Gather Ye Rosebuds

The lily pond was exactly midway between Freeport and Tiverton, in the tiny village of Central Grove. It seemed to be always in bloom, the water like mirror glass, reflecting everything it saw. Nana could usually be persuaded to stop long enough to let me wade in, sink my bare feet into the cold mud, and pick a single flower. The lilies didn't last, of course, they would have died by the next morning but for a brief time their sweet, sharp scent would fill my small room. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Nana told me kindly, old time is a-flying. And my daddy would smile and recite the next lines, The flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.

Steve Goodman wrote It's a mighty short trip from the cradle to the crypt, so you better get it while you can. And in AA they say One day at a time. The message is all the same - the sweet things in life never last long enough so live, love, laugh and be grateful.

The best cure for resentment or anger is gratitude. On a bad day, I try to look around and take stock - I'm above ground, reasonably healthy, I have a home and a houseful of animals I adore, I work and get paid for my efforts, I don't wear rags and I'm not hungry. My life is filled with music, books, friends, and solitude when I want it. Though I still struggle with finances, health, my past and all the seven deadly sins, I like my life, where I am and who I am. I am more fortunate than I deserve, more lucky than I could have hoped. Gratitude is a godsend.

In the Company of Christians

"I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free.
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me." - Civilla Martin

God, in the form of the born again, religious right, has entered my workplace. When marketing questions arise, we are advised to pray, when issues of procedure or policy are raised, we are advised to look to God. We are told only true and repentant Christians will ever achieve or succeed or be invited into heaven. We are warned of the perils of alternative lifestyles and righteously told that we are being prayed for. We are expected to embrace this newly found strategy and work within it, revere "the anointed ones" and ask no questions. We are subtly threatened with expulsion if we refuse and the promise of hell if we don't acquiesce. We are encouraged to find the right road, travel it in the company of Christians only, and gratefully accept all we are told as the only correct way to live.

I have never trusted or had much use for those people who claim there is only path to anything, let alone God. My faith is a matter between myself and my God, it's private and intimate. I don't share it unsolicited and don't expect everyone to respect or believe in it - I feel no need to convert or preach to prove it, no need to recruit for it, no need to exclude those who do not share it. I don't accept that God sees, recognizes or loves only Christians or that He will close his kingdom to anyone with a different belief system. If there were only one path to God, it would be so crowded that no one would get in.

There is no room in this recent religious conversion for mistakes, for doubt, for tolerance or for non-believers. Books about finding God arrive, sent with all the speed Fedex can muster and signed "Love in Christ", emails that begin and end with prayer fly through cyber space, memos about forgiveness (for Christians only) are written and distributed. This path to God is narrow and inflexible, it curves and winds around charity, around free will, around forgiveness. A misstep on the path will send you into the arms of the devil himself and, we are told, endangers our souls, our lives, and our financial well being. It all feels suspiciously like a carefully cloaked-in-God version of blackmail, well meant, perhaps, but more likely a marketing ploy, born of the need to increase the bottom line for those in charge and prop up our faltering industry through the use of Jesus. It doesn't make me proud.

Those that put salvation out of reach for so many may gain the kingdom of heaven but it will be a lonely place if you don't have to sin to get there.

Cardboard People and Their Place

He enters center stage, flinging the door open and stepping in, arms open wide. He strikes a pose, throws one shoulder back as if to discard an invisible cape, removes his fedora and gives a sweeping bow. In what we refer to as his opera voice, he bids us all a good morning and favors us with a jaw numbing smile. He is one of the cardboard people, announcing his presence and waiting for the applause.

I'm fortunate enough to know very few people with absolutely nothing at all to recommend them. Such people live carefree lives - they work when they please, knowing that their employees will take up the slack. They are untroubled by the weight of intellect, unburdened by the responsibilities of friendship, unfettered by the cost of
maintaining a relationship. They are free to travel at company expense, shop extravagantly, indulge in their addictions - and they will harm no one. They fashion their ethics to fit their current situation and mold their morals to their lifestyle. They smile and speak on cue and if their mark moves, they move with it. They have a great gift for mimicry and can parrot back the latest popular opinion with ease, knowing they'll be be asked no questions about their sincerity. They adopt the latest in style columnist's writings and call it their own. They are constantly performing - their laughter and grand gestures are practiced and polished, probably we think from many long hours in front of a mirror. They are Hollywood props, made from cardboard and face paint, you can pass your hand through the smoke of their substance and not cause a ripple. Such people go through life without being touched or loved - the only hand they hold is their own. The welfare or misfortunes of others sail over them like skimmed stones on a placid pond - if they notice the pain of another at all, it's peripheral and fleeting like the stones as they brush the surface of the water and move on. All the proper and accepted things may be said, but they will be hurried and hollow, like a bad actor with a mediocre script wanting to move on to the next audition.

I want to believe that everything and everyone has a purpose in being here, even the cardboard people. I think that perhaps they're here to remind us not to be like them, to live with some meaning and sincerity, to care about more than ourselves.

Or God had an off day and they're really here for comic relief.

Mint Condition

So, the Dallas talent agent said in his cultured and best professional voice, Do you think you can help?

He wanted a beautiful girl to play a doctor and a chiseled, leading man type to play a pilot. They both had to be in their 30's, in costume, and available for shooting on Monday morning. It was just after five on Friday afternoon and we were packing up to go home for the weekend. Absolutely! I assured him with a confidence that I hoped sounded better than it felt, Let me get back to you in a few minutes. Panic set in before I had even replaced the receiver. And this is how I came to find myself on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, headed toward the only Army Navy Surplus store within 30 miles. My pilot would be in a fur trimmed leather jacket and goggles, an overly long white fringed scarf blowing over his shoulder - the image had formed instantly in my mind, a rugged, young Spencer Tracy smiling from the cockpit of a fighter plane. The talent agent's pilot was from Delta - blue blazer and white dress shirt with an shiny brimmed hat complete with emblem. Dismally, I realized that I had seen too many 1940 war movies.

The owner of the surplus store had given me precise and careful directions but it was more than 20 miles out of town and as four lane divided highways and strip malls turned into a two lane blacktops and abandoned corner grocery stores, I began to have doubts. A turn off the blacktop and several miles later, there it was - Bob's Army Navy Surplus, a tumble down, unconverted gas station at a forlorn intersection in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The rusted remains of pumps still stood, the roof of the building was partially caved in but holding at a sharp angle, weeds had overtaken both sides and nearly covered what was left of the faded Uneeda Biscuit painted sign, and the door stood open, revealing a dark and musty carnival of camouflage. Behind the counter stood Bob, a short, bald, chubby little gnome with thick black rimmed glasses and an unlit, battered cigar clamped between his teeth, hip deep in clutter and military remnants. He was carefully transferring figures from a stained, yellow notepad to a relic of a faded, oldstyle green adding machine with a pull down lever, keeping his place on the yellow pad with a chewed yellow pencil. He worked by the sunlight filtering through the unwashed window behind him - there were no lights in the entire little building and dust and debris seemed to dance through the random rays of sun that found their way in. There were racks of camouflage clothes, backpacks, ragged recruiting posters, medals, a single pair of combat boots sat on a shelf amid fading black and white pictures in broken frames of smiling soldiers. A bayonet dangled from the ceiling, an American flag hung on a back wall, there were canteens lined up in a row on a window sill, a fur lined parka on a mannequin in the corner, mosquito netting draped over a window with a missing pane and model airplanes hung with fishing line - they swung to and fro with the breeze from the box fans.

From this amazing and long forgotten clutter, Bob produced an officer's hat with a shiny brim and a silver emblem,
two silver oak leaves and a pair of shining silver wings. Twenty bucks, he said gruffly, Mint condition. You can bring'em back Tuesday. I smiled and handed over a twenty dollar bill. My Spencer Tracy pilot had met the talent agent's Delta pilot and they were going to be perfect.

The Cost of Living

After nearly a week of living on apple juice and ginger ale, the blitzkrieg intestinal virus that knocked me off my feet has passed and I woke feeling more or less human again. It was an interesting and challenging several days - the first drawn out illness I'd had in a very long time, the first time I've missed work in a year and a half, and a reminder that living alone has it's advantages and it's drawbacks. Life goes on even when you're sleeping on the bathroom floor and vowing to live a better life if He'll just make it stop. When the clear liquids and the over the counter medications fail, when sleep is a memory, when every joint in your body aches, when it's the fourth day and you know you'd have to feel better to die, it's time to open negotiations with God. Never mind that this sort of bargaining has never worked before and you know it won't this time, desperation overtakes reason.

This is the cost of living, of aging, of a routine intestinal parasite that will run it's course and move on. I know this, of course, but only in my head. In my gut, wherein lies this parasite feasting and having friends over at my expense, is the thought of dying alone and in total misery, perhaps having my body discovered with the animals gathered around me, hungry and confused. Cause of death - dehydration, despair, self pity. I shake these thoughts off and crawl back to the couch where the small dog sleeps fitfully, aware that something is wrong and wanting to make it right. A cat or two or three arrive and burrow into the blanket. There is comfort here as they nuzzle under my chin and knead against my shoulders. The black dog sits beside me, resting her head next to mine and whining softly. She is hungry, wanting to go outside, wanting attention and stroking. The parasite within grips my intestines with a vicious and vindictive twist and it's back to the bathroom floor. The animals follow, licking my face and lying up against me. Long, painful hours pass and life goes on.

The cost of living increases as I get older. Unfamiliar aches and pains become common and chronic - every cold turns into a siege, things that never hurt before now sing to me daily, my body seems to breaking down with an infuriating regularity. But these are things I only notice when I'm unwell and bartering for recovery. Illness now blackmails me and distorts my reason, makes me all too aware of what might lie in wait. It makes me angry, sad, regretful, afraid, powerless. When, on the fifth day, I return to normalcy and health, I do it with a vengeance, a hot shower, shampoo, fiercely brushed teeth, clean clothes and make up. The parasite has been defeated and the time to celebrate is here. The cost of living has been put back in it's place. I have regained my health, my positive attitude, and most of all, my perspective. Life is good again.

The Kingdom of Walls

Entrance to the kingdom was by invitation only.

It was surrounded by carefully constructed and maintained walls, designed not as most people supposed, to keep people out - but rather to keep them in. The walls were, of course, invisible to those on the outside. They were made of loyalty, manipulation, intimidation, guilt, threats of disappointment and promises of rewards.The kingdom kept up appearances through philanthropy,the support of liberal causes, business success, doing good works, community involvement. Their generosity embraced the downtrodden and turned lives around, provided opportunities where there had been none, educated and enlightened. The kingdom was respected and admired, envied and emulated. But behind the walls there was frequent darkness, secret jealousies, hidden agendas and power struggles. There was power and corresponding corruption, emotional blackmail and family pain, all dressed carefully in wealth, privilege and kindness. The kingdom was superficial and false.

All kingdoms collapse eventually. This one withstood the outside forces with enviable fortitude but the chaos within ate away at the foundations until cracks began to appear. Divorce, rebellion, adultery, loss of control, even bad investments began taking their toll and as the children began pulling away to make their own decisions and mistakes, the center of power was challenged and fought back with fierce effectiveness. Appearances were kept up, the small revolutions were put down, and though the fires of resentment continued to smoulder, they were contained within the walls, at least for a time.

In the end, those that inherited the kingdom would find it intact but under fire. They were left with wealth and privilege, fame and power, but nothing more. The reality of the kingdom has been an illusion after all and real happiness had always been outside the walls, just out of reach.

A Random Act of Arson

The cribbage game was going hot and heavy in the front of McIntyre's Store when one of the Sullivan boys crashed through the front door, out of breath, black smudges on his face and arms and yelling, Some damn fool set the church afire! The men abandoned their game and raced out while Mr. McIntyre ran for the telephone. In a matter of minutes, the whole island had been alerted and was headed for The Point. The bucket brigade was in high gear but there really wasn't much to be done except watch the old building burn and hope it didn't spread. By morning, it was nothing but ashes and debris and a goodsized patch of charred ground. Dispirited islanders made their way home wearily, grateful that no one had been hurt.

Catholics had never been welcomed on the island and when a small group arrived and took over the old house to make a church out of it, they were shunned or ignored. No one considered it a serious threat and imagined that they would soon give up and return to their heathen roots in St. John. The island was hard core Baptist and suspicious of Latin and foreign rituals. But they harmed no one and their recruiting efforts were half hearted at best - so they were mostly regarded as misguided and left to their own devices. It was rumored that some of the regular summer people might be of their faith but as there was never any proof, the village extended them a measure of tolerance and the benefit of the doubt. It was the only act of arson the island had ever known and while it was widely known who had set the fire, his name was never revealed. After the fire, the Catholics packed and left quietly and were never heard from again. The following Sunday's sermon on tolerance was sincere but ineffective and the blackened ground was left to heal on its own. The wild grass soon grew and grew well and all traces of the fire were erased and forgotten. By the following summer, sheep were set out to graze on the abandoned land and no one gave the site a second look.

Class of '55

Mama Cat has moved on. It's been weeks and weeks since we've seen her or her kittens and the squirrels now feast on the catfood we set out. It's a classic reminder to me that life goes on.

I'm preoccupied with age lately as my birthday is so near. I recently spent an afternoon at a collective birthday party for a graduating class of 1955 - everyone in the room was 70 or more - and they were a lively, happy, and enthusiastic crowd. They hugged and cried, made the rounds of all the tables, catching up and passing on news of children and grandchildren, exchanging gossip and stories of old times, remembering high school and what it had meant to them. They were generous with praise of each other, genuinely concerned about each other's losses and hard times, joyful to be alive and singing the old high school song. When the names of classmates who were not there was read, there was a respectful silence, a moment of remembrance and sweet sadness.

They ate, some with teeth, some without, and drank modestly, some popping down medication in between water and iced tea. There were canes and oxygen containers and a wheelchair or two but mostly there were smiles and a huge amount of laughter. This was a class who had grown up together, dated, partied, kept in touch and remained friends. They had been there for each other in 1955 and they still were. There were 1500 in my graduating class of 1968. Close friendships were rare, most of us didn't even know everyone in the class and I've long since lost touch with the reunion committee. I have no curiosity about what's happened to who and no desire to go back. I'm not bitter about high school, just disinterested. It was a highly non-memorable time. In a small town, it's very different and I was glad to be a part of the celebration.

Apart from it's inevitability, the other side of aging is doing it with grace and gratitude. There is a great deal of both in the Class of '55.

The Weeper Whineys

The creatures who inhabited my closet were called Weeper Whineys. They were pale, tiny figures who resembled Casper the Ghost but had no feet and they cried tears of sour milk. Their village was in the space between the shoe shelf and the floor of the closet and only I could see them and only at night. Their houses were made of square adobe-like bricks, vanilla colored and simple, all one story with no glass in the windows. The village was divided, one part the happy Weeper Whinies and the other the sad Weeper Whinies. At night, both sides would gather at the fountain in the center of town - from which flowed sweet cream - and the happy ones would fill lifesize milk bottles from the fountain and pour sweet cream on the sad ones. Then everyone danced. Since the happiness didn't last,the whole procedure had to be repeated each night.

When I told my daddy about them, he smiled, the way parents smile indulgently at imaginative children. He asked no questions. I have always thought that the Weeper Whineys were beyond my imagination and that I must have seen a cartoon that at least suggested them. The memory is crystal clear, these little creatures were like pencil drawings in soft shades of black and white, floating gracefully and footlessly through their little town, filling their bottles and passing on smiles.

My imagination was set free as I watched them and I dreamed of living their peaceful life. For awhile I collected milk bottles and hid them, as if by finding the fountain, everything could be put right.

In a child who feels alone, unloved and always frightened, imagination is a great gift. It can take you away to safe, happy places where there are magical creatures and fountains of sweet cream.

Red, White & Blue

The fireworks lit up the sky all evening in an explosive array of colors and shapes. The staccato noise echoed like rifle shots, sharp and startling against the music of the marching band in the background. There was shouting and cheering and applause. It was the 4th of July - steamy hot and humid, like being encased in a sauna, but no one seemed to mind. Children with sparklers and little Uncle Sam hats ran here and there, surrounding the hot dog cart in a clamoring mob. There were late night runners, weaving their way through the crowd, trying to maintain their pace and young mothers, pushing strollers with one hand and managing leashed dogs with the other. The marching band began "America" and everyone stopped and got to their feet - young and old, all of one mind, one spirit, and one voice. There was pride and solidarity in every note and it gave me chills.

"With freedom," we were taught in high school, "Comes responsibility." The words were just rhetoric then, a good phrase for an essay or term paper but with no real meaning. We were teenagers with no sense of war or country and we grew into young adults during Vietnam, a time of upheaval and protest against the government. Later we would outgrow some of our liberalism and shed some of our idealism and eventually we would find a center where we could reconcile without selling out. And here we stood, on a scathingly hot July night, celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and songs, with a sense of belonging and unity. We were diverse but unified, separate but together. We had yet to learn to disagree, this would come later as our stark black and white world began to fade to gray. Our moral certitude about everything would come under fire from within and like it or not, we would start down the road of doubt that my daddy had warned me about. "Precious few things," he had said with a sad smile, "Precious few things are absolutely right or absolutely wrong. It's far more complicated than that."

He would often take the opposite side in an argument just to test my logic and committment and perhaps to try and teach me to think things through. He was something of a philosopher about life, able to separate out the nonsense from the serious issues, able to show me the different sides of a coin. He worried that I worried too much about silly things and always tried to demonstrate the improbability of my fears coming true. We were on firm ground in the abstract and thin ice when it came to the reality of our family. While we could debate the death penalty into the ground or fight like dogs and cats over Nixon's presidency, we could not talk about my mother's drinking habits. We were together but apart, close but at arms length.

The Fourth of July is a good time to reflect on the cost of all kinds of freedom.

Bandaid Solutions

I woke with a powerful thirst for chocolate milk and an overwhelming urge to rearrange furniture, both signs of stress. It was just after five am and I know myself well enough to realize that any further attempt at sleep would be wasted so pushing cats and blankets aside, I got up and prepared to face the day. The sun was up but feeling weak and unsure of itself and the sky was still grayish. This was a day that could go either way.

Fourteen hours, a touch of heatstroke and three closets later, it began to dawn on me that this manic behavior might be related to my anti-depressant medication which had not arrived, likely trapped somewhere in customs between here and Canada. Through the day I had battled chills, sweats, chills and sweats at the same time, several bouts of vomiting and a low grade, nagging headache, all tell tale signs of seretonin withdrawal. I called my friend Michael, a veritable warehouse of pharmaceuticals and assorted drugs, and he arrived immediately with a substitute medicine. The following morning I woke right as rain - better living through chemistry, as the ad says. I am - who isn't - susceptible to the temptation of the quick fix. Cures come in prescription pads and pill bottles because it's simpler, faster, and less work. We're inclined to mask pain rather than treat it and attack symptoms rather than causes in the interests of getting on to whatever next thing it is that we're already late for. It's a silly way to live but it makes sense in a mortal sort of way - time is slipping away despite our best efforts and we don't have time for illness or incapacitation. We might miss something.

Pills have their place but sometimes you just have to do the work your own self. The shortcuts to sanity or sleep or peace of mind may get you there faster but you have to stay put under your own steam. Like most shortcuts, life is better the long way 'round.

The Many Sources of Madness

"You can't live in this world," I heard my grandmother tell my Aunt Vi, "and not be touched by the madness."

They were sitting on the sunporch drinking manhattens and watching Willie's progress as he rearranged the rocks in the ditch at the edge of the road. "Thelma Weeks went mad just last week," Aunt Vi said, "Said that a chicken was spying on her from the henhouse so she set it on fire."

"The henhouse?" my grandmother asked, one eyebrow raised slightly.

"No," Aunt Vi said sadly, "The chicken."

My grandmother believed you had to dance around madness or it would latch onto you with an unbreakable grip. I was too young to grasp the concept of the causes - genetics, illness, alcoholism - but I did understand that it was everywhere and that there were a number of folks in the village that she referred to as "not right". Most were harmless and loosely classified as colorful or eccentric, like Willie with his rocks and multi colored hair. Inbreeding was too common to be noticed much in the isolated and sometimes desolate community. Winters were rugged and cold and villagers took their comfort when and where they found it. "Nothing that a little new blood couldn't cure." Nana would say shaking her head as Willie began the slow process of emptying the ditch with a small shovel and a shiny new aluminum bucket. "Well, " Aunt Vi said as she poured a third batch of manhattens, "You do have to admire his ability to focus."

Nana fought off madness with order and routine, neatness and self-discipline. She kept to the rules, didn't take chances and maintained her standards. She stood up to dirt, dust and disorder and railed against the evils of self indulgence,
selfishness and self pity. She trusted in will power and doing the right thing, old time values and keeping up appearances. Her only child was a profound and private disappointment to her - a bitter reversal of everything she treasured. So she concentrated on her grandchildren, on saving them and setting them on the right course. It was, at times, a task beyond her abilities, but she held the fort regardless. Nana didn't give in lightly.

"There goes Kenton again." Aunt Vi looked over her shoulder at the sight of poor Kenton, waist high in grass with a set of bagpipes around his neck. For reasons that passed understanding, Kenton would suddenly appear and begin playing every few days, the melancholy music carried all the way to Westport and even Willie stopped his ditch digging and saluted smartly. Nana gathered the makings of the manhattens and with a sigh carried them to the kitchen. The madness had been getting a little too close for comfort. "You can't let it in," she told Aunt Vi, "it'll strangle you." In my grandmother's world, the battle against madness was an everyday fight. She believed that you couldn't escape it but that you could be sure it only brushed you in passing.

Late News

Woody drove the mail car.

Five afternoons a week, he picked up the mail on the mainland and drove his 40 mile route, slowly and painstakingly stopping at each and every village along the way. Sometimes he drove stranded passengers although the practice was very much frowned upon and sometimes he carried liquor - frowned upon and illegal. He knew everyone's name and what they were expecting from the Spiegel catalogue and he treated his cargo with respect and loving care. He never got bored or complacent with his routine, was almost never late, and always had a smile for everyone he met along the way. He was what my grandmother called "chipper". Good news and bad came via Woody - draft notices, obituaries, changes of address, birth announcements, even divorce papers. Several families subscribed to "The Courier", a tiny, chatty mainland paper put out once a week and consisting of village news compiled by the locals and submitted through Woody. There were stories about quilting parties, news from the factory, birthdays, who had put up the latest preserves, church events, deaths, who was visiting and for how long, the weather, crop reports, church events, barn raisings, who had chosen what color for their new fence, In these tiny, lonely villages, any news was welcome and Woody delivered it all. He also passed along items that didn't make the paper - a new litter of kittens at Miss Rowena's, the arrest of one of the Sullivan boys for public drunkenness, the fact that someone's wife had gone missing for three days, rumors of a feud between the Elliotts and the Blackfords. Gossip was passed around cheerfully and liberally.

It was a routine trip on that late spring evening except that Woody was running a little behind due to having gotten a late start on the mainland. He was trying to make up the time when he reached the hairpin turn at East Ferry and he never saw Miss Emily's flock of geese crossing the road until it was too late. Geese, feathers, and the mail went flying in the ensuing collision and Woody was thrown from the mail car as it slammed through the guard rails and arched over the water before gravity kicked in. He landed, none too gently, in the cold ocean with a solitary mail bag still in one hand, a bunch of tail feathers in the other, and cursing the geese at the top of his lungs. Miss Emily, who had come running at the sound of the crash, immediately fainted at the sight of the wreckage and the ferry crew who had been pulling out, reversed course and drew back in. Miss Emily was revived, Woody was pulled from the water, and what mail could be salvaged was retrieved to shore but a great deal of it floated out of reach and sank. Two geese, several parcels and the mail car itself were drowned during the rescue efforts.

Woody stood alone and shivering at the end of the breakwater, watching the tide carrying the mail away. He mourned for the car, the geese, and the lost news slowly sinking into the sea.

Broomsticks and Bedboards

"There are," my Aunt Lizzie warned me, " Spies among us."

Aunt Lizzie lived next door to us with her one son, Kenton. She had been bedridden for as long as I could remember and spent her days on a small cot in the kitchen, close to the stove. Nana said she was perfectly capable of getting up and around but simply chose not to. Kenton, a tall, gangling 40-ish bachelor with a pronounced stutter, badly crossed eyes and one leg considerably shorter than the other, took care of her. He was what Nana called "not right" and we kept our distance from him. We would see him chopping wood in his red and black flannel loggers cap and rubber boots, his glasses hanging by one earpiece and saliva dripping down his chin. When he looked in our direction, we fled - terrified by his unkept appearance and wild eyes, more terrified that he might try to speak. He was I came to finally realize, my version of what a child molester or pervert would look like and although Nana constantly reassured us that he was harmless, I was never persuaded. Retardation and incest were so common that they were taken for granted but something about Kenton was wrong, almost menacing.

"Would you like a chocolate?" Aunt Lizzie asked politely, offering me a hand towel.

Nana said Lizzie had raised Kenton alone, that he had been a difficult child and that Lizzie had often found it necessary to lock him in the closet beneath the stairs for long periods. He was very nearly blind, she said, a result of being kept in darkness so often and for so long and completely unsocialized as Lizzie had never allowed him to go to school or interact with other children. She had taught him to read and write herself, and if he did poorly, she beat him, breaking his fingers on several occasions. When I asked why, Nana shook her head and muttered about unnatural relationships but she would explain no further except to say that the real monster was not Kenton, but his frail, invalid mother.

"Mind that spider, " Aunt Lizzie said, pointing a shaking finger toward a knitting basket, "It bites."

Neither Lizzie nor Kenton ever left the house and no one except Nana ever visited. Mail and groceries were delivered,

sometimes there were packages from the Spiegel catalogue. Lizzie survived several small strokes without medical attention and when Kenton broke his leg one summer, it was said that he had fashioned a splint from broomsticks and bedboards and tied it off with rope from the clothesline all because his mother would allow no doctor in the house. Though it healed, the bones had knit crookedly, resulting in a deformed limb and a lifelong limp and as Nana said with a scowl, likely chronic and severe pain.

"The horseshoe will only fly on Thanksgiving." Aunt Lizzie told me sadly, "Give me your thimble, dear, it's quite early." In a rocking chair on the sunporch, Kenton rocked himself to sleep while Lizzie raved on.

Some lives are lived entirely in pain and tragedy.