CONTINUED: Fire Call

As the firemen set up the truck and microphone and speaker, the entire student body somehow became  arranged on the grass strip between the school building and the parking lot.  Nuns moved among us like Chain Gang deputies, but without the whips and shotguns.   Soon we were ready for the two smartest kids in eighth grade to deliver their “Fire Safety” talks.  The thirteen year olds

were cousins, a girl and boy from a family that had been saddled with high IQ’s ever since their great grandparents began a dynasty of wizards in the last century.  Each of the family’s  generations played a role in the great affairs of our fair city.  Ronald and Margaret would in the coming  years continue their family tradition by running for office and becoming our rulers,  judging our legal transgressions and  prosecuting the worst of us.  These kids were so eloquent, they’d  been on the speaking circuit since third grade.  Neither had many friends.  Ronald had begun to read  Kafka and was a rather cold young man.  Margaret evinced warmth and compassion, but she was rather needy and could be quite adamant.  When her mother didn’t produce the requested baby sister, the girl asked for a dog and named it Cindy.

Ronald’s speech, “Fire Safety in the Home, School, Church and Beyond,” treated the specter of  accidental fires breaking out in your kitchen, in the school’s lunch room,  and on our church’s candle-lit altar.  This last possibility jarred me, frankly.  I had never considered the inherent danger of  attending Mass, especially a high mass, when candle lighting shifted into high gear.  I made a mental note to spend some time thinking about balancing the need for

liturgy and the sin of  putting myself in the way of mortal jeopardy.  I reasoned it was an apt topic for consideration.  Too bad it wasn’t spring, when I always began a list of interesting topics to ponder while imprisoned at The Stations Of The Cross after school each Friday afternoon during Lent.  The year before, I spent Friday afternoons between stanzas of  Stabat Mater trying to recall every line in the film,  “The Glenn Miller Story.”  By Good Friday,  I was two thirds of the way through the script.  I saw the movie four times.   I was in love with June Allyson.

Margaret’s talk began on a light note, with babies and young children playing and laughing, tumbling down the hills in the back yards of  cute little white  houses on tree-lined streets, populated with the homes of attorneys and senior level bank officials.  In one such house dwelled Billy and Mary Magdelen and Mom and Dad.  The little family lived an exemplary life and prayed the rosary each evening, before watching the News with John Cameron Swayze.  But Dad forgot to have the furnace maintained one year and the house blew up.

“Ka-BOOM!!” shouted Margaret  into the microphone, as she stood on  a makeshift pulpit just aft of the fire truck’s cab.  The Lieutenant, leaning against the fire engine’s intake valve, jumped when the girl bellowed.  She was a hefty young lady  and had a prodigious voice that would have eventually served her well as a fifth grade teacher, had she not become the District Attorney.    The girl followed her exploding sound  effects  with the whooshing  noises of   debris flying through the air. Some of the younger children in the crowd began to look frightened..

Margaret continued her parable.   The young  boy and girl arrived home from school on that cold and snowy winter afternoon to find pieces of their life all over the neighborhood.   As brother and sister made their way along the familiar streets,  they first spied Mary Magdelen’s doll up in a tree on Bonnie Brae Place, and then the  twisted remains of Billy’s bicycle over on Ferris Avenue.  Dad was still at work.  Mom had been in the basement doing the laundry, but now pieces of  her were arriving steadily in heaven.  The children sat down in a snow bank (this was Utica, after all) and cried their little eyes out, knowing Dad would be angry when he finally arrived to find a 30 foot crater where his home once stood.  All this grief was the consequence of not keeping a list of home maintenance reminders.  “And by the way,” Margaret  said as she slapped her forehead a little too forcefully,  “where would they eat supper tonight?  How terribly, terribly sad,” she said.

Sparky, the Dalmatian, was apparently quite touched by Margaret’s tale.  He began wailing and whimpering and snuffling until the Lieutenant lovingly took hold of the dog’s collar.  It could have been my imagination, but the man seemed to twist  the choker rather tightly.  Sparky’s crying stopped abruptly, but he soon got  loose and jumped off the truck into the crowd of children.  Our cries of surprise and delight quickly turned to disgust and laughter when Sparky lifted his leg against the black skirts of Sister Bunny.  You really couldn’t blame the dog.  The nun indeed resembled a street lamp, with her jet black attire and the bursting white “flying nun” hat on top.

Billy and Mary Magdelen were taken off to an orphanage that definitely did not serve desserts.  At that point in her talk,  Margaret smiled broadly, looked around the crowd and said, “Thank you all very much for coming to see me.  I am extremely grateful to have been chosen from among hundreds of children (true, if you counted everyone all the way down to kindergarten) to deliver  The Distinguished Annual Fire Safety Lecture at this prestigious institution.”  (That would be our elementary school.)  With that, she jumped from the truck, alarming the Lieutenant, who was now holding on to Sparky for dear life. 

The students  began to grow restless as their minds turned to warm baloney sandwiches and government subsidized milk in tiny bottles … 2 cents for white, 3 cents for chocolate.  Even the nuns looked  tired.  The firemen reminded us once more not to play with matches.  They  revved up the siren one last time as we all held our hands over our ears.  Another successful visit from the Utica Fire Department came to a close. 

My mind turned from the fire trucks to other topics.  Question No. 372 had begun to bother me a little and I wondered why Mom seemed so pleasant to that man in Woolworth’s last week.  She told me he was a friend of Dad’s.  Ah well, it was my favorite time of year and I tried not to ruminate so much in good  weather.   Later that morning,  I wrote a note about  the Woolworth’s incident on a candy wrapper and stuck it in between the pages toward the back of my catechism.  We wouldn’t get there until March, and that was an eternity of time,  far awa

y into the future.  Who could guess?  By then, anything might happen.  The church could go up in smoke, Mom could run off with the milkman and Sparky could get accidentally strangled.

copyright 2008 by David Griffin

Another memory from O.L.O.Lourdes, this time in the depths of winter.  February 11 was the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and it was a very cold day in 1955.  There I was in my brown gabardine pants, cowboy shirt, plastic western string tie, buckle-up snow boots, imitation Navy Pea Coat and sheepskin lined bombardier hat from Bernie Phillipsons Army-Navy Store (don't ask whose army,) forced out of Our Lady of Lourdes School on a February afternoon, ejected from our over-heated, over-populated fifth grade classroom by Sister Mary Wenceslas, to stand like a group of miniature prisoners in snow up past our knees, as the wind howled and boogers slid down my nasal canal and were snap-frozen right at the edge of the nostril by a temperature hovering near ten below, trying to hold my body against the 40 mile an hour wind as I grasped the little paperboard song book containing a selection of 973 songs of praise to Mary, an entity we were forbidden to worship ... but I guess under a thousand songs is OK .... trying to hold the little book in my German Alps Ski Commando leather mittens, gathered around the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and led by Sister Majestyria in songs of esteem, including Sister's favorite, Queen of the May, bizarrely set to the clank of tire chains out on Genesee Street. 

Having spent the daytime hours of my formative years with religious women, I’ve always been careful to not get on the wrong side of Mary, and have always hoped she has a sense of humor.  It just now occurs to me she must, since her Lourdes apparition means she landed in France.  You can’t possibly survive in that country without a sense of humor.

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Make Hay While The Sun Shines

Albert left in a huff in 1914 after a fight involving money, ran away to Blackduck, Minnesota where he worked in the woods.  Inebriated, his shack burned in winter, left to find help, froze his feet and lost some toes. Died and the powers that be shipped his body back to Manawa  by train to be buried next to his parents on the Klingbeil family cemetery in 1950.

 Gustav Jule Klingbeil married Emma Braun, sired eight children, Edward, Melvin, Oscar, George, Walter, Frieda Johnson, Dorothy Worm, Eleanora Buth,  farmed in Little Wolf.  Bertha, my grandmother married Fred Lembke in 1897, lived thither and yon, spending the last years in Big Falls after a hiatus at the Klingbeil farm. Six children: Emma Beyersdorf, Louie, Elsie Schmidt, Alma Zillmer, Leona Ostermann and Clarence Lembke.   Ella married Ernest Johnson, farmed at Elderon where he died of blood poisoning.  Twins Richard and Annah.    Ella died in December 1965, the last leaf on the Klingbeil tree.    Minnie married Bill Becker, farmed in Dupont. near Lake Michael School. Three daughters Irene Steinbach, Viola Schorweide, and Ruby Worm.  In 1940 after Bill's death Minnie sold the farm to Lester Bork, who built a new house for his bride.  Marie the baby married Frank Becker, resided in Sheboygan, two children Harold and Lucile Reinbacher who just passed away at the age of 99.  

It is uncountable the number of descendants that Wilhelmine and Gottfried Klingbeil have now in 2015, all because they pulled up roots and traveled to America in 1873 on the Good Ship Leipzig.  They traveled with Gottfried's sister Henrietta whose first husband was Kienitz.  He died and she married Carl Knopp and had many children.  Members of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Manawa.  All walked the ten miles for the rite of Confirmation in German.  

Robert and William Klingbeil never married, bachelors,  farmed the home place and because it was the 'home' place, many relatives came to stay or live for a few days or months or years.  Rob and Bill welcomed everyone, as shown by the photographs surviving.

Gradually winter fades, spring and summer come,

The ground will warm up, the hay will grow,

Time to prepare the hay mower,

Check the tires on the wagons

Roll the hay with a side deliver rake,

Let dry for a few days, sunshine is needed.

Harness the horses to the wagon and hay loader

Hours and hours hauling in the hay.

Among those spending  summers on the farm was Harold Becker of Sheboygan , a lad of about 14 years old, in 1929.  As a Christmas gift from Santa Claus, Harold received a Box Camera.  Took many many pictures, had multiple copies made for all the relatives and for some reason, Delores inherited all of them.   At some time Harold contacted Infantile Paralysis or Polio.  He survived with the good nursing of his Mother Marie.  Went on to college and politics and was voted Register of Deeds of Sheboygan County.

It looked like a happy time on the farm from the smiles on the pictures.  Harold reminisced that they brought the train from Sheboygan to Sugar Bush were Uncle Rob met them with a horse and buggy, even in 1929.  To spend the summer on the farm.  Making hay.  Harold helped with harnessing the two teams of horses, hooked up to the hay mower, side deliver rake and finally to the wagon and hay loader.  No pictures showing how the hay was hoisted into the barn.

Harold even took pictures of Uncle Bill hauling out manure with the team of horses.  No doubt Harold had to shovel manure on to the spreader.  Another picture shows hauling the milk cans to the Little Creek Cheese Factory.  

Each weekend relatives descended on the home farm, 20-30 people, pictures show women in silk dresses, cotton stockings, fancy hats,  high heels.  Men with fedoras, white shirts, ties, vests with a watch fob and suits.  No making hay on Sunday, it was a day for visiting and resting and eating. A niece remarked Uncle Rob had chickens and for Sunday dinner would wring its neck and roast with caraway seed and  heavy cream taken from the top of milk cans.  All baked in a wood cookstove with no refrigeration or microwave.

Great Uncle Bill helped with the horses and a corn binder and threw the bundles on a flat rack wagon.  Brought to the silo, and while throwing the bundles on the chopper, his arm was entangled and he died two weeks later on August 29, 1949.  Uncle Rob continued farming  until 1954 when he sold the farm, after being in the Klingbeil name for 80 years.  He lived for a time with his niece and nephew Walter and Irene Steinbach before passing away at the Waupaca County Poor Farm Asylum in 1961.   The end of an era.  Good times.

copyright Delores and Russell Miller, 2015

CONTINUED: Murphy's First Birthday

“A check list, yes,” I said, “so I can check off the things I’ve done right.”

“OK, that’s fair.  We’ll make a check list for a One Year Old Dog.”

“You handle the pencil and paper,” I said.  “I don’t write very well.”

“Here,” he said, “let me label this across the top of the sheet of paper: ‘Expected Behavior of  An Alive And Currently Breathing One Year Old Dog.' Now,  what shall we put down first on our list?"  

“OK, first,” I said. “He doesn’t poop on the floor. Ever.”

“You did last week,” said the old guy.

“Yeah, but that didn’t count.  I got messed up on my schedule.”

“Actually,” he said, “you lost track of what you were doing during your time outside and then had to go when you got back in the house.”

“OK, OK,” I said, but I want half credit for that one.  Here’s another.  And this one is important: ‘Dog Defends His Servants From all Perils.’

“You do?” he said, his eyes rolling.  “All you do is run around the house heedlessly barking out the windows at nothing.”

“I’m trying to cover all the perils,” I said.

“How about waiting till you see one before you start barking?”

“Never give a peril a chance to get ahead of you,” I said. “But I’ve got another.  Write this down. “Contributes to Household Economy By Eating Outdated Dog Food Without Complaint.”

“Wait a minute, there’s nothing wrong with that food,” he said.

“Here’s another,” I said.  “Write this down: ‘Establishes Home’s Reputation By Welcoming Anyone Who Walks Through The Door.”

“You jump all over them,” he said, “and won’t leave them alone the entire time they’re visiting.”

“Like I said …”

“You terrorized the young widow Mrs. Zolushka, our Russian Avon lady.”

“Who, me?”

“You wouldn’t stop licking her.  I had to stop you at her elbows.”

“You’re just jealous,” I told him.

“Regardless …”

“I can’t get enough of that Volgograd Sleeper Cell body lotion,” I said. "Or her other favorite." 

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I buy it from the young lady just to help her out.”

“You shouldn’t be wearing that stuff,” I said.

“I don’t,” he said, “I use it to clean the drains.”

“Why do I feel like I’m losing this game,” I asked.  “How many accomplishments can I have on your list?”

“As many as you want,” he said.

“I mean how many checkmarks do I need to have a party?”

“Let’s say … five.”

“How many do I have so far?”

“None that I can see.”

“We’re wasting time and you’re pulling one of my four legs,“ I said. “I saw my birthday cake on the kitchen table.”

“There’s the doorbell,” he said.  “It’s Mrs. Zolushka.”

You can’t go wrong when your servants bake you a cake and your birthday present shows up at the door wearing Pushkin Nights body lotion.

Copyright by David Griffin, 2015

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

.www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Gentleman

"This is a good place for the two of you," said Mr. Czupryna, the lunch room monitor and Business Studies teacher.  "All we need are bars to put around you to complete the picture."

"Picture of what?" asked Joey.

"Imbecility," answered Mr. Czupryna.  "Late stage."

Joey laughed his silly laugh, but frankly I was embarrassed to be insulted by a teacher, of all people.  I took it to mean he assumed we were too stupid to know his behavior was wrong.

The boiler shaking away behind the wall helped muffle the comments we made concerning  the sophomore girls in our class and the other high school maidens up through the  more buxom senior girls.  The lunch room monitor couldn't hear us over the noise, even when he came down to our end of the room.  In the 1950s, discussing female anatomical measurements in public would have landed us in detention.  Joey and I  normally used superlatives and seldom noted our observations in inches, preferring instead to describe a young woman's attributes with reference to one garden vegetable or another.  I suppose that would be two garden vegetables.  The produce stand of our imagination provided an adequate vocabulary to carry on our conversation, and a rich set of gestures allowed us to communicate our adolescent impressions over the noise of the furnace.

An older kid, a senior named Ronnie, soon began to show  up at our table, but he sat 12 feet away at the other end.  We tolerated his presence because he good naturedly ignored us.  He was therefore a much more acceptable table mate than someone who would have considered us moronic and said so.  I recognized Ronnie from the ball field, had spoken to him a few times and knew him to be what my mother called a gentleman.  He never said a bad word about anyone.  Ronnie was the kind of kid who would acknowledge you  ... he wasn't stuck up ... but he seldom engaged in conversation unless you spoke to him.  And if he didn't like what you were saying, he would politely make sure it ended.

 Coming from the upper classman end of the school, Ronnie always arrived five minutes after Joey and I sat down.  Each day he brought his unusual lunch and set it up at his end of the table.

He had chosen our all but deserted spot because he needed room to spread out his lunch of multiple dishes and serving paraphernalia.  A wide place simply wasn't available at the other tables, crowded as they were with the next generation of criminal nitwits.

He gave us a nod while he hefted his shopping bag up on to the table and emptied out the contents.  Joey and I interrupted our girl watching to enjoy the show at the other end of the table. Compared to my consistent fare of either warm baloney or peanut butter and something sugary, Ronnie's repast usually came in a square cake pan which held meat or a pasta dish.  There was always a saucer of coleslaw or vegetable wrapped in tin foil, a bottle of A&P soda and usually two cupcakes.  There were other bits and pieces, such as celery stalks and scallions and maybe a good sized chunk of garlic bread, probably from last night's Italian dinner.  The reverent way he handled the dishes and arranged them in a precise pattern held our attention.  I am quite sure that if allowed, he would have brought a candle and lit it with a long taper.

Equally interesting was the ritual he used to serve himself the food.  He did not eat out of the cake pan or the other dishes, but neatly laid out three or four five-inch  paper plates designed to hold a piece of party cake.  Then he stood and served food out of the containers onto the little plates.  Ready at this point to eat, Ronnie sat down, blessed himself and said a quiet prayer of grace.  Only then did he begin his meal.

Joey and I returned to our discussion of onions, oranges, grapefruits and cantaloupes while we privately longed for that great day in the future when each of us might frolic in our own garden.  Something funny caught our fancy ... something funny probably happened 2 or 3 times each minute in the school lunchroom ... and we roared with laughter.  Mr. Czupyrna gave us a threatening look.  We laughed even harder, but not out loud, with our arms held up hiding our faces.  Ronnie was unmoved by any of this.  He seemed not to care whether his future garden held cumquats or zucchini and I doubted he ever discussed the topic.  He was always aloof and sometimes I sensed he felt superior to us.  I was sensitive to what I imagined was his judgment, because Joey was beginning to wear on me with his juvenile antics.  He had made suggestive comments to a few girls and then laughed like a hyena when they walked away.  I was more and more embarrassed by him, but  I was not yet ready to search out new friends. 

When a red headed girl walked by our table, my comment to Joey was louder than I intended.  She stopped and turned to me and demanded my name. I ignored her.

"Stand up," she said.

I immediately had a bad feeling.

"I said, 'Stand up.'" she said again, this time louder. 

I smiled my best  John Wayne I-don't-give-a-damn-Ma'am smirk and got out of my chair.  Her timing was perfect. As I came up from my seat, she stepped in toward me and her elbows shot out from her side.  Her cupped fists shot up under my chin and would have connected with a terrific force had I not caught her wrists just in time.  Still, she connected and my tongue was caught between my teeth.  I could taste blood in my mouth.  Incensed, I began to push her downward by the wrists.  She broke free and began to wildly slap me about the head.  Stepping back, I stumbled over the chair and went down backwards on the floor.

Grabbing on to the chair, I worked my way up to my feet, my head spinning. I didn't want to hit a girl.  But this redhead was ready to swing on me again.

She stood  with her fists up, ready for me to come at her.  I didn’t know what to do or say.  So I swore at her and left the lunch room.  On my way out, I found Mr. Czuprna and, blood dribbling off my tongue into the corners of my mouth,  I announced  there was a girl student out of control who had just tried to injure me.

“Grow up,” he said.

When I saw her in the hallway the next week, I turned and walked away, twice making myself late for class.  I stopped going to the lunch room.  Joey just laughed it off and he continued to sit at the Furnace Table alone, except for Ronnie. 

Ronnie came up to me at the bus stop the next week and peered inquiringly at me.  He smirked and rubbed his jaw.  

"Man," he said, "that was certainly impressive.  She floored you."

"I tripped," I said.

"I notice you haven't been back to the lunch room, though," he said, trying to needle me.

"Got other things to do," I said.

"You're running from her, aren't you?"  he said.

"Ronnie," I said, raising my fist, "I'm warning you.  Shut up and move along or you'll get some of this."

"No." he said. "I don't think so.  You're a coward.  You've been running from her.”

"Oh," I said, "you think I should beat her up?  That doesn't sound like Mister Ronnie Manners"

"Or apologize to her,”  he said.  "Look, it’s none of my business, but you were wrong.  A gentleman would admit it.”

“And you’re the expert, huh?”  I said.  “With the four square lunch your Mommy makes you?  You know all about being a man. I’ll just bet you do.”

The smirk left his face and he looked down at the sidewalk.

“I make it myself at night,” he said.

I sneered.  “Well, cooking is really manly.”

“I live with my older brother,” he said.

“Very helpful, cooking for him, just like a mother,” I said, with emphasis on the last word.

“My mother died last year in a car accident,” he said.

I looked at him.  He wasn’t kidding.  His eyes carefully checked out the concrete surface below as if an army of ants was staging a war dance. He seemed to have lost all interest in me.

“My Dad never came back from the war.” he said.  “There’s just the two of us at  home now.”

“Oh,”  I said.  “Well, I’m  … a … well …”

"It’s my main meal of the day, " he said, "and I ... pretend they’re with me.  My brother won't allow it at home.”

I didn't say anything.  He sighed, then looked up at me.

“You should make more of an effort to become a gentleman,” he said.  “Especially since your mouth gets you into more trouble than you can talk yourself out of and you don’t like to fight.”

He walked off before I could punch him.  But of course I wouldn’t have hit him. I was indeed a physical coward.  He had that right.  I didn’t feel bad about it.  I’d learned my lessons in grade school and didn’t want to get my nose busted any more.

I walked around for a few days and wondered if I was a gentleman.  I reluctantly decided I was not, but I aspired to be one.  After all, my father was certainly a gentleman in the way he acted with everyone.  He came from a family with a rough style, but he developed his manners by what he learned from others.  I had his example and I could have my own experience work for me if I hung out with the right people.

The next afternoon I found the red headed girl sitting on the pipe railing by the sidewalk outside of school.  She stood up when I  approached her, but didn’t raise her fists.  There was a mixture of fear and determination in her eyes, eyes that were really quite pretty.  I wondered if she might date me.  It couldn't hurt to ask.  One never knows, I've heard, when the love of your life will come along.

“I just wanted to apologize,” I said.  “For anything you may have heard me say.”

“OK,” she said.  No smile, no comment about what a great gentleman I was to apologize.  Not a good sign, coming from the woman I might marry some day ... if she promised not to hit me again.

     “Well,” I said, “I’m just trying to do the

right …

     “Get lost,” she said.  She sat back down on the railing and opened her book.  An unkind comment came to mind, but I resisted the urge to say it.  Instead, I got lost.

     Nobody said being a gentleman would be easy.

copyright 2012, David Griffin

Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Genius

When I was a young man my fellow Spark Plugs in the Jaycees were infatuated with what I think they called Thought Patterning.  The technique discouraged negative thinking, and there was far more emphasis on positive thoughts as a route to success.  You kept your mind on getting a great job, for example, and it somehow came your way, because imagining success motivated you to accomplish little deeds that added up to big results.  Of course,  we were young and had a narrow understanding of success.  We wanted money, frankly,  more than we wanted to find a purpose or  to build a life upon our strengths.  I was nearly forty years of age before I began to see that real success could happen only when I dug deep in order to know myself, then set reasonable goals and worked toward them.   What I labored for was just as important.  My goals weren't always  worthwhile.  Sometimes they were selfish and benefited no one else.

I'll admit Thought Patterning made some sense to me in those years.  That was before I learned I couldn't control the future.  I might  try to accomplish many things, but the results were often out of my control.  That took a while to sink in.

Of course, the idea of thinking your way to success is fraught with controversy.  You may not be surprised to learn that billions of people don't believe you can have what you want by simply imagining it. 

On Amazon's website, a book that promised astounding career results was dealt this comment by an unhappy buyer: "The publisher of this book should have their right to publish revoked. A colossal waste of money."  But anyone has a right to empty dreams, both publishers and those who would try to achieve their dreams by reading a book.

 

Somewhere in my young adulthood I also discovered that native ability trumped wishes every time.  There are people walking the earth with amazing special talents and I am not one of them. When I finally came across true genius, I was stunned to see how it overshadowed my ordinary abilities.  I got over my disappointment, however, and was relieved to finally understand why some men and women comprehended so much more than me and understood ideas  so much faster. They are the brilliant ones who see concepts in their mind's eye as clear and bright as jelly beans in a crystal wine glass, while I squint to see meaning as if peering through a glass of day old tea.

Grateful to know my role on earth was not to explain everything to everyone,  I settled down to live with my comparative dullness.  I began to ask questions, instead of always assuming I knew the answers. That's when I began to get a tiny bit more intelligent. It's been going slowly.  I'll never be a real genius,  but if I live to be about 112, I might get pretty smart and become a Life Coach.

CONTINUED: Little Lie

“I will when I can verify you’re actually at the North exit.  You get your directions mixed up, come out the wrong exit  and I drive around wondering where the hell you …” 

“It says ‘North Exit’ in big letters,” she said, “in English, right over the door.  Which I’m walking through now.”

“I don’t see  you,”  I said from my perch up at the end of the parking lot.  “You should carry the Boy Scout compass I gave you for these occasions.”

“I am at the north parking lot exit,” she said heatedly.  “I’m not carrying that thing.  I’d look like a surveyor.”

“With the flip-up mirror, anyone would think you’re just checking your make-up with a compact.”

“Who carries a brass compact mirror as big as a hockey puck?  I’m holding up my shopping bag.” she said.  “You can’t miss it.  It’s bright pink. Can you see me?”

“No,” I said, “wave it back and forth.”

“Oh, for … I can’t,” she said, “it’s too heavy.”

“Set down the bag and just raise both hands and wave,” I said.  “Like a cheerleader,” I added.

I got no answer.  Perhaps I needed to explain further.

“You’re too short,” I said.  “Can you get some height?  Remember jumping jacks,  where you jump up and clap your hands together over your head?  Or is there a bench or something you can climb up on?”

Still no answer.

“Are you there?”  I asked.  “Are you listening?”

“I stopped listening to you the first year we were married,” she replied.  “I’m busy looking for a nice young man to buy a drink for a soon-to-be widow.”

You know, it’s simply amazing how we can miss the little things in life.  I’d been sitting there up at the end of the North parking lot for almost an hour without noticing that the sign on the mall building I was watching  plainly read “South Entrance.”  I guess that meant I was in the South parking lot.

“OK I see you!”  I hurriedly shouted into the cell phone as I turned the key and ripped the shift lever down into Drive.

I lied. “Yes, that’s you.  Gee you’re just as pretty from a distance as the day I married you,” I added.

“Then remind me to keep my distance from you,” she said.

The car in front of me stopped abruptly and waited to take the place of an SUV backing out.  This annoys me.  I stopped in time only a foot from her rear bumper.  The SUV driver couldn’t see traffic in either direction and he inched out backwards a tiny bit at a time

“Where are you?” asked my wife. 

“I’m in motion,”  I said.

“Uh huh,” she said, “don’t hurt yourself.”

The SUV driver was now out far enough to see up and down the traffic lane.  He accelerated and  swooped backward, crashing into the driver waiting in front of me.  Her car lurched backward and hit my bumper.

I got out to inspect the damage to my car… only a slight scratch.  

“What’s going on?” asked my wife.

“I’m caught in traffic.” I lied again.

The woman ahead of me was taking a long look at the front of her car while the other driver stepped from his SUV and apologized.

“No problem with my car,”  I said as I approached the two, holding the cell phone away from me with my finger over what I thought was the tiny voice pickup on the device.

They didn’t seem to notice me.  “And your back bumper looks OK,” I said to the woman. 

“It’s my husband’s new car,” she said to no one in particular.  “He will absolutely kill me!”

“I gotta go,” I said to her, with my hand up in the air, the cell phone held as far away from me as possible.  Some day I’ll find the mute button.  The last time I held my hand that high was in the third grade the day I almost wet my pants before getting the teacher’s attention. 

A policeman materialized to my right. 
”Sir, I’ll need your license and registration,” he said.  “You can put your hand down now.”

“Honey, I’ve been involved in a minor accident,” I said into the phone.

“Well, you look OK to me,” said my wife, standing now to my left.

“I brought her with me,” said the policeman. 

“I heard the crash on the phone,” she said.

“While you were standing on the bench, lady,” said the policeman.

“He said he was arresting me,” my wife said, glancing at me with what might have been a proud look on her face.

“I said I was rescuing you, Ma’am.” said the policeman.

“Well, I was only standing there, young man, and this is America!” said my wife.  “You’re lucky I hadn’t started my jumping jacks.”

copyright David Griffin, 2011

CONTINUED: Escort

“I was embarrassed to ask,” he told me later.

“Why?” I said, “A colonoscopy is a common procedure these days.”

“Well, I never heard of it,” said Willard. “It sounded scary and if I asked a neighbor I was sure word would get back to the Missus and she’d worry over it.”

“Gee, Willard,” I said, “why didn’t you call me? I would have given you a ride.”

“Like I said,” he replied, “you’ve got a big mouth.”

Willard said the hospital refused to consider a taxi for the ride home. Few cab drivers would come up to the second floor and sign the documentation as a designated driver.  Senior Citizen organizations weren’t of any help. With the high price of gas these days, few people could afford to ferry patients back and forth to their appointments.

 “So I called an Escort Service,” said Willard.

“You didn't!” I said. "Did you know what they do?”

 “I do now,” he said, shaking his head.      

Willard found the telephone number in the yellow pages under Personal Services, but put off calling until the afternoon before his hospital appointment. He finally dialed the number and a woman at Layla’s Carpet Cleaning and Escort Service picked up after ten rings. He hemmed and hawed, as usual, and she probably guessed Willard was an aging amateur who was naive in the ways of the world.

“Are you ready for a woman who’ll knock your socks off?” said Layla.

Willard told her he never takes his socks off in company.

 “Do you have a safe driving record?” he asked.

“Oh, c’mon you old goat,” Layla said.

“Well,” said Willard, “safety is very important, as I used to tell my boys in the Scout troop.

"Look, honey," she said "I’m a certified carpet cleaner whose business is a little slow this time of year. You’re dealing with a professional in every sense of the word. You just forget your merit badges and remember you’re in safe hands with Lady Layla.”

"I guess you’ll be OK,” said Willard. “How much?"

“I call my specialty the Ride Of Your Life,” said Layla. “It'll cost you thirteen hundred dollars, and I’ll have you back home by Thursday."

Willard gulped. "I just want a ride to the hospital at nine in the morning," he cried. "And a ride back at noon."

"Anywhere you want,” she said. “If you’re short on time, elevators are OK.”

“It’s only up two floors,” he said.

“Just don’t choose a busy office building,” she said, not listening..

“I guess I’ll need you for about three hours,” Willard said.

 “That time of day you can have my $99.95 Morning Matinee Special.” She yawned loudly. "And I'll include my famous Feast of Many Dishes."

"No thanks," he said, "I can't eat anything after midnight."

Willard gave me a blow by blow description of his trip to the hospital with Layla.  She picked him up at his house the next morning. When he saw the old pink Cadillac coming down the street, he asked his wife to please look in the back hall for his umbrella, and he quickly ran out the front door. Jumping into what looked like a super sized serving of pink cotton candy, he landed next to a buxom lady whose scanty clothing caused Willard to hope she'd had her pneumonia shot. As they drove away, Layla chattered on about nothing in particular while she snapped chewing gum between the words of her incomplete sentences.

Each time the well endowed woman turned on to one street or another, she leaned back to lift herself off the steering wheel and Willard tried to stare elsewhere. Layla slowly made her way through traffic, waving to one man after another along their route through downtown.

“I cleaned his carpet real good,” she said after a man coming out of the bank returned her wave with an enthusiasm unbecoming a banker. Willard slid lower and lower in his seat.

"Why the hospital?" asked Layla.

"I guess what I need is too complicated for the doctor's office," he replied.

"It ain't complicated, honey," she said. "You just let Layla-girl be your nurse."

Willard sincerely hoped she would stay in the waiting room and not talk to the medical folks. "Don't worry," he said, "there'll be plenty of nurses for this job."

"Kinky," she said.

At the hospital Willard stayed a few steps ahead of Layla as they walked down the hall to a renovated part of the building an undergraduate intern from the architectural design school had named Gastro Intestinal Plaza. While the crowd of hospital workers and visitors were dressed for a normal morning of work, Willard's escort appeared to have borrowed her outfit from Tina Turner’s wardrobe.  

They checked in under a sign that read, "You Brought Your Colon To The Right Place!" A look of shock  crossed the matronly clerk's face when Layla bent over to sign the required paper.  Her halter just wasn’t up to the task.

“I don’t have enough hands to hold the pen and everything,” said Layla, as she unsuccessfully attempted to do so.

Willard tried to cover his embarrassment by explaining Layla as “my cousin Esther from Omaha. I'm lucky she just happened to be in town this week."

"Working a convention, no doubt," said the older woman through pursed lips.

A gentleman in the waiting room who had to be eighty looked up as Willard and Layla were finding a seat.

"Wow,” he said. “All I could find was my nephew to drive me here."

Layla turned to the old timer with a big smile and said, "I'm available this afternoon, my man."

"Do you give an AARP discount?" he said. "I'm on a fixed income.”

Layla put her palms on her thighs and slid them up the front of her body. "I have a very sliding scale," she said with lascivious wink.

Willard said at that point he'd had enough. He grabbed Layla's arm and pulled her down to sit beside him and told her to please behave herself. By now Layla realized the obvious. Willard would not be a big tipper.

The procedure went well, as far as Willard could tell. One minute they were rolling him over on the gurney and the next thing he remembered the nurse was telling Layla he should not engage in any strenuous activity for the rest of the day.

"I don't give refunds," she answered.

When Willard dressed and found his way back to the family waiting area, he found Layla getting a signature on a carpet cleaning job from a red-faced hospital administrator. She practically hung on the man, whispering words in his ear he probably hadn’t heard from most of the hospital’s independent contractors.

“It’s those little personal touches,” she told Willard as they left the hospital, “that always close the sale.”

"I was pretty woozy," he told me later, "when that Layla woman brought me home. The Missus came out on the porch when the pink Cadillac pulled in the driveway. I don't think she ever imagined I'd come home pot-eyed and be dragged up the steps by a show girl."

"How did you explain it?" I said.

"I didn't explain nothin'," he said. "Layla gave her the meds we must have picked up on the way home. She told my wife she'd found me wandering around the drug store, asking for Winston Churchill."

"That's a believable story," I said.

"Didn't work," said Willard. "The hospital had already called to ask if my wife was a rock musician or I'd gone off with the wrong driver."

"Uh-oh," I said. "You could have avoided all that trouble if you'd simply asked me to drive you."

"I know," he said, looking off in the distance and smiling. "But I would have missed the Feast of Many Dishes ... even though I can't remember any of them."

copyright, 2012  David Griffin

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com