Cilla and Stew

 I wrote the following in about 90 minutes, sitting down at my laptop, trying to picture what happened, and applied some fancy imaginations, but tried to capture the essence of those years when my mother met my father. She wouldn’t talk with me about him, and I didn’t really think about him much until my mother called the police one day when I was in second grade, living in San Mateo, and told the policeman that her ex-husband was walking up and down the street looking for our house. My father told me later that was bullshit and laughed. Your mother really got delusional when she drank, Jim. He shook his head and laughed again.

I had asked my Aunt Phoebe and Uncle John about what life was like when they were growing up with my mother. Why do you want to know that? they’d say, and on more than one occasion. I didn’t press it, but I felt like they were hiding something that they didn’t want me knowing. No, your mother didn’t have to get married. Get that out of your mind, Jim. They got married because they said they loved each other and you were born a year later.

Priscilla was the black sheep of the family. It was kind of a known thing, and people pretty much accepted the fact that she didn’t fit in the round peg, so to speak. She went to college in the south, a community college at that, and a year at Connecticut College. Then toward the end of the war she joined the Red Cross and spent several months in England. When she returned, she moved to Pittsburgh, I’m assuming because she had a girlfriend from college or the Red Cross there who could help her get a job or have her stay with them until she could get settled.

***.

When she lit the fourth cigarette, sitting with her back against the pillow and her husband rolled over on his side, back to her, that she asked him if he loved her.

“Damn it, Cilla, I’ve told you – how many times is it now? – dozens of times, I swear to God, yes, I love you.”

But she could tell from the tone of his voice and his expression. when she would look him in the eyes, that he was lying to her. No matter how many times he said those magic words, not magic to her apparently because she never believed him, she didn’t believe him. Something in his eyes. I can tell, she repeated to herself and lit another cigarette.

“What did you say? You can tell? You can tell what, for Godsakes? Will you please go to sleep now? I can’t sleep with the light on and I do have to work tomorrow – unlike you who gets to stay home and be with the baby all day. All day you’re home, we see each other barely over dinner, because you’ve got that damn t.v. on even when we eat and I hate watching the t.v. when I’m eating dinner and….”she didn’t hear anything else he was murmuring before he fell asleep.

Well, she did hear it all and now it’s all clear to her. She’d pack tomorrow, call a cab, take her son to the airport in a cab and that sonofabitch Stew will come home tomorrow night and I’ll be long gone, and he’ll be mad at himself at what he said. Just you see. Just you see. Just you see. She put out her smoke. I’ll go stay with my sister Wallace for a few days and sort things out about what I should do.

She couldn’t admit to herself that she’d made a mistake marrying Stew, whose name was really Carlisle but his friends all called him Stew, and since she became his “friend” after a couple of weeks at secretarial school where he was one of the teachers. They went to dinner after class one afternoon and hit it off pretty well, she thought. So handsome, tall, brunette, big strong hands – she’d like to see what those hands could do for her, naughty girl to think about that on their first date, if this is a date; word has it that he dates about every pretty girl in any of his classes.

What she really wanted was a husband, not a date. All her sisters were married and already had kids, dammit, and all the letters she got from them were about the children, and their husband’s promotions, and they had grand houses in Hinsdale, a train ride from downtown Chicago and the “promotions.” She wanted to write back with some good news!  I’m getting married! And his name’s Stew! He’s a teacher, uh, (damn, he’s not a stockbroker and he doesn’t run a bank or sell real estate or make money – he barely had a savings account for that matter, but she wasn’t going to tell her sisters that and give them something else to bitch about her behind her back. Those witches, always rubbing it in about their successful husbands, beautiful homes, dear dear children.)

So when he looked at her, she gave him that absolutely gorgeous smile and twinkle in her eye, and crossed her legs, and raised an eyebrow a little bit – “the look of flirtation” that she learned when she was in England in the Red Cross, mainly serving coffee and donuts on a cart rolled around the hospital or dancing with the least likely to succeed kind of guys in the evening, but she was there to make the troops happy, and happy she made them, at least she thought she did happy really well.)

In class she was Miss Burr, but after class she was Cilla and never was she called Priscilla except by people who didn’t know her. But as soon as someone would hear her nickname he or she would use it and she wouldn’t have a clue who that person was when she was greeted on the street.

She was demure, sweet, pretty, asked lots of questions to find out all about him, which wasn’t much and he sounded like he had a pretty boring life, except he’d been married before but that was several years ago. I’m not going to ask how old he is, but there is a little grey at his temple and pretty serious crows feet. Maybe he’s 40. Maybe he’s older. In any case, he was a good looking…hmmmm….I wonder what he looks like without a shirt on or…Well if I work this right I’ll find out.

And so she worked it right. He was really a gentleman and liked to splurge on her and sometimes he could barely talk when they were together because his hands were so busy. One dinner led to a second dinner led to a third dinner, and then coming to her apartment for a drink, and then another dinner, and another drink and before she knew it….

Three months later he told her he loved her. I’ve never loved anyone like this. Cilla, you’re so full of life and spirit and God you’re pretty, really pretty, a real find, that’s what you are, and I’d be crazy not to…not to…(But the last one didn’t work out, but I’m getting older, 49 last week and she’s almost 20 years younger, but we get along so well and I’ve never been so happy) marry you.

Their wedding was in town, Pittsburgh, exactly, in a chapel off of the Congregational church, and Cilla invited her sisters and brother, John, and they all came. I would have liked a bigger wedding, but this is Stew’s second marriage, and they seemed to accept it, but they felt sorry for her because they’d had weddings with abundance and dozens of friends, huge cakes, dazzling wedding rings. But, thank God, she’s married and how happy Mama and Pop would be to see their youngest daughter finally married. How happy they would be!  Cilla felt the same way, but no one said anything. Cilla had chances before the folks passed away, and his fellow can’t be the first to propose. She had an abundance of boyfriends. We were all jealous, of course, as sisters would be, but we were dating steady and talked about marriage. Someday, sweetheart, someday.

Oh, and something else that Cilla had that they all had, something that made each of the four girls very popular indeed, and a lot of people in town knew about it, too. They had an inheritance. They weren’t rich, I mean really rich with servants, but they could afford nice clothes and the best cosmetics. As a young woman you don’t think about ways of spending your money in other ways, at least not in the ‘40s, single women that is. Stew had something in common with many of the other suitors: he liked money. He needed money, just to pay the rent and Cilla’s stash will help, we can just sell a few stocks and we’d have a new car, something he had wanted for ten years.

***.

When Stew left for work the next day she was still in bed. Jimmy was asleep next to her because he’s been crying and he seemed to like to come to bed with her after Daddy left for work. There aren’t many groceries, I’ll have to go shopping and, wait wasn’t I going to leave today? That’s right, pack and take a cab to the airport. I won’t call Phoebe or any of the sisters, I’ll surprise them and then cry and they’ll feel sorry for me and let me stay in one of their extra bedrooms of the “grand houses” they keep talking about.

Jimmy remembers the ride away from the two-story apartment with the blue awning. Cilla could never believe that he could remember that. You were only six months old. How could you remember? I can’t even remember what color the awning was. Okay, it was blue. I believe you! He was looking out the back window of the cab, she was holding him against her shoulder and he was wrapped in a blue blanket, his blankee, and looked back at the apartment. A fuzzy memory, but it stuck, at least he says he remembers it.

Stew will be surprised when he finds the note. I just couldn’t tell him to his face because he might get mad again and when he got mad he got that look in his face that made me feel like he was going to do something violent, but he never did, but it always looked like that. He’ll be mad today. Hooboy, will he be mad because I have the money and the rent is due, and I forgot to pay the utility bill last month, well I forgot to remind him to pay the bill. He’s so bad with money. I’ll miss him. I’ll miss him, but I can’t cry. I can’t!

If she’d seen what happened when she got home she wouldn’t have left him. She wouldn’t have left him then, anyway, at least not that day, or week. But even with the flowers he brought home to her – day old, who could tell? – and seeing Jimmy, laughing with him, talking to him, helping him eat, holding him in the air above  Stew and pretending he’s a plane and make the noise of a plane’s propellers and hearing him laugh. That got tiring, Stew’s arms got tired – big baby, all the kid does is eat and shit, I swear I’ve never seen anything like it – so we lie down on the floor and he sits on my stomach and he goes up real fast and then, plop, down back on my stomach. When it’s light out after dinner we go for a walk in the stroller, me with Cilla on my arm, and pushing Jimmy in the stroller, he’s always holding his blanket. It’s sweet, really, and he looks like I did when I was a baby, at least from my baby pictures. It will be fun to see him grow up, all the things we can do together, and teach him all the things my dad taught me, and some things that I learned that I never want him to learn. I bought some ice cream, too, because he likes ice cream and it’s a hoot to see him try to eat it with his hands, the ice cream pushed across the tray, but he doesn’t want anyone feeding him to help him eat it so he’ll lick his fingers for hours if we let him, but then he gets quiet and turns a little in his seat, and fills his pants and then, whew, it’s time for Cilla to come to the rescue and change this rascal. What in God’s name have you been eating to poop so much? I say to him as mom pulls him out of the tray, hand still in his mouth. Yes, he loves ice cream and I love to watch him eat it. Then will come the chocolate sauce one day and he’ll be eating with a spoon. Someday we’ll walk to the park and then stop and get an ice cream cone and the two of us will sit on the swings and we’ll play “I see a…” and we’ll have to guess what the other person is seeing, a game my sister Caryl and I used to play, a game she taught me and now I’m going to be able to teach it to Jimmy and…

He tries to open the door, but it’s locked, so he gets out his key, it’s almost never locked when I come home, strange, oh well, she’s probably in one of her moods. And is she moody. My God, one day she’s up up up and one day she’s morose, really down, and can’t explain it and refuses to talk about it, so I think it’s something I’ve done. Is it something I’ve done? Something I’ve said? Let me give you a hug. Okay, when you’re done giving Jimmy a bath. Okay, when you’re done with your shower. Okay when you have your nightgown on, and Jesus, what, you’re not coming to bed? What’s so important on t.v. that it can’t wait, I just want to give you a hug, dammit. I can’t figure you out, Cilla, and you won’t talk to me. Please, let me hug you. God, you make me so mad. So mad. I’m going out. For a walk. What difference does it make if you’re just going to watch t.v.? I’ll lower my voice. For a walk! I don’t mean to slam the door, but God, what’s going on? Just gotta breath.

The apartment’s dark. Are they asleep? Cilla? Cilla? Where are you? And where’s Jimmy? Where’s Jimmy? No, not Jimmy, he’s not gone, too. They’ve just gone for a walk, or she’s at a girlfriend’s house. Maybe there was something wrong and she had to go to the hospital. She would have left a note, whatever. But there’s no note. No note! There’s got to be a note.

He finds the note on the pillow on the bed, empty bed. Empty crib.

***.

I don’t see my father again until I’m 18. Stew called one of my aunts in Chicago and asked her to relay his number to me, that he’d like to meet me, or talk to me. He remembered your birthday, can you believe it? said Aunt Phoebe. I called my father. It was coincidence that I was making a trip to San Francisco this summer and, yes, I’d like to meet him and his wife Muriel. Very much.

Avoiding Jury Duty

I've never served on a jury, and hope never to do so. In other times I knew one of the lawyers, or I knew too much about the case from the news, or the defendant, on seeing the jury members, pleads before the trial commences.

Yesterday I received a "jury questionnaire" and for the reasons I can't serve, I will list these:

• Although I wear hearing aids, I often have to ask someone to repeat what they said
• I always use a caption generator at the theater, and always have captions on the TV and STILL I can't hear everything
• Cannot stand in one place for more than 20 minutes
• Cannot sit for more than an hour, without walking around for 20 minutes
• I have to urinate every two hours, and carry a CVS-purchased urine bag in my pocket in case I can't make it to the toilet
• Claustrophobia

The Dream Council

I have an idea for a book for young adults.

When I was in about second and third grades I had a recurring dream of being chased by a witch to a fiery cauldron, where she would call the tall, swarthy guards to throw me in the fire.

That's when I would wake up...in a cauldron. (No. Kidding. In my bed.)

Another recurring dream was discovering a pacing lion under my bed and when I go to look, the animal roars and runs at me. Another is that I go up stairs into the dark and suddenly feel terrified. Over the years my dreams have been so vivid, as everyones are at some point, that I am totally relieved when I wake to find it was a dream. Sigh of relief. It usually had to do with trying to find someone after I drop them off in front of a venue, like a theater, while I go park. Or promise to meet someone at a specific time and a dozen things thwart me.

Premise: Gods of the night and dreams aren't only ictional, mythological beings. Every religion has a divine presence that, according to history, prompts or leads dreams, deciding which are nightmares, and which are not. There are only a handful of humans, I being one, who knows this truth because of dream experiences from early in my life. Those humans have often mingled in one another's dreams, but unless one is conscious of this fact, it's just another mysterious face. In this world, the humans can meet, in their dreams, but those young to the practice, are only briefly able to hold their focus and stay in the meetings, which seem like hours or days in dream life, but are only seconds long, as most dreams that we have are.

The gods are introduced, telling of each culture's preoccupation with dreams and what they mean.

The Dream Council is aware of how one of the gods is determined to change waking life to her best interests. Although dreams are created to power the imagination, and perhaps, inspire life changes. This god wants to not just inspire, but direct, not just for one or two people, but thousands, millions, and she has the power to do this. She must be stopped, along with her Dream Minions who play crucial roles. This power could be life altering, motivating entire populations to dream and, thus, think alike.

How did she acquire this power? Who else among the gods is helping her? Who among the gods also want her to stop? and will that god join with the Dream Council to create the barriers needed to stop her from access to multiple humans?

Other gods throughout history have manipulated the thinking of entire populations, with the holocaust the most vivid example. Others include discovery of America, annihilation of Indian populations, and (possibly, but a stretch) the extinction of the dinosaur.

Dream Council members first discover their powers when a number of dreams actually come true for them, friends, family, even total strangers. Aunt Maggie's dog ran away. Where is it? A member of the Council knows, finds the dog, and brings it to Aunt Maggie. Other actions, such as winning the lottery are foretold, but also the subsequent result of the win (they buy a new car and are all killed in a crash), but can someone on the Council warn of this happening? That is a line that the Council, until now, are prohibited from crossing. The Laws of Dreams prevails.

Exercise Smexercise

We all wish we didn't have to exercise and have the doctor announce the Excellent Health of President Donald Trump. He plays golf a lot, but that's more for fun, he says. But I don't want to look like him, baggy at the corners, thick around my waist, and droopy face.

Oops, I may be too late. Sad.

Improbably, I still weigh 160 pounds, but my body is following the fall of gravity. I have to pull my pants up, which are already so tight if I tried to adjust my belt I would pinch my stomach. I just returned from 20 minutes walking up Nautilus, left on West Muirlands Drive, and back to my house. I try to do this, or something comparable, every day. I do enjoy walking quickly up the steps next to La Valencia from the Cove to Prospect...maybe twice.

I'm so beat I don't want to get out of my chair.

I was worried this morning when I was taking a dump and ran out of breath between grunts.

My doctor told me that before I stand up after a night's sleep to sit on the side of my bed because my blood pressure changes so much.

Stop writing, stop living

Prolific fiction author Stephen King was asked recently whether he ever tired of writing. His response  was prescient, to me, at least: If you stop loving to write, you have stopped loving to live.

I have frequently procrastinated writing even a line or two because 1) I'm too busy or 2) I'm too tired. Too tired to write...too tired to live? Too busy to write...too busy to live?

I do love writing, but I find myself doling emails or my responses, occasionally adding a comment after a Facebook post. After taking the reins on the Friends of the Library book store I was enjoying a series of posts to volunteers during the first seven days of the new year, delineating some of the changes, and adding a link to a library-related site. That was fun.

Without a specific audience, I struggle with typing out my thoughts or describing my activities. I expect no one will read any of what I write in these posts, but there are times when writing would be one of my most therapeutic and relaxing exercises.

SitNCycle: Return to Sender

A friend told me about buying a SitNCycle and how much it had helped him keep in shape. Looking for anything that would help combat my expanded presence, I went online and saw what I thought was going to be a way to exercise my way through my favorite TV shows.

I ordered the $245 machine ("Full Refund" if it didn't work for me) in my favorite color, aqua, and it arrived about 10 days later. Cool, I'll see if I can get this set up and lose a few despicable pounds. The commercial looked promising. An elderly woman (older than me, anyway) was pictured using the bike in front of the TV (yes, that's for me!) and easily carrying it from the living room to a hall closet.

But I think there must have been hidden wires in that video that help lift the bike off the ground to make it look so easy to carry around. My experience wasn't so cool.

For one, it was delivered to my porch, an easy walk to the garage. I could barely lift one end of the box off the ground. I finally dragged it to the garage, displacing all the pea gravel in the path. I cut the box open and found about a dozen pieces that I, presumably, could put together with help from a small-print booklet. First thing I found was a sandwich bag full of washers, bolts and nuts. That alone weighed a pound. I disassembled the parts, separating everything from the thick styrofoam packaging. I better keep this, thinking maybe I might have to return it.

There was no "might" about it. The base of the bike was too heavy to lift out of the box to set it upright to begin assembly. I stood over the mess. considering asking my "friend" to help me put this together. But even if he did assist me, I would still have to carry the thing around whenever I wanted to cycle. I carefully put everything back in the box, less the packing foam, and slid it onto a handcart, which i could use to move it.

Two weeks later I went out to look at it again. No, it wasn't my weak muscles that are to blame, but I could barely maneuver the cart. Another week went by before I decided that I wanted to return it to the company for my refund. I carefully packed it all in the box to (somehow) get it from the floor, into my car, and take it to the FedEx office. I accomplished this task, and shipped it back for my "Full Refund."

However, the cost of shipping was my problem. The company wouldn't provide a mailing label. The guy at the FedEx place asked me if the company would reimburse me for the shipping because it was going to cost $110. No, the shipping was my responsibility, so I'd pay it.

About two weeks later I got the $245 deposited back into my bank account. So this misadventure resulted in a true refund of $135, less the shipping. The company did offer me $35 if I'd just keep the bike, but at that point I didn't want to see the thing again. And what would I do with it if I did keep it? In a couple of years it would be still shoved in the corner of the garage being used as a clothes rack, the destiny of most exercise bikes.

But probably not still in the boxes they came in.

Leon's Homeless, Thanks to Texas' Efforts to Disenfranchise

I met Jackson last Tuesday in front of Carl’s Jr. on Convoy Street. I had just left my car to be repaired so I had the day to hang out. I gave Jackson, holding a worn cardboard sign asking for help, a $20 bill after we’d talked for a while.

“What’s your story?” I asked him, something I often do when I meet the homeless.

He had been in jail for two months for carrying a nunchuck, he said, something the police said was an illegal weapon. “When I got out, two women befriended me about a week later. All smiles, they were, and told me I could trust them. The next morning all my i.d. was gone.”

He’d been trying to get his Social Security payments, but didn’t have any identification. He did, however, have written down his SS and Texas driver’s license numbers. I thought maybe I could help this guy, so I invited him into Carls for something to eat and some snacks for the rest of the day.

His eventual story was so believable and fraught with the kind of details that bothered me so much (sleeping under store fronts, spending the day begging, a family that disowned him) that I asked him how I could help even more. There were things I could do. At least give him some more money for some thrift store clothes, and buy some groceries for a couple of days.

Knowing the weather was going to get nasty, I said I’d pay for him to stay at a motel for a couple of days. He had enough information that I could pay for a Texas birth certificate to be mailed to me, and I would help him get some i.d.

After a cab ride to the library on Aero drive and use of a computer I could enter what info I could and see what would happen. This is when I stepped into a legal morass that has kept me awake in the middle of the night.

We found the Texas web site and entered all the information, including birthdate, SS and DL numbers, and parents first, middle and last names. I was so relieved that I could help him in this way. But then we discovered how Texas and other states have effectively blocked the disenfranchised with this kind of mind-boggling hurdle: Jackson needed an “audit number” next to his DL photo to verify his identity.

Jackson didn’t have such a number, as it wasn’t something he knew from his original license. But to get his birth certificate for proof of identity we needed to be able to prove his identity, despite all the pertinent details.

I was flummoxed. There’s got to be a way to help him around this dead end. Maybe I could help him get his SS, which had been denied him. The next morning I took him to the Aero Drive SS office with all the information he had, details I expected the clerk there would honor. Nope. In fact, his record showed that, without proper i.d. there was a fraud alert that blocked his access to  $920 a month in disability payments he had been owed since early last year.

Jackson left the office in an understandable rage, and I followed him to the car under such a cloud of futility that I told him there must be a way around this. I took him back to his motel, at least happy he was out of the rain last Thursday, stopping at a market for food that would last a couple of days, at least until I’d done more research.

We needed to somehow get a copy of his birth certificate. Could he contact his mom in Houston? No, he couldn’t reach her after she moved. His brother and sister refuse to take his calls.

Yes, I provided Jackson with all the info on homeless shelters, food pantries, and other services, which he said hadn’t been as much help as he’d hoped. Whether this was true, I just had to take his word for it. 

My friends have told me I’ve done more for a homeless person than they would have ever done. True, but I couldn’t get him his birth certificate.

I had paid for the motel through Monday night, glad that I could keep Jackson dry for a couple more days. Saturday I called him and explained that I’d done everything I could to help him.

“What am I going to do now?” he asked. “Maybe money for the bus to Los Angeles. I’ll have better luck up there.”

But how would that be any better than San Diego?

“At least I wouldn’t be here any more,” he said. I explained again that I’d done all I could.

“Thanks for helping me to Tuesday morning. I’ll check out when I’m supposed to, and hang out in Kearny Mesa.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“So am I,” and he ended the call.