Not in My Wildest Dreams

Late middle age has crept up on me, and I can still honestly say it is the most terrifying nightmare I've ever had. In it, I am at a wake for my maternal grandparents. In reality, my grandmother died in the mid 1970s and my grandfather, years before her, in the mid-1930s. 

Image by Teece Aronin

At the wake, my grandparents are laid out in a wooden double coffin that looks oddly similar to a piano crate. My grandmother, looking like the 86-year-old she was when she died, is dressed in a snow-white wedding gown. My grandfather appears to be a young man, in keeping with his early death while still in his forties. Although he was not in the military that I know of, he is dressed in a muddy, wool, World War I uniform. It seems he died in battle and is being buried in the uniform he was wearing when killed. His hat lies under his hands which are folded across his stomach. His face and body appear to be those of a worn and battered store mannequin, hard to the touch with telltale chips all over. 

The room is filled with people coming to pay their respects, and suddenly the crowd parts to reveal my grandmother, padding around barefooted. Her wedding gown is gaping in the back like a hospital gown, and she is dragging an IV pole around with her. I look to the piano crate/coffin to see that my grandfather is no longer there either. I'm both shocked and terrified, thinking that if my grandmother could rise from the dead, hop out of a combination piano crate and coffin and scamper off to join the party, there was no telling what my grandfather was up to. 

Then a voice, a sort of Hercule Poirot presence, makes an announcement. He tells the crowd that my grandfather's corpse has been stolen and that both thief and corpse are still somewhere on the premises. 

Like someone who has fought her way to the surface of a deep and murky pond, I smash back into wakefulness. I am shaken but confident that my grandparents are securely ensconced, side by side in the cemetery - and not in one huge double-sized grave - just two nice regular-sized graves - as any long-dead married couple should be.

A Phone Booth, a Doorbell, and Death

Our story takes place in Los Angeles, California somewhere around 1930. Let's begin, shall we?

Joan Smith was young and pretty. She was glamorously dressed as she headed to the home of her friends, Tony and Pamela Stevens. The party was in full swing when she arrived, and a fortune teller, complete with crystal ball, had been hired as the evening's entertainment. Joan waited her turn then sat down at the card table opposite the handsome, turbaned gentleman.  

A fire danced in the immense stone fireplace, altering the fortune teller's swarthy complexion with ominous, flickering shadows. Soon he was telling Joan that he could see a man. The man was missing his left index finger and was talking to someone on the telephone. 

“He is someone you know,” the fortune teller intoned.

"I don’t know anyone with a missing finger,” insisted Joan.

“Think again,” urged the fortune teller. “I am sure that you know him. He is talking on the telephone when he is violently killed. It seems the murderer has designs on you as well. If you can identify the man with the missing finger, and can do so in time, you might spare him and yourself a terrible fate.”

Joan sat there, thinking hard, and couldn’t remember anyone she knew who was missing a finger. But the fortune teller had more news, just as personal and far more chilling: Joan's death would come soon after that of the man on the telephone, and her final moments would be heralded by the ringing of a bell.

Eight days passed. Joan calmed her rattled nerves by telling herself that the fortune teller was merely staging melodramas for the benefit of the guests. But on the ninth day, she had a chance encounter with a young man at Sherman's Drugstore. His name was Frank Carson. He was a dear friend Joan had grown up with but hadn't seen in years. Frank lost his left index finger when he was a boy and the gun he was cleaning went off. The fortune teller's prediction howled back at Joan as though carried on a murderous wind. 

"Frank, if I tell you something, do you promise not to think me crazy?"

"Why, of course, Joan. What is it?"

"I went to a party a short while back and there was a fortune teller there. He told me of a man with a missing index finger who would be killed while talking on the telephone."

Instead of looking alarmed, Frank laughed.

"Joan, surely you don't believe such a thing!"

"Well, maybe just a little. And now, seeing you, I feel I must warn you. The fortune teller also said that I would die shortly after the man with the missing finger."

"Oh, Joan now, really!"

"I suppose it is silly," Joan agreed. 

"Do you want to hear a secret?" Frank smiled.

"Of course!" said Joan, happy for the first time in a long while. 

"I've been cooling my heels at a flophouse down the street for the past three days because my wife kicked me out. I've been crying in my beer and wondering what to do ever since. There's only one telephone there, and it's tied up all the time, not to mention its decided lack of privacy. I walked down here to call her from a phone booth. I'm going to try to win her back. Can you wish me luck?"

Joan's lovely features clouded again. "Frank, do you have to use the telephone?"

"Why - do you want to make a call?" joked Frank, but Joan was not amused. 

"Well, I doubt throwing pebbles at her bedroom window will do the trick," he said, more serious now. "I was a fool. I behaved badly. She had every reason to do what she did. I'm just hoping she'll talk to me when I call."

"Then let me stay," Joan urged. "The idea of you dying while using a telephone, it frightens me. I'll just sit over there. I won't eavesdrop."

"Oh, very well, if you must," agreed Frank. "But if I come out of there in tears, don't expect me to stop and chat. I'll just run back to my room and lick my wounds."

"I understand. Good luck, Frank."

Joan kissed Frank on the cheek and sat down at the soda counter. The place was deserted except for a man behind the counter. 

"What'll it be, lady?"

"Just coffee, please - black."

The man headed toward a cupboard then remembered. "Wouldn't you know, cupboard here's fresh outta coffee. Got some in the back though. Sit tight."

The man left and Joan sat, studying Frank's profile in the massive wooden phone booth. Things seemed to be going well. Frank was talking and didn't seem the least bit upset. That was when she saw it, tall and slouched over. It was wearing a black cape with the collar turned up and a black hat with the brim pulled down. She couldn't even begin to see its face.

The thing crept up behind Frank and with a decaying hand, yanked the  phone booth open. The rest happened so quickly, Frank never had a chance to scream. Now he sat in the phone booth, with the phone's earpiece dangling from his hand, his heart and his throat ripped away and his wife's voice coming through the earpiece, inviting him to come home.

Joan ran. The thing snagged her coat, tearing off a scrap of tweed fabric as she shot out the door. She hurried up the block to her car, then threw open the door, flung herself behind the wheel, and sped off. Once home, she unlocked her front door with shaky hands, locked it behind her, and snatched up the phone.

"Hello, operator, get me the police!" 

As calmly as possible, Joan told the desk officer what happened and gave him her address. He promised to send a car to Sherman's Drugstore immediately, adding that a second car was being dispatched to Joan's house. Joan paced for what felt like hours, though it was really just minutes. 

The doorbell rang.

"Oh, thank God!"

Joan threw open the door just as the rest of the fortune teller’s prediction snapped into focus, the part about her last moments and the ringing of a bell. This time, for just an instant, she did see the killer's face - if you could call it a face. It was the last thing Joan Smith ever saw.

The police failed to determine who or what killed Frank Carson and Joan Smith, but they were convinced it was the same entity because when they inspected Joan's mangled body, her left index finger was missing, along with her heart and most of her throat. 

The fiend must have been inspired by that striking physical characteristic of Frank's and decided to add to its grisly - and gristly - bag of tricks.

 

Talking with a Boy in the Woods

My boy and I took a walk one day far into the forest. With every step, people-generated noise like voices and cars was confronted then swallowed by the sounds of the forest. Suddenly, you couldn't miss the ruckus from the river and the ticking sounds squirrels make with everything from their teeth to their claws to their cast off shells, and the give of the ground was a marked contrast to unyielding cement. 

Jon that day in the forest,
with the river - 
and the wind - at his back.

We stopped to watch the river, and a gnarled branch snapped from a tree, fell into the water, and was quickly swept away. There was something reverent, primeval, yet efficient about it. I wondered if the tree had cut the branch loose or the branch had deserted the tree; whether it was a tiny death or a swift rebirth, or a little bit of both.

"Wow, Jon," I said. "That branch just stopped being part of a tree after who knows how many years, and now it's part of a river. We just witnessed something kind of incredible when you think about it."

Jon considered that. And so it was that after the branch parted ways with the tree, our conversation stopped being mundane; it shifted away from dinner plans to hover around what his life could become, of college, and adulthood, and ambitions and dreams.

I thought of a book I used to read to him and his sister, Raggedy Ann in the Deep Deep Woods. I don't remember all the details anymore, but in the story, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy traipse off into the forest. At some point they drink something pink, and I made a hit with my kids, who were very little then, when we made our own "pink drink" from lemonade and food color. They were so excited about drinking what Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy drank, that it was like hitting the mother lode of parenting. Delighting them is more complicated and expensive now.

Jon leaves soon, heading off to college out-of-state. When that happens, one of my branches will drop free and travel on a river to parts unknown. Will I have let go of Jon or will he have let go of me? Will it be a tiny death or a swift rebirth? 

Maybe a little bit of both.

When Will You Make an End?

My daughter just had her braces removed and got to bang a gong at the end of the appointment. The gong is huge and hangs in the busy offices of the team of orthodontists who have been managing my kids' orthodontia needs for an unexpectedly long time.  

Orthodontia - not exactly the painting of the Sistine Chapel, but close.

That's how it is with orthodontia sometimes. Your kid starts treatment and you have no idea how long it will take, and the orthodontist doesn't know much more than you. 

I'm not blaming anyone for this except the teeth. Teeth are unpredictable, hard to tame little beggars, and both my kids had problems with the same renegade tooth - tooth number 12 if your were viewing it on a dental chart or in a criminal lineup. 

My son still has his braces, his situation complicated by a sledding accident in which his right central incisor was broken off above the gum line. At the end of every appointment the technician briefs me on the progress - or lack of it. Again, this is not the fault of the orthodontia treatment, and in this case the blame is shared by tooth number 12, the right central incisor, and the sled.  

"So, how long do you think it will take?" I ask. "We really can't tell," they say. It is a similar exchange to that depicted in The Agony and the Ecstasy, the 1965 film about the painting of the Sistine Chapel. When Pope Julius II, anxious for Michelangelo to wrap things up, demands, "When will you make an end?" Michelangelo barks back, "When I am finished!"

I am a powerless pope in an orthodontics office filled with Michelangelos. I didn't need the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted on the roof of my kids' mouths, but it turns out that getting your kids' teeth where they belong is a goal almost as tricky to achieve.  

It was definitely worth it.

I started worrying one day when I watched a video in the waiting room depicting proper oral hygiene for the orthodontics patient. It seemed a bit involved and my daughter is the two-minute brush and you're done type. I imagined the bands coming off to reveal a mass of worms crawling in and out of each tooth, but as it turned out, my worries were unfounded, and my daughter's teeth were gorgeous. 

Seeing her new smile in the car mirror.

Still, my kiddo didn't really want to bang that gong, partly because she was turning twenty-one by this time, and partly because everyone looks up, claps and cheers at the noise. Since kids with braces live vicariously through the kid whose braces just came off, and their parents live vicariously through the parent of the kid whose braces just came off, I always sensed a whiff of resentment in the air whenever the gong was struck. Still, we had earned our gong moment, and I wanted all those people in the waiting room to resent us. I explained this to my daughter and just happened to add that she would be more embarrassed if I were to bang the gong for her.   

I wonder who got to bang the gong when the Sistine Chapel was finished, Pope Julius II or Michelangelo.

Don't Go in the Walk-in, Gordon!

I'm not sure how we got started doing this, but my daughter and I binge watch two of the older Gordon Ramsay series, Kitchen Nightmares and Hotel Hell. 

In case you've been slaving in the kitchen of a substandard restaurant for the past 20 years and haven't been paying attention, Gordon Ramsay is the British chef, enfant terrible, bad boy extraordinaire who berates the shows' dumb-dumb restaurateurs, innkeepers and hoteliers brave enough or stupid enough to ask him in for a consult; this is when their businesses are just a rotten smell away from going under. And judging from the looks, rotten smells abound in these places, and thank God no one has perfected Smell-O-Rama.

Not everyone who invites Ramsay over for advice is a dumb-dumb. Often they are the spouses or partners of the dumb-dumbs, and their savings are fast dwindling because the dumb-dumbs were dumb enough to get them into these messes. The place is being run into the ground by the dumb-dumb's poor cooking, poor business planning or outright selfishness. Gordon is sympathetic to the dumb-dumb's much better half even as he is all in the face of the dumb-dumb. 

In the case of Kitchen Nightmares, it's pretty much inevitable that Gordon will venture into the restaurant's walk-in refrigerator. It's the restaurant reality show equivalent to a teen in a slasher movie saying, "I'll be right back!" 

"Don't go in the walk-in, Gordon!" I shout at the screen, but Gordon doesn't listen and goes in anyway where he finds himself in a haunted house of rotted beef, moldy pasta and slimy chicken. Gordon shoves his arms wrist deep into the gunk just to gross us out even more and to give himself added justification for a string of bleeped out expletives. Sometimes Gordon rushes out of the walk-in and straight to the nearest trash bin where he heaves up one of the awful meals prepared for him earlier by that episode's dumb-dumb.  Some of my favorite Ramsayisms include, "Wow-wow-wow-wow, wow," "Look at that!" (gasped in hushed tones like someone who's peeked beneath the casket lid's lower half to find that the deceased isn't wearing any pants), "Looks like a dog's dinner," and "I've eaten that!"

To give you an idea just how dumb the dumb-dumbs get, in one episode, a wife learned she was co-owner of a ramshackle, money-sucking, badly decorated inn when her husband called her up and said, "Guess what!" In another, a father who has raided his son's savings to buy a restaurant, proceeds to bend Gordon's ear about what a jerk his father was. 

We also binged season one of Hell's Kitchen where Gordon takes wannabe restaurateurs and screams and yells at them through a series of competitions until one of them wins a restaurant where they can hire their own staff to yell at. 

It sounds like a dream come true. (No, it doesn't!)

Spiritual J and the Bunny

For years, I've had this sense that I'm standing at the door of real faith. But even though God has opened the door many times, or, rather, opened the door wider, I often stand, frozen at the threshold. 

Other times I've skipped right through the door, merrily singing my little God tune, delighted by how good it feels once I'm in there. I worry less, have a lighter heart, and then, back out the door I run. 

What could be so scary is beyond me, yet there I am, hopping in and out and hoping God will just yank me through and sit me down. God, being a gentleman, has yet to do so.

I have a friend who is deeply spiritual. For the sake of her privacy, let's call her Spiritual J. She is one of the women I spend time with every fall in a cabin in northern Michigan. 

Spiritual J believes - openly, voraciously, enthusiastically believes. She calls God "Papa," and when something baffles her, she asks Papa for help. Sometimes she sees things that don't exist in this realm - fascinating creatures, colors, and things that can't be explained, and when that happens, Spiritual J asks, "Papa, what is that?" 

To anyone who might think Spiritual J has a screw loose, let me just say that, as far as I can tell, she is perfectly lucid, rock-steady, and grounded in reality. The only exceptions to that rule that I'm aware of are when we're "Up North," whipping up drinks in the blender. There's not a lot to talk about in that cabin for four days at a stretch except for drinks to whip up in the blender - and food, family, euchre, work, pets, and faith. Actually, there is a lot to talk about. 

It didn't take long for Spiritual J to peg me as an agnostic, standing outside in my manufactured snow, wanting to come in from the cold. She started smiling at me more, with her big, summery, smile, the kind of smile that could only manifest itself on the face of someone who calls God "Papa."

Spiritual J is someone who makes me think of the word anointed every time I look at her. One of the women who spends time with us in the cabin said it really does help what hurts when Spiritual J lays hands on you.

During one of our trips north, I experienced this after mentioning that my hand was a little achy. Turned out that Spiritual J had brought this cream with her that's supposed to be good for arthritis. So, she fetched it for me, but she didn't just hand me the jar; she opened the jar, scooped up a gob of the cream, then took my hand into both of hers and massaged the cream in. Something worked, and whether it was the cream or Spiritual J's application of it, I'm not sure.  

One night, when everyone else was asleep, Spiritual J and I sat outside, bundled in mittens and hats, peering out at the lake. Something came up about spirit animals and Spiritual J's belief that we don't just have spirit animals, we are spirit animals. Spiritual J said that when she wanted to know what spirit animal she was, she closed her eyes at bedtime and asked Papa to let her know come morning. 

The next day, as soon as Spiritual J opened her eyes, the word owl sprang to mind. When she searched the scriptures for owl, one thing she learned was that owls are guides, and she concluded that she was to help others coming to grips with their faith - or lack thereof. I climbed into bed that night, closed my eyes, and asked God to reveal the spirit animal I am.

In the morning, the first word that leapt to mind was bunny - not even rabbit - bunny. I snatched up my phone and googled the significance of rabbits in scripture. I would have searched bunnies in scripture, but that seemed juvenile even for a novice like me. 

I found a lot of references to cuds and clean versus unclean animals, and then I read that the Physiologus, a Greek text dating back to about 200 AD, depicted rabbits as creatures that seek safety on cliffs and mountains only to scurry back down, their stumpy front legs making them easy prey to anything wanting to pick them off.

"I'm a frickin' bunny!" I whispered to Spiritual J at breakfast. “Supposedly, I run up mountains and then I run back down, and then I get eaten because my front legs are too short." First of all, in my scriptural youth and inexperience, I failed to process the fact that the Physiologus isn't scripture, and even if it were, there are all kinds of ways to interpret it.

Not even Spiritual J could make me feel better about God calling me a bunny - or so I thought. But Spiritual J smiled.

"Maybe God is telling you that you run to Him, but then you run away. It's not necessarily a bad thing; it's just a human thing. Maybe God is telling you that He knows you struggle."

At least Spiritual J's owl didn't swoop down and pick my bunny off a mountain. But if it ever does, I'm sure it will be for my own good. 

A Torn Leaf

I have lived through interesting times more than once in my life, and I seem to be pulling out of the most recent iteration. Last spring I lost my job, the one I counted on for health insurance and retirement benefits, the one that covered my mortgage payment, the one that fed my kids. My employer was heading in new directions, and I didn't seem to be a match for any of them. The good news was that I'd always been a saver, and I was vested; in other words, I wasn't broke.

Image by Teece Aronin

What followed were the tough adjustments you might imagine one would experience after something like that, but some great things came, too. I had experience as a resume writer and career coach, so I knew my skills, knew how to articulate and market them and could craft my own resume. I had never lost my passion for that work, so it wasn't long before I was networking in that direction and returning to my roots of writing resumes and coaching people on their next steps. 

Another benefit of that work experience was that I knew what to expect emotionally, and the words I once used to comfort, encourage and empower unemployed people came wafting back to save me. I was relieved to find the words helped, and that I hadn't been feeding people a lot of patronizing poo back in those days. 

I became a list-maker. I made lists of things that would keep me sane. One was a list of things to remember when I wasn't feeling strong; the other was a list of things to look forward to once the kids and I were back on our feet.

Currently, the first list looks like this:

• You actually have a normal life and a bright future.
• You know what to do and are wise; any mistakes you make are human and understandable.
• You're not unemployed; you're self-employed, looking for a great new opportunity, and building a new business.
• When you feel down you should clean your room, buy blankets, buy towels, buy good winter clothes, buy boots, buy silverware, clean the kitchen, read something informative, read sappy novels, remove one obstacle, set a reward, go for a walk, go for a drive, review your lists for when you're on your feet.

My lists for when the finances are better are of things that probably wouldn't cheer up anybody but me, like replacing the flower boxes on the house and painting the front door and the shutters. 

As to my first list, I don't advocate spending as a means of self-medicating. It just happened that we needed more blankets, we needed more silverware and we needed more towels. I wanted to know that although a storm was coming, we had everything we needed to stay warm and dry and feel safe. I wanted to know that we could even go out and play in that storm. I shopped for most of those things at thrift stores. My motto: You scratch my back, Goodwill, and I'll scratch yours.

One thing about storms, though, is that they take little pieces of you with them; a few hairs from your head, a few skin cells off your face, a few beliefs you once held sacred. I choose to look at it this way, that it's less of me to take care of, to fuss over, or to think about. It's less ego to get in the way. I tell myself that each storm leaves me a little more streamlined. And I remind myself that whatever has weathered a storm has a beauty the untouched and pristine among us just can't have.

Like a torn leaf or a chipped demitasse.