DECEMBER a 1920s New Orleans video with description below
The French Quarter (FQ) or Vieux Carre (VC) was the original 13 square blocks that made up the city of New Orleans. The video shows a busy FQ street with the spire of St. Louis Cathedral in the background on the right. It then moves immediately to a crowded Canal Street with some people staring at the photographer. People board a streetcar, it’s hard to say which one. The conductor collected the 7¢ in the back of the street car. When everyone was one and fares paid, he used his foot to press a bell alerting the motorman in the front of the car. The motorman drove the car to the next stop. Street cars ran throughout the city. Tracks were laid every two blocks.
People standing around two women washing clothes in galvanized tubs. One washed using a washboard, then threw the clothes in the other tub where the younger woman rinsed and wrung out the clothes. My mother said lye soap was the cheapest for washing clothes or one could purchase soap chips from one of the corner grocery stores.
Men are working on small pieces of wood in a store that makes furniture. The next scene shows two Sisters of the Holy Family, an order begun by free woman of color Henriette De Lille. The nuns turn onto another street. It’s quite possible they are heading to St. Mary’s Academy a high school Negro girls.
The children playing on a FQ street are probably Italian. There was a huge presence as the VC deteriorated. My great grandmother lived on Chartres Street on the fringes of Little Sicily. A cute little brown skinned girl eats and offers a subtle smile as her mother’s hand hangs very close to her. I have no idea where they are with all those trees in the background.
Andrew Jackson’s statue rest in the center of Jackson Square. The statue depicts the general reviewing the troops before the Battle of New Orleans. Clark Mills was the first sculptor to balance a horse entirely on its hind legs – an engineering feat of the day.
I can’t imagine where those stone monoliths are. Perhaps they were gone before my mother walked us all over the city in the 1950s and ‘60s. Two children just walked through an arch and a man weaves his way through. In the background are two other people also heading in the same direction.
Canal street gain. The view shows the French side with a church tower in the background. At one time, shortly after the U.S. bought Louisiana, all the churches except for the Catholic Cathedral were on Canal Street. The next view takes a look at the American side. Canal Street was the widest street in the world for a very long time.
In the close up, the photographer is again on Canal Street. A young Black boy selling newspapers turns and faces the camera. A few men wear fedoras, but most are wearing straw Cadiz’ which were quite popular. Years ago doing research on churches, I read in the relatively new Times Picayune (were formerly two different newspapers – merged in 1914) wrote about the hundreds of men who tipped their hats as they walked past the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception on Baronne Street.
Wagon being pulled by two horses on a VC street. Notice the iron railings on the balconies. After the Baroness Pontalba built her apartments, the wrought iron railings got to be a sign of prestige for the upper middle class. The ornate railings designed mostly by Canary Islanders before the Pontalba construction showed wealth and affluence. Many families had their surname monogrammed in the iron, even on the American side of the city. One of the gamblers my mother worked for had his office in the 700 block of Carondelet street. I could always recognized which building was his long after the whole block got new owners.
Two young people wave from a balcony as a military band passes below. This is followed by a Mardi Gras float with the Krewe tossing trinkets in to the crowd. The horse grooms walk beside the horses amidst an orderly crowd. Had it been a night parade there would have been flambeau carriers who probably got paid more from the tips thrown onto the street than the salary earned for carrying the heavy sticks with oil and fire just above their heads. This is followed by a brass band and more floats. Hands are moving to catch throws.
A wee bit of pushing and shoving at the French Market. A white woman wearing a hat waits at the produce stand in the French Market as a Black woman wearing a bonnet and carrying a basket gets squeezed by a man going in the opposite direction on the narrow sidewalk. My mother said prior to WWI, bananas were 11¢ per bunch. When bananas finally returned after the war, they were 25¢ apiece. When her dad died, she and her siblings waited for the produce train to pass. They, along with many other people, followed the train and picked up the damaged produce that spilled from the train.
The French Market sold meat and fish also. Farmers from up the country brought fresh items in before daybreak every morning. There were ice boxes, but most people still shopped daily or for two days with their baskets. There were no paper bags yet. Germans from Des Allemands helped New Orleans survive starvation, particularly after the hurricane that wiped out local farming and during major bouts of yellow fever, bringing corn and rice to the Market in their pirogues.
A young girl holds the door close as she looks out on the street. And the film ends showing a 2nd and 3rd floor peopled balcony with wrought iron railings.
No cell phones. The phones at home have only 5 numbers. One person might have a party line with his neighbor so both could use the phone, though they had separate numbers. No boom boxes, or even transistor radios. The radios at home were huge. The electric wires were made of cloth. Everyone is well groomed with nary a wrinkle. No polyesters, 30 years until drip dry shirts. All the natural fibers, cotton and wool have to be ironed, yet walking in the heat of the day is a necessity if one wants to go anywhere.
NOVEMBER
This was one of six unusual rejection letters regarding this piece. It seems to be well liked, but no one seems to want to publish it.
Dear debra,
Thank you for your submitting "The Poydras Apartments" … We were very inspired by reading this narrative from the unusual perspective of the apartment complex -- as a real and metaphoric site of complex histories, genealogies, and relationships. It was illuminating, for instance, to read about the way in which domestic work performed in the interior/exterior of the apartment exposed lines of racial descent, possession and dispossession…
; and the ways the story of the building distills how residents and members of the community differently constructed “race”, gender and class that is unique and may not have been part of the public record.
Again, this was a highly evocative piece and we wish you all the best with this work and with your writing in general.
NOVEMBER The Poydras Apartments by Debra Lee
One night in the 1960s, my godmother stopped by our house after school to see if I wanted to work with her on weekends. “Yes ma’am,” I said, visibly cool, a whirlwind of excitement inside. I was only fourteen, years away from a real job. After her visit, I danced and cavorted all over the house. My mother knew the real me. Being weird was acceptable. We were both excited that I would earn a little money.
After I calmed down, we talked. My mother knew the nuances of Jim Crow so schooled me on being cautious in unfamiliar surroundings.
“You know why Lloyd went to California. He doesn’t have to cross the street when a white woman approaches him. He doesn’t have to duck his head when accosted by a white man. He doesn’t even have to say sir if he doesn’t want to.”
She stopped for a beat. Who knew what she was thinking? When she continued talking, it wasn’t about my brother.
“I know you’ve heard us talking about that girl in the project.” She looked as if she expected an answer.
“Yes Ma’am.”
“All these years, white men have been able to come into Colored neighborhoods. Pick out a girl, like you, your age, and tell her to get in his car. That one last week, raped the girl right there on the street, then drove away. I know you can outrun anybody, but you’ll be inside. Do whatever Widdy tells you. Don’t go in anybody’s apartment. Be polite, but don’t speak to any strange men. Don’t go with any strange men. Don’t lose your money. Be happy with whatever you get and don’t forget to say thank you.”
Apartments? I wondered where we were going. Would I would have to clean toilets?
My godmother picked me up in her new used Lincoln Continental. She’d always wanted one. She learned to drive at age 63 just to have a sassy car parked in her driveway. Except for her clientele, white women coming to her house for fittings of their ball gowns and fancy clothes, the driveway had been empty since she purchased the house twenty years before.
We drove downtown and parked in the All Right Parking Lot. “Never let the white folks know you have a car,” she said. “They already don’t want to pay you. If they see you have a car, they’ll give you less. They might even fire you.”
We walked four blocks to a dingy grimy yellowed gold building. She opened the door and walked in. There was no one else on the street. The door closed onto near darkness. There was a 15, maybe 30-watt bulb, two floors above the steep steps we were about to climb.
“You’ll sweep these down,” she said. “I’m going to show you how to do it so that it looks pretty.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I followed close on her heels. While I wasn’t terrified, I wasn’t comfortable. The second floor was just as dark as the stairwell. All of the doors and woodwork were brown. The walls were grungy beige. It could just as well have been the same yellow without the dirt mixed in. My godmother, the woman that I thought couldn’t speak softly to save her soul, barely spoke above a whisper as we walked the length of the hallway. I found out later the hallway ran the length of most of the block. The tainted yellow gold outside must have been the boundary for the original building before someone added to the property.
We reached the last apartment on the right before we reached the last door on the left. There was another staircase going up. To the left, there was corridor running from the front to the back of the building. I saw light ahead. Walking about fifty steps, we exited the building. There was a gallery to the right and another going straight ahead. Their intersection formed a 90° angle. The length and breadth of both were repeated in the back and to the right, making a square. My godmother continued walking straight ahead.
Huge tubs of flowers set on corrugated metal in the middle. Potted plants hung along the balcony railings. Plants swung from the upper tiers. Nannan stopped at a wooden storage door, searched through her massive handbag – nothing new here - found a key at last, and unlocked the storage space.
On the right were cleaning supplies - brooms, mops, buckets, rags, old papers, and rope. On the left, several aprons hung on hangers. Underneath was a feather duster, light bulbs, and liquid furniture polish. A commode set in the middle.
“Put this on. If anybody sees you, they’ll know that you’re with me. If anybody asks you anything, you don’t know nothing. If somebody wants you to do any work for them, tell them they have to ask me. If you’re sweeping the steps and somebody needs to use them, stop until they’re out of sight. Don’t look in their face, just say ‘Good morning’ and keep your head down. If anybody touches you, scream.
“Look, Debra. Don’t go in anybody’s apartment. That’s why I’m not bringing my niece Puddin’ anymore. She was cleaning apartments on the inside. I think that half white baby she just had came from here. Your mother doesn’t want you cleaning apartments, but if you help me out, I can finish faster and be out of here.”
"Yes ma’am.”
“Here, put this rag on your head so your hair doesn’t get dusty. These hallways are close and the dust flies up and settles right back on you. I’m going to bring you up to the third floor and you work your way down. There’s a stairway on that end of the hall that goes all the way to the first floor where we came in. And there’s a stairway at this end of the hall. You don’t have to worry about these steps out here. The wind and the rain take care of them.”
“Yes ma’am.” I hesitated, then asked, “Nannan?”
“Hm?”
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the huge area in the center of the four balconies.
My godmother peered and squinted and had no idea what I meant. “What?”
“All this tin looking stuff.”
“That’s the roof.”
“You can walk on it?”
“Sure,” she said, stepping over and shuffling her feet. “I think there was a big restaurant on the first floor long time ago. They built all these other buildings on top of the older buildings.” She pointed to the back where the wall was different and the apartments were gray. “You can see there where they added on to this building. Those apartments over there belong to this one now.”
As far as I could see, there were dips connected by steps, bricks, stones, stucco, and wood. All overlapping to add to the size of the apartments. No one seemed to care about the aesthetics.
“You take this broom.” She handed me an old stiff broom with a three quarter handle. Then she handed me a dustpan and several cloths. You don’t need this polish until you’re finished, but take it so we don’t have to come back. I like to bring everything with me at one time. “Take this bucket and get water from that sink over there.”
I looked where she pointed. There was a washer woman’s sink attached to a wall alongside the far balcony at a drain pipe. After I filled it, I took it to the stairs at the other end of the building where she waited for me. We climbed together. When we reached the top, she showed me what to do. She watched while I took the broom, swept hard across the rubber padding to the right several times. Then I jooked the broom into the right corner and swept down to the next step.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. You just have to remember to sweep hard. Leave the bucket here. I’m going to do the same thing down this corridor and mop the wood. When you finish sweeping, come to where I am and wet your rag, wring it out good, then come back and wipe the wood part of the steps. Then go back up and do the other stairwell. We’ll meet at the other end of the building, then we’ll do the second floor.”
“Yes ma’am.” There was a bit of lightness in my answer. There would be no toilets.
As usual, my godmother liked my work, so allowed me to do the first floor hallway. Twice I heard doors and footsteps in the building, but the footsteps retreated, perhaps leaving the building through the rear. I was working on the entrance steps when I encountered my first person. I stopped as I had been instructed and said “Good morning.” The man responded, lowered his head, and scurried up the stairs. With a sigh of relief, I finished the stairwell, emptied the dirty water and then waited outside the apartment that my godmother was cleaning.
She told me I’d been a big help and asked if I would come with her on the following Saturday. I said yes. The work was easy and it was a chance to get out of the house. Whatever she paid me would be enough. She was always giving me things. She even gave me a huge party for my ninth birthday, just because my Dad only gave me half a cake. My brother and I were born five years and five days apart. Instead of buying a cake for each of us, he bought a McKenzie’s half vanilla, half chocolate cake.
It bothered my godmother. The following Sunday, I had a new dress, new shoes, and a birthday party with classmates and people I didn’t even know. I had so many presents, I had nowhere to put them. I wrote thank you cards for what seemed like days. And that was just one special event that she fashioned in my life. I would help her for nothing. I would always help her.
We headed back to the storage shed, put things in order, hung up our aprons, washed our hands, and prepared to leave. Nannan handed me a five-dollar bill. That’s what domestic workers made working all day. She bundled more money and tucked it safely away in her ample bosom. I hadn’t seen anybody pay her. I didn’t even know who she worked for, but at some point while I was in the stairwell, she collected her wage. Each of the men in the two apartments that she cleaned also paid her. We walked back to the car.
Over the weeks, I got more comfortable in the building. The front never changed on the outside, but inside, there was life and occasionally music. Every now and then, a man would look askance at me, but no one said anything and no one came near. I heard my godmother discussing me one morning with a man, but he went the other way almost immediately.
We were working together in the lower hallway one Saturday morning. Nannan had somewhere to go so we were moving rather quickly. She was sweeping and I was one apartment behind mopping the woodwork. All of the stairwells had been cleaned and the banisters polished. Her broom hit the wall of an apartment and a birdlike woman opened the door.
“I’m sorry. My broom hit by accident.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I wondered who kept this place clean.”
“You’re the new tenant?”
“Yes, I just got here.” She looked a little sheepish. “Can you come in and help me with something? It’ll only take a minute.”
“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” Nannan said to me. “Finish sweeping the hall for me and if I’m not back out, just finish with the mopping and empty the bucket.”
I had cleaned and restored everything by the time she came out.
“You finished everything?”
“Yes ma’am. What’s that stuff?”
“Miss Bang’s sheets. She asked me if I would wash them and hang them on the line to dry. She’s from Canada and misses the smell of fresh air in her linens. I’ll bring them back next week when we come.
“Hold this while I lock up. We’re going to go down the back stairs today. We don’t have time to pretend that we’re catching the bus.”
We walked toward the big galvanized tubs that were being used as flower pots. There, where the brick wall met the gray railings, we descended the stairs. We came out on Baronne Street right at the car (we had not used the All Right lot that day). I was really confused. Those apartments couldn’t possibly be that big. The crappy color that was on the front was nowhere on this street. All the buildings over here were brick. Everything on the street had a personality. Why didn’t they do something about the front of the building?
When my godmother returned the sheets the following Saturday, I was allowed to enter the apartment. I had never seen one on the inside and was astonished at the immensity. The sun shone through the curtains onto yellow walls with bright white trim.
Mrs. Band didn’t have a lot of furniture, but she did have a desk with a typewriter. She told me that I was free to look around while she discussed business with my godmother. Birds were flying freely about the apartment. Feathers were everywhere. There was no cage.
“I can’t imagine having birds caged. They need to be free to fly,” Mrs. Band offered.
“They’re tearing up your curtains,” my godmother said.
“I know. I guess I won’t get my deposit back. Or if I can find some just like that, I can replace them. They’re full of,” she looked at me, and said, “caca.”
I continued looking around. On the desk was a picture of a woman holding a tennis racket. An elegant framed photo of a very attractive blue eyed blonde young men in a U.S. Navy uniform graced the wall of the vestibule separating two spacious rooms.
“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” she asked from across the room. “That’s my son Jean. He’s the reason I’m in the United States. He’s always admired the U. S. Navy. He moved here to become a citizen so that he could join. Jean is my only child and I have no husband, so I followed him here.”
She continued sadly, “I didn’t know it would be this lonely.”
“He’s very attractive. How old is he?”
“He’s 25. He’s at sea right now. He’ll be back in two weeks. I can hardly wait to see him.”
We were leaving when I asked. “Who’s the lady with the tennis racket?”
“That’s me – when I was younger. Do you play?”
“Yes, I do. I’m on the tennis team at school.”
“You play on clay courts here, don’t you? I play lawn tennis.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Lawn tennis.”
“You mean like grass?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know you could play tennis on grass.”
“Sure, they play on grass at Wimbledon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
School opened but I continued to work with my godmother on Saturdays. She took on more apartments to clean and I spent my time with Jeanne Band when I was done with my tasks. Jeanne enjoyed my youth and naiveté. She became somewhat of a tennis mentor. She showed me how to improve my serve and have stronger volleys. She showed me how to be a perfect partner in doubles. She wrote her son about me and when he came home the next time, I got to meet him. He brought me a huge bottle of Balalaika perfume which I kept for years.
I was terribly disappointed the day we arrived at the Poydras Apartments to find her apartment empty. There was bird poop all over the carpets and the curtains were frayed. It didn’t seem that she’d been there that long, but the wall was lighter where her son’s pictures had hung. Perhaps, the sun darkened the wall around the pictures. My godmother wasn’t asked to clean the apartment, because the carpets and curtains had to be replaced.
My junior year was busy, studying for various scholarships and the Lafayette Language Festival. I stopped going to the apartments. I was alert now when I passed that section of Poydras on the bus, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone familiar, but I never saw anyone enter or leave the building. I suppose most of the tenants used the more appealing side entrance, preferring to enjoy the light as much as possible before retreating down the dark corridors to their apartments.
On a spring day, our class as well as other eleventh graders around the city, attended Xavier University’s Career Day. I filed in alongside my classmates and sat right up front. Jeanne Band was seated onstage. Ever shy, I didn’t know what I should do. I longed to walk across the floor to talk to her, but not in front of all the students and teachers. I wanted her to see me, but would she remember me? I deliberated for a long time, then finally forced my legs to stand and walk toward the stage. She saw me approaching. The “O” shape of her mouth was reassuring. She smiled and came down the steps to meet me halfway. We hugged. Excitedly, we both talked at once.
She’d read in the newspaper about my tennis wins; and the losses every time I played Gail Pettis. Jean was fine. He’d met a girl, fallen in love, and would marry.
I’d waited too long. The program was about to start. I had to return to my school group; she had to return to the stage. We hugged again and she told me that she would be returning to Canada. Maybe we would see each other after the program.
But, I never saw her again.
I continued to pass the Poydras Apartments on the bus and later, I worked downtown. Sometimes a group from work walked over to Poydras Street to eat. I always glanced up at her window, although I’m sure half a dozen people had moved in and out by that time. The building was even more drab. The brown seemed to be fading into the already dingy yellow gold. In some places, the stone was showing through where the building had been damaged.
When I got a car, I drove pass sometimes in my Volkswagen Bug, then later in my Datsun. I rarely glanced at the building anymore, so hadn’t really noticed that it no longer housed tenants. I was lucky enough to find a parking spot close to the Civic Disco one night. While checking to make sure that I would remember where I parked my car, I noticed gray steps on the side of a brick building. It was the rear entrance to the Poydras Apartments. The wooden steps were in disrepair and weeds were growing in and spilling over one of the galvanized tubs on the first balcony. I had a moment of sadness, and wondered whatever became of Jeanne Band. She wasn’t a very healthy woman back in the sixties; I hoped that she was well.
I turned my back on the past and the Poydras Apartments and walked up the street to the disco.
end
SEPTEMBER 2025
Mandela Effect
by Debra Lee
“Ma Ma, don’t forget to ask Auntie about Nelson Mandela when you talk to her. This girl in class brought newspapers from a long time ago announcing that he died in jail. How can he have been president after dying?”
“We talked today. She laughed when she asked me, ‘You don’t really believe they would have let that man be president?’
“She said, ‘That was either his cousin or someone they made up to look like him. There were so many riots that broke out when he died, those white men had to do something. They coached the faker and controlled him. Remember, there was a public divorce between him and his wife. That’s because she wasn’t married to the man who became president.’
“I told her how the press here denies that he died. He was released from prison and became the first native president. I told her about what you talked about in class, the Mandela Effect.
“She laughed again and said, ‘Diamonds, gold,’ then we talked about Bukey and Sookie. Letha suggested that you come visit her this summer. Thomas is going to visit your grandfather, Baba Grand. She said that she will pay for your travel to South Africa with him.”
#
The cousins had only met once before. Thomas did his study abroad from London in North Carolina. Jonas and his mother drove there to visit with him. Now Jonas was traveling alone to another country, another continent. He was nervous about flying over the Atlantic Ocean. What if the plane went down? He couldn’t swim in a pond. How would he save himself in all that water?
Jonas spent most of his time staring at the sea, willing the plane to stay in the air. He was ecstatic when Auntie and Thomas met him at Heathrow. He spent a wonderful three days in London with them before returning to the airport where he and Thomas boarded an international flight for South Africa.
The boys had a lot in common and discovered that though their college majors were different, their core subjects were basically the same. They were even taking the same foreign language and laughed and spoke a few simple phrases with a German couple sitting across the aisle from them.
Thomas napped. Jonas and the German man, Günther, talked a little while his wife slept. Jonas took out his pocket English German dictionary and used it to have more meaningful conversation.
While eating later, Günther pointed to the sky out the plane window and stated, “The sky changed.”
Thomas didn’t understand, but Jonas thought he did, so looked at the sky, then asked the man “Do you mean the color?”
“Yes,” the man said, “like two worlds bumping into each other.”
Each couple looked back at the wings and the sky beyond. Thomas thought the wing of the plane itself was not the same and looked about him in the plane. There were a few changes and he whispered to Jonas, “Weren’t the flight attendants wearing different clothes before?”
Jonas wasn’t sure.
When they landed, Thomas looked around confused. “They’ve changed the airport since I was here last time.”
“It doesn’t look like the one on the Internet,” Jonas replied.
Thomas reached in his backpack and got the outdated map his grandfather gave him as a little boy when he used to collect such things. “Look, he said, this is a remodeled version of the picture on this map.”
They looked around for their grandfather, but didn’t see him, so hovered inside near the door. A man tapped them on the shoulders. “Nkosi? Sylvester Nkosi?”
“Where is he?” Thomas asked, not trusting the man. He’d expected a relative to meet them.
The man walked to the window and pointed.
Grandfather Sylvester looked like an old man waiting in the passenger seat of a car. Thomas and Jonas gathered their luggage and walked out to him. Murthy, the Indian driver, and Baba Grand were great friends and the four men enjoyed the hour long drive to Soweto. It wasn’t until they were exiting the car that Jonas realized his grandfather had only one leg.
“Baba Grand, what happened to your leg?”
Murthy and Sylvester looked at each other, then at the young men. “Your mother never told you that I lost my leg in the riots.”
“The apartheid riots?”
“Sure. “What other riots were there?”
While they were standing around the car, Murthy waved his hand toward the door of the house in the middle class section of the township. Thomas glanced that way and saw a little girl peeking around the door.
Jonas replied, “Ma Ma never said. She told me about the riots after which Mandela became president.”
“Who?” Both older men asked.
“Nelson Mandela.”
They looked at each other again, then Baba Grand said, “I never heard of him. Leave your things in the car and come on in. Get them later. While you’re here, we’ll have to school you on your family history which predates these Afrikaners.”
Baba Grand entered first, followed by Murthy, then the boys.
“Surprise,” 100 people yelled.
“What took you so long? We’re hungry,” the little girl said. She was a cousin. People laughed, then the party began.
The ten days spent in Soweto and Johannesburg were filled with parties, excursions, and sightseeing. One night, Thomas and Jonas went out with the men to celebrate an ancient Zulu custom. Learning the lively dancing was fun. Both boys tried drumming, but neither had the rhythm of their ancestors. An older Baba Grand talked about his rite of passage from boyhood to warrior.
“There were nine of us,” he said. “We were to spend nine days in the veldt. Each night, one of us, had to stay awake while the others slept. The watcher was to make circular treks around our camp with only his spear. He could only wake us if there was danger.
“When it was Iggy’s turn, he did not wake us in the morning. We looked for him. We followed his tracks. His footprints had not gone outside the circle. There were no wild animal tracks. We pondered what happened to him or where he could have gone and decided that either the gods took him, in which case there was nothing we could do, or the elders were testing us. Still, there was nothing we could do until they came to get us.
“But three days later, when Janu was the night guard, Iggy bumped into him as he walked and asked him why he was walking his circle. Janu said Iggy came out of nowhere. One minute he wasn’t there, next minute, he was.
“We were not supposed to get up in the middle of the night because the trials of the day were tiring. But Janu woke us to let us know that Iggy was back. We asked him where he’d been for three days.
“He looked at us strangely then asked, ‘Haven’t I been here?’
“No,” we nearly shouted at him.
“I did have a strange dream,” he said, “but I kept my watch. We all did. The elders came to get us and were surprised to see me. In the village, the women wailed and my mother said that she’d been told that I’d been attacked and ravaged by a wild beast. She wanted to hold me as if I were still a little boy, but it wasn’t permitted. We were all warriors now.
“So in this dream,” we asked Iggy, “We all passed?”
“Yes,” he said.
“We continued with the rite and were happy to see the elders when they came at the end of the ninth day. But there were only eight of us. Iggy wasn’t there.
“Search parties went out to look for him, but he was never found. They questioned each of us over and over. And at night, there were extra guards around the village, but Iggy never came back.”
“What do you think happened to him?” Jonas asked.
The Old Baba Grand seemed to look inside himself. “The veldt,” he said, “is a strange place. Man should stay out of places like that. Who knows what inhabits it when we are not there to see. Gods? Perhaps there are other worlds there. Maybe in the night time, people like us come from other places to visit.
“People said that the eight of us were not the same as when we began the rite of passage. They said it was more than just becoming men. They said we were different people and maybe somewhere Iggy had been attacked and eaten, and maybe somewhere the eight they sent out were living in that same place. Because we were not the boys they sent into the veldt.”
All of the men were quiet for a long time. Finally, one of them said, “Maybe that’s where the whites came from.”
#
Murthy and Baba Grand brought the boys to the airport when it was time to leave. Baba Grand hugged each boy and said, “Maybe the plane you were on went into a time warp or another dimension, or somewhere different. If, when you get back, there are changes, know that you are my real grandsons. Wherever you are. Your family surrounds you and you are loved.”
Thomas and Jonas talked about their family and its history. They appreciated how open minded the Zulu part of his family was. If they were to discuss some of the things they’d talked about back home, parents and teachers would say, “Utter nonsense.” They talked again about Nelson Mandela and wondered where the name came from in their studies and why he figured prominently in their newspapers.
“You know,” Jonas said, “When I was in high school, we had a girl from Mexico in our American history class. She told the teacher our books were wrong. Lupe said that Thomas Alvar was the son of the maid of the Edison family and he was slow, you know, like retarded or something. The boy used to come to work with her and sit in the shed while she worked.
“When the family was on vacation, she let Thomas play in the children’s playroom. When they came back, they scolded his mother because there was a burn mark on the cat. She told them that it happened during a storm. The lightning flashed and the crazed cat came running through the house. But then they discovered that many of the toys were magnetized.
“She finally admitted that she let Thomas play inside. When the Edisons told the boy to show them what he did, he not only demonstrated how to magnetize things, but he showed them how he used static electricity to accidentally burn the cat.”
“Same plane,” Thomas pointed, “the one with the strange wings.”
“Hey!” Jonas said jovially, “As long as it brings us back home, who cares? Anyway, they thought Thomas was some kind of genius and offered to adopt him since his poor family would not be able to provide a good education for him.”
“They probably swapped money for kid. If his family thought he was slow, they probably thought they were getting a good deal. Don’t look now, but Günther and his wife are sitting across from us again.”
“Hello,” they greeted each other.
“Going home,” Günther said in English. “We had a great time, how about you?”
“Very good, we met family.”
Günther’s English was a little better, having practiced it in Johannesburg, but it was heavily accented. They were all happy to travel with people they knew.
Looking around the plane, Thomas said to Jonas, “The configuration of people is the same.”
This time, both boys were looking out the window when the sky changed. Jonas turned to tell Günther, but he and his wife were asleep. Thomas looked at the plane’s wing. “It’s like it was when we left London. And look at the flight attendants.”
They talked excitedly about the possibility of having been in a different dimension. And now, they were curious to see what London held for them. The boys relaxed in their seats and slept.
End
JULY
Keenagers
Keenagers are the elders of our tribe; those members with years and experience enough to be revered. They are unique in many ways. Collectively, they have amassed the most knowledge and the most life points. They have been fortunate enough to see more change in their lives than any other nation in its first 250 years. The elders are the digital cameras to our recent past, the silent historians, and in many instances, the forgotten people.
So, I was shocked to learn recently, that I am now a Keenager. I haven’t reached sixty years, three score, six decades, five dozen years, three generations. I’m just a little more than half a century; not even two thirds of a hundred. Yet, it seems that I have arrived.
For nine months, in this year of Our Lord, 2008, I tried to gain professional employment. I have an excellent resume – of course, I do, I’m a Keenager. I have a wealth of experience (Keenager). I have years of business and professional knowledge (Keenager). That sounds like it should qualify me as a Keenager, but – I’m still young! I still have two children at home that have never left; they haven’t had a chance to come back to the roost yet.
I still like to participate in sports. Tennis has always been my racket. But there’s volleyball, bowling, softball, and running. Ah, but the last three years, only my mind has been a participant, my body finally decided that it had enough. I walk now. I try to get in the required ten thousand steps of senior citizenry. I greet other young looking people as I balance on arthritic knees during my circuit in the park. Do they see an old person when they look at me? I feel young, vibrant, ready to go – to contribute to the world.
But I find myself contributing from my arm chair; on my websites, on the telephone, and in supermarket check out lines. How did I get here? What am I to do now with this active mind, my overactive imagination? Am I to go quietly into some uncertain future presided over by – by – by - children?
Is that how Keenagers have been looking at me all my life? I knew it all then. I was smart, on the move, on the go, making snap decisions, going places. Yet, I wound up right where they are.
I admire them. Why am I having such a hard time resigning myself to their fate? Is it fear? Is it that I’m not good enough? Or is it because I don’t think that I deserve to be venerable? We all deserve to be respected; so why not be valued for the things that I have learned; for my life skills? I’m not getting old. Like fine wine, I’m only getting better.
I guess that makes me a Keenager.
~
American Keenagers come in many colors, shapes, and sizes. Their ages, it seems, begin as early as 55 and keep on going. Some are fifty to sixty years older and all have varied reasons for their longevity. I’ve heard a woman say clean living kept her alive and I’ve heard a man say a cigar and a shot a whiskey a day are the keys to his long life. There’s probably more to it than that, but I guess we won’t know what the reason is until we reach our platinum years.
I usually think of Keenagers as men and women who remember hearing first hand accounts of Al Capone, have hard tales to tell of the Depression, and talk of how their lives changed during THE BIG ONE - WWII. I wasn’t even born until after all that happened.
But across our great land, there are people out there who know secrets that could change our history. They hold on to them, waiting for someone else to make them known, willing only then to confirm or deny. There are stories out there like Rosewood, and people out there to tell them. There is historical data about every aspect of our culture and we need only look as far as Keenagers who worked as domestics, maids, and janitors, railroad porters, gardeners, cooks, and house servants. We will also find them as having retired from hotels, saloons, barber shops, beauty salons, filling stations, and clothing stores.
~
While many young people are unwilling to admit that their parents or grandparents did such menial labor, they should know that this menial labor, along with slavery is what built our great country and elevated it to the status that it maintains today. They should keep in mind that the majority of Americans of Color who worked outside their home did this type of work from post Civil War to Brown v. the Board of Education and through the Civil Rights Movement. That’s almost 100 years of subdued history, fallible historical facts, and inaccurate newspaper reports. This not only concerns Black Americans, but all Americans.
Doing research for an article a few years back in the New Orleans Times Picayune, I kept running across inaccurate dates. Inaccurate according to my family’s Keenage storytellers who argued over every little detail; so therefore, wrong. I talked to several of my relatives and followed their leads. Some of them led to things that I knew as a child growing up in New Orleans. Finally, I remembered The Louisiana Weekly, a Black Institution since 1925. Searching for details in this small newspaper was like a trip down memory lane, not only for me but for my mother and her siblings. This was The People’s newspaper.
To my chagrin, I realized how many White People were also left out of the annals of history because they selflessly helped People of Color as priests and nuns. Fortunately, they made news in the Black periodical. But, are the families that they left behind aware of the good that they did? Did the families know that they offered advice and counsel to many who became leaders in the late 1950s and 1960s.
I researched Black newspapers around the country and found very few still in existence; almost none have indices that allow the public to view them in libraries. Again, this is a reason to talk with our Keenagers while we still have them.
~
When and if you reach out to these Keenagers, don’t be discouraged if they are not willing to talk to you. While spending Thanksgiving with the in-laws, I overheard my mother-in-law say, “Of course I remember, but many of those things were hurtful and I don’t want to talk about it.” Over the past thirty years, she and I have discussed many topics that she won’t discuss in a group. On one topic, she told me, “If you tell anybody that I said it, I’ll deny it. My sons are going to believe me - not you.”
During the summer of 2008, I interviewed Keenagers at the Southeast Neighborhood Senior Center in Atlanta. Many of them had pleasant memories of families, family gatherings, holidays, special events, and humorous adventures. However, each one that grew up in a rural Georgia county had horrendous stories of growing up Black, fighting the odds, and leaving home because there was little of their adult life to enjoy in those areas.
One common thread among the women was the trip to school. Most had to walk, but a few of the younger Keenagers rode a school bus. Whether they walked all the way or just to the bus stop, a daily morning occurrence was to have the white school bus slow down so that the white students could throw urine out the bus windows onto them as they walked along the side of the road.
At this late date, this was my first time ever hearing this story. This did bring to mind stories that I heard in high school. Several teachers said that when they were younger, when colored folk were made to sit in the balconies in theatres, but had to walk to the basement to use the bathroom, they would just pee from the balcony down into the audiences.
The common thread among the men’s narratives all dealt with the military. Soldiers and sailors who served during WWII and the Korean War all talked about the Europeans wanting to see their tails. “What tails?” I asked naively. My Dad didn’t mention any tails and I don’t remember reading about it in the autobiography of Malcolm X.
As we shot pool together, each man wove a colorful account of their encounter with either the enemy or civilians who asked about their tails. These people had received advance notice that the American Negro sported a tail.
My friend Ray Bailey and I became friends because we didn’t believe in being politically correct. We stood toe to toe as he complimented me on a favor that I did for him. He said, “That’s mighty…,” and stopped. I continued for him, “white of me.” He smiled; I smiled. Over the next fifteen years, our friendship developed enough that he could tell me that in his former life, he had been a Klansman. I didn’t ask and he didn’t divulge any more. It was enough that he’d moved beyond that. What was done was behind both of us.
In his seventies, he was surprised to find that women could learn science and engineering. So, later, it wasn’t as big a shock to find that Black women could excel in both.
We are often victims of our families, cultures, and mores. We learn reaction and retaliation. Hopefully, there comes a time in life when, if we mature enough, we become Keenagers. My mother-in-law, who doesn’t like to be reminded of the hurtful things in life, steps out of her comfort zone to ascertain that she is mindful of other peoples’ needs. When I asked her how she could do this, she pointed out that when you’re young, you color things in black and white, but when you become old, you are just that – old. Old has no color.
Not all Keenagers want to talk about certain aspects of their past, but there are many who are waiting for someone to ask them the right question. Some are waiting for any question at all or just to have a chance to discuss the present with you.
Keenagers are not the only people who lack trust in different age brackets. Many non-Keenagers define the elderly as old, useless, toothless, senile, ugly, and funny. They refer to them as crones, hags and say that they make strange sounds. Old people have wrinkles, liver spots, and segregate themselves from everybody else because they are afraid of young people.
Keenagers are misunderstood. We (Did I say we?) don’t all like rock music or old school. We don’t all love the weather channel. Even though we are not a drain on society, we don’t all volunteer. We have gangs – AARP, DAR, Red Hat Society. We don’t all play Bingo, and we are not jealous of youth. We are not helpless nor do we have an aversion to change.
And we are not the worst drivers. Very few of us have blue hair.
I find most Keenagers to be tolerant. Some have amusing anecdotes, funny stories, and life stories involving pain, sorrow, loss, suffering, and love. These are the stories that we need to tap into.
~
It’s time for Keenagers to be recognized. Most families have a few and most certainly they are loved. But in these fast paced times of economic uncertainty, urgent challenges to our futures, occurrences of immediate gratification, and the virtual world, how many of them are utilized to their fullest? How many of us take the time to learn grandma’s recipe without having it handed down from Mother or Aunt Gerda? How many of us listen to grandpa and his buddies when they tell those ridiculous stories that have got to be made up because they’re so incredible? How many of us take the time to listen when our neighbor brings over a jar of preserves, hoping that you will invite her in to partake of this disappearing craft - or to just have a few words about the weather, her garden, her children who no longer visit, or her friends that have gone on before? Who of us has the time and strength to assist the grumpy old recluse who lives alone in the decrepit house?
Spring ahead forty years – oh, that’s me! Me in a different world! A world made up of sameness. A world made up of everyone who was here forty years ago - and read the same headlines, and surfed the same web, had the same Facebook friends, ate the same store bought food. Forty years from now, we will all have the same historical memories. By then, our real past will have been lost, the people who lived it – just names on headstones in gray places.
Already, too much of our history has been lost. Lost in a ploy of political correctness, insensitivity to our brothers and sisters, and hatred of things that we don’t understand. The word used to be prejudice. But prejudice is gone, I’m told. This is a newly recreated United States. There is no prejudice here. We are all equal. There’s proof. It’s written in our Constitution, in our Bill of Rights. If it’s in writing, it must be true. If you dispute it, take it to court.
Or, take it to the elders of our American tribe – the Keenagers. The older, the better. Our twentieth century went by so quickly, a mere five years in time, creates a rift in the continuum. We are a nation with millions of Keenagers. Many of them live in senior high-rises, away from the masses. Some live in assisted living communities even farther from the throngs who need them. But many are living in our attics and basements, in half of the double garage. Some are living in our homes to baby-sit our young while both parents go out to work. The family of fifty years ago is no longer, and once we’re home from work, grandma’s way of living - her rules and discipline; her old way of talking and thinking - are not impressed upon our kids.
“She’s old,” her children say to the young that should be relishing this age of wisdom and knowledge. And so the children run off to watch TV, play video games, and talk on the phone without really communicating anything to their friends.
It’s time for us to correct these errors, to become a part of all human life, not just the lives of those who are just like us. We need to expand our thinking to include all Americans.
I remember as each decade passed during my life, those of the next generation assured me that life begins at 20, 30, and 40. However, we fear crossing 30, but feel at 40 that our lives have passed us by.
There are Keenagers that we need to remember. Pulitzer Prize Winner, James Michener, now 101, penned his first book at age 40. Colonel Sanders began franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken at age 62. Grandma Moses began painting at age 70. Ruth Ellis is a centenarian LGBT activist, and the person who lived the longest, to date, lived to the ripe old age of 122.
That’s a long time to be a Keenager, to offer wisdom, advice, and recount life experiences to those who will listen.
~
While I would love to say that I coined the word, Keenager, I have to admit that I did not. My friend, August James Williams, coined it at the age of 15, back in the 1960s. He was raised by his grandmother, Hannah Todd, and was amazed at her resourcefulness. August was smart enough to recognize that, besides the fact that he couldn’t get anything over on her (as brilliant as he was at 15); no one else could pull the wool over her eyes, either. He paid attention and realized that she hadn’t reached old age; she had reached a keen age where she incorporated all the knowledge of her life in order to insure that he did well in his and lived a good life.
A few years my junior, I understand that in his heart, he’s always been a Keenager. Through his grandchildren, he watches time march slowly on. Changes are wrought on a daily basis and we all gain life points. If we utilize what we have, what we’ve been given, our talents and treasures, we march into the future as Keenagers.
Yeah, that’s me. Now, if only I could find a job.
JUNE
from the Little Eric series
Little Eric at the Renaissance Faire
Mom took the children to the Renaissance Faire. She and Vanessa wore comfortable walking shoes and Little Eric wore his favorite cap and rode in the twin stroller. There were snacks and water on the seat that used to be Vanessa’s.
As the three of them passed a hovel – Mom told them that someone was pretending to live there. At that moment, a peasant woman came out and encouraged them to go to “yon city for the Faire.”
“Is everybody going to talk funny?” Vanessa asked.
“Yes,” Mom said. This area has been changed to look like a small village from about 600 years ago. Vanessa and Little Eric turned right and left trying to keep up with all of the sights. Everyone wore strange clothes. There were knights and men who called themselves King’s men roaming about.
There were games that looked like home-made amusement park rides. There were giant slides made with ropes and canvas, and a huge rope ladder that Little Eric would love to climb, but even he knew that his legs were much too short to reach from rung to rung.
Mom stopped at quite a few of the shops so that Vanessa and Little Eric could learn how things were made and what was important to people long ago. Mom asked one of the shop keepers if there was dancing. The man gave her a schedule of events.
“The dancing starts in ten minutes!” she exclaimed.
“Looking at this map,” she showed the map to Vanessa and Little Eric, “it should be this way. If you see these words on any of the shops” – she pointed – “let me know. We’ll know that we are headed in the right direction.”
After walking for a few minutes, Mom said, “I hear them. They’ve already started!”
She hurried the children along and was surprised to see so many empty seats. Then Mom realized that the crowd, about a hundred people, were all huddled under the shade of two large trees.
The dancers were jumping and cavorting on an open stage with the sun beating down upon it. Sweat was pouring from the men. Mom decided to stand off to the side of the crowd in the shade of a smaller tree.
“Halt!” the leader of the troupe called out.
The men stopped dancing. The lead dancer jumped off stage and ran to Little Eric. Dropping to one knee, he removed his long plumed hat, and bowed to the awestruck boy.
“Young Squire,” he began, “why is it that we must dance in the hot sun, while this crowd nestles in the shade of yon trees, yelling at us to jump higher, higher, higher?”
Everyone was looking at the pageantry. Little Eric’s eyes were about as wide as they could get. The whites were so bright and his curly lashes so long, he did indeed look like a very well cared for young squire.
The dancer continued to talk about poor abused dancers and crowds that were never satisfied. Little Eric seemed mesmerized and never even blinked as he stared with wide-eyed wonder. Finished, the leader bowed deeply to Little Eric, then put his hat back on, his plume brushing across Little Eric’s cap. With graceful movement, he leapt back on stage as the other dancers stepped in tune with him.
Little Eric turned his head toward his mom, his eyes still riveted to the stage. Slowly, he let his eyes follow his head to look at Mom, but instead, he saw a hundred pairs of eyes, all looking at him, smiling and laughing. In that moment, he began sliding down into his stroller, right hand moving slowly upward until it touched the brim of his cap. As his eyes locked on mom, he slowly pulled the brim down over his face and slipped out of sight.
The crowd roared with laughter, bringing smiles even to the faces of the dancers. Little Eric stayed hidden for a long time. When he peeped from under his hat again, he saw that no one was looking at him except Mom. And she was smiling.
MAY
previously published in 2021 Pigeon Review as Maisy
Long Distance
My grandfather added a rear upstairs room to his house when he was in his forties. When he came home from work he didn’t want to listen to his wife and her friends gossip about everybody that passed on the avenue. They liked sitting in the wrought iron porch chairs he’d purchased for the aesthetic quality it added to the front of their home.
At first, the camelback was just an after dinner project. He liked to eat a lot and his belt was getting a little tight on his uniform pants. He thought building the room might offer a little exercise. It took half a year to complete. He didn’t want any help.
As he worked on the shell of the room during spring, he spent most of his time looking out above the neighborhood at the beauty of it all. He paid attention to the flora for the first time. The flowers on the trees bloomed before the vibrant light green leaves appeared.
Anticipating a really hot summer, he hauled up a large fan, an ice chest, and books that he’d been collecting for years but never had time to read. Unfinished, the room already claimed him. All the way home on the bus, he imagined ways to make the room cozier. He shuffled from the bus stop in his usual gait, stopping to answer neighbor’s questions about the addition to his house.
While Myrna waited for him on the porch, he stooped to pick weeds and pick up cigarette butts that passersby flicked onto his two patches of green flanking his entrance walkway. They talked as he did this, then she went in to set the table and he walked around the side of the shotgun house to visit his banana tree.
After dinner, he went upstairs. For a time, he would hear Myrna rattling dishes, pots, and pans. There would be a few minutes of quiet, then he could hear the cackling women on the porch and the voices of children playing on the sidewalk. He wondered what the other husbands did after dinner, but was never curious enough to amble around the neighborhood and find out.
When the leaves started turning orange, he carried up a fancy door that he’d found at a wrecking company, but he didn’t install it because the world had taken on a new look. He enjoyed windy days and gold and red leaves. When the chill finally arrived, he set the door in it’s hinges. He didn’t want to, but he had to remove the panel that covered the indoor steps that would allow his wife access to his private domain.
She, of course, brought her girlfriends to look at it.
“What’s he going to do up here?” they asked. “Why does he need a desk? Where did he find such a small refrigerator? Are y’all splitting up?”
She answered. “He says every man needs either a cave or drinking buddies. He could start to drink he said, like Bubba.”
Bubba was the neighborhood wino.
As time passed, my grandmother stated sadly, “We might as well have split up. He spent more time in the camelback than he did with me. We would have had better conversations if he’d taken to drinking and brought home a few friends. He really was a loner.”
Then one day she stated sadly, “I was a fool. It was time we could have spent together. Those women were boring.”
#
Maisy sat in the rocking chair that her grandfather added when he retired. She looked at the futon they sat on when he told her stories about his life and the many people he met on his job. In the later years, she read Russian classics to him.
All her life she’d wondered about the contents of the steamer trunks that her grandfather kept strapped in a closet like room he added to the camelback in later years.
Maisy was now the inheritor. A tear slid down her face as she approached the first one. She’d already looked through everything else upstairs - all four drawers in his desk. Well, she always wanted to know. Now was the time.
Instead, Maisy looked in the fridge. She wasn’t usually a procrastinator. What was she so afraid to find? Wrong ethnic group to find Klan robes and paraphernalia like her co-worker Whitney found when she went through her grandfather’s things. She’d expected to find hidden treasure so brought a lot of people with her as witnesses. She never did come back to work. Last they’d heard, she moved to the West Coast.
So, Maisy decided to do this without her best friend being present. This would be the first secret between them since first grade. Maisy laughed when she saw what was in the fridge. Two bottles of Canada Dry. “Drink Canada dry,” she said out loud, remembering the first real conversation she and her grandfather had.
“Why do we want to drink Canada dry?” she’d asked.
“Cause it tastes so good.”
“But what are the Canadians going to drink?”
He looked puzzled at first then he laughed that hearty laugh of his, howling up at the ceiling, then sitting down looking at her. He began to say something, then laughed some more until he cried. It was the only time she’d ever seen her grandmother come upstairs. She was trailed by Maisy’s parents who also wanted to know what was going on.
After telling them, her father rolled his finger around his ear as if to say that his dad was crazy. “It’s a commercial,” he said, and it’s not that funny. He rolled his eyes as the three of them went back downstairs.
Two double chocolate bars, their favorites, were in the little freezer slot. There were pairs of all the snacks in the small refrigerator. All selected with Maisy in mind. Feeling more confident, she turned toward the trunks. Whatever was in them, Maisy thought, she could have brought not only Felicia, but the entire church congregation. There would be no unpleasant surprises.
Kneeling in front of the trunk closest to the door, she thought of her grandfather. He was the most special person in her life. Living without him was going to be rough. “I’m glad that he and grandmother went together.”
At first, Maisy thought the heavy plastic was covering gold bullion. Grandfather did work at the post office. Working at the VA Hospital, she’d heard stories about the strange things that Vietnam era veterans shipped from overseas via the postal service.
The top layer of plastic was covering decorative paper with paintings of gold bullion. Under the paper was a large thick envelope with her name on it. Centered on the envelope was written $1,000,000.
The insides of the trunk, Maisy could see, were fireproof. The Wells Fargo logo was imprinted on it. Baffled, Maisy opened the envelope. It took a few minutes to figure out what she was looking at. Comic books. The list was chronological dating back to 1949. “Comic books,” she said out loud.
Her grandmother had once told her how even though he was a good provider, she should have known that he was boring when she saw how much care he took of his comic books and baseball cards. She was glad that they had all been destroyed in the flood.
Shaking, Maisy clutched the certified comic book appraisal, and crawled toward the second chest. Unstrapping and opening it, she thought that the paper was silver, but silver didn’t come in bars, she remembered her grandfather telling her.
The dollar amount on this envelope was $6,000,000. Platinum. There were several lumps in the bottom of the envelope. Gum wrappers. The one folded like a sheet probably came with a baseball card. The other, smaller and more colorful held a comic strip. Squinting, she read the copyright date as 1955.
Maisy scrolled through the chronological list. Even the comic strips were worth money. There was an asterisk at the bottom with a personal note from Ben Jammin Beets, Esq. That can’t possibly be somebody’s real name. Your grandfather chewed a lot of gum!
Then what could possibly be in the third trunk?
The decorative paper was a hand painted illustration of the four seasons. The thick envelope said priceless. And underneath was written, the seasons of Maisy’s life.
Inside, there was a very legal looking letter that said how I could gain access to the safety deposit boxes which housed the keys. The accompanying pages were copies of Walter Marine Hodges’ phone bills beginning the year that Maisy was born. “Phone bills?” she asked aloud.
“Phone bills!” Maisy stood up to stretch her legs. She laughed when she finally found a note written next to a phone number. She got a drink from the icebox, her grandmother would call it, and sat on the window seat that her grandfather added to his private space on her third birthday.
Country code 230. Maisy Mauritius Hodges came a little early.
There were country codes and telephone numbers from when her parents worked abroad. Age two, Maisy screeched a song that she heard in day care. Don’t know what she said, but her voice is like an angel’s.
After age two, there were months and years of country codes and city codes from vacations, school trips, church trips. Her grandfather wrote a note next to every one in which he’d spoken to Maisy.
As the light began to fade, she turned on her grandfather’s lamp. She’d gone through hundreds of phone bills as Maisy relived her life. Just one more, she thought, but the note opened a whole new chapter. September of her senior year at college. Maisy struck out to Atlanta on her own. Called from Scottsdale, car broke down. October, called from Decatur, car on fire. In smaller print. I wish that I could get her a new one but I promised her dad that I wouldn’t. She’ll make it. She’s Maisy.
It was after midnight when Maisy finished reading all the notes. She tucked the phone bills back in their envelopes, turned off the light, and descended the stairs.
Maisy had to admit that she loved her grandfather so much more than her grandmother. Grandma was cakes, food, and clothes. Grandfather was time. Her mind went to a conversation that she’d overheard once.
He claims to love her so much. He didn’t take out a life insurance policy so she could benefit from all that love. I took out a policy worth just enough to bury us. She took him from me her whole life. She doesn’t need anything else.
No, Maisy thought. I don’t need anything else. I guess Grandma knows that now.
April
The Forest
“This is a beautiful spot,” the woman says. “I’ll bet that we’re the first people to camp here since the Indians.”
The man answers, “That’s because inferior people know the signs are for them.”
The woman smiles as she looks at the NO CAMPING sign. Then she looks around nervously, feeling a little guilty.
Above, minute patches of the cloudless blue are seen above the canopy of broadleaved madronas, maples, bays, and tanoak trees. Falcons and eagles soar above the green floor, catching occasional glimpses of the animal life below the tree line. Their reign over the woodlands runs from the two hundred foot #DouglasFirs of the northern slopes to the gigantic #redwoods far south, and all the magnificent forest to the Pacific Ocean.
Beneath the #ponderosa and western white pines, flourish the spruce and cedar trees. Deer families, wild sheep, goats, and pigs share the forest floor with badgers, weasels, beetles, and ants. Wild dogs roam in packs. Coyotes and bobcats seek the plentiful prey, wary of the larger predators. Bears and cougars lord over the vast expanse of natural life and beauty.
As the fawn suckles at his mother’s teat, he watches the red breast of the robins and the red wings of the blackbirds. The blue-gray gnatcatcher is eating on the wing as are the magpies, wrens, and ravens. The harmonious symphony, music to eat by, is supplied by warblers, chickadees, and nightingales. The fawn is happy with the delights of his home, as the flying squirrels jump from tree to tree in their travels.
Throughout the forest, the earth floor is strewn with detritus. In the heat of the early summer, leaves drift down to the ground as birds snip thin twigs to add to their nests. The huge trees don’t mind. They stand as sentinels to the ages. Larger, taller, wider, they spread their leafy arms out in a loving embrace to the animals harbored among their trunks and branches.
Snakes slither through the nettles and bits of grass and other foliage as rodents, worms, tree toads, and insects find other places to be.
As a deer family stops for a drink of water in a mountain pool, the doe watches the black tail of a jackrabbit disappear into a dense glut of vegetation. In the reflecting pool, she sees the red tail of a fox disappear around the same vegetation. She stands still for a moment and watches a muskrat leave the water near a rock where a stark contrast of black and white confirms that a skunk is busy supping on an egg.
The deer leave the pool and again enter the deeper woods, rich with leeches and parasitic insects. Leaves rain down from a tree that’s being devoured by mistletoe and dodder. As they find a haven for the night, insects, ticks, and moths feast on the large quantity of wildlife scampering about.
The owls, shrews, minks and other nocturnal animals are still sleeping. The forest will quiet down a lot before they begin their livelihood. The world is as it should be, wonderfully made by the Creator, the way that it was prepared for man.
“Like Adam and Eve,” they say. The man and woman lay naked in the grass to make love while the baby sleeps.
The child wakes and sees his sleeping parents. He pilfers the cigarette lighter. Scrambling away, he tumbles down the side of the hill and discovers that he’s unharmed. His too loose diaper is held up by his oversized toddler pants. Sitting quietly, the child takes the cigarette lighter and tries to make the flame come out of the lighter like his dad does before he and his mother smoke the tightly rolled joints.
Finally, it catches. He touches it to a mound of dying leaves and drops it as he hears, “There you are, Kevin.”
The boy looks up at his father. The man scoops the child up, admonishing him.
The picnic cleared and packed up, the car engine starts just as a gentle breeze fans the smoldering leaves. The red glow of the small fire matches the bright red sunset that the family enjoys. The man winks at his wife as they pass the sign that says no parking, picnicking, or camping, and finds the road that leads them out of the pristine, almost virgin forest, that will soon die horribly, along with its wealth of creature life.
March
Pot Luck
Patsy had a great turnout for her first potluck supper. The school principal and most of the teachers showed up as well as members of the PTO. Even a few parents that she talked to in the mornings at drop off. Her neighbors were drifting in through the side yard and made themselves comfortable under the ligustrum trees. Southerners were certainly friendly and welcoming. She was glad that she’d bought those large fancy pots. Her Dutch oven wouldn’t have been big enough.
Her prowess as a good cook must have been televised, she thought, as she looked at all the people. She was a little disappointed that most people brought beer instead of food and hoped there would be enough to eat. Her husband Nick suggested going to a drive-thru for fried chicken because nobody brought meat, only Tupperware with canned veggies. Patsy insisted there was enough meat in the chili and told him to mingle.
From her kitchen window, Patsy noticed who the extroverts were as they moved around the yard, meeting new people. As several of the school people met Nick, they flushed with excitement. She’d forgotten they’d never met her handsome husband.
Finally ready, she called, “Nick, help me with the big pots. They’re so pretty. Odd that there’s no handles.”
He looked at the love of his life. She’d worked so hard to have her potluck be a success in this lovely community. He was perplexed. Should he mention what he’d learned or just carry the heavy pots to the big table? Nick put them on a cart and wheeled them outside.
“Soups on,” Patsy said. She used a long handle spoon to ladle food from the pots. Moving away from the cart, she began eating. Best tasting chili, she’d ever had.
People lined up with their plates and filled them with vegetables that tasted like can, but no one ate from the big pretty pots.
“Dig in,” she said. “This is good stuff.”
“Those pots sure are pretty,” one of the teachers said. “Where did you find them?”
“Since we’re new here, I want to support the community. I got them from that used store, Pots and Pans. They were setting outside under one of those fancy chairs.”
“Did you go in the store at all?”
“No, paid cash to the owner. He tried to sell me a chair with a hole in the seat.”
The evening was a success. As Nick helped Patsy clean up, he emptied the still full pots in the garbage then packed them in a box in the shed with the planters. As soon as his wife forgot them, he’d put the chamber pots in the garbage.