Look to the Future

At first I was sure I'd misheard him.

“A psychic?” I said uncertainly, “You mean like a fortune teller? A tarot card reader? The Amazing Kreskin? Have you completely lost your mind?”

I listened in stunned silence as he explained how it was something he'd always wanted to try, about the possibility that it might be genuine, about the documentary he'd watched telling how

an eye twitch could be meaningful, about how there were more things in heaven and earth.........

I listened and couldn't believe what I was hearing. We have parted ways about all manner of things and decisions over the years but this was novel. A psychic. Crystal balls and tea leaves.

Cross my palm with silver and I will tell you the future. It didn't seem possible that he would buy into it yet there it was. Would I walk in one day and find a ouija board set up on the coffee table? Had he finally taken that last step and swan dived right over the edge without a net?

A psychic. I thought of Uri Geller bending spoons, of John Edward and his best selling books, of Edgar Cayce, “The Sleeping Prophet” and of course, Jeane Dixon and her famous prediction of the Kennedy assassination. Nothing more than luck and fraud and playing the odds to easy, gullible targets. And sometimes getting rich in the process, I supposed.

“I'm not saying I believe or disbelieve,” he assures me, “but I'm curious and I do have an open mind.”

“Open your mind too much and your brains will fall out,” I tell him dryly.

But it's no use. Nothing I can say ever makes a dent when he's made up his mind and there's no point in arguing. A psychic. Bless his heart.

No Shoveling Required

It takes everything I've got to leave my warm nest on these wretched winter mornings. I pull on an extra set of longjohns and a second pair of socks, snatch a flannel shirt to pull over my sweatshirt, find my knit hat, scarf, and gloves - it's what my ex-husband used to call my refugee look - and say a small prayer before I brave the outside world. There is nothing I hate more than the cold. Winter, even here in the south, is a cruel and unforgiving season, a time I would give most anything to miss. The most recent cold snap brought with it a malicious wind that reached clear to my bones and it's menacing voice could be heard everywhere. It came after several mild, windows-open days and I swear it was laughing.

It's hard to remember those childhood days of ice skating and snowmen in the front yard, of snowsuits with attached mittens and chillblains when we finally got to come in. My mother professed that winter built character and toughness – more likely, she wanted to be able to drink her icebox manhattans in peace and quiet – so we spent a good amount of time outside on snowy days. We built snow forts and had fierce snowball fights, went sledding at the edge of Spy Pond, scaled the drifts to be King of the Mountain. With no place we had to be and the promise of hot chocolate and sugar cookies if we stayed out our allotted time, we persevered. Foolish children that we were, we froze but we persevered util eventually we got back inside, hung up our wet jackets and soggy mittens, de-iced our boots and settled down in front of the fire to defrost ourselves. Sometimes the hot chocolate and sugar cookies actually materialized but they were never enough to make up for the hours of cold. Truth is, once you've seen one snowman, you've seen them all. The charm of winter is superficial and fleeting at best and like so many things, it faded with each step toward adulthood. I remember how cold the bus ride to school was and how drafty the classrooms were. Snow days were rare in New England and we prayed for them and dreaded them all at the same time.

Snow is a rarity down here in Dixie - we hardly ever get more than a dusting but the threat is enough to cause widespread panic and a run on the grocery stores before everything shuts down.

It could be worse, I remind myself on these raw mornings, at least you don't have to shovel cold.

Aunt Alma's Attic

It took the better part of three women and four days days to clean out Aunt Alma's attic. Ruthie and I had been recruited to pack the books - “Lord to goodness,” Nana had complained, “Some of 'em ain't even in English!” - while Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi worked steadily on everything else and Uncles Shad and Willie hauled it all away in the hay wagons. Aunt Alma had been in her late 80's, a lifelong spinster and collector of just about anything that struck her fancy. We found trunks full of porcelain figurines, cameo jewelry, stuffed animals, bed linens and back scratchers and six complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. We were down to the last few wagon loads when Aunt Vi opened the hope chest and found the love letters, more than a dozen bundles of them, each neatly tied with a faded cream colored ribbon.

“Mercy me!” I heard her say and there was something in her tone of voice that made the other women pause and look around.

“What is it, Vi?” my grandmother asked impatiently and Aunt Vi held up a bundle of letters. I wasn't sure but it looked to me as if she was already blushing and she hadn't read a word. I thought maybe she was wishing she'd left them in their snug little space between the layers of the old quilt and said nothing but of course, it was too little, too late. Aunt Pearl snatched at the bundle, Aunt Vi instinctively drew back, and the ribbon was caught in the crossfire - it came loose and the letters fell in an untidy pile between them. Both women reached to gather them up but my grandmother was faster - with one sweep of her hand, she scooped them toward her, leaving only a little puff of dust behind.

The very last thing anyone would have expected to find in Aunt Alma's attic was evidence of not one but a half dozen affairs. Shockingly, they went back decades - some of the names we knew, some were strangers - all appeared to have had wives and families. Alma, so it seemed, had been singularly untroubled by their adultery and more than willing to have them return to their wives and children when it was over. Unlikely as it was, not a single liason had been discovered and each appeared to have ended amicably. My poor Aunt Vi was undone by it all.

“Dear Lord,” she gasped, “She sat with me in church! She sang in the choir! And all the time she was …..........”

“Git ahold of yourself, Vi,” Nana advised sternly, “No harm ever come of it and it ain't for us to judge or go talkin' 'bout.”

“We should burn them,” Aunt Pearl declared, “And take a blood oath to never mention 'em ever again!”

“Blood?” Aunt Vi asked timidly, paling visibly at the suggestion.

“Not literal blood, a course,” Pearl snapped irritably, “I jist mean we got to swear on our lives to keep this to ourselves! For once in your life, Viola, you're gon' to keep a secret!”

“Ayuh,” Nana nodded, “Ain't no sense in folks findin' out Alma weren't no real old maid. Bring down a whole lotta good marriages and make a pile of folks still livin' mighty unhappy.”

Pearl and Vi nodded a little shakily but all three women clasped hands and vowed never to tell a living soul what they had found. Then Nana turned to look at Ruthie and me.

“I reckon you're both old enough to keep a secret,” she said quietly, “Though we can do a blood oath if you're not sure. But blood or no blood, the good lord'll strike you down if you breathe a word, you understand?”

The prospect was chilling and we nodded.

Alma's letters went up in smoke that very afternoon, ribbons and all. And to my knowledge, not a single, solitary word was ever mentioned about them again.

Don't Ask Why

When it comes to behavior, I suppose it's human nature to wonder and ask why. Sometimes the cause and effect is so clear it's transparent - I could've become an alcoholic but instead I married one because it was familiar and felt like home - but other times, there's a randomness about people, a spiteful kind of cloudiness that make their actions impossible to explain or comprehend. My friend, Michael, is one of those people and while he would rather die than admit it, it's becoming painful to him. It's also painful to watch.

At best, he is - as are we all - badly flawed, a spiteful, vain, defiant and raging narcissist, self-involved and self-centered to the point of self destruction. Strike at him and he will strike back a hundred times over and as maliciously as he can. Nothing will be off limits, nothing will be too vindictive, nothing will be too hateful to say or too vulnerable to attack. He prides himself on his ability to be cruel, to devastate and cripple an enemy. When his words ignite a firestorm of protest and come back to haunt or harm him or his business, as they inevitably do, he simply becomes more venomous and more embedded, refusing to see that his actions add fuel to an already out of control fire, flatly refusing to back down even when it's for his own good. Whether he doesn't care or just can't help himself is a mystery although the damage he does and the wreckage he leaves in his wake are clear enough. I've watched it for years and have never been able to make sense of it. He's a “Rules Don't Apply To Me” personality, carelessly arrogant and often without a shred of empathy. He is not, and he admits it freely, a nice person nor does he want to be. It's impossibly sad to watch him drive person after person away. These wounds are self-inflicted, I remind myself, when he defends his actions with claims of self defense or of being pushed across some imaginary line. He can't be reasoned or persuaded into a different mindset and it's futile to try. He won't make room for even the possibililty that he might be wrong or, more to the point, might not be completely justified in being cruel. All's fair in war and retaliation.

I've lost count of the hour after futile hour I've tried to convince him that this scorched earth policy doesn't work, tried to explain that he can fight back without being vicious, that personal attacks always backfire and reflect horrendously on him and cost him business. There have been times when I've thought he was treated unfairly and I've defended his positions although never his words. I've ranted and raved about consequences, about making a bad situation worse, about fighting fairly, all to no avail. During this latest incident, he came across a website dedicated to hating him and actively campaigning for his business to fail. It shocked him and pierced his callous skin but not enough to make a difference. He slipped into the pretense of it not bothering him with barely a blink but the mask slipped a bit and I saw the pain. What did you expect, I said to him, more roughly than I needed to, “That they'd embrace you for attacking them?”

The very moment the words were out, I regretted them. As much of a son of a bitch as he can be, as much as he so often deserves it, I take no joy in seeing him suffer. Beneath the hard core exterior, beneath the arrogance and the venom and insecurity and self induced misery, there is still someone who can be hurt just as he hurts others. That he cannot or will not mend his ways may be the saddest thing of all.

Apart from the economics and the fact that during a very dark hour he was the only one to extend a helping hand to me, the real question is why do I stay. Misguided loyalty, perhaps, or a fear of the fire outside the frying pan. The fact is I mostly like what I do, like being able to dress in jeans and sweatshirts, like the hours and the freedom. And if I dig deep enough into my own flaws, the fact that I'm needed, not a little bit but a whole lot. I'm as close to indispensable as you can get and leaving him would feel way too much like a betrayal. We make a good working team, he and I, close enough to finish each other's sentences yet far enough apart to be feisty when we disagree. I despise his racism and right wing extremism but admire his unflagging optimism and perseverance. He despairs of my liberal politics and friends and is undone by my indifference to personal fashion. I am a planner and preparer, a hopeless listmaker with a desperate need to be organized and neat. He is as scattered as a handful of confetti in the wind and leaves everything to the very last minute. He's always late and I'm always early. I can laser focus on a single task for hours while he can't hold a thought for more than ten seconds. He remembers details of conversations from 10 years ago and in the time it takes me to go from his desk to mine, I've forgotten whatever I didn't write down. Except for the old opposites attract theory, how it works and why we haven't beaten each other senseless is a mystery but somehow, some way, we have managed to find enough common ground to continue - a shared love of animals, perhaps, or a zero tolerance for stupidity - either way, until now it's been adequate.

This particular upheaval has been especially difficult because he targeted someone I care very much about and gave how I might feel about it, a barely passing thought, shredding any idea that my feelings might matter more than those of his perceived enemies. When I refused to take his side and say he was justified, he accused me of disloyalty. I accused him of hate and malice. We got nowhere.

We are all flawed and imperfect but most people I know are trying to be better. Michael is not among them and sometimes, neither am I.