What Goes Thump in the Night

What goes thump in the night? Me, trying to get into my bed. Over at Authorblog, David McMahon’s weekly, Weekend Wandering question is, “As a child, were you afraid of the dark?” Below is my answer:

As a child I was so afraid of the dark that I rearranged my bedroom to get the bed as close to the light switch as possible. Then, with one finger on the switch, I would stretch out as far as I could go in a modified runners stance, flick my finger and dive for the bed, desperate to make it all the way up and under the covers before the light went off and the monster under the bed realized he could dash out and eat me. It never worked. I almost got eaten every night that sixth year of my life!

My ever practical Gram had little sympathy for my fears. She would yell, “Don’t run in the house!” And, “Don’t jump on the bed!” I often suspected she liked the dark monster more than she liked me, especially when she’d send me to the basement. She would say, “Go downstairs and get the peas out of the the freezer.” I would say, “I don’t really want peas tonight.” She would say, “Then get the green beans.” I would say, “Can’t we have canned corn?” And she would swing her wooden spoon in my general direction and send me off to battle the dark monster.

I hated going to the basement. Our staircase had a light switch at the top and the bottom. The staircase ended at the basement wall. One could turn right into the laundry room, or left into the family room (later converted to my cousin Rumble’s bedroom). From the family room one could enter the “old kitchen” as I called it. The basement had once been an apartment which my mother had lived in when my brother and sisters were little. The kitchen hadn’t been used in years for anything but storage. Where the fridge should have been was an huge upright freezer.

Gram's Basement

The thing is, the rooms in the basement didn’t have a light in them that one didn’t have to walk to — in the dark — and pull a string to turn them on. Not only that, I was short — just about an inch too short to just grab the string. I had to jump and grab for it. I never got it on the first try.

My attempts to turn on the family room light started much like my attempts to “race” my bedroom light, only in the basement I could assume a full runner’s stance. I would sprint to the light cord — running at an angle trying to stay as long as possible within the triangle of light that cut around the corner. Then I would jump for the cord. If I caught it I would pull. If I missed, I would turn in mid-air and land with my legs already pumping for my dash back to the light. Sometimes I made it just millimeters ahead of the dark monster’s claws.

I would stand in the rectangle of light at the bottom of the stairs, hands on knees, grasping for breath, probing the darker corners of the dark with my gaze. I knew the dark monster was there somewhere. Once my breath — and my courage — were under control, I would try again. Usually my second or third try would see the light come on.

Next came the kitchen, and it was worse. I couldn’t see the light cord from the door, and had to run blind into the darkest, scariest part of the kitchen. If you’re looking at the those windows thinking they let in light — ha! — they were covered in thick curtains made from ancient flannel-backed plastic table cloths. Plus, the furnace was coal or wood burning until I was in third grade. Between the thickness of the curtains and the sooty grit and grime, no self-respecting beam of light could fight its way in.

Not only that, the door between the family room and the kitchen, despite being so dang heavy I almost couldn’t move it from its latched position, swung back and forth at will — or so it seemed to my six year old mind. I’d not yet grasped the concept of pendulum motion. I’d swung the door open, it should have stayed open, not reached the apex of its swing and rebounded!

So, I’d swing the door and charge into the dark feeling as though I was storming straight into the mouth of the monster, and make a grab for the light. If I missed I’d rebound off the front of the stove and make a dash for the door — and the ever decreasing triangle of light — before it closed and latched on me. Luckily, the door never did manage to close behind me and latch, which is probably a good thing because I would have died of fright right there on the spot. Gram would have eventually tromped down the stairs to see what was keeping me and she’d have found me just inside that door, a little puddle of goo in a big puddle of pee.

Once I had the lights on and the vegetables in hand, I would take the veggies back to the staircase and put them on the third or fourth step from the top. Then I’d have to go back and turn off all the lights one at a time. I would go into the old kitchen, take my runner’s stance by the stove, and make a running grab for the cord as I charged from the room, more often then not clipping my left shoulder or knee on the counter or wall as I cut that corner too tight — and remember, all of this had to be timed with that damed swinging door — and often I’d have to make three of four tries before I got it right.

Once the kitchen light was off, I still had to turn the family room light off. Reversing my original process, I would sprint from the opposite side of the room and run toward the staircase. Because there were no curves in my path, I usually managed to turn the family room light off in one or two tries.

With the lights all off and me safely on the staircase, I would take a deep breath, pick up the vegetables, and climb to the top. Once there I would stop, grab the stairwell door and — just before latching it behind me — stick my tongue out at the dark monster, because I knew he was standing just out of the rectangle of light peeking around the corner and looking up the stairs. Then I would take the vegetables to Gram who always grumbled that they were half defrosted and then wondered aloud what the heck had taken me so long.

Sticks & Stones

The summer I was six years old I received two spankings — one more than I deserved.

Sugar Jay was my best-friend, but she was as spoiled as her name implies. She would never do things my way. My mud pie recipe had specific ingredients. The perfect mud pie has a firm, creamy texture, but Sugar, one of those “whole earth” freaks, kept adding rocks, sticks and pine cones to the mix. I patiently picked the bits and pieces out of my mud and set them aside — as far aside as I could throw them.

We dug the hole for our mud pit into the embankment across the street from Gram’s house. Then we got Gram’s hose, put the garden nozzle on it, and drug it across the street. Sugar and I were the only two kids in the neighborhood to have a mud hole with water on tap.

Although we were across the street, technically we were playing at my house. Sugar’s home was half a block away and on a different street. Since we were playing at my house, we should have been playing by my rules, but Sugar didn’t see it that way. She kept putting crap in the mud.

Finally I had HAD IT! I ordered her to stop. She ignored me. I grabbed a handful of the twigs and sticks and rocks and slapped them down on her mud pie baking board. SPLAT! The teeniest, tiniest, little speck of mud may have splattered on her hands, stomach, chest, face and hair, but hey, it was nothing to cry about.

She let out a wail, stood up, kicked mud all over my feet, called me a poopy-diaper, and declared that she was going home. “Fine!” I yelled to her retreating back. Then I picked up the bittiest thumb-sized rock and hurled it after her, accidentally bouncing it off the back of her head. “Take your stupid crap with you!” I yelled.

Before I had finished rinsing the mud off my feet — some of it splashed all the way to my knees! — Gram came marching out of the house and grabbed me by my arm, hop-stepping the hose and I back home. It seems that Sugar told her mommy I threw a rock and showed her some bloody cut on the back of her head that I had supposedly caused.

Gram plunked me down on the kitchen stool and made me waste quite a bit of a perfectly good Saturday morning sitting there thinking about what a poopy-head Sugar was. Before I was allowed to leave the stool, Gram made me promise to never throw a rock again.

I promised, and even as a little kid I was very good at keeping promises. If I promised not to do something, I never again did it. For instance, from that day to this I never again threw a rock at anyone.

The next morning when I was out playing in the mud, Sugar joined me. She walked right up and poured a whole bucketful of rocks, bark, sticks, and pine cones on top of the mud hole. I let out a shriek and jumped to my feet. “Look what you’ve done!” I howled.

She knelt down, swirled a pine cone through the mud and began adorning it with rocks. “This is going to be beautiful,” she said. I snatched it from her hands and threw it down the street. Then I kicked mud on her feet — just to get even — except that she was sitting criss-cross and I might have gotten a bit of mud all over the rest of her, too.

She jumped to her feet, called me a poopy-head again, and yelled, “I’m going to tell!” She regally marched past me with her mud covered chin stuck up in the air and I just wanted to smack her. In fact, I took a couple of steps toward her, but she ran. I looked around for something to throw — but not a rock. I’d promised not to throw any rocks — and my hand wrapped around a big, spiky pine cone.

I tossed it as hard as I could at her retreating back. She was wearing her swimsuit and the pine cone hit her square between the shoulder blades — and stuck there. Oops. I hadn’t exactly meant for that to happen. I grabbed the hose and started back across the street, figuring I was in for another bout of chair sitting.

Sure enough, Gram came marching out the door before I got the hose completely put away and frog-hopped me into the house. She hefted me up the steps by my upper arm and marched me straight to the kitchen, but she didn’t sit me on the stool. She bent me over it and swatted my rear-end once with the wooden spoon. “I thought I told you not to throw things,” she scolded.

I stood there outraged, betrayed, with both my hands pressed to my offended bottom and sobbed, “But it wasn’t a rock!” Then Gram told me that I wasn’t to throw anything and she sent me to my room for the rest of the day to think about it.

I did think about it. I thought, and I thought and I thought. And no matter how I looked at the incident it was perfectly clear to me that I did not break my promise and I did not deserve that spanking. If Gram didn’t want me to throw anything, she should have just said so in the first place!

Hemmed In

Rumble never should have left me to walk home.  Walking stimulates blood flow, and blood flow stimulates brain activity.  Even though Gram sent Rumble back to get me, by the time he showed up, I’d walked over half the way home, and my revenge was pretty well plotted.

The next morning I told Rumble to go ahead and go to school without me, because my friends Sue and Anna were coming by.  If Rumble left with the impression they would be taking me to school, that wasn’t my fault.  We raided Gram’s sewing kit, grabbed a packet of needles and a couple of rolls of white thread, then we descended the basement stairs and invaded Rumble’s lair.

Rumble was — probably still is –  ridiculously fastidious about his things.  Most everything he owned had it’s very own hanger, even his bath towels.  I took the towels out of his closet and very carefully sewed the inside layer tightly to the hanger.  I also sewed the shoulders of his bathrobe to the hanger. Anna sewed all of Rumble’s socks together in pairs.  Sue sewed the fly closed on every pair of underwear he owned.  I sewed his top sheet to his bottom sheet on his bed.

All three of us sewed closed every single button hole on every single article of clothing he owned.  On his shirts, we sewed them closed unbuttoned.  On the flies of his mechanic’s coveralls and his denim overalls, we sewed them closed buttoned.

That little chore took most of the day.  About an hour after we started Gram came down to see what we were doing.  She shook her head.  “He really isn’t going to like this you know,” she warned, then left the room.  As she was ascending the stairs she said, “Don’t forget to sew his pockets closed.”  It seemed like good advice, so we took it.

Every evening when the TV went off after the news, Rumble and I said good-night.  I went to my bedroom and Rumble retreated downstairs.  The north wall of the staircase was the south wall of my bedroom.  On the third step down Rumble always knocked on the wall three times, and I knocked back.  That night I waited in glee after the three knocks for the eruption downstairs.  It never came.

The next morning at breakfast Rumble was a little grumbly.  “The bed thing was really cute,” he said.  “I pretty much ripped it to pieces trying to get into it.”  Then his voice lowered.  “The towel thing was not at all amusing.”

My grandfather had built the downstairs bathroom.  The shower was 4′x4′ and the water sprinkler was a 3 inch disk that sprayed straight down from the celling.  The bathroom window took up most of the west wall, and it didn’t have a curtain on it.   Those of us who used that bathroom dried off inside the shower and emerged wrapped in the bathrobe or  towel we’d left hanging on the door for just that purpose — unless of course both the bathrobe and the towel were sewed tightly to their hangers.

Rumble said he used his pocket knife to get the button holes open on his shirt.   I had the joy of watching him try to use his pockets.  He ran his pipe lighter down his chest about three times before he actually stopped to look at his pocket to see why it wouldn’t open.  He did the same thing trying to put his car keys in his right front pocket and his wallet in his back pocket.  Each time he made rumbly noises and used his pocket knife to cut the threads.

Next he sat down on the couch and tried to seperate his socks.  More rumbling.  I laughed myself silly.  Gram – -the traitor — told Rumble that Anna and Sue had helped me.  Rumble promised to save a few choice growls for them.  Finally he was dressed in his chambray shirt,  denimn overalls, mechanics coveralls, socks and shoes — and likely undergarments as well, though I never saw them — and he never mentioned them.  I didn’t know if he’d discovered all his flies were sewn closed.  He went out the door to school.

Sue and Anna came to pick me up.  We went out the door to school, too.  We went straight to the school cafeteria and bought a gigantic cola, which we then delivered to Rumble as a peace offering.  Being the suspicious sort — go figure — he made me taste it before he would accept the dang thing.

We hung around the shop visiting while he drank his soda.  It wasn’t an unusual occurance.  None of us had class at that time and the shop was full of boys — most of whom we weren’t related to.  Rumble didn’t think it odd that we hung out there flirting.

When his soda was about three-quarters gone, Rumble excused himself to use the restroom.  Just before he could walk away, Anna asked if she could use his pocket knife to cut her shoe lace, which suddenly was hopelessly tangled.  Rumble surrendered his pocket knife without a qualm.

He erupted from the bathroom like a thundercloud.  His brows were drawn together and his beard was fairly bristling.   We’d made a tactical mistake and were in the tool alcove.  there was no way out that wasn’t past Rumble.  He advanced on us, rumbling.  “The coveralls …. okay.  I thought that was funny.  The overalls were a bit more irritating! But the underwear ….” his voice cracked like thunder.  “The underwear is unforgivable!”  He madly jabbed his finger in the direction of the restroom.  “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in that men’s room,” he shouted.  “It has no doors!  And I had to disrobe –disrobe!   Completely undress — to take a pee! I haven’t done that since I was four!”

I think in pictures, and the visual that conjured up was just too much.  I dissolved in a fit of giggles.  So did everybody else within ear-shot.  Rumble rumbled that it damn well wasn’t funny.  Then he jammed his hand in the grease barrel and marked my cheek with a gooey, black “B”,  for brat.   Even that didn’t make me stop laughing.

Several days later Rumble arrived at the breakfast table still bristling.  He growled, “This is getting old! How the hell much of my stuff did you sew up?”

I grinned at him and shrugged one shoulder.  “All of it.”

He was lifting a piece of toast to his open mouth and he froze, staring at me in horror. Finally he sighed, then rumbled in resignation, “I’ll be cutting thread for the next month!”  I smiled again and blew him a kiss on my way out of the room.

Cosmetically Yours

Rumble loved his car. I don’t know why. It was a banged up beater. A Dodge Dart well past the age of darting anywhere. Still, he washed it, petted it, polished it and praised it. Most days — since my car was really Gram’s car — Rumble drove me to college. He sometimes took my friends Carla and Susan as well. He provided me with a key to the trunk of his car so I could switch out books between classes, but he refused to supply me with a key to the door. He said he didn’t trust me — bad mistake. By not trusting me, he gave me permission to be untrustworthy. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to disappoint him, right? Gaining access to Rumble’s car wasn’t all that hard. He was taking a mechanics course and I just went into the auto shop and lifted his keys from his workbench while he was under someone’s chassis.

Maybelline used to make — may still make for all I know — eyeshadow in a tube that went on like liquid, but dried to a powder. My friends and I always carried a half-dozen tubes of the stuff at any given time. I didn’t care for them much on my eyes, but they were wonderful for writing on mirrors — or car windows.

Carla, Susan and I often used the eyeshadow to write notes on Rumble’s car window, like: pick me up at the library, or don’t wait I have another ride home. Rumble was used to seeing them, and knew they wiped right off. On this particular day I used them all and decorated every window. However, this time I decorated them on the inside, and I drew hearts and flowers, advertised his nickname, and wrote notes in baby-talk. The work was slow and meticulous because I had to write everything backward, so it would show correctly through the window. When my masterpiece was complete, I moved his car and parked it square in front of the auto shop so all his friends could see it. Then I walked up the embankment and sat down behind some bushes to wait.

At lunch time the auto shop emptied. A few of Rumble’s classmates found the car first. They walked around it reading and laughing, then using his nickname, they called him out in baby talk. “Oh Rumblie, ud woo come here, pwease?” They were laughing hysterically, but fell quiet and backed away as he approached the car, his face darker than a thunder cloud.

Rumble jerked out his pocket handkerchief and took a swipe at the window. His baby name mocked him. Painted in lavendar and surrounded by little pink hearts, it remained. He took another swipe. No change. Not even a smudge. A few of his friends snickered. Someone taunted, “Whudssa matta, Rumblie?” He let out a snarl and scrubbed frantically. The writing stayed.

He thumped his fist against the top of the car and stomped back into the auto bay. Someone called, “Hey, Rumblie, doan go ‘way mad! Come back!”

Rumble stomped back out to his car, ignoring the continuing taunts. He cupped his hands around his eyes and peered in the car windows. I knew he wasn’t going to find his keys, they were in my pocket. I had forgotten to return them.

Rumble walked slowly around his car, then he stopped and turned his gaze to the people around him. “Did anyone see who did this?” He rumbled. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was definite menace in the words. With hasty, “no’s” his audience dispersed. Rumble stood in the parkinglot, his eyes scanning the vicinity and suddenly I realized he was looking for a suspect. I scooted hastily behind a tree. When I finally had the nerve to peek out again Rumble was gone, and if I didn’t hurry, I’d be late for English class.

At the end of the day I approached Rumble’s car just as casually and nonchalantly as I assumed an innocent person would. Rumble was leaning against it waiting for me. He held out his hand and rumbled, “My keys?”

I told him I didn’t have them. It was true. I didn’t. While Rumble was leaning on his car waiting for me I’d slipped into the auto shop and put them back on his work bench. Rumble said, “Somebody took them. It had to be you. ” He pointed at his windows, “I recognize the paint job.”

“Hey!” I said all innocent, “I’m not the only one who uses that stuff!”

His hand was still outstretched. “My keys?”

Pretending impatience, I raised my hands and said, “Search me. I haven’t got them.”

“Where are they?” He asked. Rumble’s voice is deep and low and, when he wants it to be, menacing. Luckily, I knew I was safe from any actual physical violence, so the threat was wasted on me.

“How should I know? They’re not my keys!” I acted all put out, then added graciously. “Do you want me to help you look for them?”

“I already looked.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my books down on the trunk of the car. “Like you looked for your textbook I found on the foot of your bed right where you left it.”

He turned his gaze back toward the auto bay. “Okay,” he said, and we walked inside.

I returned his keys just a few inches away from where I’d found them. Behind a can of WD-40 instead of in front of it. I hung back and let Rumble find them. When he said, “But I looked here earlier.” I just said, “Right.”

We walked back to the car. I gathered my books from the top of the trunk and stashed them inside. Rumble jerked open the driver’s door and wiped his nickname from the window. He crawled all through the car, cleaning every window. I waited outside. Rumble is a gentleman. He always opened the car door for me, cousin or not, and I knew better then to open it myself, besides, it was still locked. Finally Rumble emerged from the driver’s door and looked across the top of the car at me. “Since you didn’t have the keys, I know who did this.”

“Oh?” I said, my voice may have been a little sharper than I intended.

“Hmm,” Rumble nodded. “Had to be Susan. I gave her my keys this morning because she said she’d lost something in the back seat. I hope she enjoys walking home tonight.”

Oh crap. I’d just gotten one of my friends in trouble. “Maybe she didn’t do it,” I said. “I mean, why would she?”

“You. Susan. Carla. ” Rumble held up a finger as he listed each name, then he went through them again, “Carla is in Cataldo. You say you didn’t do it. Susan had the keys.”

Technically, I never said I didn’t do it. I couldn’t admit that, though. I also couldn’t let Susan take the blame. “But I’m sure Susan didn’t do it!” I snapped.

Rumble smirked at me across the top of the car. “So am I. Now.” Then he dropped into the driver’s seat, shut the door and — just before he drove away — waved at me.

Tea Time

I was sick. I was coughing, hacking, sniffing, blowing and whining. I felt so bad, even my hair hurt. I was curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and reading my novel. Rumble and Gram were in their customary chairs. They were reading as well.

I glanced at the clock, realized it was almost time for the Eleven o’clock news, and that it was my turn to fix the tea. I started to get up. Rumble rumbled at me to stay. He said that since I was sick, he’d fix the tea.

Ooooh! It was so incredibly kind, I couldn’t help but smile at him. I said, “Thank you. You are so sweet.”

Then he rumbled that he didn’t want my germs anywhere near his tea. Jerk.

Our tea drinking during the news had come to be a ritual. Rumble and I took turns brewing and serving. Sometimes one or the other of us would add a special treat. Then we carried everything to the living-room on an old, battered wooden tray that had wall paper cabbage roses decoupaged to it. We usually sat the tray on the footstool within easy reach of all of us.

Despite it not being his night to make tea, Rumble still provided a special treat. Alongside the teapot, cups, spoons and sugar bowl, was a little crystal bowl full of Creme d’Mint after dinner chocolates. “Oh! My favorite!” I said, and promptly popped one into my mouth.

I told Rumble how wonderful he was and proclaimed the chocolate sweet and delicious. I also mentioned that I wished my nose wasn’t so plugged, so I could enjoy it more.

Rumble passed me a steaming hot cup of tea. “Here, drink this. Maybe it will clear your nose, then you can have another.” How sweet.

I thanked him, took the mug in both my hands and raised it to my lips. The steamy liquid fogged my glasses as I took a huge swallow — and froze.

Vinegar! Rumble had served me a steaming hot mug of cider vinegar! After the sweetness of the chocolate mint, it was a double assault to my tongue. I couldn’t swallow, and spitting was against every manner I had ever been taught. I lurched from the couch, all tangled in my blanket, still holding the cup of “tea” in my left hand. Since I couldn’t swallow or spit, I also couldn’t shriek or cuss. Nor — thanks to my stuffy nose — breathe!

Had I not been very well trained, I probably would have spit that tea on Rumble. Only the thought of Gram’s reaction stopped me. I struggled to the bathroom, finally kicking out of my blanket in the hall. As I wretched over the sink, I could hear Rumble in the living-room laughing himself silly.

Gram admonished, “Now, Rumble, that wasn’t very nice.”

Rumble, gasping for breath said, “I know, but did you see her face?” Then he roared even louder.

As I listened to him laugh, I doused his toothbrush in Gram’s perfume and began contemplating ways to get even.

Shiny, Bright Red

Every evening before dinner, Rumble would stretch out on the living-room floor and take a nap. Often, to use as little floor space as possible, he put his feet next to me on my chair. A couple of nights after the peanut butter and jelly incident, Rumble stretched out on his back, put his feet near my thigh, and went out like a light.

I finished painting my fingernails a lovely pearl pink, then I capped the polish bottle and put it away. As soon as my nails were dry I reached back into my cosmetic case, and took out a bottle of fire engine red fingernail polish. This I uncapped. Then I carefully painted each of Rumble’s toenails on both of his feet.

Gram was sitting in her chair right across from me. Softly she said, “That’s bound to make him mad you know.” I grinned at her and whispered back, “I’m counting on it.” One side-effect of living in a house no bigger than a postage stamp, is that you get used to people being around all the time. You lose that inner sense of “being watched”. That’s likely why Rumble slept through what I did next.

I eased out of my chair, taking care not to jostle his feet, and knelt besiode him on the floor. He lay with one hand on his stomach, and the other flung out beside him on the floor. I carefully painted each of his fingernails bright, shiny red.

Again Gram whispered at me, “He’s not going to like that!” I nodded my head and smiled.

About 20 minutes after I put the polish bottle away, Gram called us to the kitchen for dinner. We bowed our heads, Gram asked Rumble to say grace, then we all reached for our utensils. Rumble froze with a forkful of mashed potatoes half way to his mouth. He sat there, staring at his hand.

Slowly he raised his eyes to mine. “You have fingernail polish remover, right?”

Smirking at him, I shrugged.

He said, “I have a date with Kay tonight. I can’t go out with Kay wearing red fingernail polish.”

I said, “Why? Will she be jealous?”

Rumble started to get out of his seat, and Gram assured him I had fingernail polish remover. Spoil sport.

It was Rumble’s turn to do the dishes. He told me that I’d best have the fingernail polish remover ready for him as soon as he was finished.

I did have it ready. I’d gone in my bedroom, poured most of the bottle’s contents in a water glass, and diluted the bit I left in the bottle with rubbing alcohol. I presented it and a package of cotton balls to Rumble. He spent half an hour and all the polish remover scrubbing at his nails. Most of the polish came off, but his nails remained decidedly pink.

He tossed the empty bottle in my direction, gathered up the used cotton balls, and said he’d scrub the rest off in the shower with the Lava soap. He disappeared downstairs.

About 40 minutes later he came back upstairs, clean, shaved, combed and looking sharp. He carried his shoes and socks in his hand. “It came off,” he said, and showed me his au natural fingernails. I smiled at him.

He rolled up his sock, propped his left foot on his knee — and froze. I guess he didn’t wash his feet in the shower, because he was just noticing the toenail polish. His head snapped up and he demanded, “Polish remover!”

I tossed him the empty bottle. It landed in his lap. “It’s empty!” He shrieked.

“Hmm.” I said. “Most girls can clean a whole hand with just one soaked cotton ball, but you had to go and use it all.”

“The polish wouldn’t come off!” He shook the bottle at me. “Get me more!”

“That was it,” I said. “I don’t have another bottle.”

Rumble was sitting in the easy chair on the west side of the living-room. I was sitting on the curved sectional sofa across from him. Gram sat, also on the curved sectional, on the South side of the living room, following our conversation like a ping pong match. She studied each of us as we spoke, but she didn’t say a word.

Rumble stared at his red toenails. “I have a date with Kay,” he repeated. “I can’t go out with Kay wearing red toenail polish.”

“Where are you two going?” I asked.

Rumble shrugged. “The movies. Pizza Hut. The usual.”

“Oh,” I said, then sweetly asked, “And why is it you would need to take off your shoes at either of those places?”

Gram made the faintest little choking noise. Rumble turned bright red. He bent down, snatched up his shoes and socks and stalked from the house. I looked at Gram grinning and asked, “Was it something I said?”

She told me I ought to be ashamed of myself. Then she cracked up laughing.

The P.B. & J. Sandwich

After we graduated from high school, when it came time to start college, my cousin Rumble joined Gram and I her in little white house.   I adore Rumble.  I always have and I always will.  Even so, I say: He started it!

The college was so close to Gram’s house, that sometimes Rumble and I would come home for lunch.  Occasionally one of our friends would join us.  One day a friend and I were in Gram’s kitchen heating a can of chicken noodle soup, when Rumble walked in with a friend of his.  I poured another can of soup in the pot. Rumble suggested I make four P.B.& J. sandwiches.  We all sat at the table joking and laughing and eating together.  When we were finished, one P.B.& J. sandwich remained.  I got up to get a sandwich bag.  There weren’t any.

I went back to the table and offered the sandwich to my friend, and then to Rumble’s friend.  They both declined.  I tipped the sandwich from the platter onto Rumble’s plate.  “You eat it.”  I said.

He tipped it back onto my plate.  “You eat it.  You made it.”

I tipped it back onto his plate.  “You eat it.  You ordered it.”

He picked the sandwich up, slapped it onto my plate and said, “You eat it!”  Then he went into the bathroom.

I gathered up the dishes and quickly washed them.  My friend wiped the table.  Rumble’s friend moved the table back against the wall (It had to be pulled out to make room for 4 people). He also put the extra chair back in Gram’s bedroom.

Rumble came out of the bathroom, I slapped the P.B.& J. sandwich against the front of his shirt and said, “You eat it.”

He shoved the thing back into my hands and said, “You eat it!”  Then he yelled, “Come on,” to his friend and they took off out the door.  I was right behind them.  As Rumble started his car I put the P.B.& J. sandwich under his windshield wiper.  I yelled, “You eat it!”  Then I ran for my car.

I had to fumble the keys from my pocket and get the thing unlocked.  I was too slow.  Just as I got into the car, Rumble appeared at my side and stuck the sandwich under my windshiled wiper.  As he ran for his moving car — which his friend was driving — he yelled back over his shoulder, “You eat it!”   He dove through the open passenger door and they were gone.

I took the well and truly mangled sandwich from my windshield and told my friend I’d be right back.  I went into the house, down to the basement, and tucked the sandwich neatly beneath Rumble’s bed pillow.

That night over dinner, Rumble smirked at me and asked how I liked the sandwich.  I told him it was delightful.  Since I refused to be baited, the conversation moved on to other things.

After dinner it was customary for us to all retire to the living room and watch a little TV and/or read.  When the eleven o’clock news came on, Rumble or I — we took turns — would make cups of hot tea for everybody, we would sip while watching the news, then retreat to our own respective rooms.   The south wall of my bedroom was the north wall of the basement staircase.  As Rumble went downstairs he always knocked twice on the wall.  I always knocked twice in answer.  That was good night.

After the knock, I settled into bed wearing my customary night gown — one of my dad’s old t-shirts — and opened my psych book for a little studying.  Gram was still in the living-room.  She only had a few pages left of her novel, and wanted to finish it.  We heard thunder on the stairs.  I smirked, certain Rumble had found his sandwich.  I wasn’t worried.  There was no way Gram would let him into my bedroom.  I was safe.

The basement door banged open.  I head Gram say, “Rumble!” She sounded shocked.  And then I heard, “You can’t go in –.”  My bedroom door slammed open.  Rumble stood at the foot of my bed wearing nothing but his briefs and a huge smear of P.B.& J. from his right wrist to his elbow.  He advanced on me.

I tried climbing the head board, but it was only a couple of feet high and a half-inch thick.  Rumble caught me by my left wrist and pulled me foreword.  He grabbed my hair, long and thick,  and used it to wipe the P.B.& J. from his arm.  Then he let me go — completely unharmed, though extremely sticky — and went to take a shower, making certain to use every drop of hot water.

While I took my cold shower, I hatched a plot to get even ….

Be sure to check back next week. 

Gift Etiquette

My friend Charlotte’s dog had puppies. They were the cutest little Beagle babies ever born. I wanted one. Gram said, “No!” It was her firm, under no uncertain terms, no. The one there is really no point in arguing with — so I didn’t. Instead, I went into my room to pout.

Once in my room I was sorely reminded that I had a great deal more than no puppy to pout about. The ugliest dress ever fashioned hung from my closet door. It was red with huge white polka dots, and had ruffles and flounces and buttons and ribbons adorning it. A relative had sent it to me as my high school graduation present.

Of course, upon being presented the dress I smiled and said thank you as a properly raised child was properly raised to do — then the moment the relative was gone I begged to exchange the dress for something more age appropriate. No go. Gram not only said I couldn’t exchange the dress, she said I had to wear it out to dinner with said relative.

“In public?” I shrieked. I may have even thrown a wee temper-tantrum. What I got in exchange was Gram’s Gift Etiquette speech. “She went to a lot of trouble to pick out that dress for you.”

Yeah. It probably took her six months to find something that ugly.

“When you are given a gift,” Gram couldn’t hear my thoughts, but I imagine they were written all over my face. “You say thank you -”

“I did say thank you!”

“And you demonstrate your thankfulness by keeping the gift –”

Fine. I’ll keep it in the back of my closet.

“And using it — in this case wearing it — in their company.”

I jerked the dress out of the box to make certain Gram got a really good look at it. “I’ll die if I have to wear this dress!”

“You won’t die!” Gram admonished, but she was eying the dress. “You only have to wear it once,” she said.

Once. In public. Where the whole world would see.

Still, I might have believed she sympathized with my plight had she not added, “Who knows? It might grow on you.”

Like a fungus.

So I sat on my bed, staring at the ugliest dress in the history of forever and fuming over being denied the cutest puppy in the universe. And suddenly the dress did began to grow on me. I actually grabbed it, kissed it and danced around the room with it. That dress was about to guarantee me a puppy.

Sunday night I wore the dress out to dinner, as had been commanded. I didn’t scream or yell or gag or make any snide remarks at all. I acted like a proper young lady, all sugar and only the sweetest spices.

The next afternoon I came home from school alone. That was highly unusual. My friends and I generally traveled in a large crowd. When I came in, Gram noted the absence of my friends and asked, “What’s wrong?”

I told her that I had something very serious to talk to her about. Then I blurted out, “Charlotte has given me a present and I don’t want to keep it.”

“Why?” Gram asked sharply. “Is it too expensive or something her parents wouldn’t approve of?”

I frowned, like I was thinking about it, then shook my head. “Her parents wouldn’t mind. And, I don’t think it cost her anything at all.”

I didn’t plan that answer, but it was perfect. Gram thought I didn’t want the gift because it wasn’t good enough. She launched into her Gift Etiquette speech with extra verve and gusto. “The value of a gift isn’t in what it costs …” I waited patiently with my hands folded until she ran down, although, for appearances sake, I did try to insert a couple of, “B-b-buts,” into her tirade.

Finally she finished. I sighed heavily, said, “Well, okay, if that’s your last word.” She assured me that it was, so I went out to the porch and picked up a little wicker basket adorned with a lavender ribbon and a Congratulations on Your Graduation gift card. Inside the basket was the cutest little Beagle baby ever born.

Gram saw the basket — and it’s contents — shook her head and said, “I’ve been had.” But she was smiling.

Let Me Steer

I was one of the first kids in the neighborhood to learn to ride my bike sans hands — well, one of the first in my age group. I had to learn how to ride my bike without hands because Sugar Jay’s big brother, Handsome, almost never touched his handlebars. It was just too cool.

Cheerleader was one of those girls that life blessed with perfect looks, perfect hair, perfect teeth and perfect coordination. I wasn’t. By rights, Cheerleader and I shouldn’t have been friends, but by some quirk of fate, she didn’t know she was perfect, so she was nice, too. We used to ride our bikes all over the neighborhood together — then we started ranging farther afield.

The old cemetery had the absolute best bike-riding trails. The roads were paved in swoops and curves and dips. If a kid got enough speed going in, she could coast around and around and around, rarely ever having to pedal again. Cheerleader and I loved to ride our bikes there.

One afternoon as we were heading home from the library, Cheerleader’s front bike tire picked up a nail. We dropped her bike off at a friend’s house, she climbed on my handlebars and we continued on our way. As we neared the cemetery we had a discussion about whether we should cut through it or not — it was starting to get dark. Cemeteries are all fun and games in the daylight, but at night there were actually graves about. Graves are full of dead people you know. And dead people don’t like children.

We decided we weren’t babies, and a bit of fading light wasn’t going to keep us from a quick spin down our favorite paths. I pedaled for all I was worth and despite Cheerleader sitting on my handlebars, picked up a good bit of speed. We made a full circuit of the dips and swoops and curves, though I did have to pedal a bit more than usual.

Cheerleader said riding on the handlebars was ten times more fun then pedaling the bike herself. She said she really felt like she was flying. After the first circuit, she begged for one more. I really didn’t want to go again. I was having to work a little harder than usual at keeping the bike straight, plus I was used to riding the circuit without ever touching the handlebars. My arms were aching from holding her weight.

Add to that the fact that the shadows were growing pretty close together. I said, “Let’s just go home,” but Cheerleader challenged my courage. Refusing to admit cowardice, I acquiesced.

I was peddling standing up as we approached the top of the highest hill. Cheerleader’s blonde hair was flapping in my face, stinging my eyes, and my arms were aching. I wanted nothing more then to sit down on my bike seat and rest.

“Let go!” Cheerleader called.

“Huh?”

“Let go of the handlebars. Let me steer.”

My brain said, “You’ve got to be kidding,” but my arms complied. I sat back on my seat and let go of the handlebars. We shot down that hill faster then ever before. Too fast. We weren’t going to make the corner at the bottom. We weren’t going to make it because Cheerleader wasn’t turning.

“Turn,” I screamed. “Turn! Turn!” I made a mad grab for the handlebars, but they weren’t there — the bike wasn’t there. I was flying though the air. Then I was sliding across the grass. I shot between two tomb stones and came to rest, grass stained, but surprisingly unharmed.

I sat up slowing, mentally checking my physical well-being, and realized I was sitting squarely on a grave. I transported off of it faster than I’d landed on it. I bolted to the road, turning in the direction I thought I’d find my bike. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see much of anything but wobbling dark shadows.

Dark Shadows. Why did I have to think of that? I was forbidden to watch the soap opera, but forbidding me did little good when I was left home alone with the TV set. I watched the show every day. And I knew what happened to people who wandered through cemeteries at night. Worse, I wasn’t alone. I could hear a terrible moaning. Something was coming to get me!

I bolted for the gate. At that point neither my bike, nor Cheerleader were of any concern to me. I wanted out — alive! A lurching apparition plunged out of the darkness and crashed into me. I screamed and ran faster, but it had already passed me by.

Cheerleader. The coward. I screamed — “Wait for me!” — and she did, once she was about half-way home.

The Coolest Kid

For my 9th birthday I received a brand new bike. It was a pink and white Schwinn Sting Ray complete with banana seat, flared handlebars and hand brakes. It was the coolest bike in the neighborhood — which, of course, made me the coolest kid.

Mr. LaBeau, my baby-sitter’s husband, insisted that I try out the bike in his driveway before he would allow me on the street. That is probably a good thing, because I used the side of the garage as brakes several times before I learned not to pedal backwards, but squeeze the hand grips instead.

Finally I was declared street worthy and I zipped to the homes of all of my friends, cajoling each of them in turn to join me outside on their own wheels. There were about eight of us zooming through the neighborhood in follow-the-leader style. Me — the coolest kid in the neighborhood — being the leader, of course.

They followed me around the block, through the empty field, across the playground, around the school building, and then — knowing I would loose the cowards — I headed straight for Dead Man’s Trail, an almost vertical drop into the big gully behind the school house. At the bottom of the drop where the trail leveled out it passed between two pine trees and immediately made a 50 degree turn. Bikes that didn’t make the turn ended up about six feet down in a narrow stream. Riders flew several feet through the air and landed in a tangle of wild raspberry bushes. Very few of us had the guts to take that trail on our bikes.

Some say that dare-devil bravery is not really courage. It is, instead, a form of hubris birthed by lack of fore-thought. I’d like to argue that point. I’d like to, but I can’t.

I took the trail at top speed. Both wheels left the ground and I soared several feet, landing smoothly. I rocketed down the trail, standing on the pedals with my long hair streaming in my wake. I imagined my friends all standing at the rim, watching me in awe. Unfortunately, I couldn’t look. Coming up fast were two huge yellow pine trees. It took a steady hand to maneuver between them. More than once when riding my “baby-bike” I had left the back of my knuckles on the bark of one of those trees. The best thing to do was let go of the handlebars and just steer with one’s fingertips. That way no skin was lost. The passage only took a fraction of a second, so the bike never had time to go out of control.

I was an expert at fingertip steering — in fact, I was an expert in hands-free steering, but not with a 50 degree curve ahead of me. I let go of the handlebars for a nanosecond. My bike shot into the gap between the trees. Those fancy new, flared out handlebars scraped bark from both trunks. I jerked my hands to my chest as the bike jolted to a stop. Like a rocket, I flew ten feet through the air, sailing over the embankment and the stream, arching over the raspberry patch and landing upside down in it’s southern-most branches. Unfortunately, despite their tenacious grip, they weren’t strong enough to hold me. I crashed to earth flat on my back, staring up at the sky. Stars burst behind my eyes, and I swear I heard little birds singing my death chant.

My friends left their bikes at the top of the trail and clambered down. They had to climb the embankment, circle the raspberry patch and fight through a Pussy Willow thicket to get to me. By the time they arrived, I had regained my feet and rid myself of most most of the raspberry branches. Some of the thorns, however, stayed with me throughout the summer.

I heard my friends crashing through the underbrush and braced myself for the onslaught of their teasing. They greeted me instead with joy and concern. Sugar and Cheerleader began searching for my skin beneath the blood. Handsome insisted on checking for broken bones. Amazingly, aside from being a bit crumpled and scratched, I was fine.

My friends wanted to take me home. I insisted on being taken to my bike. It stood right where I’d left it, wedged between the two trees at the bottom of the trail. Handsome freed it with a tug, and aside from a mangled right handgrip, it was none the worse for wear.

With Handsome helping me, and Stretch and Sugar on either side of my bike, we climbed the hill. The boys refused to return my bike at the top. They insisted on delivering me to the tender mercies of my grandmother. They escorted me all the way into the kitchen.

Gram was cooking lunch. She stood in front of the kitchen stove and looked me over from head to foot, tangled hair, tattered clothing and blood smeared skin. She sighed, shook her head and said, “I swear, one of these days you’re going to kill yourself. I ought to just get it over with and do it for you.”

I would have felt a lot better at that statement had she not been holding a wooden spoon. However, Gram didn’t spank. Her punishments were much more subtle. She stood me in the bathtub, scrubbed me with a stiff-bristled wooden brush, painted me in Mercurochrome, and made me sit on the kitchen stool for days on end — well, at least one.

By the time I made it outside every kid within five square blocks wanted a look at my cuts and to hear my Dead Man’s Trial survival tale. Really, it wasn’t anything special. Just pretty much what you’d expect from the coolest kid in the neighborhood.