Forty Two

Their shadows flitted from headstone to headstone, giggling in the leaves.  And in the night there weren’t even the shadows.  They were children, I didn’t know them, they were having so much fun.  They didn’t even notice what state they lived in, Virginia, Wisconsin, who cared?  Well, maybe Ziggy did.  But he would have been the only one.  Siggy and Kijra they just flitted from headstone to headstone, giggling.

I used to play … what was it called again.  It had a special name.  Hags.  That’s it.  We played Hags.  It stood for Hide and Go seek.  Me and Liz and Stu, and Jane and Brad.  Almost everyday, out in our three front yards.  And back yards too, only I don’t know if we went in Liz and Stu’s back yard ever.

Their backyard was totally enclosed.  It seems like it had a wall around it.  A vine covered stone wall, but I’m not sure.  There was only one or two ways to get in back there; either through the door to the wall, or through the Challenor’s house, and there was a grandfather clock in their house.  We passed it on the way sneaking through.  It was a big deal.  I know, because Jane said, “That’s their grandfather clock.  It chimes real loud!”  and her big eyes got round and wide, and she stuck her face in mine.  It was a dark face.  She was half Cherokee.  Her mom sunbathed nude.  On the roof.

“The pilots kept circling!”  somebody said, and then they laughed.  It was probably Brad.  And I smiled along, pretending I knew why they laughed.

And in Hags, you covered your eyes by that big tree in Brad and Jane’s front yard, you put your forehead up against the bark, it was really thick, and when you had counted to a hundred (which I couldn’t do) you had to yell “All ee all ee all come freedom!”

“No!  You don’t shout All ee all ee all come freedom, it’s free, dummy!  And you didn’t count to a hundred, you only counted to ten!”

It was Stu.  And he had stood there monitoring me counting.  He was thin, had dark hair and wore black glasses.  He was tall.

“I can see you,”  I said, “So I found you.  You’re not hiding.”

“I’m not going to hide until you learn to count to a hundred and say free not freedom.”

“I did count to a hundred.”

“No.  You counted to ten.  Ten is not a hundred.”

Brad came out of the bushes from in front of his house.

“I can see you too, I found you too.”

“I told you,” Brad said, “Ten is not the same as a hundred.”

“Yes it is, it’s ten tens.”

“You have to go through each one of them.  I showed you this.”

And they counted to a hundred again, both Brad and Stu, and brad was half Cherokee too, but for some reason I never thought of him that way.  Just Jane.  Because she had long hair, and besides, she was the one who kept bragging about it.

But how would they have got to the graveyard.  They never lived near one.

Forty One

The backyard needed mowing, and when it did, I think the sun reflected more off each of the blades, shimmering.  The leaves of my maple tree dappling and creating shade, I thought, either I could go sit under it on the swing, or get a cup of coffee and stare at it through my picture window.  I chose the latter.  And the afternoon dark of the kitchen brought me down five degrees cooler, so I looked forward to the coffee heating me up again while I watched the shifting sunlight play on the branches from my green fold out chair.

I had no music on, no record.  I just sat there in the quiet, well not quiet exactly.  I could hear the birds.  Then after a while I could hear the lawn mower going, and so it finally registered that I had seen my dad out there in those brown plaid shorts and yellow shirt.  It was a button down, short sleeve, and he often put his sunglasses in those pockets, and wore a cap.  Now the motor of the lawn mower drown out the birds, and I had already gone around the gold living room and through the danish dining room to get a second or a third cup of coffee.

And I’d smoked several cigarettes by now.  The ashtray was full.  The little friends in pony tails holding hands were covered in ashes.

“I always wonder what she’s staring at, out that window,”  Kijra said.

I thought, isn’t it obvious?

And what happens in graveyards stays in graveyards.  There was a bitter, nasty taste in my mouth now.  Probably from the coffee and the cigarettes.  I lit another one to make it go away.  Then the mowing stopped for a moment.  He wasn’t done.  It was a huge yard.  He left the mower and went inside for a drink I bet.  Lemonade. It stood there halfway across and halfway between.   Right in the middle.  It had the same essence, it was like an alter ego of my dad.

I tried to mow the lawn one time.  I can’t remember if it was the motorized one or the hand one.  The gasoline smell was overpowering, but then I can also see the blades from that cylander that goes around cutting and it’s so hard to push.  But then he stopped me.  “You’ll get hurt,” he said.

Forty

I could just see them pushing their strollers around the park.   And both with scarves tied around their heads.  With hairdos.

“We used to play chase,” Kijra said after a long pause.  She was looking at her fingernails when she said this.  Staring off into the distance at them, and they were painted an ugly blue.

“Chase?”

“Yea,” she said, and she was smiling, “Chase.  You chased each other around a grave yard.  You touched a gravestone and then ran away and you were it.  So when you touched someone else they had to run and touch that gravestone.”

It was the graveyard on Algoma I pictured, with dead leaves kicked up and swirling behind the wrought iron gates.  Second graders, I pictured them, or third.  And I didn’t say anything more about it.

And Kijra was still smiling, still looking at her fingernails, lost in them.

I sat for a while staring out the window at the trees, and the smoke I blew from my cig.  After a while I got up to leave, grabbed my bass purse and keys.  My cigs and lighter.  She looked up with a quick motion, “Where are you going?”

“Home,” I said.

Thirty Nine

Of course Kijra didn’t answer this.  She was planning her next song selection, and it wasn’t from the Rolling Stones album with the cake on the cover.

“Why do they have a cake on the cover of that?”

Now this, this got Kijra’s full attention.  For a moment. She looked over, past the albums she was thumbing through, and looked at the cake.

“It’s great,”  she said, nodding her dark jangling head at the cake.  Then she went back to thumbing through the handful of records she had picked out and set in a vertical stack in front of her where she sat, cross legged on the floor.  She was wearing black leotards, army boots, and some kind of rust red colored dress with black stitching all over it.  She could have made it herself, were that ever the kind of thing she would do.

“Half the clothes Siggy lends me are things I suspect she made herself,”  I observed.

“I know.  She’s such a freak,”  Kijra said, pursing her lips a little to the side in a benign gesture of  indifference.

“And then she hands them to me, like I want them or something, and then I end up in trouble with her because I either lost them or tore them or spilled something on them.  I swear I think she does it to obligate me to her in some way,”  I said.

Kijra put on the next song, and instructed me to pay special attention to how great the lyrics were.  Something about stupid happy people.

“It really bugs me that she does this, and it bugs me that she sews,”  I said.

Kijra laughed and said she’d always been like that.  “She designs her own clothes.  I think she thinks she’s artistic or something like that.  She’s just trying to be eccentric and special.  She’s trying to be Ziggy.  But she can’t be.  He’s so great.”

“You and her were really good friends at one time weren’t you?”  I asked her.

She shrugged, and said, “We were just together all the time, that’s all.  Our moms walked us in baby carriages together.  We lived three houses away from each other in Virginia.”

I sat up from my laid back position on her cloth hamper like chair.

“That’s what I mean.  That’s weird.  Why did you both move here together?”

Thirty Eight

In Kijra’s room there was a tapestry that hung from the wall with a beautiful picture of an elephant, and it was covered with jewels of all different colors, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and when I was really really stoned I would stare at it, and get lost in it.  I could almost see myself in that elephant.  I don’t know if it was because I was somehow reflected in all the little mirrors that seemed to make up the elephants body and garb, or because I was somehow relating to the elephant.

I pinched my stomach.

“I’m all blubbery,”  I said.

At this Kijra began to giggle again and said, “You’re a skinny, tiny little girl.  You look twelve.”

“Siggy told me I should be a model.  I think maybe she was making fun of me.”

More giggles from Kijra was all I got from that, while she had turned her back to me and was putting on her next song selection, standing over the stereo, placing the needle carefully on what looked to be about the fourth song in.  Let me see now.  The Rolling Stones cover that had the cake on it was leaning against the base, song number four, that would be…

“Now I don’t ever want you to play this song.  You have to promise me,”  she paused, holding the needle up above the song, her tangled black curls hanging assymetrically from her tilted head.  “You promise?  Or I won’t play it.”

“I promise.  Why does Siggy always lend me clothes that I don’t want?”

Thirty Seven

“But I wish I could have had a vegetable sandwich.  I was really really craving one of those,”  I said, with a sigh.

“Kijra,” said from the doorway, “you’re problem really is one of attachment to this world, in all seriousness.  Especially to material things.”

This caused Kijra to giggle so badly that she had to put her milk down.  Then she said, “Actually, isn’t it Janey lou who is attached to the sandwich?”

“Me?”

“Yes, but I would have expected you to say something about it.  Instead you let her go on and on about the sandwich, and even tried to appease her with fried mangoes.”

I looked down at my mangoes.

And Kijra giggled silently into her plate.

“You should have told her, and you would have, were you not yourself so attached to these material things like vegetable sandwiches and mangoes and things of this sort.  You must let the things of this world go.”

And the he seemed to disappear from the room, because the moment I looked over to see his small stature and greying head, his mustache and his Einstein eyes, he was gone.

Thirty Six

“Make me a vegetable sandwich.  And put those sunflower seeds in in.  Make sure you put those sunflower seeds in it.  Do you have sunflower seeds?”  I asked her.

And Kijra stood with her back to me, looking in the long cupboard where her mom kept nuts and bread and cereal and such.  The one where Raj (formerly Namar) often stood complaining.

“Yes, we have the sunflower seeds, but we don’t have the bread you like.”

“That dark bread?  Really thin slices?  I love that bread.  I don’t want a sandwich then.  What kind of bread is that anyway?”

“Pumpernickle bread.”

“Oh no.  You don’t have that bread.  What a bummer.”

“How about I fix you some fried mango?”

“Fried mango?  I’ve never had that.”

“It’s really good.  And I have the mango already sliced,” she said, and she got the mango slices out of the fridge.  They were kept in a little plastic container.

I stood behind her, my back to her, looking out the six framed narrow windows that went nearly to the ceiling.  Her back yard always reminded me of an Ibsen play, for some reason.  I guess because it was the scene that I imagined from some of the descriptions in there.  Rolling green hills, nestled in clumps of tall, neatly manicured trees, filled with singing birds.

“Ug, these mangoes are sticking!”  she complained, scraping the metal spatula loudly against the pan, which caused her Hindu father, to come into the room.  From then on I started wishing that Kijra could maybe poach me an egg, for some reason.  And when he came in he started watching the pan, and kijra’s struggle with the egg, and said, “Kijra,” in his strong Indian accent, “your problem is one of attachment.”

It was a small Professor Vedanta joke, so typical of him.  Kijra giggled silently over this and then finally served up my mangos and we sat in the tiny little dining area off to the right of the kitchen.  I always looked around when we ate in there, because it was decorated just like a little Danish dollhouse.  Little wooden beams here and there at thirty degree angles, all equidistant and symmetrical.  The wood matched the color of the slats in the six framed windows that opened in, rather than out, from turning odd little handles near them, that neatly matched the beams and the walnut colored table.

“Yumm.  These are so good.  And I have the munchies so bad.”

“Shh,” she giggled, putting one finger to her thick lips.  They were ridiculous lips really.  So ridiculous that Sigfried had simply named her “Lips.”

Chapter Thirty Five

“It’s not absurd.  Make up covers up flaws.  Mascara enhances lashes,”  Kijra said, as we got out of the car, and were walking in the chilly Wisconsin air, blowing out what looked like streams of smoke, even if we weren’t smoking.

“Eye shadow.  That doesn’t cover up flaws,”  I pointed out.

“Sure it does, ” Kijra argued.

“What flaw, the fact that your lids aren’t blue?”  Ziggy said.

“Only Janey lou wears blue eye shadow,” Kijra said.

“No I don’t!”

“I’ve always considered it a major flaw,”  Paul said, putting his arm around my waist, “eye lids that aren’t blue.”

I was torn.  Should I thank him for his support of my bright blue eye shadow that I often wore, or should I be offended at any possible sarcasm, or was he really saying my eyes looked bad without the blue shadow.

“Don’t say that Paul,”  Kijra said, “Janey lou will be worrying that her eye lids aren’t blue now.”

“I will not!”  I huffed, offended.

And Joey, who lagged a bit behind, wasn’t saying much.  That was unusual for her.  Usually she was loud, out spoken, and out front.  But she hung back, every now and then letting us know it was just fine not to wear make up, and that women who wore it were just slaves to men.  Kijra laughed aloud at this, and said, “I’d love to be an Egyptian slave.  They shaved their arms!  Their whole arms,”  and she indicated, pulling her red leather jacket sleeve up, and rubbed her hand up her arm.

“Just shave it then, who’s stopping you?”  Joey snapped.

“How long are we going to talk about make up?”  Namar finally sighed.  Then after a few minutes of silence he said, “I want everyone to start calling me Raj, from now on.”

Chapter Thirty Four

“Mascara isn’t make up.”

“Oh, uh huh, mascara isn’t make up. “

“It’s true.  Kijra, tell him mascara isn’t make up.”

Kijra didn’t hear me though.  She had turned the music back up, lost interest in what was going on back in the bucket seat.  But Joey jumped in to say, “I don’t know how you can stand that shit on your eyes.  It’s so close to your pupils and everything.  Ick.”

That was true, come to think of it.  I had never seen Joey in mascara.  Or lipstick, or eye shadow or anything.   I thought about it some more, and tried to picture Joey, with her short brown hair and boy clothes wearing lipstick, and found myself laughing out loud.

“What’s so funny?”  Both Ziggy and Paul said at once.

“The image in my head of Joey in lipstick.”I could tell they were both picturing it for a moment, and both of them started laughing too.

“What?”  Joey turned around and glared accusingly at us.

“You in lip stick.”

“What’s so funny about that?”  She glared harder.

“Nothing,”  all three of us said at once.

And we all stopped laughing too.  And we waited for her to turn back around before snickering again at the image but she knew instantly and turned around again and said, “What?  Just because I don’t parade around like a stupid Barbie Doll like most of you girls you think that’s funny?”

“No.”

Kijra finally showed interest in what was going on, turned down the radio, and said, “No, mascara isn’t make up, Ziggy.”

“Why not?  That’s absurd.”

“No, it makes perfect sense.  Make up is the stuff you put on your skin.  Mascara goes on the eye lashes.It’s just and enhancement technique.”

“An enhancement technique?  You mean like make up.”

“No.  It’s a completely different thing,” she said, and then she turned quickly to Joey and said, “Oh yea, and you would look completely ridiculous in lipstick, Joey.”

“I agree,”  said Namar.

And then Kijra lit one of her clove cigarettes, turned the radio up and began blowing smoke rings.

“Why?”  Joey pursued.

But nobody would answer, everyone just got quiet, and then we arrived at our destination, a Bogie and Becall movie in Madison.

Chapter Thirty Three

Even I could hear the smack smacking sounds over the music, and the sound was beginning to annoy me, especially since that last comment I just had to answer with, “How ridiculous.  You are only allowed to control other people if you don’t succeed.  What, you’re just allowed to try?  How does that even -”

“Focus on your kissing,”  Ziggy said.

I huffed.  I crossed my arms.  I stopped kissing Paul, who then took my chin, held it up, and looked at me with those big brown puppy eyes.

I leaned over and lay down, feeling the sticky vynal pressed up against my cheek, and putting my feet on his lap.  He immediately took off my — what shoes was I wearing.  I couldn’t remember.  By the feeling of them coming off I guessed they were the Beatle boots Sherry and I had bought at the Beatlemania festival.  They were so uncomfortable.  And they had this spiky heel that made it impossible to walk, and the sides went way up past my ankles making it hard to bend them, and digging in to my lower calf.  He started rubbing my foot.

“Oh, man that feels great,”  I said.

And they turned the radio completely off, not just down, and stopped all their regular hum of their conversations up there.  And I saw Ziggy’s face, because he had turned around, put his hands over the top of the seat and was now staring down at me.

“What,”  I looked up and said, rubbing my eye.

“You look like a raccoon.”

I rubbed them some more.

“Look at her Paul, she looks like Gene Simmons of Kiss.”

Gene Simmons of Kiss!  I sat half up, like a forty five degree triangle, suddenly thinking of the chess club, because I remember him saying that to me then too.

Paul looked at me and laughed.

“It’s your eyes,”  Paul put his finger on my lids, and under them, trying to wipe some of it off.  “Did you deliberately do that?”

“Do what?  Oh that?  That’s my mascara.  It rubs off sometimes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t wear make up.”