Once Upon a Summertime

It was August in New Orleans.  By definition, that meant that not only was it hot and humid, but also altogether lacking in a breeze.

We’d been to Pres Hall the night before, and the huddled humanity inside that space practically fogged the windows with their water-logged breath.  I was, myself, reluctant to breathe and contribute to the problem, but did so anyway out of force of habit.

We’d spent much of that day sheltered in place in our hotel, sometimes in our room, sometimes down at the bar, and briefly down at the nearlybutnotquiteashotastheair swimming pool.

Dusk came slowly in from the east, and we were out in time for long shadows to slide past us.  We figured our best shot until the darkness was full would be the green space of Jackson Square, so we headed straight down Orleans from our hotel.  We’d enjoy the fresh air and a little time out of the cave, then maybe some time at Molly’s or Tujague’s.

We hit the flagstones in front of the Cabildo with still a fair amount of light.  The buskers were starting to pack up – time to move on to dinner or down the street, or maybe even a paying gig.

One man, though, lingered, and showed no signs of surrendering to the night.

His case said Blues by the Green or something like that, so I supposed he was a regular in front of Jackson Square.  He finished up St. James Infirmary on his trumpet, and the notes had come out like a smoky molasses, deep and rich, with their own weight of seasonings and seasons.  We got to rocking slowly in time.  By the time the song was done with him and his horn, a number of my stresses had been shaken down to my feet, just sitting there on the stones to be dropped entirely.

He hit the end and couldn’t seem to decide whether to pack his horn away or do one more.  He looked off to the west, down the street, where the sun was already hiding between Chartres and Royal.

He mopped his face and brought his horn back up to his lips.  One more song, at least, though the dark was filling in all the empty spaces in the square already.  

Summertime. I’d hear all the best arrangements and who knows how many covers. I expected we’d be bored and give a half-hearted round of applause and then to get on with our lives.  

It started slowly. I was starting to think he’d forgotten where his entrance was, then the trumpet came to life.  The mute came off the bell of the horn and he leaned back to let out all the notes and emotion he’d been saving up. He took us around one more time with the horn unleashed, then began to sing:

Summertime … and the livin' is easy …
Fish are jumpin' … and the cotton is high
Yo' daddy's rich … and yo' mama's good lookin' …
So hush little baby … don't you cry …

The words poured out slow and sweet, no hurries here, and anything that might have been in a hurry down inside of me, slowed.  That’s one of the perpetual charisms of New Orleans, slowing those things down inside that might be in too much of a hurry.

He made it into the next verse as a horse carriage pulled up right at the corner of the Cabildo.  

I suppose it was their routine – they probably did it every day rain or shine when they were both working – maybe they still do.  I’d never seen it before, though, and haven’t seen it since.

When the busker finished the second verse of the song, trailing “With yo mama and daddy standin' bye …” into the dusk, the carriage driver took up the refrain himself.

Summertime … and the livin' is easy …
Fish are jumpin' … and the cotton is high
Yo' daddy's rich … and yo' mama's good lookin' …
So hush little baby … don't you cry …

And then they just passed the song back and forth, their own call and response.  It felt like an hour – in the good way – but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.

When they finished their last round of verse, with the words tapering into the night, the busker went back to his horn and the driver gave his reins a shake, and the carriage turned toward the departing sun.  By the time he was out of sight, the busker was packing his horn.  We barely had time to tip him – generously – before he vanished as well.

That was years ago, and even now, when I’m in need of quiet and calm, I go back to that moment. It was just like in the movies, but it was better because it was real.

As I recall, we went on to Molly’s, but the rest of the evening is a blur because we were already intoxicated by Summertime.




  

Words on Beard

I was just talking with a friend about my former beard, which I had for ages, if not eons.

He said "You must miss it, now that they're back in style."

I said, "No, I miss it because a) it was comfortable and b) I'm inherently lazy.  The fact that they're a fad now is ample reason for me to not miss it at all.  That and the fact that my wife prefers to kiss a mouth unencumbered by hair."

"She is more than enough motivation to stay clean shaven."

"Don't I know it, brother."

I started growing the beard the day after I graduated high school.  Were it permitted, I probably would've started growing it in high school. Being in the (very) dead center of West Texas, it most assuredly was not permitted. We still had dress codes and grooming rules and Vice Principals with 2lb oak paddles.  So despite being the only slightly hippy-ish liberal, vegetarian agnostic in a town of 10,000, I remained clean-shaven.

I started the beard because, yes, I was lazy.  Some hair is always easier to tend to than zero hair, rather hair that had to be maintained like it were zero.  Plus, the year I graduated, the legal drinking age was raised from 18 to 19, and then a few years later to 21.  By making me look a couple of years older, my beard saved me the trouble of getting carded though college and insured a steady flow of beer for studying purposes.  Definitely a bonus, given my very baby-ish face at the time and no you can't see a picture.  They vanished mysteriously in a fire.

I kept the beard for 20 odd years. It lasted the duration of my first marriage, with a year or two to spare on each end.  Once I realized it was turning grayer much faster than the rest of my head, I knew it was only a matter of time before it vanished.  I don't care about - or fear - the gray, but I don't want the top and bottom halves of my head to look like they're 20 years apart. No mis-matched Mr. Potato Head for me, thank you.  What cemented the beard's demise was the fact that the woman who would eventually become my second/current/final wife very much preferred not getting stubble burn while kissing. Me? I very much preferred kissing to not kissing. Zip-zop, the beard was gone.  

It's not that it was ever unmanaged.  I kept it neat all the time and relatively short most of the time.  It certainly never made me look - or smell - like a homeless lumberjack.  I'll be candid - whenever I see a beard like that, my first thought is that the guy is trying really damn hard to convince people he's got enough testosterone to get the job done.  My second thought is that, either he's in a long term relationship or in no relationship at all, because most women prefer to keep a whisker's length away from guys with beards & mustaches. Studies show that, if it's a rarity, it's more attractive to women than otherwise, but if every third face you see is bearded (and most especially, unmanaged), then not so much.

Separate Checks

Joshu the elephant – his belly full of grass

 and body exhausted

 with

 trying to extract the more precious water

 from the less precious grass.

 expired

 alongside the mudhole

 that offered neither.

After a visit from the lion clan

 and a day in the sun

 Joshu’s body lies exposed and fragrant.

Enter Mumon the hippo.

 Who strolls in from the shining east

 one morning.

 Stares in puzzlement:

 He thinks he sees an elephant,

 but knows he smells grass

 ripened into sweet warm mulch by sun

 and yet … something else.

 Mumon passes once,

 and a second time,

 slowly sifting memories to see if

 he has ever before eaten grass

 that looked like an elephant.

Fatigue, hunger and thirst have made the lions

 surrounding the kill

 indifferent to moving stock and non-competitors.

They wait for their turn at the elephant,

 lacking the energy to bring down Mumon's thick hide.

But in their squinting eyes

 they see precious fluids,

evaporate from the body with every moment.

In a different moment . . . patience may give way.

haiku

ancient monk on mat

from his limbs the last leaves drop

fall breeze blows him home

"You have to carry the fire." - Cormac McCarthy

“You have to carry the fire."
I don't know how to."
Yes, you do."
Is the fire real? The fire?"
Yes it is."
Where is it? I don't know where it is."
Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it.” 
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Oh, right. Wash my bowl. Thank you Joshu

When I lose my place and grow anxious over my next big step, or get overwhelmed by all the steps beyond that, I remind myself of this koan from the Mumonkan, also known as the Gateless Gate.

One step at a time. That's all there is.

Case 7. Joshu Washes the Bowl

A monk told Joshu: `I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me.'Joshu asked: `Have you eaten your rice porridge?'
The monk replied: `I have eaten.'
Joshu said: `Then you had better wash your bowl.'
At that moment the monk was enlightened.

Mumon's Comment: Joshu is the man who opens his mouth and shows his heart. I doubt if this monk really saw Joshu's heart. I hope he did not mistake the bell for a pitcher.

It is too clear and so it is hard to see.
A dunce once searched for fire with a lighted lantern.
Had he known what fire was,
He could have cooked his rice much sooner.

I wake in the grey

I wake in the grey

new day down the street

     coming up from behind hedges

my words scratch at the door

     out to set about their business

before colors fall

     before shadows hide

Robert Burns - "Address to a Haggis" & Selkirk Grace

Happy Robbie Burns Day - Slainte Mhath!

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us
An' ev'n Devotion
 - To a Louse

Remember that Krewe of Rex Mardi Gras Parade back in 1941? No? Now you can.

Rilke on laying fallow during winter & gathering creative energies

Tending my inner garden went splendidly this winter.

Suddenly to be healed again and aware that the very ground of my being — my mind and spirit — was given time and space in which to go on growing; and there came from my heart a radiance I had not felt so strongly for a long time… 

You tell me how you are able to feel fully alive every moment of the day and that your inner life is brimming over; you write in the knowledge that what you have, if one looks at it squarely, outweighs and cancels all possible privations and losses that may later come along. 

It is precisely this that was borne in upon me more conclusively than ever before as I worked away during the long Winter months: that the stages by which life has become impoverished correspond with those earlier times when excesses of wealth were the accustomed measure. 

What, then, is there to fear? Only forgetting! But you and I, around us and in us, we have so much in store to help us remember!

Lucinda Williams - "Crescent City" - Ventura Theater, 2012

" ... just a conglomeration called Bobby Long." - Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“Byron wished he could have blamed it all on a war; a broken home during childhood, some terrible handicap, and make the reader of the book he would probably never finish believe that there was some good in Bobby. But the truth was more likely that, his friend, with all his sins and faults, with his unusual mind–enhanced or diluted with years of alcohol and too many thoughts–was neither good or bad, just a conglomeration called Bobby Long.” - Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street (from which A Love Song for Bobby Long was adapted)

Room 101 from the movie 1984 (George Orwell, d. Jan 21 1950)

questions of the garden

Uncertain flower

planted in other hands

by other heart

What sent you spinning north?

What wind of absence

loosened your roots?

What memory bell rang soft in the distance?

The garden whispers words

of unknowing

Certain ambiguity

Notion without definition

Beginner’s mind walks with beginner’s heart.

Learning to re-know.

Songs of history never sung –

wisdom percolates into the bed

and light shines warm.

It is not as you thought

true words of never-happened

remembrances of history

that could have been

full and rich

become as real as what had been. And more real.

Stone heart softened to flesh

wanders in dreams

carried by the flower.

Will awaken where?

"Let Them Alone" - Robinson Jeffers, (d. Jan 20 1962)

A little ramble about writing ...

I find that, the more I write, the more integrated I am, the more like myself I feel.

It’s not a matter of catharsis, though some catharsis does occur as I write my way down dark paths.  

It’s a matter, more than anything else, of being at home in myself.

It’s something I fought for a very long time and, truth be told, something I hid from.

I was busy being married, busy being a parent, busy trying to build a career, busy trying to absorb information and insight, busy taking care of the yard, busy being a problem solver, busy in social action, busy in church & community, busy being stable and safe - busy in varying degrees with a great many good and proper things.  Busy-busy-busy.

I was also busy being invisible, keeping my head down, maintaining family secrets and family shames, and simply staying safe.  From birth through divorce, I was a willing participant in enabling the codependency of my youth and of my first marriage.  “Shhhh – if your words might make someone uncomfortable, keep them to yourself. Don’t rock the boat.”

I’m now – for the first time in my life – in a relationship that encourages me to do what I need to do for my own well-being, and expects me to grow and thrive.  But aside from how that melds with writing and creativity, that’s a thousand other stories for other times.  It’s taking time to unpack – and burn – the baggage I’ve accumulated, however.

Now that I’ve committed myself to write, not only “when I can,” but when I need to, I find I write every single day. I write every day because I need to write every single day. Turns out it is much less optional than I tried for years to pretend.  Whereas before, it was a challenge to get 3500 words out in a week, 5000-7000 words are eager to land on the page or the screen.  

Are they all golden?  Surely not.  Some are just noise, and some have potential.  Some, perhaps, are good and help connect me with other people.  What is golden is the feeling of health and refreshment that I feel as I continue to let the words and situations and characters flow.  Every day reinforces the feeling of “rightness” and grows a feeling of health and vigor within me.  

I’m encouraged that what I’m writing may be resonating with people, but beyond that, it’s the feeling of resonance with myself that encourages and invigorates me.

I’ve long had a slow-growing frustration, anger and depression within myself over my sense of what I’m doing here, what I’m accomplishing, and what I’m contributing.  As Thoreau says, “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”  I’ve become increasingly convinced that all of the “good things” I’ve been doing for decades really weren’t getting the job done, really weren't affecting the quality of the day in the way I wanted.  Not that I wasn't doing any good, but that it wasn't authentic, it wasn't me and what I felt called to do.

I’ve had an ongoing quarrel with God about a number of things, which I’ll spare you, but a key portion of that argument has to do with whether I’m being faithful to who I’m supposed to be, which is a different kind of integrity than simply “doing things that are good.”  Have I been avoiding the type of good I’m supposed to do; the kind of me I’m supposed to be?

I think so. Writing – even if the words go nowhere – make me feel like I’m making the right kind of commitment, and the right kind of contribution.  It unknots something in me.  It diffuses my anger and leavens my hope.

" ... how can we save what is visible ...?" - Rilke

"... we are charged with the transmutation, the resurrection, the transfiguration of all things.  For how can we save what is visible if not by using the language of absence, of the invisible?"

Letter to Sophy Giauque
11/26/1925

"The question is not whether we will be extremists ..." - Martin Luther King

I Fold My Words

I fold my words
into a boat
they take me past the breakers
past the shoals

into deep waters
where the dark things are

He's out there
in the cold water

Might be you
might be me

not home
not whole

waiting

Watching a Monty Python mini marathon ...

Laughing, but taking a tangent into sadness twisted into humor.

Here's the beginning of John Cleese's eulogy to the beautifully perverse Graham Chapman, who died much too early of cancer at the age of 48:

"Graham Chapman, co-author of the "Parrot Sketch", is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky. And I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries. And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him, but mindless good taste. …"

I'm sure it delighted Graham.

"And now, for something completely different ..."

And in the same vein as my last post: Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler

from NewsRadio

Around the World On the Road with Jack Kerouac & Google Translate

For some perverse reason related to boredom, curiosity, and perhaps some vodka, I decided to see what the first paragraph of Kerouac's On The Road would look like were I to use Google Translate to run it through various languages and then back to English.

Here is the before paragraph:

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off. Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he actually was born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles. First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who’d shown me a few letters from him written in a New Mexico reform school. I was tremendously interested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked about the letters and wondered if we would ever meet the strange Dean Moriarty. This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a girl called Marylou.

Here's the result after taking the route of English-French-Spanish-Irish-German-Russian-Welsh-Japanese-English.  I have to admit, there was a lot less corruption than I expected after dragging it through a number of significant grammatical, cultural, and syntactic changes. Not too surprisingly, the biggest changes seemed to take place in the Welsh-Japanese-English portion of the trip.

The after paragraph:

I met Dean after sharing immediately wife and me. If I did not have something to do with fatigue and the Big Bang to share their sense of dead all he was never serious illness say. Arrival of Dean Moriarty and you I started some of you can call my life on the road my life. Previously, I frequently always planned, never, taking away big, I had a dream of returning to see the country. His parents in the pileup on the way to Los Angeles, when passing through the Salt Lake City in 1926, he, so was born on the road, making the people is the best on the road. It's the first report came to Chad King that showed few letters written to me in New Mexico area through, me. Me curious to letter, they are cute innocent, so asked Chad to teach all about the great things your Nietzsche and intellectual Chad you knew. Carlo and I letter of story and you have wondered if they meet a strange Dean Moriarty ever at one point. This to me was young shrouded in mystery of jailkid lies in the Dean is not in such a way as today. Then, come make corrections news, the first time I went to New York, he was married to a girl that just is often referred to as Marylou. Discussion!

Flashback - Dix & Tom - [excerpt] - Trinity Bluffs

Tom didn’t see Dix come in.  He had no idea anyone else was there until Dix dropped himself into the chair on the opposite side of the desk, rattling everything on the desk with the force of his resignation.  

“Jesus, Dix …” Tom studied his expression.  It wasn’t a “back three months from France and still can’t find a damn job” face or a “my old man is still a bastard” face, or even a “someone from our old platoon died” face.  Someone or something was dead, though.  They were only back from the war for three months. You don’t forget that expression in three months or even three years.  They didn’t see as much death in the AEF Signal Corps as the regular infantry, but they saw their share.

When Dix reached into his suit coat and pulled out a pint bottle, Tom knew before it had reached Dix’s lips what this was about, or at least who it was about.  “So – what is she doing now?”

“It’s what she’s saying.”

“And what’s that, pal?”

“She’s saying I’ve changed, Tom.  I’m not the man she married, or the man she thought she married.  Something happened to me ‘over there’ and she doesn’t know who I am anymore. She keeps asking me about “shell-shock.  She acts like it was handed out in our rations like cigarettes.”

“So, she says something must've happened …?”

“Yeah, Maybe some terrible telegraph-related catastrophe that scarred me forever, and left me an alien in her eyes.”

“Yeah, that happens.  Signal corps can be murder, you know.  That’s why guys were always fighting to get out of it and into the trenches.”

“So I’m crippled, shell-shocked … I guess …” Dix’s hands flew out wide in sheer astonishment.  Then, having nothing else to do, they landed back on Dix’s thighs, having nothing more useful to do or insightful to express.

“You’ve heard that bunkum from her before, Dix.”

“I have.”

“And it’s different now because …?”

“Phil Cicero.”

“That little redhead 4F prick who does piano lessons out in Poly, and the church organ on Sundays?  That jerk was a problem from the get-go.”

In a lilt intended to echo Rachel’s, Dix answered, “You don’t understand him, Dixon. He’s a piano virtuoso. He has the soul of a poet.”  He underscored the tribute by uncapping his bottle again, lifting it high, and taking another shot.  “I’ll have you know …”

“What?”

“I forget. She’s ‘had me know’ a lot of shit about him.”

”Uh-huh”

“Some horse shit about how amazing he is, how much promise he has and how close he is to realizing it, if only someone would help him.”

“Yeah.  So she’s screwing him?”

“Their friendship is too pure for that.  That’s what she says.  And he’s probably so doped up on reefer all the time that he couldn’t get it up with the help of a Corps of Engineers crew.  That’s what I says.”

“So he’s pumping the ol' church organ and not her, huh? I can see why the little lady would be frustrated with old Dusty Rusty.”

The bottle emerged once again.  Dix shook it, finding it lacking in weight and sensual splashes.  He shook it a second time, up by his ear this time, just to be sure.  He carefully stood it upright on Tom’s desk, and it very predictably fell over.

Without taking his eyes off his friend, Tom hauled a desk drawer open.  He scooped up a clear bottle and lofted it across his blotter, dropping it neatly into the empty spot that Dix’s own bottle had just tumbled from.

It was gin – cheap gin at that, but Dix had left the point of caring behind about six ounces ago.  He poured a three-count into his upturned mouth, then set the bottle gingerly back where it came.  It proved more stable than his own bottle.

They sat there for a time, saying nothing.

“So, if he’s so great, Dix, why can’t he hold down a job?”

“Because he’s an addled, unstable, mama’s boy? And by that, I mean he’s sad and misunderstood and just needs a little support, like artists do. I hear tell from other people, though, that he hears voices telling him bad things to do.”

“She still supporting him on your dime?”

“She says she’s not … but I could be blind at this point.  If she is, she’s pretty damn sneaky. I haven’t noticed anything missing from the bank account lately.”

Tom shrugged. “Guess she’d have to be pretty sneaky …”

Dix nodded.

“So she hasn’t screwed him yet.” Tom declaimed, like a lawyer driving his point home to the jury, eyes drilling into his listener.  It wasn’t a question but a challenge – tell me I’m right, if you genuinely believe.

“Maybe not with her body.  She says there’s something pure in him that she wants to protect.  Something pure and innocent and good like ~”

“~ you before the war …”

Dix’s eyes tracked toward Tom’s on a wobbly trajectory.  When they met, his expression was clear – it no longer mattered. Even if her body hadn’t yet screwed Phil, every other part of her had.  

“Uh, yeah – guess so – me before …” He said it, but neither of them meant it.  He was a good guy – a standup guy – but not even Rachel would have confused him with someone pure and innocent before the war or after.  Hell, he was pretty sure he hadn’t been pure and innocent since fifth or sixth grade.

“Hey, Dix, you remember that time in the school cafeteria when you and Mary Ellen got caught by that old lunchwoman …?”

Alright, so maybe it was fourth grade that he hadn’t been innocent since.  All he was doing was trying to get a peek at Mary Ellen’s panties, but that was as good as whoring to the lunch lady, who was deaconess in the Eighth Avenue Missionary Holiness Temple.  She about had an apoplectic fit and called in everyone from the Principal and Vice Principal to both of their parents and gave a full thirty minute accounting of their thirty second adventure.

“So, what’s your plan here, Dix?”

“When I’m very sure I’ve had enough to drink – either this month or the next, I’m going to sue for divorce, if she doesn’t beat me to it.  She might. She’s sober as a judge. More sober, actually.”

“You’d better beat her to it, brother, whether you’re sobered up enough by then or not.  She didn’t bring down this bear without already knowing how to skin and dress him.  You’ve got to hit her and her little boyfriend with ‘alienation of affection’ or you’ll be paying her for the rest of your life.”

Dix knew Tom was right.  Rachel wasn’t spectacularly diabolical – or at least hadn’t been particularly so in the past, but she’d never been a woman to leave things to chance either.  Even now, with a pint in him, he realized that all of this meant that she already had her own steps unfolding and he’d be a fool to think he wasn’t already behind the cue ball.  No telling how much groundwork she’d already laid, but it was probably substantial.

That thought sobered him as much as anything could.  She had told him specifically and repeatedly that “this all developed in the weeks since you came back” but he should have realized the words were lies even as they were gliding off her tongue.  Some portion might only be weeks old, but her drift started on this side of the Atlantic, before the war. Once it took root, it festered and fermented in the free time she’d enjoyed in his absence.  What he’d taken for shyness due to their separation was really a growing secretiveness on her part.

From across the Atlantic, he’d asked her several times in letters if anything was wrong, and her slow replies always included words like “let’s not deal with it now” and “we’ll sort it all out when you’re finally home.”  It was supposed to make him feel reassure, but the long-shadowed truth was that it she was just stalling until she could finally apply her long-hatching solution to the problem of him.

"Writing is like being in love ..." - James Lee Burke

“Writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. 

You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.” 
― James Lee Burke

Polaroid Paragraphs #12 - Danny's Big Party

Nancy had her hand on my forehead when I woke up.

I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep out there.

“Hi, Danny. How are you?”

“Hi … hi, Nancy. Umm, okay.”

I was a little confused.  I sat up and rubbed my face. Nancy was over before lunch, but she left hours ago, I thought.  Sometime after lunch, I must’ve fallen asleep in the yard next to my aunt and uncle’s koi pond.  I couldn’t really see the sun through the trees, so I couldn’t tell at all what time it was.

“Where is everyone?” I looked around and then saw my family and my aunt and uncle through the sliding glass door and picture windows of the family room.

“They’re, yeah … all inside.” I started to get up to go see what they were up to, but Nancy put a hand on my leg.  “Stay out here with me, Danny.”

“Why? What’s going on.”

“They think you’re napping. They’re planning a party for you.  Besides, I like spending time with you. You’re leaving soon and I won’t get to spend much more.”

My birthday was weeks away still, and by the time it came, my family would be back home.  We almost always come down to see my aunt and uncle in the Summer, but we only stay about a week before we have to get back home.  In fact, we were leaving in two days.

That was really nice, everyone planning something for me.  For my last birthday, it was just my family and two classmates from the third grade. There would have been more, but since my birthday is in June, a lot of times, people have other things planned for their families.  That’s how my parents explain it to me, anyway.  A lot of times, people already have plans out of town.

Anyway, there was no way I was going interrupt them planning a party for me.

They were real distracted.  They’d talk up real close or make big gestures, or just pace around if they had something to say.   Nobody came outside, even though they gestured my way and looked through the window off and on.  I waved but nobody waved back. They were busy.

That’s okay, though.  They could be as busy as they wanted and I would just enjoy talking to Nancy.  As far back as I can remember, I’ve kind of had a crush on her.  Her parents live next to my aunt and uncle and I see her every time we come down, which has been twice a year since at least my Kindergarten year, which would make it at least ten times.

She leaned over for a sniff of the flowers that hung over the edge of the koi pond. They were lilacs, I think.  “Do you like flowers, Danny?”

I shrugged. “They’re okay.”  

“You might like these.  Why don’t you come smell them?”

I tried leaning in myself, but I was too far away, so I had to scooch over almost two feet and then lean in.  She watched me real close.  I thought at first I was getting set up for some kind of joke, but I took a sniff.  “Yeah, they’re nice.”

She nodded her head slowly without taking her eyes off me, then asked, “You can smell them alright?”

“Oh yeah. They smell real … pretty.” I couldn’t smell anything, but I didn’t want to disappoint her.

Her eyes skittered across the windows, watching everyone inside.

“Do you like taking trips, Danny?”

“Like where?”

“You know, anywhere.  Someplace you’ve never been before.  You aren’t scared of new places, are you, especially if people you know are there – friends and relatives?”

“Heh … why would I be?”

“No reason. If you’re there with people you love, it’s not scary, is it?”

“Uhh … no …” I had no idea what she was getting at.  “Are you going to have to go on a trip soon?  Where to?”  I thought maybe she had to go somewhere she didn’t want and she was worried.

“Kind of, but it’s a nice place, and I’m going with someone nice.”

That was kind of creepy.  She didn’t say she was going with family, but it sounded like one person.

“Do I know this person?”

“Of course, silly.  Hey, let’s play a game.” Way to change the subject.

“Uh, okay. What do you want to play.”

“Let’s start with twenty questions.  I’m thinking of something. You guess.”

“Is it a person?”

“Yes”

“A grown up?”

“Yes.”

“Someone who lives here?”

“No.”

“Is it a man?”

“Yes.”

“Is he American?”

“No.”

“Is he famous?”

“Yes.”

“Alive?”

“No.”

I didn’t think I knew any famous people who weren’t Americans who were dead.

“Are there pictures of him?” She made a face at pictures. “Paintings?”

“Yes.”

“In my aunt and uncle’s house?”

“Mmm … Yes.” So she had to think a little … huh.

“How many is that?”

“Nine.”

I tried to think of every drawing or painting my aunt and uncle had in their house.  There were just pictures of flowers in the kitchen.  There were big pictures in the den, but they were all forests and stuff.  Over the fire place in the family room, there was …

“Wait – are the paintings in books?  I think that’s cheating.”

“Not all of them are. Calm down. The person I’m thinking of is in a picture that’s not in a book. That’s ten.”

“Is it Christopher Robin?”

“No.”

“George Washington?”  Yeah, I know he’s American, but he wasn’t born American. He was born British.

“Nope.”

“King George?”

“Nope.”

“Is he from Europe?”

“No. Fourteen.”

Ok, I was just guessing wildly now.  I had to figure out what else they had up on their walls and not just in books.

There was some steam engine, the Last Supper, a bunch of dutch kids, waitwaitwait …

“Is he from the Middle East?

She tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it just a bit. “Yes.”

“Is it Jesus?”

She scooted over and hugged me. I wanted to hug her back but my arms were kind of pinned the way I was sitting. “Yaaay! You got it! You won! I thought you were going to panic right at the last, though, but you didn’t.  Good for you.”

Before I even had the words in my head, I started to ask her a question. “Would you … I mean, do you … wait, nevermind.”

She was so pretty sitting there.  I always liked her, but she looked especially nice that day for some reason. The little crush I’d always had suddenly seemed enormous, and I didn’t want to let her go when we went back home.  I was sure I’d miss her like crazy.

She looked like she knew even better than me what I was going to say but didn’t. She was probably used to it. She probably had three boyfriends and all kinds of boys always asking her if she liked-them liked them, or if she just liked them.

“I really like you, Nancy.  I mean I ~”

“I really like you, too, Danny.”

“Dooooooooo …”  Now, if I didn’t finish, I’d probably look more stupid than if I did, so I went on ahead.  “Do you have a boyfriend?”  Oh, God, I actually said it, and as the words came out of my mouth, I realized how stupid they sounded.  We lived like six hours away from each other.  I saw her twice a year.  We were in fourth grade!  And I’m sure a lot of other reasons why it was the stupidest thing!

I was looking away when I asked.  I took a moment to look up at her, since she wasn’t saying anything.  “Danny, I really do like you a lot, but I don’t think it would work.  You’re going far away soon.”

I nodded and looked back inside the house.  Yeah, in two days we’d be back home.  Inside the house, something different was going on.  A guy with a suit had come in and he was showing mom and dad a big folder.  My little sisters were sitting in my aunt and uncle’s laps and they didn’t look happy at all.

“Let’s play another, Danny. You think of one now.”

“Umm … okay. I have one.”

“Is it a person?”

“Yes.”

“Real?”

“No.”

“A movie character?”

“Yes.”

“Boba Fett?”

“Whaaa!? Geez!, how’d you get it so fast!?”

“I just know you really well, Danny.”  Yeah, you know me sooooooo well you don’t even want to think about being my girlfriend.  Thanks, Nancy. Thanks bunches.

“What’s the man in the suit doing?”

“He’s showing your mom and dad plans.”

“For the party …?”

“Something like that.”

Now, it was starting to sound strange.

I turned back to Nancy.  She knew something she wasn’t telling me.

She looked different.  She was Nancy, but the sun was on her weird or something because she kind of glowed, like in old movies.  She was a little fuzzy like that now.

“He’s helping them plan it, and after you get home, they’ll have the party.  You’re going home in a little bit, and they’ll have the party three days from now, when everyone’s ready.

“They sure don’t look like they’re ready to leave.”  

“They’re not, Danny.  They’re going to leave in the morning.”

That was stupid.  Why would I be leaving in a few minutes when they’re not leaving until tomorrow?

“Yeah, right. What, I’m going to drive myself back to Denver? I think I’d get, like, arrested.”

I turned back to the window to watch everyone else.  I didn’t want to talk to Nancy about it anymore because she was saying stupid things that didn’t make any sense and I was starting to get mad.  I didn’t want to get mad at Nancy because I really, really liked her.

“It’s okay, Danny. It’s hard to let go.”

“Shut up. You’re stupid.  I don’t like you and I wasn’t asking you to be my girlfriend, so just shut up.”  I knew I was just being mean and that I didn’t mean any of it. You know how they say “Just let him get it out of his system?” That’s what it felt like. I was getting rid of it and wouldn’t have any of that anger once I said it.  And that was true.  Once I said it, I felt like I was done with it and I started to be okay.

I just watched them in the window.  It felt like I was watching a TV show on a big high def plasma screen. It looked so real, but it didn’t seem as real as other things anymore.

“Danny, my friend, we should go now.”

That was not Nancy’s voice.

I turned around slowly.  Nancy was there, but I could almost see through her now.  There was a light and it was going right through her.

“We’re going to go now, Danny, you and me.” That time, I could tell that the new voice was inside my head.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” But I knew I was.

I looked down toward the ground because my eyes were watering from the light. I could mostly see through myself too.

“My body …”

“It’s not here, Danny. The man in the suit helped your parents with it. You're all done with it.”

“But …”

“You drowned in the koi pond, silly.” That was Nancy, or whatever it was that looked like Nancy. She or it or something leaned in to kiss my cheek. She said “Bye, Danny. I’ll see you. We all will.” and then she wasn’t there anymore. The wind just kind of blew what was left of her away.

“Are you Jesus?”

The light smiled inside me and said “Sure, you can call me Jesus, Danny. Call me anything you like, buddy.”

And then, we weren’t there anymore.