything of concern

And use it all in a later time

To answer all questions sublime.

I used to wonder if I would find love

Magically announced by the call of a dove

A person who God made just for me

And I for her, I would surely see.

I used to wonder when I grew old

If I would live fearless and bold

Or would I cower and certainly hide

From life’s challenges not pushed aside.

I used to wonder if I would have friends

Who stay with me through the bitter ends

And I, in return be true to them all

To be by their side at their beck and call.

I used to wonder about all of my dreams

The ones with laughter and those with screams

Of all the mysteries of my mind

And be fearful of what I might find.

I don’t wonder so much now, or worry about life

The day to day living and the world full of strife

For I know now that I was given a plan

The pathway for me to be just who I am.

So, I will live out my days

Searching for the many ways

To end it happily and at peace

Knowing that wondering will never cease.

Bob stepped carefully up the battered and broken porch steps. The house, once dressed in a fine cream color was now a sad vision of dried, gray wood with an occasional spot of paint trying desperately to hang on. The two front windows had long since become nothing but shards of broken glass standing as sentinels in the faded green panes, and he could see a definite lean of the structure as he looked straight up the wall. He carefully slid the old screen door, to the side. Its hinges had rusted out years ago and the door no longer able to make that slamming sound on closing he remembered as a young boy.  His grandfather had often replaced the connecting spring that made sure of a tight closure and in turn would keep the constant barrage of bottle flies out of the house.

He pushed, with some effort, the old battered wooden door and it gave way. The panels were still intact but the glass in the upper half of the door was cracked and just waiting for the right pressure to fall to the floor.

He stepped into the old kitchen and stopped to look around. His eyes immediately scanned the area down and to his right. He expected to see the old wash basin, the Lava soap, and a thread bare towel hanging on a little stand sitting just below an old framed mirror. There was nothing there.  The blue flowered linoleum was curled, cracked, and buckled, the wall paper, probably put up by his grandmother, was split and falling. The old wood burning stove was long gone, a treasure that some cousin absolutely needed to have; his plan was to return it to its early glory so that it may be used in a mountain cabin. It still sat in the back of a garage after twenty years.

The musty smell was everywhere and a fairly thick layer of dust, blown in from the nearby fields was evident.

The door in the corner of the kitchen was the opening that led about five steps into a dug-out potato cellar.  He remembered descending those treacherous steps to retrieve canned preserves or some such thing for his grandma. The spiders and the darkness made the chore a challenge.  A few cupboards still hung on the far kitchen wall, and the ceiling had dropped in many places, a victim of weather that had destroyed a long-ignored roof.

Diagonally across the kitchen was the door to the front room. At least that was what it was called. The area, at one time housed a sofa, large chairs, a heavy library table, doilies everywhere, kerosene lamps, and many meaningful pictures adorning the wall. Bob remembered an elongated photograph, in particular, of his grandfather and other soldiers posing for the camera sometime during World War I.

He stared out the window for a moment and let his mind wander.

Bob imagined the excitement his grandparents must have felt when they, in 1916, had moved from a tiny homesteading shack into this gloriously roomy home. The days of dirt floors was behind them. They, along with neighbors, endeavored to build the house from the ground up. It was most certainly not a small task during those years. The outhouse, some thirty yards behind the back of the house was barely upright and certainly gravity would soon drop the structure into the dugout hole below it. Down in the coulee below the house, remnants of the old water well poked through the tall dried grass.

The floor creaked and groaned loudly as he walked across the room to the door that opened to a second floor. The stairs were steep, and so narrow that moving furniture must have been a real challenge. Years of bird invasion was immediately evident.  Two separate areas had been crudely structured and a small closet with four hooks sat in both corners of each room The tongue and groove floor looked to be holding its own against the ravages of age. Bob assumed several layers of gray paint must have helped that situation. Missing were the wrought iron bed frames which held the old bed springs and mattresses. He smiled as he remembered their sag that nearly reached the floor.

He stared out the opening at one end of the house looking down at the array of abandoned, rusted farm implements. A large red barn, once the home of chickens, pigs, and a horse or two, had collapsed years ago. He stood there and remembered. He knew his grandparents had left this house for a move into the nearest town, necessary as they had two sons that would soon need schooling. It was also a move because the farm was not supporting his grandfather and the family.  Luckily, he had found employment at a farm implement store, just blocks from their new home. A home they would live their entire life in, and die in.

Bob thought back at the summers of staying in the old house while his father harvested the fields for his grandfather. The house was made livable for a few days each summer so that Bob and his siblings could “rough it” and he seemed, in his mind, to accept the feeling of ownership. He could almost smell the burning kerosene that emitted a dull flickering light at night. He could make out the staticky sounds from a big boxy radio drawing power from a large battery. They sat and listened to the farm report, news, and, of course, the weather forecast. Later, maybe the Jack Benny radio show and music kept them entertained as they played card games. The entertaining Armchair Theatre program usually finished about the time his mother announced lights out. That was a long time ago.

Bob slowly and carefully stepped back down the creaking stairs, across the front room, and out through the old kitchen door to the outside light and fresh air.

Bob moved a good distance away and nodded to the volunteer fire department chief. An accelerant was splashed around the base of the old house, and the blaze was set. The training of the new recruits began.

He walked away and never looked back.

When fear comes a-knocking

There’s sure to be talking

About what could’ve, should’ve, would’ve

Been better, safer, cheaper.

When Fear arrives beside us,

All our doubts mount and ride us

Into an unknown world that grows

Darker, wider, deeper.

When Fear goes unshackled,

Pain and anger raise their hackles

On our backs as hearts close tight,

And we become Fear’s keeper.

When fear thrives inside us,

Hope is still cloaked beside us,

Waiting in goodness and kindness,

Encouraging truth-seekers.

The truth is your witness,

Your sword and your fitness

Against fear and its doubt.

Let the truth knock it out.

Find the good that surrounds us,

Nurtures us and binds us.

Good people, good deeds, good thoughts remind us

To always look beyond and beside and behind us.

My life was boring, tiresome and dull. I mean it was until two weeks ago. Now I don’t know what it is.

My ride on that old public transit bus was hot and dusty. Every window on the thing was open in an effort to stifle the blast furnace temperature inside that creaky, noisy, shaking bus. At least the smoke from all the cigars and cigarettes wasn’t billowing around my nose. Only good thing.

I was concentrating on the newest action comic I had just bought at Schlosser’s Drug Store. The Terror of the Tiny Robots read the big bold lettering on the front page. I was sure that Superman could handle another challenge, just like always.  Reading was a nice diversion on the three-mile ride I had taken almost every day except Sundays this summer. Our family always went to church on Sunday and it seemed that we spent most of the day there. We never missed.

Thanks to my mother, old Mrs. Jackson had a slave to do all of her yard work, and even some stuff in her house.

“Ah, Mom, do I have to?” I remember saying.

“Thomas James Marshall, poor Mrs. Jackson asked everyone at the church for help and they all decided they had better things to do, but not this family. No sir! She needs help and we will be charitable. No more moping or arguing, besides, she said she would pay for your work. Do you understand young man?” came the order.

 All my friends were playing baseball or riding their bikes, and I was busy stacking wood, or trimming bushes, or even burning trash. I had to admit I liked the part when the gasoline diesel mixture whooshed up at the beginning of the burn. Only once did I have to get out the watering hose and stop the flames from heading for the storage shed. I forgot to tell Mrs. Jackson about that.

I was getting seventy-five cents a day plus a dollar extra at the end of the week if I did good work. I never could figure out who decided good work was, but I always seemed to receive a bonus.

The usual chatter and laughter on the bus interrupted the silence of my concentration although I paid little attention. I was getting to the good part.

“You live around here, young man?” Was a voice I clearly heard from across the aisle but ignored.

“Excuse me, young man. Are you a resident of this community?” came a clear demanding question again.

“Uh-huh”, I said and stuck my nose further into my comic.

“Do you know where the Rosenbaum house might be?” came yet another annoying request.

I look up and stared at the man asking all the questions. He was about the age of my father, had dark hair slicked back on each side of his head. My immediate thought was he used too much Brylcreem. And he had one of those pencil thin mustaches, I thought they were called. One just like the actor, David Niven sported. He wore a black shirt, white tie, and a black suit. His shoe shone a spit shine. Kind of a weird guy to be riding this bus, I thought. Nobody else seemed to notice.

“Uh-huh.” Was all I said and turned to look out the window, hoping this man would quit bothering me.

“Well young sir, I am prepared to offer you five dollars if you would direct me to the immediate front door of that domicile.” He man spoke.

Two things came to mind immediately. One, he talked pretty highbrow, and two, five dollars was a lot of money for me. I could blow off work and only show up when I wanted.

“Five dollars just to walk you up to the Rosenbaum place? You know the house had been boarded up for years and years, don’t you?” I asked.

“It matters not, are you willing to complete my suggested transaction?” he said and held out a bill with Abraham Lincoln ‘s picture on it.

I grabbed the money and stuffed it in my pocket, rolled my comic up and slid it in my back pocket, knowing that whatever outcome of the story was, waiting to read the rest of it could wait. Five bucks, wow?

I pulled the stop cord and as we exited the bus, I stopped to tell the driver that the reason I was getting off early was to show another passenger where the Rosenbaum house was. He looked at me with little interest and impatiently waited as we stepped off the bus.

The heat in Gaynor, Texas was unbearable. There never seemed to get a cool breeze anytime of the year. I guessed desert country would always be that way. And the smell of Texas oil was always in the air. I was going to get out of here as soon as I was old enough, that was for sure. Move to California, or maybe New York, someplace where the weather wasn’t always so miserable.

We walked silently along the side of the dusty dirt road for about five minutes but before we turned a final corner the man asked me my name.

“I’m Tommy.” I answered.

“Pleased to meet you Tommy, my name is Smith, John Smith.” He said and extended his hand to be shook.

I gave him a big shake then looked ahead of us.

 I stared down a long winding driveway leading to a big old house. All the windows were boarded up, the yard was overgrown, and the paint was almost peeled away from the siding. Tumbleweeds filled the big front porch area and weeds grew up where ever that could.

“There it is mister.” I said and once more reached into my pocket to make sure the currency was still there. I started to walk away.

“I’ve got one more business opportunity for you, Tommy, that is, if you’re interested.” The tall man in black said as he peered down at me.

I listened.

“I have another five bill that could be yours if you could crawl through a basement opening and go up through the house to unlock that front door.” He said and again pulled out some money.

I looked over to a small window at the foundation and wondered how I would get in. I hesitated. Somehow getting into that old house without someone’s permission seemed wrong. I was just about to reject his request when things went crazy.

Suddenly the man grabbed a loose brick on the foundation and smashed the window. He proceeded to completely clear the pane of glass and looked at me.

“Well?” he asked expectantly.

“Okay, I said, but only if I get paid before I crawl through that hole.”

The deal was done and I found myself peering into a dark dungeon of a basement.

I carefully slipped through the window but ended up getting a long arm cut from small piece of glass that was stuck in the pane. I looked at my forearm and saw a trickle of blood, but the damage wasn’t bad so I just ignored it. The drop down to the basement floor was a little scary since it was so dark, I couldn’t gauge the distance. I hit the hardness of the concrete and stood for a moment. First, I needed to let my eyes adjust to the lack of light, and second, to make sure there wasn’t anything or anybody that was going to attack me.

“Just find the stairs and head on up.” A voice from above startled me for a second. I looked up to see the man sticking his head into the opening above me.

Easy for him to say, I thought. I bumped into boxes, felt around and grabbed poles wrapped in cobwebs, and walked right into a jet-black colored furnace, smashing my forehead along the way.  Finally, I saw the stairs, and quietly and carefully climbed to the next level. I pushed a creaking door open that connected to a fairly small kitchen. I quickly walked to the front of the house and the front door. I didn’t need to spend any more time than necessary in this place. It was giving me the creeps.

I turned the massive door’s dead bolt, and yanked the handle with all of my might. The door inched open, and the man in black began to help from the outside. It finally opened wide, and I took off across the yard, glancing back to see that the man had disappeared into the house.

Still, it was ten bucks. I was rich! I began the walk home. I felt for my comic in my back pocket.

“Oh no, I lost it somewhere.” I muttered to myself.

I carefully retraced my steps to the basement window. It was nowhere to be found. I decided to check further. I looked down across the streaming light and saw it laying just about where I landed on the dark floor. I might come back to retrieve it but decided I had had enough adventure for the day. I headed home.

My mother was watching out the kitchen window as I came up the sidewalk.

“Where have you been? You are almost a whole hour late. Did you have to do extra work? Did the bus break down? Tommy are you okay?” she finished the questions when she noticed the gash across my forearm.

“What happened to you? Let’s get that cleaned up.” She said with a voice of concern.

“Aw, it’s nothing Mama. I decided to jump the Larson’s fence to get home earlier and caught my arm and a piece of wire.” I lied.

No way was I going to tell her what really happened.

I, however, took a chance and pulled out one of the five dollar bills I had earned.

“A man on the bus paid me this money to show him where the Rosenbaum house was and I wasn’t going to pass that up, so that’s why I’m late.” I said quickly without emotion.

My mother screeched, “What man, who was he?”

“I dunno, just some guy that was looking for a place and he paid me money to show him the way. No big deal.”

“No big deal! Young man you are twelve years old. What if he had kidnapped you, or, even worse.” she said after a pause.

She made the sign of the cross and looked up at the picture of Jesus hanging in the dining room.

“I’m okay and a lot richer for helping a stranger out. You said we are a charitable family, right. Well, I was being charitable.” I explained with a hope she would settle down.

It worked. In fact, she never even mentioned my adventure to my father, for which I was eternally grateful.

The following morning as I was eating my Corn Flakes, I spoke to my mother.

“Mama, I got enough money that I want to buy something, do think that’s alright?” I asked.

“Honey, it’s your money, you can do with it as you please, but you should give a little of the new found wealth to the church on Sunday.” She said.

I didn’t say anything about any tithing, but I knew exactly what I was going to buy.

Later that morning, after doing yard work I told Mrs. Jackson I was going to take the afternoon off. I walked into town and found what I wanted. The Pawn and Own store had a bicycle parked out in front with a price tag of twenty dollars. I had looked at it last week and wished I had a few more dollars to buy it. Now I did. We had a bike at home but it was for little kids, this one was just right for me. It had a comfy seat, good tires, I thought, but was missing a front fender. Dad had a bucket of black paint in the garage so I could make that baby look pretty groovy. In minutes I was racing down the street weaving back and forth. It was great. Suddenly I heard a bleep of a siren right behind me. I pedaled over to the side of the road and got off my new purchase.

“Mighty fancy riding there, Tommy.” Came a familiar voice.

Sergeant Willie Amos, our neighbor a couple of houses down the street, walked up and examined the bike.

“Thanks, I just bought it with my hard-earned dollars. What do you think of it.” I asked as I beamed a big smile.

“Now you’ll be able to run more errands for your mother without complaining about having to walk so far.” The big dark-skinned man said with a big smile on his face.

His son, Jerome, was in the same class as me, so we knew each other’s family fairly well.

“Ya, I spose, never thought of that.” I surmised.

“Anyway, keep that bike on the very right side of the street when you are riding, otherwise I might just have to give you a ticket for reckless driving, okay?” Sergeant Amos said and returned to his black and white police car.

I wondered if I should have mentioned something about that weird man I ran into the day before but decided not to since I was paid to sneak into the Rosenbaum house.

I jumped on my ride and pedaled home to show off my new bicycle.

Wednesday was just a little cooler weather and people were outside of their houses enjoying the fact that they wouldn’t burn up if they did a little yard work. I, however, was inside Mrs. Jackson’s house moving boxes and a whole bunch of other things around up in the miserably hot attic. She slowly followed me up the back stairs and quickly sat on an old rocker, then directed me as to where she wanted everything. She found an old photo album and started looking through it while I worked.

“Mrs. Jackson, did you know the people who lived in the Rosenbaum house?” I asked offhandedly.

“Why dearie, what brought up that question?” she asked.

I explained that there was a man who wanted to take a look at the house and I gave him directions.

“Yes, poor Asa and Rachel Rosenbaum had quite a life but it didn’t end well for them. He owned a few wells up by Oilman so they were fairly wealthy. They built a big beautiful house down toward your side of town. They were pretty high society folks but very nice to those who didn’t have much. They had a son, Jacob, I think was his name. Now he was one spoiled kid, and drove his parents crazy. The boy was always getting into some kind of trouble or the other.” She finished talking then looked back at the album.

“Well, what happened to them?” I asked, hoping she would continue.

She looked up and thought for a moment then spoke softly, “That son of theirs ended up being murdered somewhere around Houston. The police caught the guy who did it and put him away in prison. Of course, there was all kinds of gossip and rumors about Jacob being involved with the Italian mafia, or being a fascist, or about being part of gang that robbed a bank, all kinds of things.”

“They just kind of, well, kind of disappeared from society after Jacob died. I rarely saw them after that time. Asa passed not too long after of a heart attack, and I don’t remember what took poor Rachel. There wasn’t any more family that anyone knew about so the bank just boarded up the house and it has sat empty all these years. Such a sad ending.” Mrs. Jackson concluded then dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

I got off the bus after work, jumped on my bike and rode a short distance back downtown. I wanted to get my comic back if Mr. Smith hadn’t boarded up the window he broke. I arrived at the Rosenbaum house with high hopes, but, darn, no such luck. The window was covered with wood. I took a chance and walked around to the front door. I banged an old metal knocker hanging on the door. It was loud. I just hoped someone was in the house.

“Who is it?” came a voice from behind the door after a few minutes, causing me to jump.

“It’s Tommy, I dropped my new comic book the other day and it is on the basement floor. I came to get it if I could.” I yelled through the thick front opening.

Soon I was standing in the middle of a large front room, looking around at things in disarray. It looked like a hurricane had gotten loose inside the house.

“Sorry for the mess, Tommy, but I’m kind of looking for the same thing as you came to retrieve.” The man, still dressed in black, said apologetically.

“A friend of mine, years ago, promised to keep a collection of books and comics that I had obtained over the years. They are very valuable and some of them are first editions. So, you can see I am anxious to recover them.” He explained.

“My friend died, but not before he told me my possessions were in this house. Unfortunately, he never told me the exact location.” He continued.

“Are you talking about Jacob Rosenbaum?” I asked.

The man turned toward me with a surprised look and said nothing. Finally, he spoke.

“Why yes, he was a very dear friend I had known for a long time.” Mr. Smith explained.

“Mrs. Jackson said he was murdered.” I blurted.

“Why yes, that is what I heard, too. Poor Jacob, such a fine fellow, too.” He said in a follow up statement.

“I’ll tell you what, make your way down to the basement and get your comic and maybe we can talk some more business when you get back.” He suggested.

I carefully walked down the creaking steps and found my comic right where I had seen it lay. I rolled it back up and stuck it in my back pocket. The place was a much bigger mess than when I had slipped through the window a few days before. I hurried up to the first floor.

“Good, you found your comic. I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay you five more dollars to help me look around for my books. If you find my collection, I’ll give you five dollars more. Are you interested?” Mr. Smith asked.

I had time before supper and the chance to make that kind of money was exciting.

“Sure, I said, where do you want me to start.”

The man suggested I do a thorough search in the basement, and gave me a large flashlight for the effort.

I could hear loud noises from upstairs as Mr. Smith was searching everywhere.

I spent about thirty minutes digging in boxes, looking on shelves, and under tables, and even up on the support rafters. There was nothing. I began to consider quitting when my light beam fell on the big old black furnace I had bumped into when I first was there.

I walked over a opened a heavy duty latched door and peered in. There was soot everywhere. I figured the Rosenbaums had burned coal in it at one time. I searched the insides and spotted a brown suitcase set just inside the door. I figured that must be what we were looking for. I pulled on the handle and jerked it out. It was plain looking without any labels or nametags on it. I set it down on the floor and unclicked the two latches that held the top lid to the bottom, and opened the case up.

I stared at a suitcase full of money, all denominations including one-hundred-dollar bills, a lot of them. I was temporarily stunned.

“Ah, I see you found my treasure.” Came a quiet voice from the stairway.

The man in black bent down beside me and ran his hand over the money.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to claim what was mine. If that double crossing Jake had been a little more foresight in his explanation of where this valise may be, he might certainly still be alive. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. He was stupid and greedy. “The man said.

I looked up at the man.

“You killed Jacob Rosenbaum, didn’t you?” I asked while trying to breath normally.

“Yes, I did, and I paid for that act by spending almost twenty-five years in prison. Twenty-five years because that spoiled wormy Jake decided to take the bank money all for himself, and I had to teach him a lesson on being trustworthy and honest with his fellow robbers.” Mr. Smith answered.

“Now, I’m leaving with godforsaken house and town and plan to live it up with what is rightfully mine.” He said with a faraway look in his eyes.

“I’ll just go home then; I won’t say anything to anyone.” I volunteered.

The man stood thinking for a moment.

“You know that you are an accomplice now. If get arrested, you will too. You’re the one who broke into this house, and you helped me search for the money.” He said pointed first at me then at the suitcase.

“I don’t think you would like to be in jail. It’s not a nice place to spend your life.” He continued.

“Tommy, I’ll do you a favor. You stay down here until it gets dark then head on home. You better act like nothing has happened, that way the police won’t ever bother you. Do you understand?” he ordered.

I nodded my head and backed up as far away from the man as I could. He started up the stairs with the suitcase, and the flashlight, then stopped and turned.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He said as he tossed money toward me.

“Thanks for the help, I couldn’t have done it without you.” He laughed.

The man went up the stairs, and I could hear the door lock.

What an idiot I was, I thought to myself. I ran up the stairs that was lit by filtered light shining through the window boards.  I pushed on the door. It wasn’t going to budge.  I wondered if I should stay here until dark like the man suggested, then try to escape.

No way, I thought, the most important plan was to get out of here.

I pushed a table across the floor until it was right beneath the window which I had crawled through just days before. I saw, sadly, that I needed more height. I found a rickety wooden chair, set in on the table and climbed. I began to bang on the wood with my fists but to no avail. I looked around for something to use to loosen them.

I remembered that one of the boxes I had dug through had a fireplace hearth set. I finally found the right one and pulled out a heavy metal poker with a wooden handle. I hefted the discovery, and figured it might work.

Ten minutes later I was crawling frantically through the bashed and broken window. I was afraid the man was waiting outside for me so he could murder me too. I ran as fast as I could to my bicycle and jumped on, pedaling like my life depended on it. I headed down the street to my neighborhood and saw, with a bit of relief, the familiar black and while police car parked in its usual spot.

I ran up to the Amos residence and began banging on the door. I was shouting and crying the whole while. Suddenly the door opened.,

“Tommy, what’s all the racket.” Sergeant Amos asked.

I was wild with fear.

“I “m a , a complis to a crime and will probably go to jail because I helped a murderer find some money and he’s leaving town and I’m in a heap of trouble, but you have to catch that man in black right away.” I blurted.

“Whoa, slow down, now. What man, what money, what murder?” the policeman asked quickly.

“The man who murdered Jacob Rosenbaum was searching in the family home and I found a suitcase full of money from a bank robbery, but Jacob wanted to keep it all for himself and that’s why he’s dead. Now the man, Mr. Smith, says I’m responsible just like him and I’ll go to jail.” I finished.

“Did the man have a car?” Sergeant Amos asked.

“I don’t think so, when I first saw him, he was on the city bus.” I answered.

I quickly gave a description of Mr. Smith to my neighbor and described what kind of clothing he was wearing.

I was given instructions to head on home and stay there until someone from the police department contacted me.

That night and the next day was crazy as I was questioned endlessly by a police detective, and even more so by my parents. I was grounded for a week for crawling through a broken window and, by doing so, helping a complete stranger illegally enter a home. And taking money to do it!

Well, the upshot was that John Smith, also known as Carl Ryder, was arrested as he tried to board a Houston bound bus. The money from an unsolved bank robbery committed years ago, was returned, Ryder was in jail, and I was going to be given a reward for my part of the investigation.

Unfortunately, I was promptly told by my mother the entire sum would be given to the church so that good may come from bad.

So here I stand, looking out over Mrs. Jackson’s big lawn, wondering when all of those leaves would quit falling.  I guess things are still boring, tiresome and dull.