Hattie & The Road Crew

The crew that came to pave the road was prepared to be resented and distrusted. They were ready for the fog that so often would make their work impossible. They were warned they would not be welcomed. But they were not ready for Old Hat and her shotgun.

“I'd have a care,” Sparrow advised the crew foreman, “She's a dead shot. Why, she kin shoot a flea off'n a damn frog at a hunnert yards and she's meaner 'n a cross-eyed snake.”

The foreman shrugged. He'd been building roads for 3o years, he told Sparrow, and he knew a thing or two about doing it.

“They ain't made anybody can stop a dozer or a hot tar spreader,” he said with a careless grin,

“Sure as hell, not one damn fool old woman with a scattergun.”

“I 'spect you know your business,” Sparrow persisted, “Ain't sayin' you don't. But she don't like strangers and she don't like change.”

“Come hell or high water, this here road's gon' be paved by next week,” the foreman said calmly,

“The province says so and that's that.”

“Ayuh,” Sparrow said and winked at us, “Reckon it's your funeral.”

Hattie's first shot bounced harmlessly off the dozer's shovel. Her second whined past the driver's ear. Her third knocked his hard hat off and sent him scurrying for the floorboards. There was no fourth, Sparrow reported to my grandmother.

“That boy give up right and proper once she aimed that shotgun the last time,” he laughed, “He rammed that thing into park and come outta it like a longtailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs. Ain't been seen since.”

It couldn't stand, of course, progress was slated for the village and progress it would be. The province was not about to be bullied or put off my one little old lady with a mean temper and a couple of days later the Mounties arrived. Hattie was duly arrested and carted off to the mainland - it was said she fought like a mule and wailed like a banshee - and while she was gone, the road crew returned and quickly finished the paving job. Hattie came home in a fine rage, swearing death and destruction to the province and revenge on anyone who'd helped them but there was no one to go after and she soon wore herself out with threats and temper that no one listened to. By August, she retreated to the shelter of her shack and shotgun and there she stayed. The road had won, albeit on a technicality most folks agreed, since not one inch had ever made it onto Hattie's land. Years later, folks still talked about hearing her old shotgun break the silence of moonlit summer nights as she took potshots at the pavement and cackled with every pull of the trigger. The road may have won, but Old Hat considered it a draw and that was close enough.

Night in the Graveyard

“Dare ya!” one of the Sullivan brothers shouted defiantly.

“Double dare ya!” one of the other brothers added with an unmistakable sneer and a malicious laugh.

And with all the confidence and pride that two stubborn little seven year old girls can muster,

Ruthie and I accepted. We knew if we were caught, we'd likely be grounded for the remainder of the summer – who knew, maybe for several summers to come – but a dare was a dare. We were blessedly sure none of the grownups would understand.

And so it was that by eight o'clock when the light in the lighthouse on Peter's Island came on, we were tucked snugly into one of the upstairs feather beds with the covers up to our chins. We listened to the night birds and the incoming tide and the steady hum of the hydo electric poles for the next three hours, finally creeping out of bed and down the stairs barefoot and hardly daring to breathe. When we got to the kitchen and crossed the linoleum floor directly in front of the sleeping dogs, we moved like molasses, one careful, silent inch at a time. Then we were outside, running like wild animals up the gravel driveway, through the strawberry patch and finally to and across the road to Uncle Willie's pasture. There was a sliver of moon to guide us but otherwise we were stealth itself. The entire village seemed to be asleep, it was eerily still and quiet and when we spoke it was in whispers.

“Car!” Ruthie hissed at me as we passed Curt's shuttered up store and made the turn onto Overcove Road. Like shadows, we dove for the ditch but it was only Hubie and his battered old Volkswagon, making his way home after a night of drinking. He choked and sputtered past us without a glance but we could hear every word of the song he was singing, “Hey, Good Lookin'” by Hank Willliams. The words were clear and sharp on the night air.

“Hubie always could hold his liquor some good,” I whispered to Ruthie once the coast was clear.

“Ayuh,” she whispered back, “But he cain't sing for dogshit!”

We reckoned it was close to midnight when we got to the cemetary but there was no sign of any of the Sullivans. Hearts pounding, we inched open the cemetary gates just enough to squeeze through and cautiously, lightly, carefully walked in among the shadowy gravestones. We could hear each other's fear in our panicky breathing and I think we were both regretting leaving the feather bed for such a foolish and dangerous dare. Could you die of fright, I wondered and thought Ruthie might be wondering the very same thing. An owl hooted and we nearly jumped out of our skins. When something unseen rustled along the tree line and we froze in absolute horrow and desperation.

“Let's go!” I whispered, pulling at her sleeve, “I don't care what they say 'bout us!”

“Don't be such a baby!” she snapped at me, “You'll care in the mornin'!”

I was so scared I wasn't sure there was going to be a morning, but I kept it to myself. Then something slithered by my feet and I let out a small shriek of pure terror. Ruthie caught me square in the jaw with a right hook, hard enough to knock me down, bring me to my frail senses, and pull myself together against the mounting hysteria. She half-pulled, half-dragged me

to the least occupied corner of the graveyard, shoved me roughly down so that my back was to the fence (and to the dark woods, I shuddered at the thought of what fearful, bloody-eyed creature might be hiding in those trees) and setttled down Indian style beside me.

“All we hafta do,” she said with a remarkable calm, “is sit here 'til the sun commences to come up. Then we'll go home the way we come and be in time for breakfast.”

“How we gon' prove to the Sullivans that we was here all night?” I wanted to know.

“We ain't got to prove nothin',” she said grimly, “They'll know allright. They's watchin' and they'll know.”

“But...........” I began and she punched me not so lightly in the ribs.

“Jist sit and shut up,” she told me and moved a little closer, “We gon' be fine and we ain't gonna get caught neither.”

I wasn't convinced but I did sit and shut up. For the next several hours, we sat and shut up, slowly smoking our way through an entire stolen pack of my mother's Parliaments and waiting for sun up. At times it was so deadly quiet that we imagined we could hear the owl smoothing his feathers. At other times, the woods seemed alive with things that crept and crawled and hid and sounded like footsteps.

“Mice,” Ruthie would whisper confidently, “Maybe a fox or a badger. Maybe even a deer.”

I hoped so but I hated how brave she was.

Dawn finally came and the sky began to lighten. There had been no sign of the Sullivans and nothing had come slinking out of the woods to ambush us or do us harm. We had spent a whole night in the graveyard and were just the same as when we went in, then made our way back home the same way we had come and slipped back into the feather bed unnoticed. If it hadn't been for us both coming down with incredibly virulent cases of poison ivy, we might've gotten away with it. Instead, we had nearly a week of vinegar baths, antihistamine shots, and being lathered in calamine lotion daily. In the end, we were so miserable that we confessed, hoping it would somehow ease our suffering. It didn't but Nana didn't have the heart to hand out any additional punishment.

We never did tell the why of it and it earned us the grudging respect of the Sullivans. We were young enough and foolish enough to think it was worth it and at the time, it was.

28 Days

What I remember about the rehab hospital was how plain vanilla and unremarkable it seemed. There was no hint of the madness and desperation behind its walls and certainly no indication that it might be capable of making miracles. I'd driven by the place twice a day, five days a week, for better than three years and had never really noticed it.

Worcester was not a pretty city in the '80's. Urban renewal and gentrification were running wild just an hour away in Boston but Worcester with it's grimy, stale air and dirty streets was as blue collar as it got. The hospital, squarely in the heart of downtown, was an unimposing and easily overlooked three story structure of garden variety brick. It didn't look like the forbidding lunatic asylum I sometimes had nightmares about - Olivia deHavilland's “Snakepit” had made an indelible impression on me and back then there were times when I called my own fragile sanity into question - but it was also clearly not the tennis courts and manicured lawns of Cascade, the convalescent hospital where Bette Davis got well in “Now Voyager”. Sitting in the pot holed parking lot while I killed time waiting for my appointment with my counselor and trying to work up my courage, I saw the sun reflecting off the small third floor windows. Windows with bars, I couldn't help but notice.

“Dextox ward,” my nervewrackingly cheerful and decidedly un-Claude Raines aftercare counselor had casually told me, “As long as they're not violent, the average stay is 72 hours. No visitors, of course.”

Of course, I'd thought and nodded as if I were an old hand at this. I didn't want him to know that I thought at any moment my knees were going to buckle and I'd start screaming.

“Here,” he said kindly and steered me to a chair, “Sit down before you fall.”

I sat. I thought if he kept being kind to me, I might breakdown entirely but I couldn't figure out how to say so.

“Take a deep breath,” he suggested, “Talk if you want to.”

His name was Calvin. He was young, barely into his 40's, I thought, and had been sober for the last 18 years. He wore corduroy jackets, blue jeans and tennis shoes and sometimes smoked a pipe.

I”t gives me something to do with my hands,” he'd told me in an early counseling session, “and my patients seem to be reassured by the image. Image is so important to us, I'm sure you know. Do you smoke?”

“Like a chimney,” I'd admitted.

He'd smiled, brushed aside a stack of papers on his desk and slid a plastic ashtray toward me.

It's not really allowed but I think we'll make an exception this one time,” he'd told me.

More kindness, I'd thought bitterly but had managed to mumble a thank you.

Back in the now, several weeks later, we sat in his small cluttered office with its overflowing bookcases and water colored walls and a streak of sunshine coming from the one unbarred window. Two floors up, my husband was in his second day of detox and I was obsessed with the fear that he wouldn't make it to his third. Truth to tell, I was more than a little stunned that he'd made it to his second.

“Funny, isn't it,” Calvin said quietly, nodding toward a carton of Marboro Menthols in my lap, “cigarettes are allowed but coffee isn't. It's the caffeine, you see, almost as bad as nicotine. He'll get used to it.”

Having lived with the man for a decade, I didn't think so. He'd staged a massive retreat at the news that there'd be no Luzianne Chicory Coffee for 28 days and I'd have bet money he was going to tell them all to shove it and walk out but the nurses just shrugged and reminded him that it was all voluntary and that he could leave anytime. He'd cussed a vicious blue streak, slammed his duffel bag against a wall and torn up the antiseptically made bed but he'd agreed to stay.

Calvin, I realized dimly, would know all about that little scene. As determined as I was not to, I began to cry. Well, it wasn't so much as crying as it was hysteria. I felt as if something had broken clean in two within me, snapped like a branch in a hurricane wind and come crashing to the ground. I wailed. I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop. Ten years of living with a drunk, ten years of lying about it, ten years of protecting him and the image of a happy marriage, ten years of desperation, despair and loathing poured fourth like an open fire hydrant.

Calvin crossed one ankle over one knee and patiently waited me out.

“I'll see that he gets the cigarettes,” he said after several minutes when the waterworks finally receded, “and you can see him day after tomorrow. If you want to, of course. Now, “he paused and handed me a box of Kleenex, “Let's talk about you.”

I was, in a funny and perverse kind of way, relieved he hadn't tried to comfort me. The part of me that was busily, guiltily imagining the horrors on the third floor - restraints and dt's and God only knew what else - didn't need any encouragement. The martyred and resentful part begging for recognition and sympathy after all my self-sacrifice was looking for a medal. And the part that was so deathly afraid of the whole thing being a miserable, public failure wanted only for someone to wave a magic wand and make it all go away. It could be, I was beginning to see, although reluctantly, that comfort would only prolong my illusions. It wouldn't have been a kindness.

“You need a plan,” Calvin was saying, “May I make a suggestion?”

I nodded.

“There's an AlAnon meeting downstairs in a half hour. Start there. Then go home. Eat something. Get some sleep. Just for tonight, let it go and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow gets here. One day at a time. One night at a time. One hour at a time if you have to.”

“Pretty short term plan,” I said shakily and he laughed.

“Pretty short term problem,” he said gently, “Just for tonight.”

Nonetheless, I decided, it was a good plan. I stopped at the visitors washroom to soak some paper towels in cold water and hold them to my eyes until the swelling eased, repaired my makeup as best I could, and then slipped outside to the small patio to smoke a cigarette and, as my grandmother used to say, collect myself. When I felt calmer and cooler and a little more in control, I walked back inside to the meeting. The minute the door swung silently shut behind me, I felt a shadow of sanity wake up, rouse itself, and begin to make its way back to me. I joined the mostly all women circle - some, no doubt, with husbands in the very same predicament as mine on the third floor - and tried to clear my mind. The women I knew smiled at me, peaceful smiles, survival smiles, despite what I knew from their stories were obscene personal tragedies. Sitting across from me was my friend and sponsor, Dottie. “Let go and let God,” she mouthed at me, gave me a wink and then threw open her flowered jacket to show off her bright blue t shirt emblazoned in oversized white letters that read “Surrender, Dorothy!” It was the first time in the lifetime that been the last two days that I laughed, genuinely and out loud, and the other women joined in almost at once. How could you not? “Bless you, Dottie,” someone said and she blushed.

It was still light as I drove the twenty miles to the now empty apartment at the top of Dead Horse Hill. It was pretty country, a little on the rural side, and there was practically no traffic. It gave me a chance to breathe and think and wonder what I was supposed to do now. The cats were suitably glad to see me and the silence of the small apartment didn't bother me nearly as much as I expected. It occurred suddenly to me that in my whole life I'd never lived alone. Now I found myself wondering if I'd like it.

“Well,” I told my small black cat who had been with me the longest, “we've got 28 days to find out, don't we.”

It only took four.

With the accuracy of heat seeking missile, I searched, found, and demolished every despised beer can, full or empty, until I'd filled three lawn and leaf bags. I washed floors and walls, fixtures and furniture, put fresh sheets on the bed, defrosted the refrigerator, Easy Off'd the oven and still made an AlAnon meeting every night. I went to work each day with a renewed sense of purpose and spent my evenings reading, stitching, playing with the cats. I ate exactly what I liked when I was hungry and slept like the dead. I felt free.

Calvin, in a final act of kindness, called at the end of the third week to tell me my husband had pronounced himself cured and checked himself out, a week early and very much against medical advice. There was nothing he could do but warn me.

“He's sober,” my aftercare counselor said neutrally, “But he's not well or much changed. Promise me you'll be careful and remember to take care of yourself. Don't skip your meetings and don't get sucked back in.”

I promised. I thanked him. I assured him I'd see him soon. And then I vomited until my throat was raw.

The homecoming was awkward. He was, as Calvin had said, sober. But he was also defiant, angry, sullen and silent. I knew at once that the minor battle had been won but the great war was hopelessly lost. Then it slowly began to dawn on me that I wasn't - lost, that is - the kindness of my aftercare counselor and my AlAnon group, my sponsor and all the friends who had started out as strangers had been a gift. It had, albeit painfully, brought me to my senses and to strength and reality, all without a single word or gesture of actual sympathy or well intentioned advice. These precious people had comforted me with kindness just as someone had once comforted them. I have done my best to do the same for others ever since.

To The Manor Born

The line to the pharmacy counter was six deep and it took me a minute to recognize the older woman in front of me. The years hadn't been kind to Miz Adelaide – she'd gained a considerable amount of weight, her skin had turned to crepe paper and her once lustrous bleached blonde hair was wispy and balding in places. What hadn't changed was her uppity, self importance – that was still very much intact. She complained and whined about being made to wait to everyone that would listen. She drummed her once perfectly manicured nails on the rim of her shopping cart and tapped her foot in annoyance. She shifted her weight and tried to peer into the pharmacy as if demanding to be acknowledged. Every impatient and put upon gesture was accompanied by a hugely audible sigh but nothing was working. I'm not proud of it, but I was enjoying the moment. I could recall the hundreds of time I'd waited on her in the photo store and seen exactly the same behavior, the same old money'd arrogance and entitlement. In some ten years of weekly visits, she'd barely bothered to learn my name. Even so, I didn't want to risk being recognized so I was careful to keep my back to her and keep my smile to myself.

I'm smart enough to know that how I feel about women like Miz Adelaide is more about me than them but I'm a grudge keeper and think that forgiveness is mostly overrated. As a general rule,

I'm happy to be overlooked except when I'm not. More than once I've had the thought that age clarifies your outlook, not always in a good way. There's a fine line between service and servitude and women like Miz Adelaide cross it without a backward glance or a second thought. Again, I'm not exactly proud of feeling she's earned this particular moment in the pharmacy line but I'm not exactly ashamed either.

She reaches the counter and immediately initiates an argument with the cashier, petulantly complaining about the wait, the lack of efficiency, the price of the prescription and the overall state of the country, which in her opinion is disgraceful and completely the fault of anyone who didn't vote republican. She persists in this shabby tirade well after the helpless cashier (who I suspected wasn't even old enough to vote) has apologized several times, then snatches the pharmacy bag out of the poor child's hand and jerks her shopping cart out of line, plowing directly into the cart of an unsuspecting shopper who happened to be passing. There is, of course, no apology offered, instead she glares at the hapless woman then storms off down the

makeup aisle, looking perfectly prepared to mow down anyone who crosses her path.

“White trash,” a voice behind me says distinctly.

“Sing it, sista,” a second voice adds.

It was a crossroads moment that could've led to a minor riot or at the very least an ugly scene. It could even have led to a conversation. Instead it led to laughter, only a trickle at first, but then a full out wave. Strangers grinned at each other and shook their heads with something very close to pity. Even the pharmacy staff smiled although discreetly. The woman shopper who had almost been run down flashed a thumbs up sign and what could have been a thoroughly nasty incident turned into a small victory for civility and unity.

You can't be beaten by something you laugh at ~ Jonathan Harnisch

Storms

The storm hit just after 4 in the morning with a tremendous shotgun crack of thunder and a protracted series of lightning that lit up the sky like white neon. The little dashshund woke with a start and gave a small whimper before burrowing deeper into my side. The tiny one, fast asleep above my head, barely stirred. The rain came, hard and cold and falling fiercely, tearing the newly blooming azaleas to shreds and bending the crepe myrtles like so many paper straw wrappers. A second crash of thunder set the walls to vibrating and now thoroughly terrorized, the little dashshund yelped and frantically began to dig his way beneath me. I reassured him as best I could, speaking softly hugging him tightly and pulling the blanket over both our heads. It took several minutes but eventually he began to relax, tucking his whole head under my chin and holding on for dear life. After awhile, it got me to thinking about how little comfort we can sometimes offer those we love, especially perhaps when they need it the most.

I had visited my friend, Jean, earlier the day before and come away feeling helpless and worried and depressed. She'd had steroids with her last chemotherapy treatment and was chatty and perky and cheerful enough but she looked beaten up and unhealthily thin. She moved with a fragile unsteadiness and had trouble following the conversation. The skin on either side of her throat was red and raw from the radiation and she kept a cold compress wrapped around her neck and shoulders. It chilled her so she'd tucked her hair under a loosely fitting green knit cap and wrapped herself in a thick shawl. The overall effect was frailty and weakness - I was reminded of a child playing dress up in clothes several sizes too big. We talk and tell stories, make up silly jokes, plan the places we will go when she's well and can taste food again. I tell myself anyone would look like this after 4 weeks of daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy. The doctors tell her, so she tells me, that she's tolerating it well and there is every reason to hope. Maybe so, but there's a part of me that sees shadows in this sweet little house. Granted, they're hiding in the corners for now and there are days when they seem to be gone entirely but

I can't shut them out completely. I'm afraid for my friend and for myself and I despise my helplessness.

Meanwhile, my dear friend, Tricia, has been thoroughly leveled by a gastrointestinal bug. I find her wrapped in a blanket and huddled miserably in her recliner. She looks like – forgive me, Tricia – death on a stick, thin, colorless, fragile and cold, too sick to move. Just like Jean, there's nothing I can do to comfort her or ease her pain and this harsh helplessness gnaws and grates on me like an abscess. There is an almost chronic weariness in her dark eyes, a sense of futility in the circles beneath them. She looks haggard and beaten and racked with pain. A few days later when she rallies - just a little – I wonder at her tenacity and will. I feel grateful and guilty all at the same time, so glad we are such good friends but at odds with myself for not being able to share or at least ease her suffering. It strikes me that the unfairness of how life treats us is a cold hearted bitch indeed and I make a mental note to remind myself to be more aware and appreciative of my own circumstances.

God has a plan, Jean tells me, and it's not ours to know. The agnostic in me thinks it's all a sad, man-made fiction but the part that wants to believe hangs on for dear life.

Tar and Feathers

According to Cap, who delivered the news with a grin and a shake of his head, Mary Louise found out about Ella Ann on Tuesday, Ella Ann found out about Mary Louise on Wednesday, and on Thursday, Travis Prime hastily packed a bag and took off for parts unknown.

“Boy was waitin' on the first crossin',” Cap reported, “Dancin' around like the devil was at his heels and catchin' up fast.”

Nana was unsympathetic. “You lay with dogs, you get fleas,” she said coldly, “Boy never did have the sense God gave geese and neither of them wimmen is blind or stupid. They was bound to catch on sooner or later.”

“Reckon so,” Cap nodded, “Never did unnerstand it myself, all the boy's ever had was them good looks and he'll grow outta them.”

“Good looks and good sense don't always end up together,” Aunt Pearl shrugged, “Leastways he was smart enough to run.”

Aunt Vi sighed. “I s'pose so,” she said sadly, “But I ain't sure he's smart enough to keep goin'.”

On the scandal scale, it was enough to keep the bored villagers talking for a few weeks but, most everyone said, it wasn't much to write home about. And then on one warm summer afternoon,

Ella Ann and Mary Louise happened to run into each other at the post office. They could've ignored one another. They could've had a catfight right in the dusty street. They could've glared and turned their backs. They even could have been frostily polite to one another and left, as the postmistress pretty much expected they would do.

“You jist never kin tell 'bout folks,” Thelma told everyone who would listen, “Who'd a thought to see them two walk out arm 'n'arm like long lost friends! Gon' be a bad day for ol' Travis Prime, I reckon.”

And indeed it was. To the village's bewilderment, Mary Louise and Ella Ann united, pooled their resources and hired themselves a private detective from Halifax to track and locate Travis. It didn't take long before he was found, waiting tables in a down and out diner in a more down and out section of St. John and pretty much living out of his beat up old '47 Chevy. The entire island was on edge with anticipation - the Sullivan boys made a killing taking odds on what the women would do – and it seemed like overnight, the ordinary little scandal caught fire and no one was talking about anything else. Breach of contract and alienation of affections became popular phrases, but both came in a close second and third to tar and feathers. Rumor had it that Travis, feeling rightfully anxious, lit out - sold the Chevy for a song, signed on to an Alaskan bound tramp steamer - and disappeared. There were random sightings over the years, from a logging camp and a fishing fleet to one promising lead from an off shore oil rig but nothing ever led anywhere. Travis was in the wind and for most of the island, it was good riddance. The silver lining was that Ella Ann and Mary Louise became good friends and eventually bought Miz Hilda's old Victorian house, moved in together and rented rooms to the summer folk. On those warm summer evenings, you could see them in their wooden rocking chairs, watching the sunsets and drinking homemade strawberry wine on the veranda with their guests. Travis's name was never mentioned and it was never proven that the women kept a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers in their shed, just in case.

The Third Grave

The air was heavy with a misty, left over rain and the sun wasn't making much progress when I realized the little dachshund had found yet another new way out of the yard. I snatched my keys, threw on on my Nikes and left to go retrieve him. I found him on the lawn of my next door neighbor, sitting still and quiet beside the body of one of my favorite neighborhood cats. It felt as if someone had rammed a knife into my chest. I led my little one back, returned with a towel to wrap up the small, lifeless body and carried him across the street to his home. It was just after seven on a gray-ish Sunday morning and I hated to have to wake Amanda but it'd have been far worse for her never to know. I had to ring the bell several times and listening to her dogs barking from inside, I wanted desperately to give up. She finally answered the door, still rubbing sleep from her eyes and hushing the dogs, frowning at the bundle in my arms.

“Hey,” she began, “What's up and who is............” and then she saw and crumpled into a heap, shaking and sobbing. It was several minutes before she was coherent and all I could do was hold her beloved cat and wait. Words are cold comfort at times like this.

It'd have been unforgivably cruel to bring up the fact that this sweet natured animal would still be alive if he'd been kept inside but it was a thought I'd had about Amanda's cats dozens of times. This is the third one she's lost to the outside world and for the sake of her two remaining inside/outside cats, I had a fierce urge to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her. I didn't do it, of course, you don't beat up someone who's just lost a beloved animal. Not even when it's the third one, not even when there may be a fourth or fifth.

Later that afternoon, we dug a third grave in the rain-softened ground in her back yard. It was impossibly sad and both of us were in tears. When we were done, we hugged briefly and I walked home slowly to gather my own little ones and be grateful for them.

Three Cookies and a Diet Coke

The line of hopeful wannabe models stretches out the door and around the corner. They are tall and short, black and white, blonde and brunette, thin and family sized. It's going to be another three cookies and a Diet Coke for lunch kind of day.

They have been clearly and specifically told to bring a current photo. Many don't.

They have been clearly and specifically told not to bring their entire family of 12. Many do.

They have clearly and specifically been told what to wear. They ignore the instructions.

They have been clearly and specifically told we will not see children under 6 The 3 year old twins and their parents leave in a huff.

They have clearly and specifically been told about being punctual. I turn away the three who stroll and slouch in a half hour after we start. They decide to argue and it almost turns heated but when I point out that if they can't be on time for an audition, how could I expect them to be on a time for a job, I prevail and they wander away like a herd of lost sheep.

With a little help from Michael, I manage to get them all signed in, seated, and more or less paying attention. He teaches them the basics of posture and a runway walk, then they all read a tv commercial, even the ones who obviously don't consider literacy a benefit and after a quickie question and answer session, we're done.

One or two have the height, one or two have the drive, one or two have the personality, one or two even have the resources but when it's all said and done, we hope for a shining star but settle for a festival of ordinary. Broadway and Hollywood will have to wait for the next crop of starry eyed dreamers.

In the meantime, maybe I can get a decent lunch.

Chickens & Charity

Rain or shine, fine or fogbound, Wednesday was the day Nana made her sick calls.

We packed the old Lincoln with a half dozen or so food baskets, cleaning supplies, a couple of boxes of books and magazines, some odds and ends and second hand clothing, and headed out to make the rounds. Sometimes Aunt Pearl or Aunt Vi or Miz Clara came with us, on rare occasions we picked up Uncle Len or John Sullivan to help with small repairs. If there were children on the list, we would try to include a used toy or game and even would bring one of the dogs. It was what Nana called, OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY.

“What goes around, comes around,” she assured me firmly, “Everyone needs a little charity now and then, whether they want it or not.”

I learned early that charity and pride don't always walk hand in hand and sometimes OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY was not as welcomed as we'd have liked. My grandmother was undeterred by the rare doors that were not thrown open for us and would just leave her care packages on the porches and move on.

“You can't take away folk's pride,” she told me with a smile and a shrug, “Sometimes it's all a body's got left.”

“Pride don't put food on the table or keep the lights burnin',” Miz Clara would observe sourly when her knock on the door wasn't answered but Nana ignored her and checked off another name on her list.

“Returned or not, Clara,” she chided her gently, “Ain't no harm in kindness.”

“Mebbe so,” Clara replied ruefully, “But it ain't no one way street neither.”

“I reckon we'd be done already if you two old hens would quit peckin' at each other,” John Sullivan remarked more loudly than necessary and both women glared at him briefly and then commenced to laugh.

“Wimmenfolk,” Long John muttered, “More trouble 'n chickens and christian duty put together.”

Visiting Hours

A gentle rain washes away the green pollen mist and a light breeze stirs the curtains at the windows. We sit, my friend Jean and I, and talk about everything and nothing – her cancer treatments, the new temporary dog groomer I've found, how she still misses her husband, what life and the future hold – it's comfortable and easy, sad and optimistic at the same time. She looks tired, a little lost, and her mind sometimes wanders. The radiation has stolen her ability to taste and made it hard for her to swallow. The chemotherapy is rough on her immune system. She grimaces and forces down a glass of gatorade. But her smile is still there – it takes a little more effort and lasts a little less long, but it's still there. This isn't her first battle with cancer and she isn't the giving up kind. I can't help but wonder if I were in her place, would I have her courage and grace or would my faith be as strong. Even facing cancer, there's a touch of mischief in that smile, a hint of the hope and humor that sustains her. I'm not at all sure that I would be so strong or so stubborn.

She's about to start the 3^rd week of a 10 week treatment protocol – radiation five afternoons a week plus chemotherapy each Thursday morning – her doctors are hopeful and her spirits are mostly good although every now and then her eyes cloud over and I can see the worry and the fear and the weariness. They creep around the edges of her mind, beckoning to the dark places we try so hard not to think about. She catches herself, shakes it off, closes her eyes and forces herself to breathe and relax, to meditate and let go.

“My mind needs healing as much as my body,” she tells me. Her voice is thinner, shakier than I like to hear, not quite as convincing as a couple of weeks ago. Seven more weeks of this, I think, will she ever be the same?

We have a lunch of buttered croissants, beef broth and smoothies and the minutes slip by as minutes will do. 

Seven Stitches Later

“This may be a little uncomfortable,” the surgeon says briskly, “I need you to stay still.”

Knowing “A little uncomfortable” really means it's going to hurt like hell, my heart starts to pound like a runaway jackhammer and then I'm totally distracted by the pain. I whimper, cuss and clench the paper sheet in a death grip. I feel branded, like a half dozen red hot pokers were suddenly rammed into the back of my neck. Sweet Jesus, I think, why did I turn down out patient surgery and being out cold? Meanwhile, somebody - good God, it's me - is moaning and while every muscle I have is freezing up, the doctor asks for additional anesthetic. Three times. Each fresh stick and burn feels like a blowtorch. Several more minutes pass.

“Tell me we're almost done,” I plead desperately, “Dear Jesus, please tell me we're almost done!”

“Just a couple more hours,” he tells me dryly just before another white hot stab of pain shoots into my neck and almost immediately I feel/hear/sense/visualize the slice of the scalpel. It hurts far less than the injections and I somehow manage to force my body to relax. Visions of horror movies begin to play in my mind - “The Pit and the Pendulum” is the most prominent – but it's quickly followed by variations of a mad scientist reanimating Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. Scalpels and scars and stitches and dear God, please let me survive this. My last coherent thought is wondering how much pain a person can actually tolerate before they pass out mixed with how fortunate I'm not a spy, I'd sing like the proverbial canary.

 Troop strength?

Not a problem. 

 Names of double agents? In alphabetical order or by country?

Nuclear codes?

Just give me a pencil.

“Am I going to have a hole in my neck?” I ask, not quite realizing how ridiculous the question is.

“Big enough to drive a truck through,” the doctor says calmly, “But I'm going to stitch it up for you.”

“How thoughtful,” I mutter into the pillow, “A surgeon and a comedian.”

Seven stitches and five minutes later, the nurse presses on a bandaid, and it's over. I leave with a script for pain, a return appointment to have the stitches removed, and an urge to celebrate my survival.

An Ewok at the Door

There's no other way to put it. Standing outside the front door, in a navy blue hoodie with a muffler wrapped around his face, our IT guy looks like an overgrown ewok. As unpleased as I am to see him - these website sessions are like learning Arabic from someone who thinks and speaks at the speed of light and assumes I can keep up - it still makes me smile.

I've never enjoyed having to do things I don't do well and combined with the fact that brilliant people have a knack for making me nervous, I find myself wanting to wish away the next couple of hours. Computer literacy has always intimidated the hell out of me and everything I've ever learned has been through trial and error or stubbornness and luck. Website design is hard and complex and in a language I can't make heads nor tails of. What is second nature to our IT guy might as well be Mandarin to me. Despite my having expressed these sentiments a dozen times, he waves my uncertainty away and assures me I'm one of his best students. I tell him I feel fortunate to get a word every now and then and he tells me I'm a natural and laughs. I am not especially reassured.

We muddle on for the remainder of the morning with me taking as many notes as I can and hoping they'll make some kind of sense when he's gone.

It strikes me as odd that once upon a time I loved to learn and now I find it an exhausting and nerve wracking experience. I wonder if it's not that my memory banks are full of trivia - a half dozen telephone numbers that mattered when I was ten, the piano lessons I took at eight, the lyrics to “Calendar Girl” by Neil Sedaka, “100 Pounds of Clay” by Clyde McPhatter or from when I was a little older, the complete score to “The Music Man”. All that is fresh and readily accessible but I can't remember three simple steps to add an image to a website unless I've written them down.

No Bad News

“Don't nobody bring me no bad news.....”

The Wiz

We've known each other for better than 65 years. She is my oldest friend and impossibly dear to me. She writes that she's been diagnosed with a genetic mutation that predisposes her to certain cancers. I read her email slowly and carefully, three times in all, and then once more. The spectre of yet another precious friend with cancer turns my emotions into a kaleidoscope and I see all manner of jagged edge'd chaotic colors and shapes. They push and shove and grate against each other violently and I'm paralyzed with not knowing what to write back.

Later that same day, I visit with another dear friend just diagnosed with stage three throat cancer and facing a long, uncertain road of radiation and chemotherapy. We sit by her open bedroom window and talk while a warm breeze stirs the curtains and her beloved dog sits in her lap, looking at her with absolute devotion. The daffodils she planted in the front yard wave and bend gently in the promise of spring wind. I see the kaleidoscope still but it's less raucous and the colors are more pastel. Even so, I can't make sense of any of it.

It's all part of God's plan, my well-intentioned and more religious-minded friends like to tell me.

We're not supposed to understand it, they say with a confident, chin up smile. Be that as it may. It doesn't save lives or bring back the ones I've loved and lost. If there is a God (and agnostic or not, I do want desperately to believe) I can't see that He's paying much attention to this little world. Maybe, so often as I am tempted to do, He's had enough and has just given up. We have, it seems to me, made our own beds. Perhaps He thinks we should lie in them awhile.

And yet, as the poets say, hope springs eternal. How or why is often beyond me, but it does.

And I'm grateful if suspicious.

Another spring is right around the corner.

“The truth is that we know so little about life, we don't know what the good news is and what the bad news is.”  Kurt Vonnegut

Helen Dear

It's probably just as well that we don't always know what stirs a memory. I remember this one as clearly as I remember that bathroom – the water heater was there and the room was always toasty warm. There was a two level linen closet large enough to hold a couple of kids playing hide and seek and a single window, hung low and close to the floor. From it, you could see all of Peter's Island and the rise and curve of the Old Road. The walls were painted in a soft shade of cream with even softer yellow trim. It was a sunny, peaceful room. And there was a musical toilet paper holder.

“Alice,” my Aunt Helen said in a voice dripping with disapproval, “I must say that's the most appallingly tacky thing I've ever encountered. It's so unlike you and I must say I can't imagine what you were thinking of. I am, if I may say so, completely shocked and offended.”

“My dear wife,” Uncle Eddie remarked off handedly, almost managing to turn a laugh into a cough, “You just ended a sentence with a preposition. Whatever this appalling thing is, it must be practically a criminal offense.”

Aunt Helen glared at him, her mouth so grim and white I thought surely she would growl. She didn't but I was sure she wanted to. My gruff and usually down to earth uncle made a hasty exit but my grandmother just shrugged and tightened her grip on her knitting needles.

“Helen, dear,” she said cooly, as always making it sound as if it were one name, “You surely can't have led such a sheltered life to be undone by such a harmless and silly little thing.”

"You can hear it all through the house!” Helen protested righteously, “After all, one does expect a modicum of privacy in certain situations!”

It was then I realized they were talking about the musical toilet paper holder. Each time the roll was pulled on, it played a whimsically cheerful version of “Whistle While You Work”. Helen was right about one thing - Nana had very little sense of whimsy and it was very much unlike her.

My grandmother continued to knit ferociously, making a herculean effort to control her temper. I was gleefully preparing for fireworks, hoping as I always did, to see my prim, proper and detested aunt be brought down. Instead, she stiffened her well brought up spine and stubbornly stuck our her aristocratic chin.

“Really, Alice,” she resumed drearily, “It's quite intolerable that one's family should be exposed to such a lower class novelty.”

“Have another glass of sherry, Helen, dear,” my grandmother interrupted in the icy tone she reserved for truly the most impossible and egregious situations, “You're becoming overwrought over nothing.”

Aunt Helen fingered her perfect pearls, smoothed her cashmere sweater and matching skirt, adjusted her spectator pumps and then stood, checked that her stockinged seams were straight and her pearl earrings were securely in place. She was, I thought, every inch the blue blooded Boston headmistress of a girls finishing school - elegant, haughty, intolerant and insufferable. How could my blue collar, fair minded and cheerful uncle ever have married her?

“I have no wish to be disagreeable,” she was saying to my grandmother, who by then was white knuckled and barbed wire tense, “but I do think it's in everyone's best interest to remove........”

She never got to finish the sentence. Nana carefully put down her knitting needles, moved the yarn to its basket, closed the lid.

“Helen, dear,” she said venomously, “This is my house and you are a guest in it. If you are so disturbed by such foolishness, you are welcome to leave at any time. Or, if you value your privacy so much, you can always use the two holer in the garage. But you will no longer lecture me on everyone's best interests or tell me how to run my house.”

Shocked to her core and horrified speechless, my Aunt Helen turned deathly white, burst into tears and fled.

“Jesus wept,” I heard my grandmother say ruefully, “I've gone and done it this time. I don't expect I'll ever hear the end of this. Damn that woman and her society standards!”

It was my Uncle Eddie who saved the day. He coaxed Nana into an apology, soothed Aunt Helen and dried her tears and managed to restore a fragile peace. The two women made up and with effort and sustained mutual avoidance, got through the next two weeks. It was a narrow thing, the entire household knew, and it was hardly a real solution, but all out war had been averted for one more day.

Winter Days

And just like that, a week of sweet, warm February days is done and winter returns. The air is icy and the wind howls like a hungry coyote, everything is gray and lightly coated with frost. The dogs run out, disappear for a minute or two, then hastily trot back inside and make for the love seat and the warmth of the throw blanket. I find them curled so tightly together I can't see where one ends and the other begins. They don't even wait for a morning biscuit and while I want nothing more than to join them and stay put until April, it's up to me to keep the heat going, the lights on and their bowls filled. I ease into a second layer of long johns and pull on a second pair of socks, find yesterday's jeans and hooded sweatshirt, slip into my Nikes, gloves, knit cap with matching muffler, and prepare to face the outside day. I reach for the door knob and can practically feel my courage slipping away. Then at the last second, it dawns on me that I've forgotten my teeth and I get a momentary reprieve. I'm not entirely sure what I expected retirement or in my case, semi-retirement would be like but I'm reasonably sure this isn't it. One step outside and I'm paralyzed by the cold and overflowing with resentment at having to leave my solitary nest. Rational or not, I take winter's persecution quite personally. Golden years, my ass, I think as I fling my muffler over my face and make a dash for the car.

I thought, lo those many years ago, that Louisiana was far enough south to move to escape winter. I was seduced by that first 70 degree Christmas around the swimming pool, never anticipated ice storms and the other freaks of weather I've seen, torrential rains leading to massive flooding followed by droughts, tornadoes, hail, wicked, bitter cold that burns your face and numbs your fingers and toes. Summers, brutally hot as they may be, are never long enough to suit me. Given the choice of a blast furnace or a deep freeze, I'll take the heat every time.

About a quarter of the way to work, the little blue car is warm enough for me to discard my gloves and let my muffler slip off my face. The sun, weak and anemic but making an effort, starts to show through the slow moving clouds. The light is slim and by no means certain, but at least there's hope. When I arrive at Michael's and navigate my way through an avalanche of over-excited and unrestrained dogs, the house is relatively but reassuringly warm. I begin to think I may survive another day.