Hell on Steroids

There's a rustle behind me and when I turn to look, I see the puppy has latched onto a sofa pillow easily twice his size and is determinedly dragging it across the ceramic tile floor.  He sees me see him and immediately tries to run but it's an awkward burden and he doesn't make much progress.  I sigh, tell him "No!" and take it away from him.  He gives me a pained look, trots off, and in just a few minutes returns  with a four foot piece of chewed up weatherstripping.  After I take that away, he disappears again but presently I hear more rustling and when I go to investigate, I find him doing his best to carry off a 12 pack of shrink wrapped paper towels. He's already on the third stair step, nearly halfway to the landing, and looking bright eyed and proud of himself.

Well, I say, You've got ambition, I'll give you that.

He drops his prize and tilts his head at me.  There's expectation in his eyes.

You know, I tell him, Cute is the only thing standing between you and a lethal injection.

He drops the ragged edge of the plastic wrap and sits, still looking at me with an alert, lopsided puppy grin.

Give it here, I say but when I reach for it, he snatches it back and we're suddenly in a tug of war.  The plastic rips and a half dozen rolls of paper towels come loose and skitter down the stairs.  Before I can get to them, he's gotten one in his teeth and given it a violent shake, pulling it free from its roll.  There's not much I can do except watch - giving chase would only encourage the game -  as he scrambles down the hall, darts into my office and through the classroom, leaving a trail of towels in his wake.  Eventually I manage to corner him under a folding chair by the double doors and realizing there's no way out, he finally surrenders.

But of course this is all only in the first half hour of my day and I fear he's just getting warmed up.  Before the day is over, I will have rescued a makeup kit bag, two dvd's, a spray bottle of Febreze, a pair of bluejeans, an entire cardboard box of bank statements, several assorted but mismatched socks, a Bic lighter, half a roll of plastic trash bags, a section of carpet matting, a handful of permanent markers, a package of UPS shipping stickers and a roll of electrician's tape.  All that's missing is a partridge in a pear tree.

This is not a dog, I tell Michael as I pry open the puppy's jaws to retrieve a thoroughly mangled pack of mentholated cough drops, This is a Weapon of Mass Destruction cleverly disguised as a dog.

Not wanting to give up his latest trophy, the puppy hangs on and growls.  I give him a smart pop on the nose and he gives me an aggrieved look before dropping the cough drops and launching himself back into my arms where he knocks me over and begins to smother me with kisses.  It's like trying to catch and restrain a hyper affectionate eel.

Michael is running errands when I leave so I herd the dogs outside one last time on my way out.  I open the door and the old pit lumbers out.  The chihuahua follows, snootily milling around the flower beds and trying not to get her feet wet.  The cur dog comes last, stumbling with each step and trying mightily to dislodge the puppy who has gotten a death grip on his hind leg.  Both are flailing and growling like flying monkeys but the cur dog wins, flinging the puppy off with one violent, final shake.  The puppy immediately tears across the lawn and hurls himself at the old pit in a full, frontal assault.  There's some initial bobbing and weaving, a couple of laps around the lawn furniture and several choke holds before the pit loses patience and takes the puppy down, sending him sprawling with one swing of his massive head.  The whole thing takes on a slightly cartoonish and acrobatic quality and I find myself thinking that this must be what wrestling looks like.  Then, with the kind of persistence you rarely see anymore, the puppy turns and begins to stalk the chihuahua.  Her sixth sense kicks in almost immediately and though there's a good ten feet between them, she whirls, snarls, and curls her lip in warning. The puppy, having no more sense than a breadfruit, charges and in a matter of seconds the fur is flying and it sounds like hell on steroids.

Salvation - also known as distraction - comes in the form of the mail truck.  As soon as it rounds the corner and pulls up to the curb, all four dogs unite in a show of solidarity and rush the fence like the hounds of hell.  Our mailman knows his part in this well and cheerfully calls all four by name as he walks up the drive. By the time I get them back inside, lock the door and reach the hall, the puppy is already at the front door, straining mightily to reach the mail slot and kidnap another a batch of mail.  He sees me and gives me a guilty look then seizes an L.L. Bean catalogue between his teeth and skitters up the staircase.

I lock up and leave and the last thing I hear is the mailman shouting Hi Yo, Silver! Away! and a thunderous chorus of barking from the upstairs windows.

Sometimes I yearn for those pre-puppy thrilling days of yesteryear.

 

  

Summer Corn

It was coming on sunset when we got to Miz Lilly's cornfield. The wind had shifted and like all island raised children, we knew a storm was on the way even though we couldn't see the passage or the rolling fogbank just off Peter's Island. Keeping to the dusty dirt road meant risking getting caught in the rain - worse, being late for supper - so after a quick vote, we decided to cut through the corn.

Just as we'd been taught, we walked single file through the green, ripening rows, now and again dodging wayward stalks and watching the sky. We were almost to the pasture behind Uncle Willie's when we stumbled into the bad patch of trampled corn and zigzgged broken stalks.

Jeezum crow, Ruthie said in surprise, What happened here?

Looks like a runaway tractor, don't it, Betty Jean agreed, Mebbe Miz Lilly done took to drinkin'.

Not likley, I said mildly, mebbe somethin' chasing the cows.

Yeah, Betty muttered, somethin' like a tractor. Move yer ass, Ruth, I'm feelin' raindrops.

By the time we got to the edge of the pasture, it was sprinkling, light but steady, and we could see the fog rolling in from the west. I was thinking it reminded me of one of those giant paving machines smoothing out a newly laid road when I heard Ruthie laugh.

Lookie there, she called to us, somethin' even got the scarecrow!

Miz Lilly ain't never had no scarecrow, Betty said with a frown, You seein' things, Ruth.

But she wasn't. We caught up with her and saw what she was gesturing at. From a distance it looked like a bundle of rags in overalls, a flannel shirt and side by side muddy work boots pointed skyward.

Oh, Jaysus, Betty said under her breath, That ain't no scarecrow. It's Stump Sullivan. Goddam, I hope he ain't dead.

Now there weren't a livin' soul on the islands didn't know Stump Sullivan was nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake. Folks said he had some kinda fallin' down shack in the woods, no one knew exactly where, and that he lived on the whiskey he stole from the stills. Come winter, he slipped into the summer houses for shelter, moving from one night to the next and never doing any real damage. In the summer months though, he holed up in the woods and only came out once a month to pick up his disability check. It was enough to persuade some islander making a trip to the mainland to stop at the provincial liquor - an id and a clean shirt were really all you needed to make a purchase, no matter how ridiculously huge - and bring him back several bottles of rotgut vodka.

Dumber'n dirt, Sparrow liked to say, and bedbug crazy even when he ain't likkored up.

And now, here was ol' Stump, splayed out on the damp ground of Uncle Willie's back pasture in the rain, dead to the world and snoring up a storm.

Well, Ruthie said, leastways he ain't dead. What we 'sposed to do?

Do? Betty snapped incredulously, Do? We ain't 'sposed to do nothin'! Reckon he'll wake up or drown and I don't much care which!

Ruthie stood her ground. We cain't just leave him! she protested stubbornly.

Hell if'n we cain't, Betty shot back, He's jist a nasty, crazy, old drunk! I'm goin' on! And with that, she gave us both an angry glare, turned on her heel and stalked off. We watched her go until the fog swallowed her whole.

Now what? I asked Ruthie mildly, You have some kind of a plan?

Reckon we could drag him yonder to the hay wagon, she said, nodding back toward the corn,

It'd be some shelter.

I thought about arguing, decided it wasn't worth the time it would take, and shrugged. Feet or hands?

She considered this. Stump Sullivan was built - not to be indelicate but as Sparrow would've said, “like a brick shithouse” - and I'm not sure either of thought we could do it.

Feet, Ruthie said finally, That way if'n he wakes up, he cain't latch onto us.

This made a certain amount of sense so we each grabbed a muddy boot and started to pull.

Ol' Stump never made a sound, but Lord help us, he was heavy and when we got to the hay wagon, we both had to get down on our hands and knees to haul him under. He still never stirred though for a few seconds the snoring seemed to stop and we weren't sure he was breathing. Ruthie gave him a nudge in the ribs and he kind of groaned, then turned on his side, curled up and resumed snoring. An empty vodka bottle fell out of his back pocket.

So long, Stump, I said, wiping corn silk and mud off my hands.

Ayuh, Ruthie agreed cheerfully, Sweet dreams, Stump. Jist don't die.

We made for home. We didn't beat the storm, Betty Jean told on us - What were you thinkin'? my grandmother demanded irritably, Upstairs and out of them wet clothes 'fore you catch your death! - but Stump Sullivan lived to drink another day and was none the wiser.

Finch Wars

Not having the good sense to know the difference between brave and reckless, the kitten goes into stealth mode and steals up on the little dachshund who is peacefully sleeping in the corner where he keeps his toys. I watch her peer around the corner of the loveseat, her rear end quivering like jello, and then she trills a warning and pounces.

It's the trill that gives her away, of course. He comes awake like a thunderbolt, all false fury and righteous indignation, and chases her out of the sun room, through the bedroom, into the dining room and finally to the kitchen where she leaps onto the counter, out of his reach. He gives a soft but firm Woof! in her general direction, then after a brief stop at the water bowl, trots back into the sun room, rearranges his toy collection and goes back to sleep, his head resting protectively on Lambchop, his favorite. It could have been his gentle snoring that caught her attention, or her natural curiosity but my money's on her need to disrupt any quiet moment. She's a born stalker, an intrepid instigator, a trouble maker who thrives on mischief and mayhem, what the 60's establishment liked to label an outside agitator. And she's very, very good at it.

Lately though, she's been getting back a little of her own. A pair of what I think are finches, has taken up residence in the azaleas outside of the sun room windows. They're pretty birds with their soft muted red and brown coloring, but they're highly territorial, surprisingly aggressive and quite loud. They chatter constantly, run off other birds and even chase and attack the squirrels that play in the crepe myrtles. They hover and flutter and dart about, scraping their wings and bodies against the glass and driving the kitten to distraction with their antics and the noise. And they're fearless - witness the precise and strategically carried out air strikes against the neighborhood cats - or the innocent shih-tzu next door, tag teamed with their daredevil manoevers so often that he cringes at the sight of them and runs yelping for the shelter of his garage. Shades of Alfred Hitchcock.

The kitten watches all this with intense fascination and I'm sure, no small measure of frustration.

I think it makes her little kamikaze self try harder.

If she watches long enough and learns to fly, it won't surprise me a bit.

Smoke, Mirrors and the Telephone Company

I need you to call the 'phone company, Michael tells me off handedly and before he can even finish the sentence I can feel my spine stiffening with resistance and my blood running cold, I want to see about adding an 800 number here.

I am calm.

I am resolute.

I am determined.

I am a grown up.

I can do this.

I make a silent vow that I will not lose my temper.

Absolutely, the first rep tells me, I can send you a link and you can do it all on line.

I have my doubts it will be as easy as she would have me believe but I'm willing to try. I open the link she sends and begin to make my way through the process, which to my pleasant surprise, actually turns out to be simple until I get to availability where I hit the wall I've been expecting. There's a problem with your request, I'm electronically informed, Please call your local business service specialist. I start again.

Oh, no, the second rep tells me carelessly, We can't do that. But I can transfer you to someone who can.

The first gnawing teeth of suspicion are starting to navigate up my spine.

I am calm, I remind myself.

I am resolute.

I am determined.

I am a grownup.

I can do this.

I can do this without losing my temper.

Another annoying series of prompts eventually gets to me a recording where I answer all the same questions all over again before I finally get to a recording that actually has something to do with availablility.

If you are in Michigan, Wyoming, Connecticut, Texas or Illinois, press one.

If you are in Vermont, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina or New Mexico, press two.

If you are in Mississippi, New York, California, Iowa or Alabama, press three.

The pencil I've been holding and tapping against my desk snaps abruptly in two.

If you are in Washington, Maine, Delaware, Ohio, North Dakota or Wisconsin, press four.

If you are in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Virigina or Louisiana, press five.

I press five and immediately hear The number you have dialed is not in service.......

With will power I had no idea I even had, I refuse to give in to the urge to repeatedly slam the handset into the wall and pitch whatever remains through a window.

I'm so sorry, the third rep tells me - although if anything she sounds somewhere between bored and amused - let me get you the right people.

I'ld be happy to help you, the fourth rep assures me, but you see, your service runs through the internet and it won't accommodate a toll free number.

Forty five minutes have passed - another forty-five will fly by before I'm done - and I'm beginning to think that the only solution to technology is a strategic nuclear strike.

Are you telling me, I say slowly while I clench and unclench my free fist, that it can't be done?

She patiently explains to me that of course, it can be done, but we would need a dedicated line installed and a separate telephone. She then tells me all the benefits this would entail - we'd know when someone was calling us toll free, we could track the calls, etc.

And the cost? I ask tiredly. She gives me a figure that is eight times what they advertise and I thank her and hang up quickly so she doesn't have the chance to thank me for choosing them, a standard closing that would surely drive me over the edge. All in all, it's the sorriest display of technology as progress that I've seen since the last time.

I relay all this to Michael who looks at me exactly as I expect, as if I've taken some exotic cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs. Before he can tell me I must've misunderstood, I fling my notes at him and tell him to call himself. Maybe he'll get a fifth rep and a better answer.  Miracles happen every day, so they tell me.

Dora Jean

Dora Jean's retirement party went off without a hitch.

After better'n forty years of school teaching, she got a cake and a plaque and, providing she was frugal and watched her pennies, enough of a retirement income to keep her and her cat fed.

She shyly thanked everyone for their cards and good wishes, hugged her fellow teachers, erased the blackboard one final time and walked home to her tiny but cozy little nest above the old hardware store. Here, home with her cheerful chintz curtains and comfortable chairs, she and the cat, a wiry old tom she called Alfie, she was most at ease. She slid out of her low heel pumps and put them neatly away, changed out of her prim sweater and matching skirt and hung them in the only closet, tucked her only string of pearls into the little heart shaped jewelry box she kept by the bed. With Alfie twining about her ankles, she slipped into her favorite old house sweater and paint stained overalls, found her fuzzy slippers and padded into the small pullman kitchen to put on the copper tea kettle and finish the morning's crossword puzzle.

Well, Alfie, she said, thoughtfully nibbling on the end of her faithful ballpoint pen, Can you give me an eight letter word for “the end of times”? No? How about “He who was looking for an honest man”, also eight letters?

When the kettle whistled, she poured tea, cut a small slice of lemon pound cake for herself and a slim wedge of cheese for the cat.

I can't say you're much help today, Alfie, she told him, Have you been keeping up with your studies?

The cat regarded her solemnly but had nothing to say.

No matter, Dora Jean shrugged and being very careful to keep her letters well inside the little squares, neatly filled in DOOMSDAY and DIOGENES.

After washing and dryiny the tea things, she curled up with Alfie and the rest of the newspaper, read it front page to back, watched an hour or so of the BBC, and was asleep and dreaming by nine.

Forty years of a habit are hard to break though, and she was up, bright eyed and alert by 6am the next morning, halfway through the day's lesson plan before she remembered she was retired and had no place to go. This was a disagreeable thought, she told herself, so determined not to give in to idleness or worse, self-pity, she unpinned the wall calendar from the back of the door and laid it out on the kitchen table along with the “Dartmouth After Dark” page of the paper.

Bingo, she read aloud, a scrabble club and a book club - this made the teacher in her smile -

there was volunteer work at the provincial hospital, meals to be delivered for the shut-ins,

A Green Thumb Society, two bridge tournaments, a Ladies Auxillary Knitting Circle, an All Welcome Dance at the Legion Hall. She could learn to quilt, take piano lessons, discover the secrets of gourmet cooking or be a part time dog walker.

She had circled the book club when she saw the announcement of the Canadian Armed Forces Reunion for a regiment whose name she knew immediately.

Now that, Alfie, she told the cat, might be worth dressing up for. I knew so many of those boys. And in her small, precise handwriting, she added the details to her calendar and circled the date.

I'll have to buy a new dress, she mused, maybe even a new pair of shoes. And I wonder if I still have the beaded evening bag......

She got the new dress and a pair of glittery heels that she was absolutely certain were much too young for her but found she couldn't resist. She had her hair cut and highlighted and got her nails manicured, found her beaded evening bag and borrowed a wrap from a friend. She dabbed perfume behind her ears, checked her lipstick, tightened her mother's pearl clip ons one last time and feeling like an aging Cinderella, headed out the door.

Good night, Alfie, she called to the cat, Don't wait up!

It wasn't until the taxi delivered her to the door of the Legion Hall that she realized she'd forgotten not only her reading glasses but her change purse.

Oh, bother, the driver heard her say as she fished around in the evening bag, I'm so sorry but I seem to have left my glasses and money at home. Let me run inside and I'll find a friend and borrow enough to pay you.

The long suffering and cynical driver would have none it and it was at that moment while she was doing her best to persuade him that fate noticed her and stepped in. A tall and slender stranger in evening clothes and white gloves materialized at her elbow, spoke softly to the driver and handed over an American ten dollar bill. She gave him an uncertain smile when he offered her his arm but, as she would later tell friends, there was something in his eyes.

A damsel in distress, he said kindly, may I see you in?

You may, sir knight, she said, a little shocked at her own boldness, and slipped her arm through his.

And will you dance with me? he asked.

I will, kind sir, she replied and almost giggled, I would be most pleased to do so.

Getting a little impatient, fate decided to up the ante at the sign in table when Dora Jean and the stranger stopped to register and get their plastic name tags. Each gave their name to a smiling volunteer - they had to raise their voices a little to be heard over the music and the chatter - and then they turned to each other and exchanged the tags so each could pin one on the other. Dora Jean saw it first but the stranger was quick to follow and their hands froze in mid-air.

Jed? she could barely whisper, Jed! Oh, my God!

His eyes widened in shock and recognition. Dora! he exclaimed, Good God Almighty, Dora Jean!

I knew it! she declared, I didn't know I knew it but I did! I saw it in your eyes!

You're thinner, he smiled at her, but every bit as pretty as the last.....he didn't finish the thought, just tucked her arm over his.We're going to catch up if it takes all night, he assured her, but first we're going to dance.

Most people knew the story of how they'd been childhood and then teenage sweethearts until the war. Jed had been sent to France and one thing led to another and instead of coming home, he'd met the woman he was to marry and moved to the United States. Dora Jean had heard nothing but rumors and speculation for years - she knew he came back once a year for the reunion but had never tried to see him – it hadn't seemed the proper thing to do now that he had a wife and children. The stories turned darker as the years passed. There was talk of trouble in the marriage, of alcohol abuse a general sense of unhappiness, and finally a deadly disease. She couldn't remember where she'd heard of his wife's death and though she thought briefly of sending a note, she didn't have an address and feared stirring up talk if she'd pursued it. Somewhere in between all those years, she'd consigned the youthful romance to lessons learned. She didn't exactly forget, but she didn't exactly dwell either.

Life is too short and too precious to cry over, she told Alfie, We were very young and it wasn't really real.

Fate, on the other hand, plots and plans and weaves complicated webs and less than a year after the reunion, they were married. It wasn't for very long, Jed died a few short years later and Dora Jean followed soon after that.

But I have an idea that the time they had was worth the wait.

Pocket Change

My grandfather was not well liked.

The last summer he spent with us on the island was my least favorite.  He was ill - with what was never discussed - but he spent a good amount of his time in an upstairs bedroom and insisted my grandmother be at his beck and call, stopping whatever she was doing to fetch him hot tea with whiskey or a dose of parabolic or clean sheets.  We were not allowed to play inside for fear of disturbing him and I can still hear his voice - harsh, whiny, helpless but demanding, always disagreeably demanding - as he shouted Nana's name. She jumped at the sound and scurried up the steep steps like a squirrel each time he called.

We had no company that year, not even family came and visitors were few and far between.  The silence was oppressive and unfamiliar - nobody except Nana was allowed in the sick room - and by June, we were all bad tempered, exhausted and battered.  Our usual carefree summer had been turned into a kind of pre-death watch with even Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi keeping their distance.  The fishermen who regularly would drop by with a haddock or a pound of scallops still came but they knocked very quietly at the screen door and didn't come past it. There were no birthday celebrations that summer, no after supper card games, no Ladies Auxillary meetings or sewing circle gatherings or Red Sox games on the radio.  Nana wouldn't even leave the house to go to church on Sundays.  Children and dogs were turned out every fine day and confined to the sunporch with the door shut if it was foggy.

It was a wearying, lonely, and dark summer and it bred resentment and shame.  I knew he was a crude, vulgar man, a dominating and unpleasant bully with a nasty temper but discovering that others knew it as well was hard.  He frightened people, his family included, and there were times when I wished he would die and be done with it.  I hated his iron handed selfishness and his brutal dismissiveness of my grandmother.  I hated the way she cringed when he talked to her, the way he called my mother names and made fun of the islanders who were so much a part of our lives.  I hated the way the upstairs smelled of sickness and bleach and the way the village felt sorry for us.  In time, I hated him.  It wasn't something he could buy off with his usual handful of pocket change.

In July, we jumped at the chance to get away and spend time at the farm with my daddy's family but I desperately missed hearing the ocean each morning and night and felt guilty about leaving Nana.  We stayed three weeks and then returned to the island, finding things just as we'd left them.

My grandfather didn't die that summer nor for several of the summers that came after but he never came back to the house on The Point either.  I never thought that anyone missed him.

Oliver's Curse

By his own admission, Oliver was the "meanest sumbitch in the Valley" and in his final days, he did not go gently. There were, in fact, a good many in Grand Pre in the summer of '58 of who didn't think he'd gone at all.

Nothin' but superstition, a course, my grandmother assured us - the voices, the apparitions, the unexplained late night lights - superstition and rumor, hardly a genuine haunting. For the most part, it kept the realty company frustrated and the would be buyers at bay. The old gingerbread farmhouse where Oliver had lived alone for all his adult life fell into disrepair, then dilapidation, and finally ill repute. It wasn't long before it was put up for public auction and sold for taxes to the highest bidder.

Some disreputable land developer from the city, Nana said disapprovingly - More'n likely got it for pennies on the dollar and gon' clear the land and put up some fancy, damfool, newfangled shoppin' center  Somewhere between the tax sale and the groundbreaking though, peculiar things began to happen at the old farm. There were accidents with the heavy machinery, workers got lost and claimed to hear things in the woods, the weather seemed bound and determined to delay the process at every opportunity. Hard hats and lunch buckets went missing on a regular basis, paychecks inexplicably didn't clear, crews that had worked together for years suddenly couldn't get along and brawls broke out daily. Two construction foremen were fired for drinking on the job and one was caught setting fires. Grand Pre started thinking less in terms of a haunting and more in terms of a curse.

Ain't nothin' to sacrifice a virgin over, my grandmother remarked contemptuously, but might be time they's havin' some second thoughts 'bout that place.

Then in the spring of '61, a most unusual storm hit. On a clear late afternoon in Grand Pre, without the first drop of rain, lightning shot from the cloudless sky. According to the witnesses, the first couple of strikes sheared into the trees around the main house and split them clean in two. The third struck an earth mover and it exploded, sending bits of charred metal raining down like shrapnel. The fourth, fifth and sixth - every man there swore they struck simultaneously - set the woods on fire.

The fire burned for two days - the same amount of time as it had taken the developer to order all the crews out - the same amount of time it took for the Mounties to arrive. By then, the blaze had died out but the land was blackened with soot and ashes and the smell of smoke was still strong enough to make your eyes water. Around the woods that surrounded the farmhouse was an odd but quite precise circle of seared, scorched trees and burned up grasses that stretched well past the treeline but uniformly stopped a hundred or so yards from the rough wooden fence that encircled the house. The farmhouse itself was intact - eerily and impossibly so, the mounties realized quickly - it was undamaged, untouched, unassailed.

Naturally enough, no one believed a word of it

I declare, I ain't never heard such nonsense, my grandmother announced, as if anythin' could've survived that kind of fire less'n it was a Act of God!She couldn't dismiss the mainland paper quite so easily. They had pictures - black and white and grainy to be sure, but pictures all the same - as well as a sordid story on the house and its curse and even Oliver. Nana snatched it and angrily stuffed it into the old cast iron stove.

Damfool yellow journalism rag! she spat, Folks don't need no excuse to git stirred up! Not enough of 'em mind they's own business as it is! 

But Nana, I wanted to know, Why didn't it burn up?

How on God's green earth do I know, she snapped and gave me a mild swat on the backside, It ain't for me to know the likes of it! And not for you either!

Folks steered well clear of the place after that and when the hurricane came a few years later, the last beams gave way, the roof caved in, and the whole thing from fence to brick chimney was carried away in the wind. If there had been a curse, some folks said, it had done its work well.  Last I saw it, it was a barren place of broken trees and dead grass. Except for a faraway owl watching over it from a dead tree,and a few gulls overhead, there were no signs of life or regrowth, just bare, burned ground and a very faint, plaintive hint of smoke. I knew it was only my imagination - this was the real world, after all, and smoke simply does not linger after so many decades - but nevertheless I decided not to stay long.

 Even if they're not real, sometimes you have to respect the power of a curse.

    

Bar Talk

The smoky little bar is hidden away on a side street in a rough edged part of town.  It's a place the locals know but don't much talk about, a place for serious drinkers who drink alone and like to mind their own business. There's no dance floor, no pool table, not even a single video poker machine.  The jukebox in the corner has been silent for years.  At four in the afternoon, there's not much of a crowd and even the bartender - a hefty brunette in a skimpy halter, tight jeans and too much blue eye shadow - looks tired and bored.  She's smoking a lipstick stained cigarette in between smacking her chewing gum and twirling her hair with one pristine manicured fingernail.  She barely spares me a glance. 

I climb onto a ragged leather bar stool with the stuffing leaking out the sides and pull a pack of cigarettes from my jacket pocket.  She slaps a cracked plastic ashtray and a chipped bowl of salted peanuts in front of me, switches the dirty rag of a dishtowel from one bare shoulder to the other and gives me a dull eyed look.

So, she says with another smack of her gum and a deliberate wink, What'll it be.

A dozen or more years ago, before I realized that drinking was a shield and a useful crutch in social situations, I'd have ordered an Amoretto or a glass of the house white wine but I haven't had a drink since.  I start to order my usual diet coke and then for whatever reason, I back pedal.

Disaronno, I tell her, On the rocks.

She narrows her blue eyelids at me and nods although whether in approval or contempt, I can't tell.  I'm a little surprised when I realize I don't care either way.

Several bar stools away, hunched protectively over what I'm sure is his ninth or maybe nineteenth bottle of beer and squinting from the smoke, sits an old and once dear friend of mine, a one time compassionate and promising attorney.   He's sullen, silent and glassy eyed and doesn't see me.  When I think about it, it isn't likely he sees anyone or anything except the half full beer he's clutching. He guzzles it, softly thuds the empty bottle on the bar and the brunette brings him another.  It's like watching for a train wreck that you know is coming and can't stop, can't warn anyone about, can't even get your own self off the tracks.  

Another three or four beers later, she finally shuts him off - out of pity, I suspect - and tells him to leave and go home.  He argues.  She ignores him.  He argues some more and she comes out from behind the bar and gives him a rough shove, toppling him from the bar stool and into a sodden heap on the floor.  He struggles and tries to focus.

I said you're done, you filthy tramp, she tells him coldly, Move your sorry ass outta here.

I turn away as he staggers to his feet and begins to plead for just one more drink.

You're on the other side of that fuckin' door in ten seconds or I call the fuckin' cops, she snaps.  He stumbles toward the door, trips over his own feet and falls heavily.  She stands over him, an empty beer bottle in each hand, prods him with the toe of her boot.

You think I can't handle one broke down, nasty drunk?  she demands and the prod becomes a kick, Carry your fuckin' ass or I'll have it carried for you!

You blue eye shadow whore!  he spits and tries to pull himself to his feet. She swings a beer bottle, catching him on the ear and sending him crashing down again.  He curls up and begins to cry.

Lonnie!  she shouts, Come take out this fuckin' trash!

A mountain size of a man in jeans, a black t shirt and biker chains peers over the swinging doors that lead to the bathrooms.  He steps through with a disgusted look, grips the poor drunk's collar and drags him through the door, kicks him to the curb.

Find yourself somewhere else to get shit-faced, buddy, he says roughly, You ain't drinkin' here no more.

It's quarter after five and the bar traffic is beginning to pick up. I decide the old musician I was supposed to meet isn't going to show so I leave a ten spot on the bar and finish my now watered down drink in one gulp. Lonnie gives me a half-hearted salute as I head for the door.

Sorry 'bout that, he says with a shrug of those massive shoulders, Don't like havin' to show'em the door like that but sometimes........

The blue eye shadow whore just laughs.

It was a sound I could've done without.

  

Doc Roberts and the Lilacs

Of all the doctors we had on the island through the years, I think I remember Doc Roberts the best. He wasn't young, he wasn't broke, he wasn't there to just fill a twelve week residency requirement, he wasn't even Canadian.

Just a month shy of his 52^nd birthday, he sold his restored powder blue T Bird, signed over a thriving practice to his partner, packed two small suitcases and a duffel bag into his snazzy little Triumph Spitfire and walked away from his elegant, high rise Chicago apartment. He left his two black labs, Jack and Jerry Lee, with friends until he could send for them and started driving. Several days of back roads and forgotten highways finally brought him to the Maine coast where one overnight trip on the Bluenose and another six hours of lazy summer driving from Yarmouth brought him to us.

Nobody ever knew how exactly he managed to bypass all the rules and red tape but bypass them he did – or he didn't and we were so grateful to have him that nobody ever told – but there he was, moving into the doctor's house across from the Baptist chuch on a sunny June afternoon as if he owned the place. He parked the little Spitfire so that those MD plates were clearly visible and by sundown, the whole village was talking – discreetly, of course – about the latest arrival.

Where was he from, how had he come to be here, how long would he stay, was there a wife to follow, how fast could that little car really go.

James and Lily introduced him at Sunday services - the day before he arrived, they had thought to stock up the house with coffee and other necessities – and they'd been anxiously watching for him. With the pastor's endorsement, a charge account at the general store and a wallet full of travelers checks, the new doctor was ready to go.

He spent a good many days porch sitting with Jack and Jerry Lee, smoking his pipe and watching our very small world pass by. He had a passion for lilacs and dedicated a good deal of his idle time planting, raising and watching over them as well. Then in one frantic week, he got called out a half dozen times. Nora Tibert's first child had not made a peaceful or routine entrance into the world. Uncle Shad with his failing eyesight had liked to slice off two fingers fileting a haddock, treated it his own self and developed blood poisoning. Uncle Len had his first heart attack, Frank Thibodeau his last. Mr. Melanson's tractor snagged a downed power line and damn near electrocuted the old farmer and in an explosion that was heard all the way to Westport, a still on the far side of the island caught fire and then - as Bill Albright so elegantly put it – Goddam, if she didn't blow to hell and back! The general consensus was in just that one week, Doc Roberts had pretty much earned his keep.

Twenty some odd years later, Doc died and - despite the health laws and the fact that the cemetery was just across the road – was buried, just as he'd asked, beneath his beloved lilacs, along with Jack and Jerry Lee. The pastor, always the very soul of discretion, arranged for Ms Clara to dig up the lilacs beforehand and replant them after a very quiet remembrance service.

As Doc had been a lifelong bachelor and had no family that anyone knew of, James reported the death but not the details and as he expected, the province was too busy with other things to concern itself with the passing of one not quite government regulated doctor on an isolated island. A succession of traveling nurses came and went through the years that followed until at long last the province provided funds for a year round nurse practitioner position.

Doc Roberts was the last full time physician the islanders were ever to know. Folks still smile at his memory, the house still stands, and his lilacs still bloom with every spring.

The Game Is On

The game is on.

It's a damp and warm-ish morning and there are a dozen places I'd rather be than on my hands and knees in the dirt trying to coax the little dachshund out from under the house. He peers at me from the other side of the latticework, knowing I can't reach him, and not about to give up on his adventure. When I discover the opening he's patiently and persistently dug over the course of several days, it confirms my theory that he's part badger and maybe even part mole. Just before he turns tails and trots off into the darkness, he grins at me and I can see by his eyes that he's more than a little proud of himself.

I track him by the jingle of his tags and am waiting when he emerges on the other side but the second he sees me, he dodges and darts back under the house.

This time, however, I have a secret weapon. I go back inside, rummage around in the corner where he keeps his toys, and come up with his beloved Lambchop. It seems a low trick but all's fair in love and dachshunds.

It only takes one squeak.

Gotcha.

By the Light of the Moon

We figured it like this:  The moon would be full and it'd be risky to try and walk all the way around the square and up to Lovers Lane.  We'd be discovered, sure as shootin'.  So Ruthie and I packed ourselves box lunches and went around The Point, past Old Hat's, over and through the tidepools, all the way to Beautiful Cove then down Lovers Lane from the opposite direction.  Remy's old farmhouse was the last on the right, almost directly across from the Baptist Church and his old barn overlooked the small island cemetery.  It was a Saturday night and most folks would be gathered in and around the square, waiting for the show to start or for the dance hall to open.  Even so, island eyes were sharp, so inch by silent inch, we crawled across the barnyard on our bellies, slipped through the double doors of the barn past the sleepy cows, and one creaky rung at a time, climbed the ladder to the dusty hayloft.  It made us both a little dizzy to be up so high and we jumped every time the barn owl ruffled his feathers but it was Ruthie's muffled sneezes we worried about the most. If we were heard, we'd be discovered and it'd be the woodshed for sure but then Ruthie remembered she'd brought a bandanna.  She wound it over her nose and mouth and tied it in the back - like a Jimmy Cagney bank robber, we giggled - and we stretched out to look at the stars, watch the clouds drift across the moon, and wait.

Island life, where rumors sprouted like weeds, could be idle and sleepy on nights like this and looking back, I don't suppose we really expected to see much of anything - least of all, two ragged old women dancing on the graves - but we were children and we hoped.  Then I think we must've both nodded off because I woke to the barn owl hooting softly but persistently.  I heard him rustle his wings and then felt a gentle rush of wind on my face as he swooped down from the dark eaves and flew directly over our heads and out into the night. I was breathing hard and wondering if you really could die of fright when Ruthie gave me a sharp poke in the ribs.

Look down! she hissed in my ear, Listen!

Still a little worried about the wicked thudding in my chest, I brushed a handful of straw away from my face and peered out at the cemetery,

It's Hattie!  Ruthie whispered wonderingly, and oh, my Jesus, there's Aunt Glad!

Aw, you're seein' things......I started to say but then I looked again, more closely.  

Oh, kee-rist, I heard myself say - a pale echo of my grandmother - it's true!

It was a sight to behold.  Both women were dressed in their usual long, dark skirts and high button shoes and were prancing around the graves like deranged witches.  Hattie wore her usual battered top hat on her mane of white hair and carried her shotgun tucked under one scrawny arm.  Aunt Glad seemed to be singing and clutching a jug as she two-stepped around the headstones.  Ruthie and I watched in fascination and horror as they linked arms and crookedly hop-scotched between the graves then Old Hat produced a penny whistle from her skirt pocket, perched herself on one of the gravestones and began to play.  The sound was dreadful and eerie and it made us shiver.

Think God's watching this? Ruthie asked.

More likely the devil! I said sharply, Let's get out of here 'fore they wake up the minister!

We scrambled down the ladder, past the cows and out into the empty barnyard just as the lights in the parsonage went on.  A door slammed ferociously and we could hear - as could the whole island, I imagined - the minister shouting.

HATTIE!  GLAD! he thundered, HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU I WON'T HAVE THIS PAGAN NONSENSE IN MY CHURCH YARD!  I'M TIRED OF PRAYING FOR YOUR DAMN SOULS!  OUT WITH YOU!  OUT, I SAY!

Crouched and trembling behind one wheel of Remy's hay wagon, Ruthie and I shut our eyes, frozen with fear and wishing that for just once, we'd had better sense.  When the lights came on in the farmhouse behind us and we heard Remy gruffly calling out to the minister, we ran as if the devil himself was at our heels.  Remy was cussing, the minister was still shouting and suddenly neither the moonlight or the woodshed seemed so risky.  We flew down Lovers Lane like wild things, on fire with terror and panic and didn't slow down a single step until we reached the quiet and sanity of Beautiful Cove.

What's pagan? Ruthie asked as we sat watching the moonlight on the ocean.

How in hell do I know, I snapped, Don't make no difference 'cause even if'n we could tell, which we can't, ain't nobody gon' believe us.

'Spose so, she shrugged, a shame, that.

You reckon it's a sin for a pastor to cuss?  I wondered out loud.

'Damn' ain't much of cuss word, Ruthie said a little impatiently, I bet he knows a bunch worse bein' as much as he reads the Bible every day.  Mama says the Bible's jist full up with cuss words.

Nana often said the very same thing after reading her Bible, I reflected.  It was reasonable but not much comfort.  I'd once repeated something I'd read in the Good Book and gotten my mouth thoroughly washed out with soap.

You'll not take the name of the Lord in vain under my roof, my girl!  she'd said and drug me by my hair to the kitchen sink.  The memory still gave a chill.

Tide's comin' in, I told Ruthie, We best be gettin' on home. 

We started back toward The Point, picking our way along the path in the moonlight then carefully navigating across Cow Ledge until the breakwater and Old Hat's shack were in sight.

Hold up! she whispered suddenly, stopping abruptly and so unexpectedly that I ran smack into her, lost my footing and came within an inch of knocking us both down.  Dammit, Ruthie! I protested, You might give me a little warning the next time...but I never finished the thought because by then she'd whirled around and was frantically shushing me.  You hear that? she demanded.  I took a breath, held it and listened, at first hearing nothing but the crickets and the tide.  And then the music, the scratchy sound of a penny whistle - faint but unmistakable - followed by a high pitched, cackling screech of witchy, drunken laughter.  Without another word, we flattened ourselves and crawled off the path and over the ledge like a pair of awkward crabs.  From behind the relative safety of the rocks, we could see the dilapidated shack's porch, the two old rocking chairs in their usual places, and Hattie and Aunt Glad, shrieking and quarreling like two foul-mouthed old sailors.

We couldn't make out the words but Hattie had Aunt Glad pinned up by her hair against the door of the shack and was shaking her like a ragdoll.  Aunt Glad flailed and pummeled back, finally delivering one well placed, strategic kick and sending Hattie sprawling down the steps and onto the grass.  Hattie sprang up like a jack in the box, let out an unearthly howl and charged headfirst back up the steps but Aunt Glad saw it coming and dodged at the last minute.  Hattie hit the door with a crash, picked herself up, reached for the barrel end of her shotgun and swung it like a club.  Aunt Glad ducked and threw herself at Hattie's ankles and both women went down in a tangle of skirts, dusty shoes and a fine spray of dirt and gravel but then both came up snarling and cussing like spitfires.  All I could think of was the way stray cats hissed and yowled and bared their teeth before tearing into each other.  Ruthie said it reminded her roosters she'd seen fighting in a barnyard.

Move yer ass 'fore she thinks 'bout snatchin' up that old scattergun right side up! she snapped and gave me a rude shove.

I didn't have to be told twice.  Trapped between the incoming tide and Hattie's shotgun, we hunched over and made a run for the wharf, climbed up the seaweed slicked pilings and came out safe and sound on the other side.  We emerged well past Hattie and Aunt Glad and their shared madness, well past the shotgun and the ominous music.

Nothing solidifies childhood friendships like high adventure, narrow escapes, and secrets.  Once we were up and running, out of range of the sisters and their demented antics, we laughed all the way home.

Go In Peace

The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk inside our own souls.

Edgar Allen Poe

They pulled a body from the bayou this morning.

It was all over the news, of course, complete with interviews with her roommate and friends and the police. There were pictures of the neatly kept little brick house in the well maintained subdivision where she'd gone missing two days ago. The reporters spoke with shocked neighbors,

the investigators said foul play was not suspected but they'd know more after the autopsy and the toxicology tests. When I realized it was someone I knew - not well, but she'd been a music fan and an aspiring photographer and we'd traveled in many of the same circles – I was stunned. When she was sober, she was a bright and cheerful soul, optimistic and honest and a tiny bit grandmotherly in her muted sweater sets and pearls. Tragically, she hadn't been sober that often.

When she was sober, there were happy social media postings about gratitude and detachment and faith. Friends replied with encouragement and well wishes. Her pictures showed her clear eyed and smiling, positive about the future and determined to stay well. But when she was off the wagon, there was nothing but silence, a worrisome and fearful silence that we all knew too well. When she was off the wagon, she looked for and found the darkness.

I wish her peace.

Weather and The Worries

Everyone's talking about the approaching weather - the storms have already turned the skies gray with a jaundiced undercoat of yellow - and there's a unhealthy feel to the warm breeze.  Like a warning.  There'll be no escaping this one, I think dismally, this one's going to hit hard.  This one's going to scare the birds out of the trees.

Fierce weather scares me more than it used to.  I worry about flooding, about lightning strikes, about tornadoes and the possibility of a tree crashing through the roof.  I worry about fallen power lines and those patches of disabling high water and the drains backing up, about losing electricity.  I worry about the neighborhood cats finding shelter and the outside dogs being brought in.  As useless as it is, if it even might happen, if it even could happen, I worry about it.

Worry doesn't accomplish anything and it devours happiness, I remember being told as a child.  It goes hand in hand with being afraid.  

By mid afternoon, the sky looks even more unhealthy and when I let the dogs out, I can't help but notice how it's deathly still and beginning to get dark.  I can hear thunder in the distance and can feel the start of the rain. 

By midnight it's been raining hard and steady for ten hours.  There hasn't been much thunder or lightning but when I slip into rain gear to take the dogs out, I can already see the damage and even hear rushing water.  By morning there's no change and no change is forecast.  We're due for at least another three days just like this one.  The park near the house is now a lake - a thirty foot deep drainage ditch (now looking more like a raging river) has massively overflowed and spilled into the street - schools are closed on both sides of the river, roads are littered with stalled cars and fallen tree limbs, high water barricades have been erected all through the neighborhood.  Two parishes have been declared disaster areas and mandatory evacuations are in progress.

On the fourth day, I start to see the inevitable, biblical posts about how the weather has been sent from God to punish the transgressors who support gay rights, abortions, open borders, raising the minimum wage, Muslims and Democrats as a whole.  Pray for Louisiana memes begin to show up in my news feed and worry gradually turns to disgust.

If the best we have to offer is plagues and prayers, I believe I'll put my faith in sandbags.

On the fifth day, the rivers, canals and bayous, some as much as ten feet over flood stage finally stabilize and start to recede. More rain is still expected but there is cautious hope that the worst may be over. The damage done and the costs of the physical clean up will likely be in the millions. It's impossible to even begin to calculate the emotional price tag.

It's a good time to remember that all the worry in the world wouldn't have done even the smallest amount of good.

Here comes the sun.