Spillt Ink

We walked. The dog and I. Who knew alleys were so busy so early in the morning? Not me. Cool sights. A street sign on someone's garage. A car parked in the front yard. Half a dozen dogs racing their yard's fence line. Barking. Abandoned houses with abandoned pools. A huge, greedy blue jay. That coach house with empty windows, broken windows, curtains in tatters.

"He came over to me talking about nothing like he usually does and I stood there listening to him, nodding my head, occasionally, thinking, 'Why don't you take that home and tell it to your wife.  She married you, she loves you, supposedly, she can listen to you go on about nothing.  I'm not married for a reason.'  But I stood there and I listened to him go on and on until he finally wound down and went away.  Then, when he left, I found I could breath again."

It was Monday evening, a day past the winds from Hurricane Ike striking the area, and her son came flying into the house.  "Jay says to get your dog in the house," he declares.  Her dog is a pit bull, female, 8 years old but still territorial. "Why?" she says and goes to find out.

A man with a chain saw is in her tree, on her neighbor's side of the yard.  He's sawing her Ash tree which has broken apart, part of it anyway, and several large limbs lie within the tree and against the fence.  It's dusk and she can't see who the man is, but she's sure it isn't her neighbor.

"You don't have to do this," she yells up at him, "This is my tree."

He doesn't reply.  "I'm going to get it cleaned up.  I'm making arrangements with a guy from work to do it."

The man keeps sawing even though it is almost dark now.  She tries one last time, "You don't have to do this.  I have insurance.  The agent came out today and took pictures."  This is true, the agent did come out and take picture of her broken tree.  She hadn't said anything about getting it taken care of, just mentioned a call would be forthcoming in a few days. 

This time the man yells down at her from the depth of leaves from which he is working.  He yells down and it is a single word, it is as if that single word would be explanation enough.  "Firewood," he yells down at her between the loud bursts of his chainsaw.

I'd heard the story before.  Three years ago, this man's wife, who was only thirty years old, collasped and died while she was playing a game of volleyball.  For the second time, I heard about how he never remarried.  Mentioned this time, the fact that the event left him heartbroken.  And, how, later, afterwards, he had girl friends, many of them, but they never lasted very long.  A week or two. 

And, there was this story;  one day in the grocery, he bought cut flowers.  The cashier, who was a friend of his then girl friend assumed the flowers were for her friend.  She called her later that evening.  "Did you get the flowers?" she asked.  "What flowers," she asked.  "The ones ...oh." "What?"  "I'd assumed the flowers he purchased had been for you."   The flowers had been for his deceased wife.

As I was taking Josie to her job last night, "What was the name of that song...No, not the song playing now..oh, it was popular a little while back, something about this guy and he is talking on the phone and his wife is in the next room?  I woke up with that song in my head the night before last.  I never liked the song, but since I woke up with it in my head, it's been coming to me off and on during the day.  Who does that song?"

Josie sings, "You make it hard to be faithful, with the lips of an angel." 

"Yeah, that's it."

"Hinder."

Not two seconds later, Josie sings, "Honey, why are you calling me so late."

"What?"

She points to the radio.  The song has just begun to play.


I looked up the lyrics, simple, except, oh cool, like poetry the song ends on the opening line, giving the song a dimension beyond its basic lament.

"Do you know what they say in westerns when the guy has to use the restroom?  He says, 'There's this man I have to see about a horse.' "

A few moments later, the teller of this story says to his companion, "There's this man I have to see about a horse."

He walks out the double doors, a pole over his left shoulder, tied to the pole is two small bags.  He wants to walk away without a word, but people sitting outdoors have seen him, they know his name was on the list, yell at him.  He pauses, says a few words. Reluctant words. He gives a small wave,  then, continues to walk down the sidewalk, across the paved road, through the gate in the wire fence, to his car.  A few moments later, his car is out of the parking lot, has turned left on Williamsburg Pike, into the late morning traffic.

My friend, Robert, is gone.

From one of my son's friends, "I recently discovered that Gary's real name is Garlan.  That is the coolest name ever."  

Gary was named after his dad's deceased brother, Garlan Joseph McNew, a brother who died in his thirties, who drown in a community lake when he tried to swim to shore after a boat mishap. When Gary was a baby, there were three other family members with the name of Gary, so he was nicknamed Gary Joe.  Through the grade school years, evenually, Joe was dropped.  

"Gary Joe.  Wow.  That's cool.  Hey, Gary Joe!"

Gary looked up at the shout.  "Yeah?"

"I'm going to start calling you Gary Joe."

"Why?"

"It's cool."

"Ah, okay."

My favorite sweater is this rich, medium-dark blue sweater I bought at Goodwill.  Someone, a stranger, knit it.  The sleeves are too long, but my arms are long and it fits me perfectly.  I'd never had a sweater that someone created.  My mother and her family crocheted or quilted or stitched fine colorful flowers on pillowcases or tablecloths.  I used to read children stories in which the children were forced to accept knitted sweaters from their grandmother, sweaters in which they hated, sometimes because of the pom-poms.  I never had a opportunity to hate a gift handmade, handmade with that person in mind.  So, I wear my sweater, especially on slightly chilly mornings, like this morning, and I think about the person who made it.  I think to myself, you made this sweater for me, you made this sweater for me and I love it.   Thank you.

Perfume.

She wears a floral scent, as though spring is here, summer in full bloom.  Overpoweringly light.  And sweet.  Innocent.  

The other woman, her scent is dark, heavy.  Woods and incense.  Ripe and whole, inviting, daring, challenging.  But only if you can handle a challenge. 

We're driving on I-70, on our way to another appointment, when, as he is prone to do from time to time, my husband spoke about how he has the edge on me agewise.  "I was on this highway before you were ever born," he says, "I can remember when it was a dirt road."  

He has told me this before.  I smile and reply, "I don't know if I would be so boastful of that fact, if I were you, Baby Boomer."

"I never knew you were a hippie."

"Oh, yeah, I was one of the biggest hippies ever," she replied.

I knew her during that time period when she says she was a such a hippie.   She wasn't.  She was a clerk in a grocery store, dressing like the conservative she was.  She'd never been to a college campus, wore love beads. long skirts,  long hair.  She never skipped classes, debated philosophy or religion, smoked pot or dropped acid.  She didn't believe in free love, dated one boy at a time, boys who were still living in the fifties with their white tee shirts and hot cars.  She never rebelled or dropped out of the system or wove daisies into a chain to wear around her head. 

She wasn't intentionally lying though.  She believed what she'd said.  When she looked back at her life, she was there, at that moment, one of the biggest hippies ever.

It is a typical white house in the community.   Plain white house, two stories, with a half-front porch.  There is a "For Sale" sign in the front of the small yard, close to the sidewalk.  A sign that makes a person look a little closer.  And, then, they see it.  The front window.  A huge front window.  It has to be five feet wide, six feet tall.  A window that large calls for a couch in front of it, or a loveseat, something settling and comfortable.   It calls for people to sit and watch as the world passes by.

"There's Dylan," Josie said, "at the pickup window."

"Yeah, that's Dylan," William added.

"Dylan," I asked. The name Dylan is fairly popular among kids the ages of Josie and Will.

"You know, Dylan," William said, "He's the one who wiped out the ATM."

"Oh, that Dylan."

While at the Village Pantry, while picking up biscuits and sausage gravy (and bacon!) for breakfast, while standing there as the clerk filled my order, she suddenly shouted out, 7-2-3, 3-2-11, 11-2-7. She wasn't the only one calling out the numbers, another one or two employees were calling them out as well. I received my order and went to the checkout. It was at the checkout that I realized that the employees weren't just shouting out numbers in unisome for some vague, unknown reason but singing along with a song being played via radio; 7 to 3, 3 to 11, 11 to 7.

Once, I worked with another employee who was not liked by the majority of our co-workers.  He wasn't handsome, or very smart and he had a defensive, sometimes negative, attitude.  Eventually, the difficulty of working with others in the department was too much for him so he left for another area of the factory.  One day, as I was on break with a worker from that area, I listened as he yelled comments to the employee I had once worked with.  "Do you give him a hard time because you like him or do you give him a hard time because you dislike him?" I asked.  The man paused a moment and then said, "I give him a hard time just to give him a hard time."

The woman had been having arguments with her teenaged daughter.  They were arguing about a boy.  A boy that the woman believed was not only wrong for her daughter, but dangerous as well.  This boy tried to control her daughter.  He told her what clothes to wear, what friends she could have, where she could go and when she could go.  When the woman was asked what the her daughter saw in this boy, she replied in her daughter's voice, in a high-pitched, quickly given chant, "I love him I love him I love him," then in a quiet voice, a voice overwhelmed with disappointment, the woman said, "She says she loves him."

He stood at the jewelry counter, leaning over it, pointing to items as he told the clerk which one he was curious about.  He worn one of those golden brown winter coats with a dark collar, made for warmth and wear, like farmers wear or men who work in the weather.  His hair was cut short, more gray than blonde.  His face was clean shaven, although worn, ragged, yet handsome. The clerk pulled the ring out of the display case and moved the little tag.  She gave him the list price, then the discount price.  The discount price was almost two hundred dollars.  "How about that one?"  He pointed to another ring.  She removed it, moved the tag, told him the price.  The final price was almost two hundred and fifty dollars.  The man shook his head and moved away from the counter.  Slowly, almost gently, he dodged other customers as he headed for the exit.

I

I believed I was a good listener,
but being a quiet person
didn't mean I listened well.

II

He stood aside within the room,
never taking his eyes away from her,
as she occupied herself with activities
and conversations;
he stood watching her,
focused and silent.

III

I spoke at length;
I spoke quickly,
gesturing, embellishing,
whining, pleading, appealing.

He listened without comment.

Before I concluded,
before I had finished my tirade,
his silence
brought me to my senses.

This morning, in my search of the items on my bedside table for my camera, I found a handful of pennies, two dimes and a nickel, a wee Pik-a-chu, a tiny glass bottle with a red cap, a miniature castle, clippers (four kinds), reading glasses, a tiny porcelain bird, two kinds of nuts and bolts, a flashlight with wornout batteries, two candles, a deck of playing cards, three pay stubs, 4 ink pens (all out of ink), a clear bottle of Frank & Myrrh oil, Christmas stamps, two wee cones of incense, rechargeable batteries and the rechargeable battery charger (without the necessary cord to make it work), a crystal crescent moon, a hemp bracelet, a flash drive and my camera. The camera needs its battery recharged.