Haunted....

It’s been forever.

Since I had a couch. Well, hell, we bought one when we got married, but then I found that house, the one I had to have, that leaned and squeaked, and had rats in the attic. It wouldn’t fit through the front door so we gave it away. Hauled our new-credit young selves to the Famous Furniture outlet and bought a new one. With cooshy macramé pillows and fringe. Right after I fetched the “isn’t she too cute” half wolf/half shepherd puppy home from animal control. 23 hours and $350.00 later I came home to a living room swimming in shredded foam rubber. I charged an entire new sofa on my “I‘ve got credit” credit card, and only took home the cushions, to keep “him” from knowing……

And then I left him.

Packed up the youngin’s and what would fit in a U-haul, and left. The macramé couch didn’t go. We put a sandbox in the living room instead.

And then bean bag chairs.

And then everyone got big at once, and had friends that came over to “socialize” and I hauled a sofa home from the curb. “Free” it said on the scribbled sign plopped up on the pillows.

It was raining that night. Thunderous storms. No one heard me pull in the driveway. Heard my key in the lock. Or the plop of my purse landing on the kitchen counter. Or the pitter patter of “What the hell’s going on?“ rounding the corner. No one heard me at all.

And there they were. Making out on my couch. Teen-agers!
Damn it!

I hurled the cushions out the front door and we hauled the frame out in the blinding rain. To the curb. Where it came from. Free.

And then we had nothing. “Doesn’t bother me. I’m bendy. I’ll sit on the leopard skin rug. Everyone else, stand if you like. I didn’t want anyone to hang around long enough to get too comfortable anyway ….”

I finally caved in and bought a chair. A brown leather chair with an ottoman. I was tired. Needed a place to rest. Everybody fought over it… “I call this chair”…..Piled in and stacked up, they pretended it was a VW parked in my living room. But it was my chair, and while I rarely sat in it, still preferring the leopard skin rugs for naps, and lazy afternoons, it was mine. Curling up, all bendy ,into it’s thick leather arms was comforting sometimes…..
rebellious.....

I hauled a couch home last night.
The kids are gone and they won’t believe it when I tell them.

But it’s lonely here.
And the chair is haunted…….

The Tinker Man

His clapboard house sat sinking on the lot adjacent to St. Christopher’s’ Church. Bamboo stalks teetered everywhere, randomly squashed between the trees and lining the roadside like weeds. With their caney stalks painted fluorescent colors, I imagined them all to be plastic straws, the kind with the bendy thing at the top.

I had to walk past…around…. his house to get to Girl Scouts. In the broad daylight, of course.

Mama laughed when I told her he was spooky…. “Ahhhh, half the women I know have been to visit him” “and they’ve all lived to tell about it…..you’re fine. Walk fast if he scares you, but if you walk slow, you can hear them” “Hear who?” I asked, eyes a little bigger. “Never you mind, honey, go ahead and walk fast…”

So I didn’t.

I slowed down and kicked loose gravel in the street. Dropped my book bag over and over again. Picked up sticks and squatted down low…..examining…..torturing …..little mounds of ants. And I listened. And peeked.

That year I stayed in Girl Scouts five months longer than I made it the year before. I learned the facts of life from the Troop Leader’s daughter ( “They put their tongue in your mouth and then you have a baby”) and I fell in love with the Tinker Man……

I spied on him every Tuesday, under the trees. He whittled and spit and took deep swigs from his beer. He never once looked me in the eyes, but I wanted him to. I would hum and play hopscotch, sing, talk to the birds….Make all kinds of racket. He never once looked up at me….

But I looked at him.

His skin so dark , freshly baby-powdered by the dust that drifted around his grassless house. His black hair, twined, knotted and fringed. Paper moths and love bugs dancing on the locks. His mammoth left hand cupping the beer can, ( I knew it was HOT beer, not cold like Mama’s.) and his other, the right, painting, widdling, sometimes just tinking coins in a cup. He smiled. Not at me. But at the dirt. At his feet. At whatever was before him.

His trees were littered with tin-can faces, chicken bones and rag dolls blowing in the dirty wind. Nonsensical carvings. He was the voo-doo man. He cast spells and took them away.

The lady in the Thunderbird flew past me. She pulled in between the neon cane trees and jumped out, in a hurry . Her diamond tennis bracelet caught the sun and the tin cans sparkled as she hustled over the crackling sticks and rotting sugar cane, lifting her high-heeled feet in fast tense. She handed him the money and he never looked at her. She left the same way she came...only poorer.

I sat down on the curb. Skipping Girl Scouts. The little black convertible arrived within minutes and the man, who should have never fit in the car in the first place, lumbered out of the driver’s door. He stretched his arms lazily to the sky. He yawned wide open. A show. For me . Or the Tinker Man. He walked slowly down the same path she took moments before. He stopped at my love, reached deep into his right pocket and pulled out a wad. Slowly peeled green bills from the money clip. I counted. Five. And then I stared at my feet and wrote in the sand. I gave the big man the honor of not looking in his eyes as he drove off.

The Tinker Man smiled at the dirt. Took another swig from his Tuesday beer. And I heard them then.

The spirits laughing.

Tink me once, Tink me twice.....

Tink. The art of touching someone, drenching them actually, by thinking of them. O.K., I made up the word, but I checked. Webster hasn’t gotten there yet. Tink.

Angels do it all the time. Lovers do it often. Twins invented it. I believe in it.

A cigar smell that creeps into the hallway without explanation and suddenly you’re 7 years old and riding in a Thunderbird, pushing the Bobby Vinton tape into the 8 track. Dad-O reaches over and says” You wanna drive , don’t you?” And you leap off of the garnet plethora seat and into his lap to guide the steering wheel toward the Pak-n-Sac. No seat belts, no rules. Just the dotted lined highway and the cigar simmering in the ashtray.
40 years later. Tink. You’re Daddy’s thinking’ about you…..

The sound of the magnolia leaves rustling. Wet. Night rain dripping off their fat paper-plate shaped selves. I heard them Saturday and knew. I was 10 and had just climbed up the seven 2 x 4 wooden levers to the heart of the tree. We were monkeys. You had to stretch your arms, and lank your legs to make it in seven steps. Adults would’ve needed 23 resting spots. My bare feet cradled the soggy soul of the old tree. Dark leaves lined her heart like a bird’s nest, drenched in May rain. My skinny little arms jiggled out into the open air, standing on tip toes, waiting for the swing to fly high enough to catch. Brad swung it once, I reached and teetered, its wooden seat and hemp rope teasing me. He swung it hard this time. The rope swooped and then danced in front of me, I curled and lunged, almost fell, but couldn’t’ catch it, soft wet bark scraping my shins. The third time, I snatched it, and Brad backed away. “She’s flying now” ……

I’ve never parachuted or sky-dived, but God, I’ve jumped from that tree. You plummet to the dirty earth, FAST! The silly frayed rope saving you at the last minute, a make-shift bungy cord, and you bounce for just a second. And then you swing. So high your underpants show. And all you can feel and all you can see is the magnolia leaves rustling. In Nana’s backyard.

43 years later…It’s spring now. And I’m explaining love bugs on a sun-peeled deck, in the middle of an “It’s so HOT” day, in the middle of an “I’ve loved you forever” conversation and I hear that sound. The magnolia leaves rustling. Nana. Tink. She’s nudging me.

I grab the rope and jump.


To be continued…..

Tagged......

Lizard Princess tagged me a while ago, bless her heart, and patience…she said there was no time limit, and I think I made this part up, no rules! “Six weird things about me”….

Sweet Spado Man Meme’d me and now it’s in the bag.

That’s the tag, so here goes….

Because it’s me, I don’t really think it’s weird (or I wouldn’t do it), but maybe the neighbors do…..

1. I don’t open my mail. I don’t even bug-eye it. I barely even take it out of the mailbox. I wait until it’s totally stuffed full and the mailman, the nice mailman, starts flinging it on my screen porch and then I walk down the gravel drive-way and shimmy it out of it’s cocoon. I walk straight to the car and toss it on the passenger’s floorboard. I don’t ride on that side so it never gets in the way of my feet. I hate bills, letters from attorney’s, collection Agencies, and chain letters. I don’t throw it out because you never know when you’ll get pulled over and need something important and at least I can “act” like I’m digging for it…

2. I "tink". I believe in it.

3. I wear love beads. Don’t take ‘em off. Love beads and borrowed and found charms. Just keep adding to the leather love around my neck. Joe’s peace charm, a trinket lost and then found from Skinny’s wedding, a cross found in the sand, an Italian horn, blessed, and borrowed from a neighbor, the MOM charm my babies saved for……and the love beads Skinny and I made a million years ago. I don’t take ‘em off for weddings, funerals, work. I don’t take them off to match my costume. I wear them. Touch them. Feel them. Love them.

4. I fly in my sleep. Not casually. Really fly. Kind of like Jet Blue Naked.

5. I have rules. I make them up as I go along. Social rules, road rules, house rules, blogging rules, work rules, love rules, peace rules….. The “I’m never ever gonna do this again….” kinda rules. Or “from now on” this kinda rule. “That aint right” kinda rule….. All kinds of rules….

6. I break them.

Now I have to “tag” six other souls to this chain….hmmmmm……

It’s all good, There’s no time limit………

May the circle be unbroken....

When Harry met “I can’t remember her name”….

There’s a little club in our neighborhood kind of like Cheers, only better….because it’s real. Passers-by would never think to stop there. It’s not aesthetically appealing from the curb. You have to cross the dirty gravel parking lot, trudge up the make-shift-dipping-deck-entry -“sit here and sober up”-patio and actually open the door to appreciate it’s appeal. You have to see the faces. Learn the names. Join the crowd.

And then it’s a blast.

In my world, nobody’s a stranger. Linda says men only murder on Mondays, so if a new face bops up to the bar on a Friday night, it’s safe to be the welcome wagon. It’s not my official job, but I take it seriously. I’ve met a lot of friends that way. And only a few creeps. Either way, most of them come back again.

I didn’t see him come through the door, but Chey did. He was on a mission. Probably his first time….meeting someone at a pre-determined “spot” at the bar, landing smack next to us. He zoomed up, leaned through the crowd , elbows on the bar and waited…..Jimbo, our favorite bartender-bouncer-keeper of peace, didn’t see him. He didn’t flash that “I’ll be right with you grin” and he didn’t, I noticed after a few minutes, even acknowledge him. Poor guy. He’s just thirsty. I nudged Chey. She nodded. I leaned over her, tapped the new kid on the block on the shoulder and asked if he was having trouble getting a beer. “I aaaammmmmm…” he drawled back at me. Grin. Cutest damn little accent I’ve ever heard. Chey and I chuck two coasters at Jimbo, he spins and thirty two seconds later our new friend has an iced cold Bud in his hand and is in leaning in for introductions. It’s loud here. A lotta rock and roll going on, but we talk over it. His name is Brian and he is new here. New in town. New to the club. New to our world. We scoop him up, with his baby blues ( I hear ya knockin’ Nadine!) and introduce him to every one that meanders by, drag him (well we really didn’t have to drag him) onto the dance floor and spend the evening telling stories and laughing. And dancing. And telling stories. And laughing.

We deja-vued it the next week-end. Same time. Same place. Different costumes. We had a ball. We topped it off with 2:00 a.m. coffee and get-to-know-you-late-night stories. We laughed.

And blah,blah,blah,blah,blah…..

We’re joy riding. Flying down a two lane highway, the top off, my arms in the air. In my world, I’m at the Fair. We’re laughing.

German potato salad. The waiter is polite. I crunch my nose. Waiting for the smell of vinegar to twist my face , the one he sees, into the KOOL-AID pitcher expression. Fake and smiling-grimacing. My Mama used to feed us this out of cans … on nights we ate salmon patties with tiny little bones floating in the greasy little bouffant blobs. I ate it all. I devoured it. And laughed.

On Tuesday he called to make plans for the week-end. And hemmed and hawed. And drug his accent out even more. He started back pedaling. To the night we met. And the moment we said hello. And all the people in the club. And how Howie called me Blondie, and Evey calls me Missy and Chey calls me Baby Girl and Sweetie Pie…..

I’m thinking he wants to call me names…

He sort of stutters.

I just want to know where we’re going on Friday night…..

And then he blurts it out. This man that I’ve danced with. Talked on the phone with. Swallowed German potato salad with…. This man I want to see on yet another Friday night.

“I don’t waaaaaannnnnnt you to be mad at me,
Buuuuuuuutt,
I don’t Knoooooowwww yer name…..”

Martini Moon

Dusk. The muddy waters lapping the right side of the highway, slapping sloppily at the seawall. I shifted gears and rounded the curve, closer to the bridge, closer to home and then I saw it.....

The blue moon in the indigo sky. And one star. Fiery. Blazing. A tiny slice of yellow, a twisted lemon peel, lay at the bottom of the moon.

And I knew.

Keeper.