Whatsa matta whichyou boy?

I sat with the squatters. The elbow boys. The ones who watch from their dark corners, five o'clock shadows and tall boys resting in their hands. It was creepy. Lonely.

From my favorite padded black bar stool, where my fanny hardly ever rests, I became one of them. The Friday night parade marched by, "How to do? How are you?" Kisses on the cheeks. Leaning in for hugs. But it was different. Tethered to the stool, crutches glaring out in the dark, I couldn't jump in for Jack Flash, first one on the dance floor, and my eyes searched the crowd for who would take my place. The dance floor was empty on the count of four, eight, nine, ten... then finally I could breathe again. I smiled. Clinked!

I noticed how very smokey it is when you sit very very still, bodies swirling around you, kicking up the dust and cigarette haze like cat hair everywhere. I studied the floor and for the first time, saw cocktail stirrers everywhere, like a game of pick-up-sticks abandoned mid-sentence for a better game. I read the signs. Climbed out of my Friday night skin and the concrete block around my ankle and pretended to be on the dance floor, good foot moving to the music, shoulders swaying, hair swinging in the smoke.

And then I knew.

And I cried. The slightest trickle of rain, falling from my eyes. "Are you o.k?" "mmmmmhmmmmm" and I smiled. "Is it your foot?" "uuuuuh...uuuh" "Your leg?" "uuuuuh..uuuuuh" and I smiled again. Because I had to, Grabbing the stainless steel stilts, like a pointy little pocketbook, and swiveling out of the chair.

"It's my heart".

And the shadow people...

Dancing with their ghosts...

Wallpaper on the Friday night walls.

When I can walk through the front door on two legs, both arms free, I'm gonna hug 'em.

Sticks and Stones and all that magic.....or in other words......

Out first house was imminent. We had saved for the down payment , trading Smirnoff for ABC brand vodka on Friday nights and buying ground chuck instead of sirloin. Clink! We cheered! “We’ll buy a house” “With two cats in the yard” “And a garden” “And a fireplace for marshmellow roasts” Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! About three week-ends into house-shopping we were fighting. What I though was adorable, he thought was a money pit. What I thought was water front, he thought was built on a retention pond… God, the man had no imagination!

So, it was perfect! The week-end of our anniversary he went boating and Kimbies and I went house shopping. Actually, we just looked at one house. Through kaleidoscope eyes. We were in awe at the designer refrigerator in the matching pantry. The “French windows throughout” were so romantic….. 13 giant oak trees danced in the sky, their petticoats shading the double lot. “This is it!”

He pulled the boat in just after dusk. His neck and cheeks red with the twelve-pack flush and a little sun! He was smiling. Better be. It was our anniversary! “Baby Cakes, I’m sorry we’re so late….there was a barge on the river and……” “Just sign here, We found the house, the perfect house, you are so gonna love it!”

And he did.

Drinking on your anniversary does strange things to you. Anything to make her happy.

The designer fridge was a rust bucket covered in wood grain contact paper. It hummed and churned and belched for a few months and then croaked. The fireplace draped in the vintage mantel was our only source of heat that winter and the “French windows throughout”, that depended on 80 year old rope pullies to move up and down, our only source of air conditioning that summer. The floors dipped, the walls creaked, the oak trees tossed 10,000 wet leaves on the tar paper roof. We had parties there, babies there, love there.

And then one day, it was over.

My second house was perfect. The Stepford Wife thing. Only there was no Stepford Husband. Skinny and I and the babies made love beads there, and peace sign wreaths out of stolen grapevines. Jonah threw up on the perfect Berber carpet, we scorched the ceiling of the perfect screened room grilling hotdogs at midnight, we packed the perfect garage full of hot wheels and seashells, driftwood and trash from the neighbor’s garbage…. "surely, we can use this for something”, we used the perfect dishwasher for our bar, stacking martini and shot glasses on the top rack, Nana’s vintage stirrers and straws in the silverware bucket, and bottles on the bottom rack, we used the perfect disposal to shred love letters and rant letters to less than perfect lovers…We hated it…..

We fertilized the yard and mowed it twice a week. Planted bulbs in the spring time. From the road, we were happy campers……..

My third house was an accident. Waiting to happen. Waiting a zillion years for just the right person, just the right vibes, just the right karma. Waiting for me.

Sometimes, when you least expect it, in places you’ve never looked before…..you find that you’ve wandered aimlessly forever…

and simply fall into the arms you’ve known all along…..

Home……



Tree fort courtesy of unknown Magpie Fairies.....
Discovered on the perfect Sunday.....

Just give me peace....

We used to toss pennies and nickels and the occasional dime in the Park Avenue fountain. Plop! We’d roll up our jeans and dangle our bare feet in the often green water, making swirly twirl currents with our toes. We’d stretch and piddly wink someone else’s wish with a big toe, send it plunking across the dirty fountain floor. There! We wished for you again! Feel the love. Your dime, our time….

Sometimes, if we were really desperate, we’d borrow a wish or two, you know, gathering loose change for a pack of Salems. But we’d always come back. Toss a random penny, a cherished quarter, over the shoulder, kiss the sky, and send a stranger’s secret wish back where it belonged.

Mama’s in velveteen jogging suits pushing velveteen strollers would scurry past. Shielding their velveteen babies from catching a glimpse of the hippies wading in the fountain. Men in three piece suits with James Bond Attaché’ cases would stride by, their long legs skipping steps, (“Don’t want to break my mother’s back”) approaching fast and sprinting out of sight. Their eyes always straight ahead. A beer-riddled bum, hair matted to one side, curled embrio-onically on the bench. Always. His feet pigeoned under him, his spine weeping forward, his smile stuck to his apricot-seed face with kindergarten glue. He watched us. He never borrowed from the wishing pond.

And then we got cars. We rarely traipsed to the haughty-taughty garden anymore. Bothering their world with ours. But we still wished. We wished on one-eyed cars and first stars. Turkey bones. Pennies in the street. Yellow butterflies and ladybugs. Red birds out the kitchen window. Blue skies. Red skies. Hummingbirds. Blooms on the Bird of Paradise. Sunrises. Sunsets. Full Moons, new moons, martini moons…..

I found a driftwood wish bone yesterday. It’s gray barnacle covered skin old, and worn. It weighed nothing. And in a second , between my salty fingers, the knotted driftwood Y was limp, snapped, broken. It’s sandy soul scattered in the wind.

I found this yesterday too. Buried. Deep under the coquina at the waters edge. Deep. Where the sand is cold and the earth is wet. Where pieces of ships and dreams and conch shells and reefs and coral are churned into confetti….

Silly heart shaped rock.

“I wish I may, I wish I might……”


To be continued….