Level Ground

It was one of those clear, pure summer days when you were glad to be alive.

My grandmother had shooed the dogs out to get some fresh air and they were curled up together, peacefully sleeping in the warm sun, occasionally twitching at flies. The Monday wash was hanging neatly on the line, I could smell the brown bread Nana was baking and now and then hear snatches of laughter from the fishermen laying out salt fish on the drying racks next door. Greedy gulls were flying overhead hoping for scraps and some kind of engine was chug-a-lugging in the distance. It was a funny rat-a-tat-tat sound, like a playing card in the spokes of a bicycle, only hollower and duller.

I was watching the slow moving, 3D like clouds and lazily imagining them to have faces and shapes when Aunt Jenny dropped Ruthie off for the day. Uncle Len had made her a pair of stilts for her birthday - Aunt Jenny awkwardly hauled them out from the back of the pickup truck and sternly reminded us to be careful and stay on level ground - waved to my grandmother and drove off in a spray of gravel. Nana appeared at the back door and gave us a worried look.

Mind you don't fall and break your damfool necks! she warned us with a shake of her head, I got too much to do today to be runnin' a pair of wild Indians to the doctor!

We each dragged one stilt to the side porch and somehow or other negotiated the steps. Ruthie went first, warily climbing on while I steadied the wood against the house. I was remembering that she'd also gotten a croquet set and thinking that all things considered, it might be a better choice when she gave a yell and took her first steps. I think it was actually two because almost immediately she lost her balance, gave a frantic war whoop, and jumped clear.

My grandmother, surreptitiously watching from the sunporch, rapped sharply on the window.

Level ground! I heard her shout, Keep on level ground!

Determinedly, we dragged the stilts back up the path, looking around for something that we could steady and climb, and eventually deciding on the raised threshold of the woodshed door.

Ruthie tried again, this time precariously maintaining her balance for all of four or five steps before one stilt slipped on the gravel and again, she let go and jumped clear.

You try, she said sullenly when I laughed.

I had serious reservations about the whole thing but then she did the unthinkable and double dared me. I made it up on the first try, took several small, shaky steps and then remarkably

found my center and the hang of it all at the same time.

It's not so hard! I crowed to her.

Oh, yeah? she shot back, Then let's see you git down, Miss Smarty Pants!

I hadn't thought of that. But I was a stubborn child and a proud one and I rarely outdid Ruthie so I carefully navigated a wide turn back to the woodshed, held on for dear life until I reached it, and then triumphantly climbed down.

Ain't that much fun anyway, Ruthie muttered, Let's play croquet.

We never told Uncle Len but the stilts eventually ended up as firewood. It was the lesson of keeping to level ground that would stay with us.  We do our best when we learn the secret of balance.

14 Minutes at the Corner of Happy and Healthy

It's just a suggestion but I'm thinking that retail stores might want to take a step backward to a time when cashiers could actually read, count, and speak clearly. Being able to reason would mean extra points.

All I wanted was a pack of cigarettes but the drugstore's check verification machine was acting up. The clueless young cashier had clearly not been trained for this eventuality and after several minutes of fumbling and vacant looks, it finally occurred to him to summon a supervisor. Well,

in a matter of speaking. He first had to shift his gum to his cheek and then wave one arm and hand in the general direction of the back of the store. Apparently no one had thought to train him on using the intercom either.

The supervisor, scowling at being interrupted - from her mid afternoon nap, from the looks of her, I thought - shoved him aside and began demonstrating the fine art of data input.

Pay attention! she snapped at him when his attention wandered to the pair of scantily clad, little girls coming arm and arm though the door in a fit of giggles. Truth to tell, they were whorishly dressed and he leered more than looked.

The supervisor pinched his elbow, pointed to the check and then to the monitor.

Enter the routing number, she said impatiently, then the account number and the check number.

He mumbled something unintelligble and gave her a blank look. There was a snicker of laughter from the ever growing line of customers and she gave him a rough shove and took over the computer herself. It didn't work.

Do you have another means of payment? she asked glaring at the computer screen.

I did but charity deserted me at that precise moment. I pointedly looked at my watch before I said no.

She transferred the angry glare to me and yelled for a manager. Literally yelled over the heads of the customers. Perhaps, I mused, the intercom was malfunctioning as well as the check verification machine. The line now stretched nearly to the pharmacy and the snicker of laughter had turned to a disgusted curse.

The manager arrived, immediately used the intercom to call for a second cashier, then furiously voided my sale, ripped off the aborted receipt tape, and indifferently beckoned me to a second cash register where she re-rang the sale and ran my check through without the slightest difficulty. She wouldn't meet my eyes, didn't trouble herself to tell me thank you and knowing it would be a cold day in hell before any of these empty headed cretins thought to apologize, I took my cigarettes and left.

The Girl Who Could Find Things

After her accident, Leveda Leeman was the girl who could find things. A lost earring here, a misplaced sweater there, buttons and stray knitting needles and once a lost letter. No one thought much about it at the time.

The night before she turned six, Leveda fell from the hay loft in her daddy's barn and landed cruelly on a jagged heap of metal tractor parts. It was three long weeks before she woke up on the makeshift cot in the kitchen and if Naomi Leeman, who had never left her side in all that time was to be believed, her first words were It's in the root cellar, Mama, by the corn crib.

Her youngest child had been unconscious - at death's door if the truth be told and now nothing but skin and bones - for almost a month and naturally Naomi barely heard the words. She cradled Leveda and smiled through a flood of tears, finally pulling herself together long enough to send one of the older boys for Will.

Fetch your daddy, William, she told him, Tell him she's awake!

The root cellar, Leveda repeated, by the corn crib, then the sensible and far more welcome words, I'm hungry, Mama.

Yes, child, Naomi soothed her, Hush now, there's soup on the stove and your daddy's comin', jist hush now.

Leveda's recovery was the talk of the village. The Courier picked up the story, then the Spectator and finally a reporter from the Chronicle (all the way from Halifax!) showed up on the Leeman's front porch. They smiled and asked questions and took pictures, drank Naomi's coffee and wrote about miracles. It was heady stuff, everyone agreed, overwhelming for a poor farm family on an isolated island and crucifying for a shy six year old who couldn't even remember the accident. After the Chronicle's story, William and Naomi had had enough. They quietly and politely began to turn folks away, shielding themselves from any more attention, wanting nothing more than to raise their family and work their farm as they had before. Laveda turned seven, then eight, then in the blink of an eye, twelve and thirteen. By then, except for the Leemans, the accident was all but forgotten and the little girl who had come so close to dying, was a happy, bright-eyed and pretty teenager. She walked with a barely noticeable limp - a tractor part had sheared a tendon in one leg and it never quite completely healed - but it was a small price to pay, Will and Naomi liked to tell each other, a small price for a life. Naomi had never told Will about Laveda's waking words, had, in point of fact, never given them another thought. Until Will's mother, Miz Lucy, took to feeling poorly.

Wisdom and age were valued commodities in the village but practicality was valued more and the practicality of it was that at 86, Lucy Leeman was increasingly more forgetful about keeping the wood stove fire going or taking her medicine or turning the iron off. Sometimes she lost track of time and wasn't sure what day it was. She began getting lost and sometimes would forget to eat or worse, eat and not clean up, leaving a feast for the ants.

The older boys are gone, Naomi pointed out to Will reasonably, so the spare room's empty. She eats like a bird anyway and it'll be easier to keep an eye on her here rather than traipsing down to The Point two, three times a day. I reckon we'll both be feelin' better if she's here with us.

When he hesitated, Naomi smiled. If somethin' were to happen, Will, she said gently, I reckon it'd be better here than there.

And so, Lucy came to stay. Will and the boys scubbed and polished the floor and repainted the walls. Naomi sewed curtains and Laveda washed the windows until they shone. They beat the old oval rug within an inch of its life and laid it back down looking new. Nana brought some spare linens and towels and Aunt Pearl recovered a chair she wasn't using and had two of the Sullivan boys deliver it. Aunt Vi sent lavender cachets and sweet smelling soap for the tiny bathroom and on the day Lucy moved in, Miz Clara was there with fresh flowers by the armfuls and a small windowbox herb garden. It was a good day.

Laveda helped her grandmother arrange her belongings - the little bedside clock, the patchwork quilt she'd had since her wedding night, her Bible, a small collection of books and her porcelain figurines, a slightly battered radio, her knitting basket, her scrapbooks - and finally a jewelry box, a miniature hope chest with a sweet cedar smell, no bigger than a breadbox and still with its original smooth and well cared for finish. Laveda brushed her fingers over it and - just for the merest second - something around her, something very nearly primal, seemed to shift and she jumped back, withdrawing her hand as if she'd touched a live wire. The muscles in her face contracted sharply and then instantly relaxed, her eyes closed and then opened in surprise.

It's not lost, she muttered, it's in the root cellar by the corn crib. The chain broke and it fell off but you didn't see.

Alarmed, Lucy snatched the girl and gave her a thorough shake.

Laveda! she said more harshly then she intended, Laveda, what are you talking about?

The girl shook her head as if to clear her vision and gave her grandmother a puzzled look.

Your cameo, Gran, she said clearly, the one granddaddy gave you. It fell off when you was in the root cellar that day. The day I fell.

How do you know that, child? Lucy demanded, Tell me how you know that!

But Leveda just shrugged and wriggled free, tugging at her grandmother hands and pulling her to her feet.

The root cellar, mostly unused since Will had renovated the shed into a greenhouse garden, was damp and dark and smelled of mildew but Laveda, holding her lantern high, went straight to the corner where the remains of the corn crib still stood. She knelt and began brushing away the crumbles of dirt and spider webs - it gave Lucy an unexpected chill to watch and she felt a little trembly, as if a goose had walked over her grave - and then Leveda gave a gentle tug and pulled the long missing cameo free. Lucinda Laveda Leeman promptly fainted dead away.

They had to tell Naomi, of course, she knew where the spirits of amonia were and certainly wasn't about to hand them over without a proper explantion, but, they all agreed, there weren't much need for anyone else to know. Leveda continued to be the girl who could find things and her gift came to be taken for granted although there was never to be another find like the cameo.

Reckon she jist has a talent for it, Naomi would say and do her best to ignore the queer feeling in her belly when she thought of the root cellar or the accident. The cameo had brought back the memory of Laveda's words when she'd woken up and she didn't like to think about it.

It don't do to dwell on them things you don't understand, Will, she said firmly and put the whole matter to rest, The child's got a knack for finding things is all, like some kin find water or such, ain't that right, Mama?

Oh, ayuh, Lucy would say, running her fingers over her cameo necklace and smiling to herself, I 'spect so.  I certainly 'spect so.

False Faith

The very young, neatly put together couple on my doorstep with their plastic smiles and glossy pro-life brochures gave me chills. I ached for a gun.

Somehow I managed to quiet the frantic dogs and push open the screen door, forcing the couple back a step or two.

Get the hell off my property, I said coldly, and take your trashy fliers with you.

Their smiles faltered a bit.

We just wanted to leave you.....the boy began while the girl tentatively tried to hand me an anti abortion door hanger.

I know what you wanted, I said and slapped it out of her outreached hand, And if you're not out of my sight in the next five seconds, I'll set the dogs on you.

Their mouths fell open and they fled, not even taking the time to tell me to have a blessed day.

In hindsight, I could've been kinder or more sociable and still made my point, but there's something about right wing extremists with their direct links to God that bring out the venom in me.

We'll pray for you! the girl called over her shoulder once she safely reached the street.

Pray for this! I shouted back and tore her precious doorhanger into tiny bits, See you in hell!

If my soul needs saving, it's a private matter. I may not always be sure whether I believe in God but I have an unshakeable faith that it's my business and not that of some false faith, pro birth, sleazy salvation peddlers.

Jesus probably wouldn't have wished for a gun but I sure as hell still did.

You Think You Have Time

My friend Jane was sent home to die. The cancer, defeated in her tired and battered body, had spread to her brain and there was no turning it back.

She fought for months, like a tigress protecting her young. There was always faith and optimism and a smile, a determination to save her own life. She did everything that was asked of her from nutrition to supplements to chemotherapy to radiation. She put up with all the cruel, ugly and painful side effects of treatment. She kept going, sometimes on nothing but the force of faith and positive thoughts. She put up with not being able to sleep or eat or walk. There were times when she didn't have the energy to speak. She fell in love with her doctor, trusted him and spoke his name with love and gratitude. He did everything there was to be done. It wasn't enough. Neither ever said as much, but I think they both knew. Jane died early this morning.

And then there's my friend, Jeff, brought down by a major stroke. It destroyed the entire left side of his brain and his pre-frontal cortex. The day following the failed emergency surgery, he was on a ventilator. His wife signed the DNR order and arranged for a priest to give him last rites. He never had a chance to fight back, the doctors admitted, with that kind of irreversible damage, he was brain dead the very moment it happened. It became a matter of technicalities and life support and yesterday, ten days after it happened, he died.

With the exception of the friends and families of both of these good people, the world will continue to spin and life will go on. As unfair and tragic and heartbreaking as their deaths are, that's how it works. We all leave survivors. It's left me feeling angry and numb and wanting answers I'll never get.

Jane leaves a sister, a daughter and two sons. She was 61.

Jeff leaves a wife and a son. He was 59.

I'm drowning in gratitude just to be alive.

A Penny A Pane

Hattie's first shot narrowly missed the gurryman, lodged into the side of the scow and sent a hovering flock of gulls fluttering skyward.

Sumbitch! she shrieked, No 'count sheep stealin' sumbitch!

Her second nicked the weathervane on top of the watchman's shack and sent it spinning like a dervish.

Her third ricocheted off a rung of the metal wharf ladder and sunk harmlessly into a piling with a soft thud.

It was her fourth that did her in - the old gun tired and kicked back mightily - sending her into a undignified, sprawling heap and in the process, dislocating one scrawny shoulder. 

HATTIE! Sparrow roared, stumbling off his front porch and down the narrow, gravel path, HATTIE!  WHAT IN BLAZES YOU DOIN'!  PUT THAT DAMFOOL THING AWAY!

By the time he reached her, one of the Albright boys was already there and had wrestled the gun away and was somehow managing to hold her down.  The old woman was clutching her shoulder and flailing but it wasn't enough to shut her up.

Git off me, you sumbitch! she screeched, gimme back my gun!

You keep ahold her, boy, Sparrow ordered grimly, Hattie!  Hattie, you're hurt, be still now!

From the safety of the candy shop, Ruthie and I peered out one of the windows we'd been washing - a penny a pane, Uncle Bernie had offered - and watched as Sparrow kicked the old gun out of reach and Uncle Bernie picked up the water bucket and trudged toward the unlikely trio.

Hattie! the old storyteller shouted at her, Hattie, you settle down else I'm a gon' do it for you!

The old woman on the ground hollered.  She writhed.  She cursed.  She kicked.  She cackled.

I warned you, you old hag, Uncle Bernie shrugged and gave the Albright boy a quick glance, You got her, boy? and then quick as greased lightning, chucked the whole bucket of water directly onto Hattie.

There was a moment of shocked silence then Sparrow was kneeling in back of her.  With Uncle Bernie's help, he got her propped up, wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, and gave her a violent, wrenching twist.

Ruthie and I both heard the crack as her shoulder settled back in to its proper place.  Old Hat slumped and passed clean out before she could spit her next curse.  When it was still quiet a few minutes later, Ruthie and I scrambled out the old front door of the candy shop and scurried like rabbits to where Sparrow and Uncle Bernie and the Albright boy were hovering around Hattie.

Is she dead, Sparrow? Ruthie, ever the brave soul, wanted to know.

Not hardly, Sparrow told her with a rueful grin, but I reckon she's gon' wish she was when she wakes up.  That shoulder's likely gon' hurt like fire.

What we gon' do with her? the Albright boy asked tentatively, We cain't leave her lyin' in the road.

Sparrow and Uncle Bernie considered this.

No, Uncle Bernie finally said, 'Spose not.

Reckon my place's the closest, Sparrow sighed,  She don't weigh next to nothin', boy, kin you carry her? Bernie, I'm thinkin' you might call Glad and see if she'll come and fetch her home.  He straightened up and stretched, rolled his shoulders back and winced at the effort.  I swear to Christ, this old woman's gon' be the death of me. Where's that damn scattergun of her's?  Old hag's got more firepower than Carter's got pills.

When I timidly asked who she'd been shooting at, Uncle Bernie just shrugged.

It's Old Hat, he said mildly, Rabbit or gull mebbe or mebbe nothin' a'tall.  Damfool woman gits herself likkered up and jist likes to start shootin' at most anythin' that moves.  Wonder she ain't shot her own foot off.

We trailed after him back to the candy shop and those penny a pane windows.  When we were done, we each had three shiny, new dimes in our pockets - a fortune for a seven year old back then - and a tale to tell my grandmother.  We heard later that Aunt Glad had arrived and gotten Hattie home, more or less settled by the window in the parlor, dosing her with whiskey and salts and packing her shoulder with rag-wrapped hot bricks.

Later that same night, when the gurryman climbed into his dory for the trip home, he discovered a mud splattered, hungry, and very indignant ewe under the ragged tarp.  There was no trace of Hattie's no 'count, sheep stealing sumbitch so as quietly as he could, he fetched up the old girl and carried her across the road and down the rocky path, depositing her stealthily in the sheep pen behind Hattie's shack.  

Couldn't rightly recollect what discretion was the better part of, he confessed to Sparrow a few days later, but I was thinkin' it mighta been jist not gettin' caught.

Amen, old son, Sparrow - not a religious man -  laughed, Amen.

Fine As Wine

Despite the fact that many of my dearest friends were born of and raised by supportive and loving mothers, some - like me - were not and it's them I think of on Mothers Day. It's a holiday I haven't celebrated or honored since childhood when I had no choice.

We had to put out names on the gifts my daddy provided - he knew well the consequences of not stepping up with tributes - and there was usually dinner out at some expensive restaurant where she could hold court and we could play the roles of an intact and adoring family. It was three parts theater and one part self-defense with the dialogue written and carefully rehearsed in advance. In those days, none of us dared deviate from the script. We dressed up, behaved respectably and quietly, didn't fidget or put our elbows on the table. We ate what was put in front of us, said please and thank you without being prompted and counted the minutes. If there was anything I learned as a child, it was how to give a credible performance in public.

My mother, already well oiled by the time we arrived at the restaurant, would have several manhattans and an after dinner brandy. My grandmother was still alive then and I watched her watching and counting those drinks, keeping track but keeping silent. She knew, as did we all, that after a certain point, any suggestion of moderation was more than likely to ignite an ugly scene. My daddy did what he did best, drinking his watered down Chivas while steadying my mother as needed and pretending that everything was - you'll excuse the expression - fine as wine.

By dessert, conversation was dead and the atmosphere grim. My daddy produced his American Express card and signed his name. Nana thanked him for inviting her, gave her only child a disgusted, dark look and left. My mother, lopsided and nodding, finished her brandy and shook off any assistance when my daddy tried to help her into her coat and steer her discreetly out. Humiliated and sure that everyone was watching, we trailed after them. I remember feeeling profoundly grateful to be among strangers.

Summer of '50

The boy who took me on my very first date died last week.

I hadn't seen or heard from him in well over fifty years so I wasn't expecting the odd, sharp sadness I felt when I read about it. I remembered a blue eyed twelve year old with spiky blonde hair and a shy smile who'd worked for a month to earn the price of the show and got in dutch for using his daddy's cologne before he was old enough to shave. Looking at his obituary picture, I saw a career military man, a lifelong soldier with dark hair and a mustache, looking precise and more than a little elegant in his Canadian armed forces uniform. In more recent pictures, he was a little heavier, his hair had gone white but the smile was exactly the same and there was the same sparkle in those blue eyes. Nostalgia and mortality make for a bad mix, I suppose and I felt not just sad, but a little regretful that we hadn't kept in touch.

We were both twelve that summer, delicately balanced on the brink of teenagery and all the foolishness and heartbeak it would bring. We spent the time together - prowling the beaches for driftwood and seaglass, going to every Saturday night show, playing our first game of Spin the Bottle - and learning about life under the watchful (but pleased) eye of my grandmother. We rode the hay wagon with Bill Melanson, played croquet with Ruthie, picked blackberries, listened to old 45's on the sunporch, sat with Sparrow and his old hound dog and watched the sunsets. Sometimes we just walked around the Old Road, holding hands and talking while his younger brothers and sisters - there were nine of them, all told - trailed after us. Even then he wanted to see the world and he did. His military career took him to Germany, Egpyt, and Cyprus just to name a few. He served his entire adult life and when he retired, it was back to the island where he'd been born, back to friends and families old and new.

I doubted that any of his brothers or sisters would remember me but I sent a condolence message anyway.

Summers fly by and first loves fade but both are sweet to remember.

Disarming the Dog

When I discovered the puppy running around downstairs with a knife in his mouth, my first thought was to panic. My second was to suspect that if I looked closely, I'd see the fine hand of the little chihuahua behind it. My third was to disarm him. I took the last one first and coaxed him to me, snatched his collar, took hold of one end of the mangled handle and gently worked it away from him. It was a 3” serrated steak knife and I refused to let myself think about the harm it might've caused.

A knife? I say incredulously, Seriously?

He wiggles from nose to tail and bounds for the stairs in search of the next mischief, a trim little bundle of hardheaded, unstoppable energy with the attention span of a streak of lightning. I make a mental note to have a word with the chihuahua about reckless endangerment.