Angela

It seemed so simple.

We'd run a total of $637 through the credit card machine and somehow the bank had only been sent $437. I dreaded calling the merchants services people and wisely took a pre-emptive aspirin, telling myself it was really a patience pill.

I explained it once, then twice, then a third time. The young woman, Angela, wasn't inspiring much confidence in me.

“We ran three cards,” I heard myself saying wearily for the 4^th time, “One for $200, one for $237, and then another for $200. I'm looking at the report and it says we ran a total of $637 but there was only $437 sent to the bank. All I want to know is where the $200 has gone.”

“Which $200 does the bank not have?” Angela wanted to know.

I paused to let what she was asking me sink in thoroughly then exploded.

“Are you dim?” I shouted at her, “How the hell do I know which $200 the bank doesn't have!”

I took a breath and counted to 10 (twice).

“Look,” I said tightly, “We ran three transactions.....”

“Oh, I see that,” she assured me brightly, “They're all here.”

“Okay, good, they're all there. Making grand progress, aren't we.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I've stumbled into a dead zone, I thought to myself and for a long moment, language and speech deserted me. All I could think was that we're doomed, overrun and overwhelmed by stupidity.

There's no cure.

“Angela.” I finally said calmly while every fiber of me wanted to crawl through the telephone and strangle the life out of her. Slowly.

“Angela,” I said again, “ Maybe I wasn't quite clear. Let me put this another way. We ran $637 in credit cards and sent it to you so you could send it to the bank. The bank only got $437 which is a $200 shortage. In other words, Angela, WHERE'S THE F**KING MONEY?”

Whether it was the obscenity or the decibel level or the combination of the two, I may never know but Angela finally seemed to realize that some sort of action on her part was required. She apologized for the trouble and promised me she would do everything in her power to resolve it. Could I send her a copy of our transaction tape and give her 24 hours to investigate, she asked.

Yes, I told her, I could do that.

True to her word, a day later she had tracked down the missing money and re-directed it and the bank confirmed it. I never learned where it had gone or why and by that time, I didn't really give a damn. I had a very faint twinge at guilt at losing my temper but it passed.

The Call of Christmas

It's not often that I break my own rules, especially for holidays when I most like to hibernate and wish the world away, but sometimes the call of friendship is strong and the demand is slight. It will be small gathering of good friends and music so I nod and smile and say yes, I'd love to. I dislike hurting anyone's feelings and besides, it's close enough to true to get by.

My dislike of holidays is a mixture of memories. The family I grew up with was disconnected and emotionally sterile. Nothing grew there except a reserved contempt and the only Christmas drama was wondering how long it would take my mother to drink herself into a hazy kind of oblivion. The family I married into was effusive, fairly spilling over with manufactured cheer and a smothering determination to prove how happy, healthy and intact they were. Funny, how distance and closeness coming from such different places can have the same effect. Funny, how long it takes to grow out of it.

When I get there, the house is a wonderland, decorated to the nines inside and out. Each room practically glows and everything smells of spices. Doorways are draped with greenery, every shelf and mantle is covered up with delicate crystal candles, the floor to ceiling tree takes up an entire corner. It's meticulously trimmed and glittery with tiny white lights and strands of silvery tinsel all faintly dusted with snow. This, I think, is a woman who takes Christmas seriously and I can't even begin to wrap my mind around how much time it all must have taken. There is eggnog and ginger beer and four different dips, a platter of vegetables and cheeses and a basket of still warm dinner rolls. It's laid out so prettily that no one wants to be the first to eat.

There's something hopeful in this house, something built on faith and real family, gratitude and love. The music and the decorations are just extra touches.

Dogs, Dads, and Dreams

The little dachshund nudges my knee, no more than a feather's touch, and without opening my eyes, I throw back the blanket and he crawls up and into the L shaped space between my knees and my shoulders. He sighs, gives me a quick kiss on my chin, then presses tightly up against me and goes to sleep. I tuck my free arm over his sleek little body and under his belly and hold him close to me. The small brown dog is snoozing behind my neck and there are cats scattered here and there, wrapped around my ankles, comfortably asleep on my shoulder and perched in front of the the window. It's one of those “life doesn't get much better than this” moments and I try to hold onto it. I'm afraid they may be much more of a rarity come the new year.

I have tried and tried to find some light in the coming darkness, tried and tried to work through the despair and fear that is crushing me. I tell myself he's all talk, it won't be as bad as he promised, we will not cement ourselves as a country of the racist, the rednecks and the rich. It's just that I can't find any evidence to support what I tell myself. Every new obscene appointment is worse than the last and the country is being swallowed whole by greed and profiteering, led by the sorriest excuse for a human being ever born. The fact that he can't even spell or speak coherently doesn't trouble me near as much as the fact that he prefers the entire country follow his example. I've missed educated people for years, missed people with integrity even longer and now it seems that both will be ground up and spit out on the ashes of health care, diplomacy, equality, free speech, and civil rights There will be flat out brutality for anyone who doesn't agree and resistance will be trampled by white sheeted cowards masquerading as bankers and politicians and cost cutting CEO's whose souls are ruled by profit and loss reports.

My daddy would undoubtedly tell me I'm getting carried away with doom and gloom. He would give me a sad, tolerant smile and tell me to stop being melodramatic. He would assure me we live in a better world with better people, that my fears are groundless, that the country is stronger, wiser, and more even tempered than the lunatic fringe. He would laugh and tease me about being a fatalist and too young to see things clearly. Maybe he'd even believe it or maybe he'd just want me not to worry so much. Or maybe, just maybe, he'd suspect I was right but not want to say so.

The little dachshund sleeps on, dreaming and occasionally twitching, pressing closer against me. My breath stirs the dappled fly away fur on his ears and every now and again, one small paw gives one small kick at whatever he's chasing in his dreams.  

Kittens in the Spring

The Sunday before Christmas is bitter cold and icy bright. I can see frost all over the front yard and yesterday's wet leaves are frozen in place like sculptures. The dogs are curled up together on the bed behind me and the cats are strategically draped over the heating vents. I'm in long johns and three layers, worrying uselessly about the water pipes and the neighborhood cats and grateful to have a roof over my head. I jack the thermostat up to 76 - thinking with a grim kind of satisfaction that my mother would turn over in her grave - and drag out an extra throw blanket. I detest and despise cold and am none too wild about Christmas. This year more so than others, the prospect of a new year is not just joyless, but frightening. I feel as if the very planet is in peril. Like the cold itself, it's impossible to shake off, cast out or ignore what I fear the new year will bring.

Hope is a two-faced hypocrite, seducing you with promises of better days or snaring you into a pit of unrealistic expectations. You can wait and be trusting that good will overcome evil or you can join the resistance and fight. Either way, it won't amount to much.

And yet.

Yesterday, knowing the cold was coming, I re-made the workbench in the garage with shelters for the stray cats - plastic tubs with fresh straw for insulation, thick cardboard boxes lined with fleece blankets and old pillows – not perfect by any means but dry and out of the wind for those that find it. And judging from the dogs newfound interest in the dilapidated dog door that leads into the garage, they've already found it.

And yet.

I sign the petitions, I make the calls to congress, I support those who still believe the country can survive. I don't know why except that it's better than doing nothing at all and sometimes it helps me sleep at night.

There will still be kittens in the spring, I tell myself.

“No winter lasts forever and no spring skips its turn.” ~ Hal Borland

Nana's Kitchen

Thirty years of widowhood had not dimmed my grandmother's Christmas spirit. It took the better part of a day to empty the Christmas Closet and set up the fireplace village with its cottonball snow, tiny white plastic fences and miniature lights. We hung huge ribbon'd wreaths on the front and back doors, lined the mantle with greenery and candles and attached mistletoe to every overhead lighting fixture we could reach. By the time we hung the stockings and finished the tree the following day, the usually gray, sterile and charmless house sparkled and everything smelled of fir trees and cinnamon. The vintage stand up radio in the foyer, 4 feet tall if an inch, was set to public radio and played nothing but Christmas music. Nana, I discovered, knew every verse of every carol ever written, and as she did not naturally possess a happy or effusive nature, it delighted me to see her so filled with Christmas spirit, all smiles and singing along. It was then I knew the transformation was complete. It was a happy time of year.

Come Christmas Eve Day, the house was warm and trimmed and ready for company but the kitchen was organized chaos. Nana's to do list was tacked to the side wall by the sink so she could refer to it often and easily. She wore a tiny gold pencil on a chain around her neck and would methodically check off each item with the finished list seeming to give her enormous satisfaction. I don't have a gold pencil but I am an inveterate list maker and I know exactly how she felt.

As Christmas Eve drew nearer, the kitchen grew more and more off limits.

“Best you have serious business or be just passin' through,” Nana warned us, “ I don't take to trespassers while I'm cookin'.”

“What can I do to help?” my daddy asked when he arrived and gave her a playful kiss on the cheek.

She returned the gesture by swatting at him with a slotted spoon and then tried to hide a smile.

“There's somethin' under the tree you can open early,” she told him gruffly, “Ain't much but it'll be useful tomorrow. Now git and don't be trackin' mud on my clean floor.”

He grinned and set off for the living room, presently returning with a shiny new electric carving knife set.

“You do know the way to a man's heart, Alice,” he announced happily and catching her unawares gave her an quick hug. She resisted and blushed slightly but I could tell she was pleased that he was pleased. In our family, emotions were kept on a tight rein and it would never have done to make a major production of a Christmas gift. We tended to thrive on practicality and an understated, almost puritanical sense of self-control. My husband's family, I reflected, practiced a shameless sort of gratitude that turned the holiday into performance art and made me acutely uncomfortable. If a gift could actually reduce someone to tears, it was considered a grand success. Needless to say, I wasn't wild about either approach. Both made me feel like a stranger and undoubtably contributed to my current dislike of all gift giving, holiday or not.

Even so, there are times when I do miss Nana's kitchen.  Not much and not often, just enough to make me smile.

Miz Loretta's Ghost

My grandmother's summer schedule was as close to inviolate as you could get.

Monday was Wash Day. Tuesday she shopped and Wednesday she baked. Thursday was Visiting Day and each Friday was reserved for a trip to the mainland. Saturday was kept open for various alternating monthly chores - floor waxin' and window washin' and the like - and on Sundays, she put her feet up.

On Thursdays, we always stopped at Miz Loretta's last on account of Miz Loretta had been keepin' company with a ghost for 40 years and it kinda got on Nana's nerves to be in the same house with him. Miz Loretta never had gotten around to marryin' him seein' as he was kilt in the war but she stayed faithful all the same.

“Ain't never met a ghost,” my cousin Gilda who was staying with us for all of July announced - Gilda always went straight to the practical side of things - “What's his name?”

“Eugene,” I told her.

“Mr. Eugene,” Nana promptly corrected me, “And I expect you both to be respectful.”

Gilda didn't exactly specialize in respectful but she knew better than to risk my grandmother's temper. We obediently carried in the plastic containers of fresh bread, vegetables and sliced ham, the box of glossy magazines Nana had collected, a shabby but freshly laundered rag doll with blonde braids, and the second hand quilt she'd found at a jumble sale. Miz Loretta welcomed us with open arms but before we got to peek inside the cheerfully painted little bungalow, Nana had relieved us of our burdens and sent us off to gather kindling and fill the woodbox. That done, we got to go inside where an afternoon tea was neatly laid out in on a small table in front of the old stone fireplace.

“They's five places,” Gilda whispered to me, “We gon' have tea with a ghost!”

Nana shot her a dark look but Miz Loretta just poured tea and passed cream cakes.

“I always set a place for Eugene,” she whispered back with a conspiratorial wink, “but you know, he's so shy-minded 'bout company, he almost never comes.”

My grandmother sighed.

Gilda and I made short work of the cream cakes while Miz Loretta chattered on about the many facets and merits of various tea blends and how much sugar was necessary for a decent cookie.

“Eugene has such a sweet tooth,” she confessed, “I declare it's a wonder he can still wear his uniform.”

She asked after my mother and the state of the my grandfather's health, said next time we should bring the dogs with us (“Eugene does have such a way with animals!”), commented on how much she liked the new doctor and how she'd enjoyed the last Sunday sermon, and finally mentioned that she was learning bridge.

“I'll expect you to ask me to one of your card parties soon, Alice,” she said nonchalantly, “It's a mercy that Eugene is such a good teacher.”

Nana nodded and managed a weary smile.

“Time we was goin', Loretta,” she announced, “Help with the tea things, girls.”

Miz Loretta shook her head and waved the offer away.

“No need, no need,” she told us cheerfully, “I wash and Eugene dries. We get it done in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

Gilda was uncharacteristically quiet on the ride home and I couldn't help but think she was plotting some mischief. Knowing my irrepressibly reckless cousin, the thought made my stomach flutter some. Her silence didn't escape Nana's sharp eyes but even when pressed, all she would admit to was being disappointed at not having actually met a ghost. The conversation about it dried up until later at supper.

“You do know, Gilda,” my grandmother pointed out kindly, “They's no such thing as ghosts. Miz Loretta jist ain't never got over losin' Eugene.”

“Oh, yes'm,” Gilda agreed without hesitation, “I reckon she's jist got bats in her belfry.”

“Well, I 'spose that's one way of puttin' it,” Nana said and frowned, “But mebbe you might oughta look for a kinder way of sayin' so.”

This was such a mild rebuke that Gilda was barely ruffled and my grandmother's frown deepened.

“Sometimes,” she said thoughtfully, “Madness is more'n jist a misery. Sometimes it's the only way a body can go on.”

Much later that night as Gilda and I were lying in the big double bed with the moonlight sifting through the clouds and fiddle music from John Sullivan's drydocked boat playing in the background, Nana came in to hear our prayers and say goodnight. She sat on the edge of the bed and told us about Loretta and Eugene, about how they had been childhood sweethearts from the age of five, inseparable through their teenage years, and betrothed by their twenties. They'd been young and in love, more so than any couple anyone could remember, and full of happy plans. And then the war came and suddenly Eugene was gone and Loretta was alone except for a baby daughter who had been born far too early.

“She didn't survive,” Nana said gently, “and Eugene didn't come home. It was too much for Loretta. Memories was all she had left so she made up ghosts and she's lived with'em her whole life. So there'll be no more talk about it and no mischief. Do you understand?”

It was the first and only time I heard my cousin Gilda cry.

Note to Self

There is, I keep reminding myself, absolutely no point in engaging the chronically stupid low lifes who post things like righteous demands for proof that the president elect is a racist. I might just as well engage a brick wall.

I also find I have no patience for friends who enjoy telling me – oh, so righteously - it's time we come together, in effect, advising me to get over it.

You do not just get over the death of your country.

Charles Dickens wrote “I hope that truth and real love are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.”

I hope so too but I'm not holding my breath. Not while there are white supremacists in the cabinet and advising the president. Not while so called evangelical christians preaching hate are at the president's elbow. Not while the rich are whispering in his ear and the less fortunate are dying off.

I believe the country will survive the next four years.

I hope it will be intact and that we will be able to salvage some small amount of grace, civility,

courage and honesty.

I pray it will be enough to repair and build on.

But this I know to an absolute certainty: Things will never be the same again. We will never be the same again. Something in this country died this month and something truly ugly was exposed.

It was there all the time but we weren't paying attention.

Billy Wilson's Wife

Just after the last hymn but before the benediction, a shotgun blast rattled the stained glass windows and shocked the entire congregation of the Baptist Church awake and upright.

“Lord a'mighty,” my startled grandmother exclaimed, “What the hell was that?”

Several confused seconds passed and then all heads turned toward the sound of the front doors as they jerked open and one of the Albright twins stumbled in.

“She shot him!” the boy yelled, “Billy Wilson's wife done shot his leg off! He needs the doc!”

Doc McDonald, who never as much collected his mail without his medical bag, was already on his feet and making his way past the stunned crowd. Rowena, still in her choir robe and looking uncharacteristically anxious, met him on the church steps and together they hurried across the dirt road to the doc's house. What the congregation had heard was Billy Wilson's wife's second shot, an alert fired harmlessly into the air after she'd blown his kneecap apart with the first and then thoughtfully thrown his wayward carcass into the back of a hay wagon and driven him to the doc's.

“From the looks of the back of that wagon, reckon she didn't break no speed limits,” Uncle Willie observed dryly to my grandmother, “Pretty slick he ain't dead.”

Nana just shrugged. She had no love lost for the likes of Billy Wilson, an unrepentant gambler, hard drinker and public womanizer. Billy's shortcomings and the state of his marriage had been staples of island gossip for years. If you counted the two common law wives who had come before, this was his third attempt but my grandmother was old school and cared about the legal details so she considered it his first.

“Either way, it ain't much of a track record,” she had been heard to say, “But I reckon this time he just mighta met his match.”

Common law or legal, this wife was an entirely different kettle of fish, the village said. She was a sturdy and practical-minded Newfoundlander, a yard wider and a full head taller than her new husband. The bloom was off her rose, so folks said, but she could cook and clean circles around any one of the island women, manage money like a miserly banker and take down a stag at 400 yards. She ran a tight ship, as it were, and the general opinion was that if Billy Wilson could be brought to heel, this was the woman to do it and if she couldn't....well, it was bound to be a good show.

“I don't b'lieve I'd bet a'gin her,” Uncle Willie remarked to Nana the first morning Billy found himself waking up in the wood box with two black eyes and wearing only his longjohns. The story made the rounds with impressive speed and for a time Billy seemed to be convinced to mend his ways but then he got whiskey'd up for the Queen's Birthday and woke in the woodbox again, this time buck naked and broken jaw'd with a garter snake curled around his ankles.

“Boy r'ared up like a streak o' lightning,” Uncle Willie reported, “Cracked his skull so hard on the roof of that woodbox, it took a dozen stitches to close and Doc says it's a wonder he didn't give hisself a concussion.”

“They's folks who cain't help but bein' slow learners,” Nana said with an distinctly uncharitable smile, “Mebbe he oughta be thankin' his lucky stars for bein' hardheaded.”

Doc McDonald managed to save Billy's life and, most likely, his marriage that Sunday morning but not even the specialists in Halifax could save his knee. They wired and patched it back together so's he could walk - after a fashion, at least - but his wandering ways ended once and for all and the village was sorry, but not too sorry. The old Billy wasn't much missed and the new one, the one who walked crookedly and learned to live with pain, turned his life around.

Billy Wilson's wife, a hale and hearty Newfoundlander, believed in hard work, fidelity, abstinence from alcohol and dice halls, and the persuasive power of a 12 gage. And, of course, happy endings.

All Rise

The courtroom was chilly and crowded with a diversified array of plaintiffs and defendants. Evictions were heard first, a long line of real estate owners and agents against a longer line of renters and their families. Each and every cause was failure to pay rent, some for as little as 30 days, one for as long as 14 months. The witnesses were sworn, the judge read each complaint as if it were a shopping list, judgements were passionlessly delivered. Two were dismissed, one was continued, all the rest were swiftly and routinely ruled on in favor of the plaintiffs. I felt my muscles and mind falling asleep with the boredom of it.

Somewhere around the 30^th case, I began to nod off and Michael had to give me a sharp poke in the ribs. A sturdy black woman was at the bar, railing incoherently about the unfairness of the system and begging for more time. The judge heard her out until she ran out of breath and dramatics then listlessly explained why none of what she'd said made the slightest difference and gave her the standard 24 hours to be moved out or face physical dispossession by the marshals. She screeched, she wailed and she protested until His Honor raised a hand to her and nodded to the bailiffs who escorted her out. This brief tirade was the only flash of color to be had in the drab, uninspired courtroom. If Lady Justice is indeed blind, the law she serves is wretchedly sterile and monotonous, often as far from real life as you can possibly get.

Eventually, Michael's case was ruled on, more or less in his favor as the judge decreed that a settlement agreement could go forward. His lady lawyer assures him he should see settlement money in the near future. Like all lawyers, she brims with assurances, knowing I suspect, that any money Michael actually sees is far more likely to go toward her fees than anything else.

Justice and the law don't appear to be on speaking terms these days and the truth, it would seem, barely gets past the door.

Sidewalk Songs

He was standing alone at the bus stop, an old man in dusty clothes and a fedora with a broken brim, two-handedly leaning on a cane and staring at nothing in particular.

From across the street and without the aid of my glasses, he was mostly in soft focus, a song and dance man waiting for the music to start. He was slightly hunched over and planted solidly with the cane directly in front of him with his ankles crossed at right angles, one casually behind the other. Even the fedora had a jaunty tilt to it and though his face was mostly in shadow and looked like corrugated cardboard from what I could see, I knew he was smiling.

The sky, already darkening in the late afternoon, was getting even darker with the storm closing in, when the clouds unexpectedly parted and a shaft of sunlight, narrow at the top and wider at the bottom - much like a solo stage light, I thought - appeared and clearly illuminated him. I was still fumbling for my glasses but even without them, I could see him look up briefly and raise two fingers to the fedora in a smart salute to the sky.

A city bus wheezed and rumbled its way up the street and I lost sight of the old man. When it pulled away though, he was still there and this time he was clutching a violin case - grainy black, dented in places - and not unlike its owner, lightly covered in road dust. I watched him make his way to the advertise-here bench, open the handles and lay the case at his feet then gently tuck the instrument under his chin and begin to play. The music floated like smoke over water,

the notes briefly hugging each other and then drifting apart. There was a slow, sweet melancholy in the sound and it wasn't long before a few curious onlookers became a crowd and the crowd became an audience. Mothers with young children in tow came from the convenience store across the street, the mail truck pulled to the curb, the 3^rd floor windows of the nursing school were thrown open and filled with the smiling faces of the young students. Even a pair of competing teen skateboarders careened onto the pavement behind the bench and flew to a grating, abrupt and terrifying stop. Just witnessing their daredevil antics jarred my bones to the core but the spectators were not distracted and the old man with the violin was undaunted. He played the final chorus of The Tennessee Waltz and everyone, skateboarders included, applauded.

A Good Night for Chili

About this time each year, our northwest Louisiana weather turns a tad schizophrenic. Bright, clear mornings, crisp as burnt toast give way to hot and muggy afternoons then early dark brings back the autumn chill.

Most people I know stand on principle and absolutely refuse to turn on their heat until at least November. Not me. I slip into flannels and kick that heat up without a single second thought. The dogs are ecstatic with the temperature change and the newly breathable air but I'm too old and broke down to be cold so damn the electric bill, full speed ahead. Let the leaves fall where they may, it's a good night for chili.

October always brings memories of New England, some welcome, most not. My mother and brothers thrived on the cold while my daddy and I bundled up and worried we might never be warm again. There were constant and quite fierce fights over the setting on the thermostat. My mother seemed to believe that 65 was more than warm enough while my daddy and I thought anything less than 75 was uncivilized. We heated with oil then, as did most everyone we knew, and the cost was enough to make you shiver but it was reliable as rain. Even the damp, drafty basement where I practiced piano was tolerable. Nana's house, on the other hand, for all its sprawl and open spaces, was always toasty downstairs although she kept the upstairs cooler for sleeping. In all those years - except for the hurricane - I can't remember a single time the heat failed.

October was also the best time for Sunday drives. My daddy would pack us into the back of the old station wagon and head north, sometimes all the way to Maine, just to watch the leaves showing off their Halloween colors. Sometimes I thought maybe he was a little homesick for Nova Scotia but mostly I thought he just wanted a break from my mother. She never saw any value to our Sunday wanderings or maybe she just liked the freedom to drink in peace. I didn't much care one way or another. Weekends without school got on all our nerves, especially when we were younger and there was no place to run.

Here in the south, the leaves fall and clutter up the sidewalks and streets with sickly shades of yellow and orange. There's no brilliance to their death, just a sad reminder of the cold and dark to come.

I open a can of chili, wrap up these creaky old bones and settle in. There's still no place to run.

Lucy

My first instinct was to say no, find someone else to photograph a dying dog. But I didn't and once I meet her, it only takes a few minutes to understand how wrong it would've been to say no.

Lucy's four footed siblings greet me with the unbridled joyfulness of well loved and well cared for animals who have never met a stranger. They're all wet noses, frantically wagging tails and trusting eyes. Her human family is more reserved. They both smile and say hello but there's a wariness in their eyes, a hint of suspicion. Lucy herself, a young pit bull, lies quietly on a quilt at their feet. She's a shy and slow moving girl and I sense the camera slung around my neck is making her apprehensive so I slide it to one side and kneel down beside her. She watches me with her big brown eyes and sighs. She's an innocent, made weary by the cancer and in her final days. We spend several minutes becoming friends.

All five of them live in a rusty van they keep parked on the outskirts of a campground just past the interstate. They're here for the daily meal that social services provides the homeless - today it's red beans and rice with salad, iced tea and cornbread - and if the hot water holds out, a shower and maybe a change of clothes. I'm here to photograph Lucy. My friends in the outreach program tell me she isn't likely to survive more than another few days and it's impossible to be in the middle of all this poverty and heartbreak and not want to break down and cry.

We make our way - slowly, to accommodate Lucy - outside where the late afternoon light is at its kindest. At the family's suggestion, I shoot Lucy first so she can get out of the heat and back to her quilt. For a precious few minutes, I worry about background and focus and her expression and am actually able to forget about the cancer. It's easier than I thought and when we move on to the hound dog and the feisty little Jack Russell mix, the mood lightens considerably.

The pictures are a success and I'm grateful and honored I was asked to take them.

Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even the end ~ Joann Harris

The Marionette Man

It was the first cool morning since spring had turned to summer and downtown was still and eerily quiet except for the distant church bells and deserted except for the homeless sleeping on the courthouse lawn. There was a faint, leftover mist in the air though I thought it would burn off by mid-morning. It was here on this Sunday before Labor Day that I met the man who feeds the birds.

He was sitting on one of the iron benches, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and scattering birdseed to a thick flock of pigeons from a rusty Community Coffee can held firmly between his knees. They billed and cooed around his ankles, a chorus line of them perched on the top rung behind him, one or two had actually landed on his left shoulder. His jacket was smeared with guano but he didn't seem to mind. Amid all this sea of blue and gray, a brown and white bird fluttered and landed on his free shoulder. He cupped a handful of birdseed and held it out to her, smiling as she ate right from his hand. As I got closer, I realized he was singing - I caught some of the words, Hail, hail, the gang's all here - and I recognized “Alabama Jubilee”.

When he noticed me watching, he nodded and gave me a little wave. The movement unsettled the pigeons and they rose in a feathery cloud, circled over him for a few seconds, then slowly landed back all around him.

After another few minutes, he turned the coffee can upside down and emptied the remains onto the grass then stowed the can in a battered knapsack. The pigeons, seeming to understand that breakfast was over, wandered off and he slowly got to his feet and dusted himself off.

He was, I saw immediately, uncommonly tall. His clothes hung on his skeletal frame like limp dustcloths.

Mornin', ma'am, he said politely, Ain't it a fine day to be alive.

It is that, I agreed, But your friends have gone.

Oh, they be back long about noon, I reckon, he shrugged, them and me, and the squirrels, we got a 'rangement.

Given his height and slender build, I'd expected him to be light on feet. I'd imagined his limbs would be fluid like a dancer - or maybe a basketball player – but to my surprise, he moved like a marionette. His motions were jerky and disconnected and his hightop clad feet were clunky, his footsteps thudded. When I looked a little closer, I realized that what I'd taken for thin was closer to emaciated. He was all angles and sharp edges, from his gaunt, hollow face with the smudges under his eyes all the way to his bony knees. His khaki pants ended above his ankles and his jacket sleeves rode up to above his wrists but - more surprise - he was belt-less,

his pants held up by a pair of bright, Christmas red suspenders. He wrangled the knapsack over his shoulders, gave the suspenders a smart double thumbed snap and began walking across the courthouse lawn in the direction, I hoped, of Christian Services.

He reached the crosswalk and although there wasn't a car in sight, he still waited obediently for the light to change, then looked both ways and headed across. From the opposite sidewalk, he turned and tipped his cap to me then disappeared into an alley.  The leftover pigeons on the courthouse lawn took flight, formed a loose formation overhead, and followed.

Pumps and Pearls

The women in my family – all dead now, of course – bore a striking resemblance to each other while they lived.

My grandmother, her sister, and both their daughters were frighteningly alike physically and always at odds emotionally. I wonder that we managed to survive some of those summer vacations, particularly when Nana's only brother and his wife were added to the mix. If there was one thing that united the women, it was a far reaching and long standing dislike of the former headmistress, the dreaded sister-in-law, my Aunt Helen.

In a family of hard drinking, not afraid to get their hands dirty, mostly un-playtex'd and loud women who were raising clearly hooligan children, there just was no comfortable place for Helen. She lived to be proper, thrived on her Back Bay-ness and Beacon Hill upbringing.

Take away her pumps and pearls, my Aunt Elaine said once, and all you've got left is Miss Clairol with a face lift.

And perfect nails, my mother, whose own were bitten to the quick, added nastily.

Born to wealth and privilege, that one, Nana said bitterly, Used every bit of the hot water to take a bath last night. Can't think why in the world she married into this family.

My Aunt Zel, the only petite one in the bunch and crippled since childhood – polio had left her with a deformed foot and a severe limp despite the cruel othopedic shoes she always wore and though her husband made jokes about not marrying her just to go dancing, she was sensitive about it – trilled a little laugh, perfect for her tiny, elf-like form.

She needed a retirement fund, said the least venomous among us and didn't even blush.

My mother and her cousin, so alike they were often mistaken for sisters, laughed outloud.

Is this what I'll be when I'm old, I found myself thinking, a small, chubby woman with crepe paper skin and an acid tongue?

It seems so.  Nothing predicts likes genetics and nothing unites us like a common enemy.

Second Thoughts

You don't have to be in this old world very long before you learn that people will disappoint you, but somehow the later life surprises leave a bitter taste. Recently I've seen a woman friend beneath her mask and it wasn't pretty. I wasn't so much troubled by finding the malice and anger underneath as I was by never suspecting there was a mask at all. Where, I wonder, was my natural cynicism in the face of all this goodness and light?

To be honest, I suppose I'm more annoyed with my own self for not seeing more clearly. I've known her for years, always admired and respected her, held her up as an example and even tried to emulate her at times. I've never heard her say or seen her write anything even in the neighborhood of ugly about anyone, not ever. She was a model of kindness, of charity, of fairness. When she was maligned at a difficult time after a nasty breakup, she never answered in kind, always embracing the idea that you never know the battles or demons others are fighting. I've defended her and was proud and grateful to call her a friend. Even when faced with proof of the harm she's tried to do, my mind fights against it.

The betrayal is made sharper because I'm not one who sees the good in everyone. Again, to be honest, I gave up looking years ago. If there's a lesson here, maybe it's about my own flaws and how I can still be taken in.   We're all easy prey for someone.

A Carnival of Cats

I can't say he didn't warn me. He did meow.

I'm lying on the loveseat in the sunroom, trying to rest my aching back. It's agreeably warm from the late afternoon sun and the steady drone of the television is making me sleepy. The eldest cat, remarkably agile for his years and still light on his feet when he wants to be, launches himself from the floor and with a plaintive meow, lands squarely on my midsection. It's way too late to tense my muscles and prepare and I'm barely able to catch my breath. He makes eye contact long enough to issue a second meow then completes his ritual with a front and back leg stretch and an extravagant yawn before arranging himself and promptly going to sleep. No matter what we tell ourselves, cat owners are, first and foremost, furniture. It often takes us years to accept this simple fact but it's an irrevocable truth. The cat has known it all along.

He doesn't stay long - another universal truth about cats is that they frequently have the attention span of an amoeba - and when he hears or senses something that stirs his curiosity, he snaps awake like a spring, digs his claws into my sides and thighs, and takes off like a shot. The second eldest cat, the tabby, immediately arrives to take his place. She is timid, wary, and far more cautious, approaching by stealth and silence and waiting patiently for an invitation. When I give it, she reaches up with her front paws and then slowly and delicately climbs to my side. She's too dignified to actually sleep on me and is quite content to curl around my ankles, keeping her back to the wall in case of a sudden attack. I scratch her ears and she pushes back firmly but gently, then settles in with her paws tucked neatly beneath her. It isn't long until she's startled by the slam of a car door from next door. She tenses and does a quick scan for any approaching hazard then slinks down, jumps lightly to the desk and then to the top of the armoire. I admire her gracefulness, her discretion and most of all her refusal to run with the crowd.

An empty lap is not to be tolerated and it's just minutes later that the younger black cat appears.

Though the largest of my feline family, he's the quietest and the most independent and I only know he's there because of his tiny, mouse-like meow. He alerts me to his presence with a two second warning and springs, all 20 pounds landing with a considerable thump on my chest. I'm nose to nose with his heart-shaped face and brilliant yellow eyes - I do try my best not to play favorites but he is the most elegant and gorgeous thing - so I don't protest when he twines around my neck and nudges my chin. His long hair gives him a big cat aura, much like a lion, and he soon slips to my side and burrows compactly against me, his head resting on my shoulder and his entire body vibrating. He consents to my stroking his thick fur. It's hard to tell which of us is more content.

The 4^th wave is the tuxedo cat, an even tempered animal if ever there was one, affectionate to the point of being obnoxious and louder than all four put together. She's more muscled up than actually overweight and when she decides she needs attention, she's relentless. She announces her arrival with a determined series of head butts and a stream of nerve-grating meows and eventually she pushes and shoves her way onto the loveseat, perches on my knees and stares at me defiantly, daring me to try and dislodge her. I suspect that my recent back pain is a result of lifting up the hatchback on my little car since the struts went bad but it's equally possible that lifting the tuxedo cat out of my computer chair two or three times a day is a contributing factor. She's a hefty girl without the slightest delicacy, distressingly vocal and frequently directly in my path. She disdains the concept of right of way and it never seems to occur to her to move.

The last to arrive is the kitten. I hear a chorus of chirping as she clears the gate and a second later she's crossing the threshold at her usual breakneck speed and leaping onto me like a downhill racer. She begins to knead the minute she lands - she has fierce concentration - and her claws sink in like tiny razors. I tap her nose to get her attention and tell her to cut it out and she gives me a resentful look and digs in deeper. I lift her with one hand and deposit her back on the floor but persistence is her middle name and she's back in a flash, winding her small body into a ball and settling herself on my thighs. I decide it's as workable a compromise as I'm likely to get and reach for my newest Stephen King novel but this offends her. She immediately crawls into the underneath space between the book and me and protests with a gentle swipe of her paw. Furniture, she's reminding me, just furniture. Stephen King will have to wait.

For more than tonight, it turns out because I haven't turned on any lights and darkness falls.  It's still comfortably warm and with only the flickering light of the television to see by, I drift off to sleep. My last thought is: this is my life, a carnival of cats.

When All Else Fails, Bring Up Jesus

This is the Bible belt, I remind myself. When all else fails, bring up Jesus.

There's a good deal of debate on social media about Donald Trump's tax escapades. A friend posts that he did nothing but take advantage of the existing system, exactly as she herself has done, but that he does plan to overhaul the law to make it fair for everyone.

I ask her - nicely, once I get my gag reflex under control - what would be his motivation.

She tells me that any good CPA knows how to game the system, that everyone would like to pay less in taxes, and that she is pleased to know that Trump agrees with her that the entire tax structure should be made over.

I don't dispute this but feel compelled to say that she didn't answer my question. Again, I say, what would be his motivation.

Because it's the right thing to do, she finally says, It's what she'd do in his place.

I rack my memory but for the life of me can't come up with a single instance of Trump doing the right thing because it's the right thing. The man has the morals of an alley cat in heat and all the polish of pond scum.

So, I say, you think that the right thing trumps (as it were) self-interest?

She assures me she does than wanders off into a tangent about being a good tax paying Christian. Fairness, she tells me, is a Christian value.

I suggest that religion is irrelevant to the conversation.

She offers to pray for me.

Please don't trouble yourself, I reply.

I hate to bring up Jesus, she says, but He's the only path away from self-interest.

I would hope I can have christian values and beliefs without being a Christian, I say.  I don't expect her to get the distinction and I'm not disappointed.

You can't have a rational conversation with anyone who thinks Trump will do anything at all that goes against his self-interest or that Jesus belongs in the White House. I'm a small C christian at best. I unfollow her and move along.

That Invisibility Thing

 “I will not share another meal with a person who is invisible,” my Aunt Helen announced haughtily, “It's simply not the done thing.”

My grandmother refused to take the bait. “Suit yourself, Helen, dear,” she said blithely, “I reckon you kin make yourself a plate if you've a mind to.”

She was making applesauce while my mother was putting the finishing touches on a blueberry pie and the kitchen smelled of sunshine and cinnamon. “Porkchops for supper,” she remarked to me, “Go and see if Merrill and Harry will stay to supper.”

I trotted obediently off while my scandalized aunt stalked out.

“No need to mention the porkchops,” Nana called after me knowing that Aunt Helen would hear and not able to resist a parting shot, “Harry's not partial to 'em.”

My mother, delicately and neatly laying strips of dough across the top of the pie until she was satisfied with the basket weave effect, laughed out loud. It was one of those infrequent moments when mother and daughter put aside their differences and united. She methodically pressed her thumb all around the rim of the piecrust then stepped back and gave it a critical look before pronouncing it oven ready.

“Ayuh,” Nana agreed, “It'll do. Dont' forget to light the pilot light.”

The moment evaporated.

“Mother, I never forget to light the pilot light,” my mother said testily, “You'd think I'd never baked a pie before!”

Aunt Helen stalked back in, hat and gloves in hand and in a snit. Uncle Eddie was trailing behind her, an amused expression on his face.

“We're going to Digby for the day,” she said pointedly, “We'll be back after supper.”

“Whatever you think best, Helen, dear.” Nana shrugged.

“Waste of a perfectly good day, in my opinion,” Uncle Eddie said with a rueful grin, “That Harry's a nice enough fella 'cept for that invisibility thing.”

“Edgecomb!” Aunt Helen exclaimed in horror and turned deathly pale. She disliked calling attention to the family's more colorful eccentricities. Uncle Eddie obediently held the screen door for her and gave her a smart salute.

“Coming, dear.” He stopped long enough to give Nana's apron strings a playful tug and reminded my mother to save him a slice of pie then reluctantly followed his headmistress wife.

“Really, Helen, such a fuss over a harmless figment.” I heard him call. Aunt Helen stiffened her spine and marched on.

“What's a pigment?” I immediately wanted to know.

“Figment! Figment!” my exasperated mother howled, “It means Merrill made him up!”

“No call to shout, Jan,” Nana snapped, “Child ain't deaf and neither am I!”

“I reckon there's worse things than bein' invisible,” she added philosophically, “Jan, did you remember to light the oven?”

My mother threw up her hands in defeat.

The Siege

It began with an innocent ring of the doorbell and went badly, irretrievably wrong immediately.

I had a lap full of contracts and other paperwork so Michael went to answer it. In a matter of seconds, it went from Can I help you? to Get off my lawn, niggers!

The man and woman had arrived on the bus and rather than wait for the property manager who was to show them the apartment, came through the gate and up to the front door, asking for “the housing commission”. Michael told them they had the wrong address but they were insistent, seeming to believe that he was lying. They cursed him and called him white trash and he reacted with typical temper, calling them no account niggers and ordering them off his property. They responded by calling him an HIV fag. After that, there was no turning back. He was foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

He snatched the telephone to call the property management people and let loose a firestorm of hatefulness and threats. Midway through that conversation, the hapless rental agent arrived and was subjected to an even more racist rant. She tried to point out that housing discrimination is illegal but he shouted her down with a promise that they'd damn well better start discriminating or there'd be dead niggers in the driveway. Horrified and appalled, she stumbled into her SUV and frantically drove off, thinking I'm sure, that she'd encountered a raving, bigoted lunatic. It wasn't all that far from the truth, I thought. The coloreds, he likes to lecture me, are naturally shiftless, ill mannered, and prone to crime and violence. They're too lazy to work and their poverty is self-inflicted. Given the opportunity, they'll steal white folks, the government, and each other blind. Being too stubborn to learn, they're ignorant by choice, always in search of a handout or a welfare check. This is venom he learned practically before he could walk and it's been reinforced his entire life. I can't change his thinking so I've learned to ignore him or leave.

Back in the now, I give him several minutes to regain his mind and composure before suggesting he take a deep breath and consider his blood pressure. He has found his Hollywood prop gun, a wickedly realistic looking firearm and he's pacing between his office and mine, holding it in a deathgrip.

HIV fag! he snarls, Called me an HIV fag in my own driveway! Motherfucking niggers!

Well, I tell him calmly, You have to admit it's creative.

He stops, gives me a quick glare that rapidly changes to a sly sort of grin, lowers the gun.

What  do you think gave it away? he wants to know, The fag part, I mean.

Beats me, I tell him with a shrug, Now put that damfool thing away and get a grip before you have a damn stroke. You know perfectly well that housing discrimination is illegal and no reputable property management company is going to risk going to jail because you're a raging racist who doesn't want to rent to blacks.

Well, they should, he mutters defiantly.

Well, they won't, I say just as defiantly, now get over it. I can't change you, hell, I've given up trying, but for Christ's sake, keep it to yourself. The way you're going, somebody's likely to aim at you and shoot me.

After a day or so, he manages to step back a little – not far enough to suit me but enough to get a grip on his temper, his emotions, and his language – and life resumes its odd but normal track.

Racism has a way of wearing a body out.