The Hay Loft

If only I hadn't sneezed.

The morning after I ran away, I woke up in the hay loft with only Randall, the barn owl, for company.  Once my eyes adjusted to the patchwork-like mixture of light and shadow in the eaves, I could see him plainly, perched on a beam and seamlessly rustling his feathers.  Most likely asleep, I told myself, remembering that Uncle Bryon had told me owls were nocturnal, flying only at night and only dangerous if you happened to be a mouse.  

Randall fluttered, spread  his wings slightly, shook himself.  Yellow eyes and a curved beak swiveled slowly in my direction.  The hay loft suddenly didn't seem as snug and cozy as it had a few moments before.

"Best hunters you've ever seen," I belatedly remembered Uncle Byron had also said, "Fast, accurate, deadly."

I was close enough to see those hazy yellow eyes blink slowly, as if he were considering the situation from all angles.  One wickedly talon-ed foot flexed lazily then sunk back into the soft wood.  He hooted, an eerie sound that carried a low, pretty much spooky kind of echo and sent a mild chill up my backbone.  Then he seemed to settle, wrapping his wings around his small body like a cape.  It was then I heard the cowbell and sneezed.   A moment later, Uncle Byron was calling my name and Randall took flight, soaring even higher up in the eaves and making one graceful circle before landing silently somewhere out of sight.  

"Old owl don't take much to trespassers in his barn," my bachelor uncle called to me, "You might oughta be comin' down 'fore he changes his mind."

I heard the metallic clanking of the milk buckets as they hit the floor, the sound of the milking stool being dragged into the first stall.  I knew if I crawled to the edge I'd see my uncle in his faded flannel shirt and longjohns, suspenders hanging loose over worn out denim overalls, an older-than-dirt feed cap set on his wispy hair.  He'd have been pulling on his muck boots and speaking softly to the cows, his long-ish and somehow melancholy face reddened from the sun and patchy with remnants of the skin cancer he'd fought and beaten long before he'd even told anyone about it.  He'd have given me a crooked grin with tobacco stained teeth and this early in the morning he'd have needed a shave.  He was firstborn of ten, the only one who had chosen to stay at home and an old fashioned farmer to his very core.

"Easy, Rosie," I heard him say softly to the cows in between splashes of milk hitting the metal buckets, "Easy does it."

The cows shifted in their stalls and answered with long, drawn out, plaintive moos.  Next door in the stable, the old plow horse whinnied and stamped his feet impatiently.

"If you've a mind to," I heard my uncle call, "I could use a hand.  Providin' you don't have anythin' else to do. Buck's hungry and breakfast's waitin' once we're done here.  I b'lieve your Nana's making bacon and blueberry pancakes."

"Am I in trouble?" I called back, brushing straw and hayseeds from my hair and making my way toward the ladder while keeping a wary eye out for Randall.

"Ain't likely," my uncle said good naturedly, "Less you wake that ol' owl up."

I wasn't sure if it was hunger or the thought of of some old yellow-eyed owl carrying me off with those claw like talons, but I scrambled down the ladder in a hurry, missed the last rung and landed on my tailbone with an awkward, painful thump.  Uncle Byron gave me a casual, over-the-shoulder glance, determined I wasn't hurt, and nodded toward the horse stall.

"Oats in the bin," he said mildly, "I'll finish the milkin' and we'll head for the house."

And so we did with Buck lazily clip-clopping ahead of us and Rosie - her brass cowbell clanking with every other step - and her sisters spread out and trailing behind us like a troop of dusty, disorganized soldiers.  My daddy was in the yard, tossing feed from an oversized and discolored aluminum pan to Nana's chickens while the nameless old tomcat watched from his perch on the woodpile with an indelicate and greedy gaze.

It made me think of Randall and I was glad not to be a mouse.

Wet Noise

On Sunday - with Thursday's rain still coming down in sheets - I feel the beginning of a black mood coming on.
It's been a little less cold these past few days but I'm worn down by the relentless storm.  It seems to have parked itself directly overhead and show no signs of moving on.  A stationary front, the news calls it and shows images of rainclouds for the whole of next week.  Enough! I feel like shouting.  I hear it thudding on the roof, battering the deck, slapping against the windows and running in rivers down the street.  I'm tired of the dark skies and muddy yards and wet noise.  That it's Thanksgiving Week doesn't help.

The first Thanksgiving we ate out, my grandmother had made reservations at an upscale and quietly elegant Cambridge restaurant on Pleasant Street.  We all dressed in our Sunday clothes and were on our best behavior but I hated the discreet waiters and waitresses and the dimly lit atmosphere and the cardboard food.  My mother and grandmother were thoroughly thrilled at not having to cook or clean up and it only took the one meal for a new tradition to be born.  After my grandmother's death, the holiday was moved to a family-style restaurant midway between Massachusetts and Maine.  Sunday clothes gave way to pressed jeans and button down shirts, plastic tablecloths and a serve yourself, all-you-can-eat buffet.  It was no improvement except that it was over sooner.

It's a paradox that much as I detested and dreaded family holidays and the fragile pretense they demanded we all slip into, I still missed the anxiety and that sense of never knowing when they might explode.  We were all far too self-conscious and too well behaved to make a scene in a restaurant - well, not much of one anyway - there were moments when my mother, well fortified and a little dazed by her morning martinis, might drop a lit cigarette into her  creamy mashed potatoes or sway slightly in her chair after flirting with the waiter but my daddy or one of my brothers would rush to her rescue and we would all pretend not to notice.  We might not have been a Norman Rockwell painting, but we had cover up down to a science.  All it takes is practice and an unwavering dedication to keeping up appearances.  Without the studio audience, things had a tendency to run their natural course - and often explode - small snipes led to quarrels and quarrels to border skirmishes and border skirmishes to all out wars.  It's unsettling to realize how at home you are in the middle of a vicious family fight.  You cheer for whichever side you happen to be on and hope for victory but win or lose, it's the wet noise that draws you in.  If it isn't loud and abusive, if someone doesn't finally break down in tears or denial, if it doesn't turn hateful and really scary, then you're doing it wrong.  

All the drama I learned at home came into play during my second marriage and touches of it stay with me even today.  Sometimes I wonder if I don't turn down holiday invitations for fear I'll be bored.

No Love Lost

It was, preacher was overheard to say after the service, a most disagreeable day for a funeral.

Nana had it on the very best authority that he and his wife had been forced to find paid mourners - fortunately the scallop fleet was still casting their nets and the disreputable scroungers were always ready and willing to make a quick buck so James and Lily hadn't had to look very far - and Nana insisted on attending despite her swollen ankles and arthritic joints.  


Even a woman like Odessa deserves to be seen off, my grandmother said a little resentfully, mebbe especially a woman like Odessa on account of who knows which direction she'll be aheadin'.

So she eased into her black dress and forced her feet into her best black shoes, added a single strand of pearls and a pair of clip on pearl earrings, set her tasteful little black veiled hat on her silver hair, and handed me the keys to the old Lincoln.  I'd never driven except under the strictest supervision and even then only to the post office and back and was taken aback at the thought of this particular errand but Nana was decided and grim.


It's to the church and back again, she said briskly, ain't no hill for a climber and I reckon you kin stay in the car for the service. I 'spect parkin' won't be a problem.

The day was overcast with a residue of fog clinging to the edges of the island and nothing but cold dampness in the forecast, as if even the weather felt no loss.  The old Lincoln warmed up quickly, sending a blast of hot air into the front seat with a roar.  Nana frowned, adjusted the vents, winced with the effort, and then gave me an encouraging nod.  I took a deep breath and eased the old car backwards and then slowly up the gravel drive to the dirt road.

It's a straight shot, my grandmother reminded me, Just keep'er between the ditches and you'll do fine.

The service was brief and the small church near to empty.  James had slipped each of the hired mourners a five dollar bill - graveside would've been extra and Lily had respectfully but firmly quashed that idea with a single glance - so only my grandmother and my aunts Pearl and Vi and Miss Clara who tended the graves were left to see Odessa lowered into the ground.  James read a short prayer just before it began to rain and it was over.  It was a funny little group, I thought as I watched from the car, four women all in black and James, standing in the rain and looking like silhouettes against the pale sky, doing what they saw as their duty.  I was thinking of the stories I'd heard about Dorothea Odessa Mills - how she'd raised her daughter with a Bible in one hand and a hefty switch in the other - Child was always a mess o' bruises and broken bones, Aunt Pearl had said.  Aunt Vi remembered her being caught stealing from the church collection plate and Clara reminded everyone about the cattle poisonings up island - 'Course they never proved it was Odessa, she admitted, but we all knew.  Then there'd been the fire at the post office, the break in at McIntyre's, the vandalism at the school.  Someone had tried to kill a half dozen dogs one particularly violently hit and run summer and the old timers still talked about the morning that the lobster boats in the cove had been cut free of their moorings and been found washed up on Peter's Island with their traps slashed to ribbons.  Like to cost them lobstermen a whole season of feedin' theys young uns, Sparrow said bitterly, Done outta pure meanness that were, like when she poured gasoline on the flower beds in the Memory Garden.  Killed ever'thin' that did and contaminated the ground for years.

On the whole, the village thought, the death wasn't much to be mourned.  There'd been no word from the family but a week or so later, James received a letter with a new hundred dollar bill enclosed and a harsh note.

Reimbursement for the funeral and burial of Dorothea Odessa Mills, it read, She didn't deserve your kindness.

It was postmarked from Dartmouth, the last place anyone knew Odessa's daughter, a practical nurse so it was thought, had lived but there was no signature and no return address.  James and Lily put the money toward the church's long term renovation fund, labeling it an anonymous gift from a former member and in time - unlike Odessa who lived on through gossip and mean spirited but mostly true stories - it was put to good use and forgotten.

Reckon if even a little good comes from bad, we ought to be grateful, James said.

The village, not wanting to disagree with their preacher, said absolutely nothing.

.

A Pretty Thought

All I need, my friend Daniel writes in his post, is love and prayers, nothing else.

Well, no, I ache to respond, it's a pretty thought but if love and prayer could cure addiction and make people well, there'd be no alcoholics or junkies.  One of my favorite recovery quotes - and the one it took me the longest to learn and accept is that Love isn't the answer.  Love isn't even the issue.

Does Daniel need to hear this?

Probably.

Will he listen?

Probably not.

It's easier to ask for love and prayer from others instead of help for yourself.  When you fail, it'll be their lack and not yours.  Drunks and junkies always need someone or something to blame other than themselves.

It's never a question of love.

Mary Margaret's Letter

Mary Margaret was what islanders called a sturdy woman, big boned and husky with muscular forearms and an overall build more suited to driving rails than delicacy.  She could out drink, out curse, and out fight almost any man in the village - and often did on summer Saturday nights - when the week's work was over and done. She kept a store of homebrew in the root cellar just for the occasion.

After her common law husband had tripped and fallen down those very dimly lit steps one chilly winter night and died of a broken neck - he'd been a mean drunk and a sorry son of a bitch by most accounts - Mary Margaret planted him and moved on, raising four sons on hard work, whiskey, and a small government pension.

Hell raisers all, so folks said but never to her face or their's as the boys tended to travel in a loud, defiant pack, ragged and poor and ill tempered, and their mother - who stood just over  six foot in her stocking feet - made impressive figures.

Gawddam, if those boys aren't bigger'n most houses, Uncle Shad remarked to my grandmother.

Come to a bad end, they will, Nana agreed sourly, Jist like they's daddy.

Uncle Shad snapped a kitchen match with one practiced, toughened thumbnail and it burst into flame with a bright, sulphury-y hiss.

There be some still say he didn't fall, he said mildly and exhaled a stream of silvery smoke.

Reckon so, my grandmother nodded, But sayin' and provin' ain't even related.

Don't 'spose, Shad allowed, but gawddam, ain't those boys big as trees.

On the morning the sturdy woman came to our back door, looking like the wrath of God and blotting out the sun with her sheer size, I liked to swallow my gum in fear.  Nana gave me a brisk clap on the back before chasing me off with a Shut yer mouth, child, you'll catch flies low growl.

Got me an errand in Digby, Missus, Mary Margaret muttered, Heard tell you was goin' come Sat'day.  Wondrin' if you'd oblige me.

It was a common enough request as anyone making a trip to the mainland always traveled with a list of places to stop or things to pick up for others in the village - liquor from the province-run liquor store mostly - but also fabrics or small machine parts, veterinary drugs or packages too big for the mail car.  Once Uncle Willie and Uncle Shad had loaded a second hand pump organ for the Baptist church into the back of a pickup truck and worried it all the way back.  And once they'd transported a carefully wrapped grave marker from Jayne's Funeral Home, coaxing John Sullivan to ride in the back and keep watch over it.

Ain't gon' do that a second time, Long John had told Nana with a curiously fragile shudder, Give me the fidgets somethin' fierce to ride sixty miles with a tombstone.

So Nana smiled and nodded and took down her little notebook from its hook by the back door, neatly wrote Mary Margaret's name and looked up expectantly.  The sturdy woman shifted from one foot to the other, big hamhock hands jammed into the pockets of her overalls,  eyes looking everywhere but at my grandmother.  It was an odd stand off and Nana waited patiently.

Prob'ly wants her to pick up a body, my little brother hissed in my ear, surprising me into a muffled shriek and earning us one of Nana's patented, narrow-eyed warning glances.  Mary Margaret didn't seem to notice.

Mary?  Nana asked encouragingly, What is it you need?

Got me a letter, Mary Margaret said finally, producing a folded over and dirt stained envelope from her back pocket, It's private like.  Don't rightly trust the mail.  She handed it over hesitantly and Nana took it.  For a moment it hung there, half in my grandmother's well cared for hands, half in Mary Margaret's overworked ones.
Then, as if it might bite, Mary Margaret let go.

I'm obliged to you, Missus, she said in a softer tone and then the screen door slammed and she was gone.

Burning with curiosity, my brother and I descended on Nana like locusts - we'd seen her eyes widen when she looked at the grimy envelope and read the address - but she'd have none of it.  She waved us off and tucked the envelope into her apron pocket.

Not your business, she said tartly, not your burden.  Go before I decide to take you both to the woodshed for listenin' at keyholes!

This being no idle threat, we went.

By Saturday we'd all but forgotten about Mary Margaret's mysterious letter.  Nana made no mention of it as we all piled into the old Lincoln and nothing out of the ordinary happened until we were on our way home and without a word of explanation, made an unscheduled stop of the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  

I'll be back directly, she said, pulling into a vacant space, Stay put and behave.

But Nana.......we started to protest and she silenced us with a fierce glare.

Curiosity killed the cat, she told us abruptly, slung her purse over her elbow and marched toward the official looking and slightly intimidating building.

Somebody's in trouble now!  my little brother whooped and gave me a sharp dig in the ribs.  I shoved back and called him a nasty name and my mother turned in her seat and clapped her palms together sharply.

That's enough! my mother snapped angrily and clapped her palms together, They have special cells for children who don't do as they're told!

I was old enough to recognize that this was a tactic but my little brother cowered at once, curling himself into a ball against the passenger door, white faced and looking close to tears.  Feeling guilty, I shook my head at him and patted his shoulder, mouthing No, they don't.  He shivered and uncertainly reached for my hand. The ride home was quieter than usual and although nothing was said, I sensed trouble brewing between my mother and grandmother and was sure it had to do with Mary Margaret and the letter but it would be another few days before the trouble bubbled to the surface and spilled over like an unwatched pot.

Ruthie and I were in the playhouse, serving imaginary tea to the dogs and a collection of imaginary guests, when the official RCMP sedan came cruising slowly down the gravel driveway.  We watched breathlessly as two officers in their familiar traditional uniforms - red shirts with brass buttons, dark trousers, shiny boots and stiff-brimmed hats - knocked politely at the back door and were ushered inside.  Half an hour or so later, we watched them leave, heading further down The Point, and in our best stealth mode, we crept through the tall grass and across Aunt Lizzie's back pasture to a vantage point just beyond the barn.  The sedan pulled slowly into Mary Margaret's rutted driveway, raising a small cloud of dust and sending a flock of scavenging chickens scattering in all directions.  Their indignant protesting was loud but not loud enough to drown out Ruthie's sudden sneeze and one of the mounties casually looked our way before calling out a dry humored Gesundheit! 
A well trained and polite child, she immediately called back Thank you! and then covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes wide with shock at what she'd done.   

Oh, hellfire and cracker crap! she gasped, They know we're here!

Run! I yelled, barely conscious of the mounties laughing in the background.  We took hands and ran for all we were worth, plowing through the high grass blindly and fully expecting to be chased and apprehended.

I can't be arrested!  Ruthie cried with big tears running down her pale cheeks, I'll get a whippin' if I ain't home for supper! 

For whatever childish reason, this made perfect sense to me.

Just run! I hollered back, Make for the woodshed!

We hid out with the kindling, the spiders and the woodbugs the rest of the afternoon and when the factory whistle blew at four, crept out and made our way through the back pasture to Uncle Shad's, across Uncle Willie's strawberry field to the Old Road and finally to the square.  Two little girls in tattered and dusty overalls with their faces smeared from dirt and wood shavings might've raised questions if the entire village hadn't been so scandalized by the news that the mounties had discovered no trace of Mary Margaret or her four big-as-trees sons, that the house was cold, dirty, and empty. Not a solitary soul would admit to having seen them since Saturday.

There's only one way off this island, the mounties had allegedly told Cap, They had to cross, wouldn't you say.

Ay-uh, the ferry boat captain had nodded, Be hard to miss'em, I reckon.  Them boys be as big as gawddam brick sh....big as trees, they be.  But they ain't crossed on my boat and that's a God given fact.

Maybe they swam, one of the mounties suggested with a slight sneer.

Mebbe they did, Cap allowed impassively, Reckon you gon' drag the passage?  Current's mighty strong this time of year, even for a sturdy woman like Mary Margaret.

The mounties left empty handed and the scandal, unfed, thirty years in the past and nowhere to go, died down by Labor Day.  The rumor that Mary Margaret's letter had been a confession to the killing of a mean drunk and a sorry son of a bitch stayed a rumor.  No one mentioned the second rumor, that four young boys who hadn't always been the size of trees might've had enough of their daddy's abuse and done a little housecleaning on their own.  

The truth, J. K. Rowling wrote, is a beautiful and terrible thing.  It should be treated with caution.




  

Uncertainty Ahead

The streets are glistening after a three day rain.  Both the front and back yards are slick with dead leaves and the remains of broken branches.  The weather is conflicted, not able to make up its mind whether to be muggy and unpleasantly still or sullen and cold and November-ish.  At times I know exactly how it feels - we are soul mates one moment and the bitterest of enemies the next - change, as some famous  Greek philosopher wrote, is the only constant.  All we ever really know is that there is uncertainty ahead.

Don't weary, my daddy used to tell me but he did and I do, sometimes about silly, foolish things and always about things I can't control.  It's an inherited trait I really could do without but if I have nothing to worry over,
I can invent something in a flash.

According to the evening news, my friend Daniel is currently lying in charity hospital with life threatening injuries, namely a gunshot wound to the chest.  After a marathon night of music and alcohol, he staggered home - to the wrong house - and when his key didn't work, he tried to break in and was summarily shot multiple times by the homeowner.  No charges have been filed.

Lucky it was a handgun and not a sawed off, Daniel writes on social media.  I suppose I could be glad that he hasn't lost his dry wit but truthfully the humor escapes me.  His 30th birthday is still ahead of him, he has a wife, a three year old child and a three week old baby.  He's alive by no small miracle and the medical bills will be astronomical.  I'm glad he can still smile but what of the nightmare his family and friends have been put through, what of the homeowner who pulled the trigger?  

He freely admits to being an alcoholic, of having black outs from time to time.  He apologizes publicly but makes no mention of getting help.  It hurts my heart to see his friends compliment him on what will be his new and impressive street cred.  The social media debate that breaks out after the shooting devolves quickly and battle lines are clearly drawn.  His defenders post impassioned pleas for understanding and forgiveness, his detractors are ready and willing to lock him up and throw away the key.  He's an irresponsible drunk or a troubled young man who made a tragic mistake.  He got what he deserved or he's a victim.  I read over a hundred comments and there's not a mention - not a single, solitary mention - of the fact that alcoholism is a disease.  Plenty of sympathy, boatloads of support.  Lots of cruelty and truly hateful rhetoric.  Gun nuts bragging that he'd if it had been their house, he'd would be dead.  Self righteous condemnations of his poor choices.  Reminders that everyone makes mistakes and too many get well wishes to count.  Prayers for his family, prayers for the shooter.

It stuns and saddens me that amid all this very public airing of very private dirty laundry, not one line is written about the truth.

God protects fools and drunks, my daddy used to tell me.

He never said who protects us from each other.

  

Darktown

Here in Darktown, where even the shadows have shadows, you drink your coffee black and never get up before suppertime.  The streets are littered with unfiltered cigarette butts and dented plastic cups.  The gutters reek of stale beer and blood.  The bars never close and the horses go hungry in their shabby stalls while ragged women call from second story windows and down-and-out men lounge beneath the streetlights selling magic white powder.  Children can't read but they can shoot and handle a blade with deadly sleight of hand.  The river keeps its secrets, the smoky landscape looks like a weathered, faded postcard - mud stained with torn edges - the church bells never ring.  Here in Darktown, even the moonlight keeps away and you can get killed over a chicken bone or a fifty cent piece.  The sky is never anything but sick yellow and when the fog rolls in around midnight, even the stray cats run for cover.  There are no innocents in Darktown.  It's not on any map, not on the way to anywhere.  You don't get here by accident and you don't hardly leave except in a pine box. 

During the day here in Darktown, the wind blows hot and dry and gritty as a sandstorm.  It collects litter and debris - cast off candy wrappers and discarded newspapers mostly but empty aluminum beer cans as well, sometimes even a blood stained old shoe - and shuttles them roughly over the broken sidewalks and into the gutters at the low end of town.  The streets are swept as clean as they ever get here but no one notices.  It's an unnaturally quiet place during the day - desolate and deserted - no foot traffic or passersby, no horse carts. You might hear the occasional loose shutter slam against a dilapidated building or the creak of a swinging door forced open by the wind but there are no people sounds.  It's like an old, abandoned mining town, full of ghosts and rag-tag homeless dogs.  The stench of the river is always in the air, brackish and smelling vaguely of food gone bad.  The dogs sniff at it warily but then slink away, too thin and too tired to pursue it.

The river is not a pretty place.  It's banks are slimy and overgrown with weeds and dead trees.  The currents flow quickly and are thickened with trash - sometimes a body part or two rises from the black bottom and is swept downstream - if it's not snagged and impaled on a fallen branch for all to see.  A hand once washed up on the slippery shore, so it's said, but the river hurriedly reclaimed it.  The black water has never encouraged visitors or curiosity, it claims its victims silently and never brags, then flows to the rendering plant and offers them up.  They disappear in a cloud of vile smoke and hot ash falls like confetti.

A safe distance away, ordinary people live with ordinary troubles and try not to think too much about the nearness of Darktown.  They isolate themselves with their their workaday worlds, their Sunday cook outs, their sweet, equitable upbringing.  They comfort themselves with their sameness and shared ambitions.  They raise their children to be hard working, well behaved, civil tongued and it's a rare thing for a child to be threatened with Darktown - but it happens - and it puts the fear of God into these little ones.  It's a mean-spirited and desperate parent who resorts to this tactic and it's almost always immediately retracted but the children remember.  Words have power and they leave scars and for the one or two who will inevitably find their way to the terrible wasteland, not knowing why is a comfort.  They leave the ordinary world and crawl into the darkness with something like relief, seeking the sweet nothingness of Darktown and willingly getting lost in it.

And here in Darktown, they give up.  Sometimes they a leave a note, more often they just take too many pills or hang themselves from a tree on the bank of the filthy river.  Only the citizens of Darktown, the ones who actually live there, ever really understand the despair, the pain, or the power of depression. 

For me, as an adult who can still sometimes look out her second story bedroom window and see an imaginary place on the outskirts of ordinary, Darktown is imagery.  For those who live there, it's all too real.





  

Urban Blight

I make the drive to the country in just over an hour, cursing the interstate at every mile and being grateful to finally make my way onto a backroads highway.  The road bends and sways like a tapestry, the trees are in full fall color and the sun is warm.  It's a pretty and peaceful drive past horse farms and elegant homes on several acres, cattle grazing idly in open pastures and man made ponds complete with ducks skimming lightly on the water's surface.  Despite its lack of conveniences, there are still moments I miss the country quiet and the rural isolation and long for a life free from city noise and city-fied people.

It all changes at the city limits when the landscape turns urban.  Block after block of ruined properties, empty and neglected houses, shabby businesses and trashed lots replace the pretty countryside.  What a sad, burned out, abandoned little town, I think.  If it was ever here at all, quaint has come and gone.

On the courthouse lawn, two makeshift stages have been built and a half dozen rows of folding chairs set up to one side of the confederate soldier statue.  Vendor booths selling cotton candy, chili dogs, homemade jewelry and tee shirts are set up on all four sides of the closed streets.  An animal adoption booth has erected a low and not very substantial chicken wire fence at one end - it encloses three or four adoptable mixed breed dogs - but no one pays any attention to the emaciated stray hound wandering just down the street by the open door'ed sidewalk cafe.  Musicians are doing sound checks and praying for no technical glitzes, a number of them shout out a welcome to me and I wave.  It's a long way to have come for a sparse crowd but the day is young and perhaps, like in Field of Dreams, people will come.

I take my pictures, visit with my musician friends, stuff myself with chili cheese dogs and at the end of the day head back on the road, driving into the sun and away from the urban blight.

Milford Shack's Muse

Milford Shack's small, two story house sat quietly on the west side of the village square, nearly but not quite surrounded by trees and a low iron fence.  A half dozen sleek and colorful cats prowled the grounds and soft lamplight spilled from each of the downstairs windows.  There was nothing spooky or forbidding or even mildly interesting about the place and Uncle Milly - a travel writer by trade - was remarkable only for the fact that in all his sixty some years and despite a number of successful books and glossy magazine articles about the incredible beauty of all the provinces, he'd never actually set as much as a foot off the island.  That, and of course, the fact that he was a self-proclaimed fortune teller.

He was a small man, almost fragile looking and inclined to be fussy in his appearance and speech.  He favored jackets with elbow patches and muted wool vests worn over pin striped shirts.  You could cut bread by the crease in his trousers, Nana said, and his only concession to comfort seemed to be his casually scuffed loafers.
He was what my grandmother - when in a charitable mood - called "affected" although with what I was never sure.  His exaggerated gestures and accent (brazenly and openly copied from Miss Hilda as everyone knew) got on her nerves and when he grew a pencil-thin mustache and cultivated a pointy little goatee, it was more than she could bear.

I declare, Milly, she said sharply after an afternoon of banana cream pie and tea liberally spiked with whiskey,
I cain't decide iffin you look like an undersized Basil Rathbone or an overgrown Mickey Rooney, but it don't
suit you a'tall.

Uncle Milly smiled,

Leave me my illusions, dear Alice, he said smoothly, the muse suggested them and my public enjoys them.

Uncle Milly's muse, his inspiration and guide as he called her, came only at night and rarely took physical form.

But when she does, he assured anyone who would listen, she is golden haired like the sun and moves with the grace of clouds and moonlight and speaks only in whispers and only to me.

Where does she come from, Uncle Milly, I wanted to know, What's her name?

Her name is Drinelda, he told me with a wink, and she comes from a world just past the moon.  She's full of secrets.

And you're full of what makes the grass grow green, Milford Shack, my grandmother snapped impatiently, don't be fillin' the child's head with your fool nonsense.  She's already got imagination enough for two!

I thought maybe this wasn't the time to tell her that after much coaxing and pleading, Uncle Milly had finally agreed to tell my fortune for my birthday.  It had seemed like a glamorous and grownup idea at the time - who knew but that the muse might even drop by - and I didn't want Nana's cynicism to spoil the plan.  The idea of a fortune teller was no less plausible than a travel writer who didn't travel, I thought and the whole village knew that it was Uncle Milly's daughter who actually visited all the places and took the pictures while Uncle Milly added the words.

Not to mention, Milly, my grandmother was adding, You and your fool muse ain't nothin' but a fraud and you know it.  Fine thing for a grown man to playin' at, I declare, you oughta be ashamed.

When I repeated this conversation to Ruthie - the thought that a fortune teller might be a waste of a hard earned quarter being at the back of my mind - she reminded me that grownups don't know everything like they think they do and what my grandmother didn't know surely wasn't going to hurt her.

Besides, she said reasonably enough, We ain't gon' get caught.  And 'sposin' we see the muse?

We didn't see the muse, of course but Uncle Milly did his best.  He appeared in a celestial purple floor length robe with matching turban, dimmed the lights and dealt the sinister tarot cards with a dramatic flair.   The air in his parlor was faintly smoky and mysterious in a shadowy, catlike way.  Now and again the night breeze would stir the tree branches against the curtained windows making a raspy, eerie sound that sent a chill all the way up my backbone.  When an unseen cat slipped beneath the table and brushed against my ankle I thought for a second I would scream.  Ruthie sat frozen, so frightened she forgot to breathe, her normally tanned and healthy looking skin the color of watered down milk.

The spirits are with us, dear children, Uncle Milly intoned in a voice fit for the grave, and the muse is watching.  Have no fear.

Ruthie and I shared a shiver.

The fortune telling itself was pretty mundane - long and happy lives, handsome men, many children - nothing we would remember for long.  

It's the delicious sense of childhood terror that I remember.  For a few precious moments - muse or no muse - the whole world was haunted and the kind of fear that only children seek out and appreciate was everywhere.