July Mountain

Monday, October 19, 2009

Lori's Ashes

[Day Three, Wednesday, of Christy's road trip to apologize to the three people she hurt the most in her former life. Tuesday afternoon's encounter at the assisted living facility where Vivian Clarke lived was a disaster. Vivian kept screaming "Oh, no you don't!" and "You killed my baby girl!" because Christy had procured the heroin that Lori Clarke had OD'd on 16 years before.]

There was something about the smell that saddened Christy. While the nursing home was clean looking, the smell of decay testified to the reality of strong medicines and dried urine.

“I give you a gold star for persistence,” said the short, stocky black nurse with the thick Jamaican accent. “Ruthy” read her nametag. She had been there for the previous day’s episode.

“Yeah, I’m usually not this persistent but I have to see her.”

Ruthy shrugged. “Ok, miss. She’s up in her room. I’ll show you there…but judging by her reaction here downstairs in the open, she might go nuclear if you show your face in her private quarters.”

Christy nodded. “I know, but it’s a chance I got to take.”

Ruthy turned and motioned for her to follow. Looking back slightly she asked, “What’d you to do her, anyway? You mind my asking?”

No, thought Christy, it might help me prepare what to say. “Well, I…did some stupid things when I was younger, and something I did hurt her.”

“And…?”

“Her daughter and I were best friends. I guess I was a bad influence, got her daughter into a party lifestyle. She got into drugs, and everything….everything went wrong. She blames me and I know I was wrong.”

Wait a minute, Christy thought, that’s not all of it. Should I mention the drugs she OD’d on, the drugs I got for her?

Ruthy’s pensive silence as they walked down the brightly lit hallway made it clear that she knew there was more to the story, too. That soft pressing sensation on her heart was moving Christy to tell the story to this stranger she’d met only briefly the day before.

“Her daughter had a drug habit. I knew…it was wrong but I picked up her drugs one night. It was her birthday. The next morning when I went to check on her…she was ice cold.” Her voice fell as those last four words rolled off her lips.

Ruthy stopped in front of the elevator and pushed the upward button. “What was her name?”

Oh God, how could I have left that out?

“Lori…Lorraine Clarke. She was my best friend from a child on up.”

Ruthy sighed as the doors opened. They walked in. “Vivian has been here for four years now. Cancers been coming and going with her. This time it’s done. It metastasized all over her lungs. I’m surprised you even got a chance to apologize to her. She was supposed to be dead six months ago.”

“Does she get angry…or sad often?”

The elevator doors shut. “No,” Ruthy replied, “she’s negative sometimes, yes, a lot of these folks get negative. They feel like they’ve been left behind. The world doesn’t need them anymore. I’m a recycling nut and I never forget to put out my recyclable garbage. Viv told me once she felt like a piece of that garbage, like an used, empty can of dog food just sitting out waiting for the truck to come by and take it away. ‘The can doesn’t know the nothing that is going to happen and the something that will, but I do’.” She took a deep breath as the elevator rose. “Sometimes these old geezers can say stuff that amazes you. We forget they used to be people like you and me.”

“Well, they still are,” Christy said.

“I wish I could be sure of that.”

Christy thought of her own ministry to the homeless and to the prisoner, but aren’t these prisoners too? A sudden empathic wave came over here for the ghostly people she saw downstairs.

Seconds later the doors opened and they stepped out into a hallway that had the odd distinction of being brightly lit and dull at the same time. She followed Ruthy to the right and down a corridor to Room 167. Christy took a deep breath.

Ruthy pushed the door open without even missing a step; the professional invasiveness of a veteran nurse.

“Oh, Vivian, you got company, girl!”

Christy stepped in behind her, partly cringing at the thought of another sound rejection. The “Oh, no you don’t!” rebuke could be repeated at any time.

The small room was cluttered but its owner was absent.

“Oh, damn, she wandered off again,” Ruthy growled. “She gets a little fresh after her morning medicines.” She walked back out to the hallway. “Vivian! Where’d you go now?”

Following, Christy saw Miss Viv several yards down the hall, her wheelchair stuck in the doorway of another apartment. She was going back and forth but obviously stuck.

They approached her, Ruthy taking control by leaning over her chair and grabbing both armrests.

“Y’old girl, you gotta stop trying to get into your boyfriend’s room!”

To Christy’s surprise, the old woman gave out a short laugh. Viv was only 74 years old, but the cancer must have aged her significantly. Her hair had thinned and her body was emaciated; only the protruding belly showed any sign of nourishment.

Joey’s an old fish. He won’t come over to my place,” Viv commented in her thick East Baltimore accent.

“Now, Vivian, I want you to be nice now, OK,” Ruthy said. “This girl cares very much about you and came all the way from Florida to see you.”

Viv looked at Ruthy a little befuddled as she tried to follow what she had said. When she realized that Christy had come to see her again, she did something that encouraged Christy; she relaxed. Her shoulders slumped slightly and the focused look on her face eased.

“All right, I know I gave her Hell enough for two days yesterday, I guess. But don’t leave us alone, Ruthy, if you don’t mind. OK?”

“No problem, missy.” Ruthy grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and turned Viv back toward her room. Now Christy was in Viv’s sights but she didn’t acknowledge her as they passed by. Ruthy placed the wheelchair next to Viv’s bed. A worn old night table was next to her bed and a cabinet, equally worn, hung on the wall above. Ruthy stood on the other side of the bed leaning against the wall. “Ok, girlfriends, talk.”

Silence. Vivian looked Christy up and down as if trying to match this middle aged woman to the person she had committed to memory.

“You always looked pretty. Lori always complained about that.”

“Thank you.” Christy smiled. This was not expected.

“I had a dream last night, you know. That’s why I’m not throwin’ you out on your ass, you know.”

“Oh…you had a dream? What was it about?”

“Lori…Lori was in my dream. We were at the Alameda house. She told me that I should listen to you. I don’t know a reason why, but I dreamt she told m e to listen to you. I know you must have something to say, you came all the way from Florida. I know you come to say I’m sorry but I gotta tell you, that really isn’t enough.”

That pressing sensation returned like a warm but firm message of Christy’s heart. She would get it after she’d lose her temper with the kids or Darryl and said something she later regretted.
“What do you think Lori meant by ‘listen to her’?”

“Hell if I know,” grumbled Vivian. “Nothing makes sense to me any more. I found Jesus years ago and it looks like he dumped me just like every other man I ever knew!”

Christy struggled to keep from laughing out loud, but Ruthy came to the rescue.

The nurse’s head jerked back as she let out a belly laugh.

“You think I’m kiddin’. I’m more confused now by this whole pile a shit they call life. The only good thing is that it can’t last forever.”

After a second or two when Ruthy stopped laughing, Christy assured her old friend, “Jesus would never dump you, Viv.”

“Wanna bet? Look at me!” The old woman in the wheel chair stared at Christy. “Look at you! You married?”

“Yes, my husband’s flying in this evening.”

“He good looking?”

“Yeah, at least I think he is.”

“Kids?”

“One together, a boy named Devin, and he had two girls from his first marriage. They’re grown now.”

“How ‘bout your Mom?”

The query stung Christy as the thought of her separation from her mother had stung for the last 16 years. “I…don’t know. We think she’s in Atlanta. I’m going to be looking her up this weekend. Did you ever talk to her after Lori…”

“No, never did. I loved your mother – she was my best friend for years – but after Lori died I didn’t want to hear from anybody from before. A few years later I looked her up and found she’d moved away. Haven’t seen her since.”

“I remember I just wanted to get out of town and disappear when Lori passed away,” Christy said, taking a step back toward the forgiveness question.

“I know I punched you. I punch hard, too.”

The memory of Miss Viv punching Christy in front of Lori’s closed casket flowed back into the foreground of Christy’s memory.

“I deserved that and more, Miss Viv.”

“I agree there. You were a good child but you were a bad apple later on. My daughter could be just like you; nicely dressed, married to a good lookin’ man with kids all around.”

“Vivian..” Ruthy started.

Viv shrugged. “It’s true. It is what it is. It ain’t what it ain’t.”

Christy’s body felt as if it was withering. “I’m sorry about – “

“Already told you ‘sorry’ isn’t gonna be enough. It’s not about sorry. Sometimes it’s about consequences…punishment…judgment. You introduced my daughter to strippin’ in clubs and doing drugs.”

The knee-jerk defenses flared up here and there in Christy’s psyche. Well, no, Lori was no angel, she thought for a moment before booting the reflexive, self-serving thought out of her mind.

“I always told Lori never to strip. As a nurse I’d see those girls come in ODing on this drug or that alcohol. Then you come along and convince to leave home to do just what I taught her not to do. You hurt me but you really hurt her. You were her best friend. She loved you, and you killed her!”

Tears started to well up in Christy’s eyes as the shame of that former life hit home again. Ruthy took a step toward her as if she was thinking of comforting her.

“I can never repay my debt to you, Miss Viv, and…I can never repay my debt to Lori. I’m sorry.”

“Then why are you here? I don’t think I needed your apology to die in peace.”

This was the moment she had feared for 16 years and five months, standing in the path of insatiable scorn with nothing to say in defense, and nothing to say in contrition that would make a damn bit of difference. How did Job put it? Sack-cloth and ashes? Christy placed her hand on her forehead and tried to breathe deeper. She felt that she could hyperventilate at any minute. Vivian was showing a bit of the hard-hearted person she had remembered, and she couldn’t blame her at all.

“Are we done here, Christy?” Viv asked in preparation for giving the swift boot.

“No, no, I want to tell you that that day I found Lori dead, that day changed me forever. I’m not the person I used to be.

“And I wish I could go back and talk some sense into me, into Lori. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret not being a true friend to her.”

There was a secondary silence that was broken by Ruthy. “Sounds like you need to apologize to Lori.”

“But how? She’s gone.”

“Not quite,” Viv quipped. “Why don’t you apologize to her now?”

Christy looked at her, not understanding. Viv turned to her right and reached up to grab the cabinet door above her head. The door swung open.

There in the middle shelf was a gold-colored urn with writing on it. Christy squinted to read it:

Lorraine Clarke
My Only Child, My Only Love
February 21, 1967 – February 22, 1992

Christy’s heart sank. Her mind did flip-flops too. Wasn’t Lori buried in a coffin?

“I..I thought she was buried. She was in a casket. Wasn’t she?” Viv had punched her in the face in front of a casket that supposedly held Lori's body.

Viv shook her head. “There was nothing in that casket. The church felt sorry for me and gave us an empty casket to have a memorial service around.”

“Then…what happened?”

“We didn’t have enough money to bury her. She sat in the freezer for three weeks.”

A mood settled over Christy like that of the realization an atomic bomb is about to land on you.

“You ran away from your troubles and my girl was still in the fridge. Finally they let us cremate her for $200.”

“That’s awful!” She didn’t dare say the sorry thing.

There was another uncomfortable silence as the three women sniffled quietly. Ruthy had heard parts of the story before but not like this. Moisture was tugging at the corners of her eyes.

“Worst thing, maybe, is that I don’t know if she ever had any wishes – what to do with her ashes. I’ve always dreamed of giving her a proper burial by spreading her ashes in her favorite place…..But I don’t know where.”

A memory of a long ago conversation floated down into Christy's conscience.

“When I die, I want my ashes to be thrown out over the ocean a mile out.”

“A mile out from where?”

“There’s this place in New Smyrna Beach where my Mom and I used to live. I think it was just a Summer, but it felt like a long time. There was a swing between two bug trees and the beach was right in front. I loved it there so much. That’s where we’re going to settle down.”

“And die?”

“Yeah, why not? But I want you to promise me that you’ll take my ashes out about a mile and scatter them over the waves. I want to wash up again and again on New Smyrna Beach forever and ever, resting on the hard sand as the Chevies drive over me.”

“ Oh, my God,” Christy muttered aloud. “I…I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I..know where she wanted her ashes scattered.” Christy’s eyes widened in amazement.

“You know? She told you?” Viv leaned forward, her hands starting to tremble.
The Spirit of God wafted into the room like a rush of warm air. He hung in and around the three women.

“Talk, girl. Tell me where.”

“She told me…many times that she wanted her ashes to be scattered outside..” Christy’s voice broke as the significance of this request started to sink in. When Lori died, she ran away, eventually acting out Lori’s dream of resettling in New Smyrna Beach. It was there that she found her new life.

“..outside New Smyrna Beach, right out from where you stayed on the beach one Summer.”

Vivian closed her eyes. Tears leaked out through her eyelashes. At the mention of that name, she could hear her six-year-old daughter’s laughter over the sound of the waves in that brief respite on Florida's Northeastern coast.

Ruthy put her arm over Christy’s shoulder as Christy struggled to speak clearly. “She..told me that we should go out one or two miles and leave her ashes.” The shock of being in the presence of Lori’s ashes was almost too much. In her mind, Lori had been buried many years before. To be faced with the physical remains at this point and finding that they’ve been waiting for her all this time to divulge her request was unfathomable.

“She wants us…to spread them out over the waves. She told me…that she wants..to wash up on New Smyrna Beach and to keep washing up…forever.”

Christy’s heart was melting like wax. She had no idea how devastating her actions were so long ago, and how cruel her abandonment of this woman had been.
“I’m so sorry!” she cried out in anguish that she believed for a moment she could never bear. “I killed your daughter….and I stole her dream.” She wailed uncontrollably. The euphoria of having the answer gave way to the shame of her real nature.

Viv still held her eyes closed. She could see the bungalow on New Smyrna Beach, Lori oscillating on the swing set, looking out over the ocean. She too had felt God’s presence in this surprising encounter.

“Child, child…Christy. You should be happy. God sent you here. Do you know…how important that is?

“I’ve been wondering why I’m still here. You’ve answered me. Take me with you. Take me with you back to New Smyrna.”

Vivian tightened her grip on the armrests of the wheelchair and lifted herself up from the seat. She slowly labored the few steps over to where Christy was sobbing and Ruthy was holding her steady.

“Of course you can come with us, Miss Viv,” she sniffled.

Vivian reached out to embrace Christy. “I’m so sorry!” Christy kept repeating as she hugged Vivian.

Christy realized more urgently how frail Vivian had become in her illness. It was like hugging a skeleton with clothes on. Christy could feel that this woman was at death’s door.

“God…is…good!” Viv said triumphantly in her weak but firm voice. “I’m going home to New Smyrna Beach to die. Halleluiah!”

A glow of love and sorrow hung over the women for some time after which Vivian and Christy packed up the old lady's essential things, Lori's ashes included, to go to the hotel. They grabbed a bite to eat together on the way to BWI to pick up Darryl. Christy had never seen Vivian as happy as she suddenly was. It wasn't until she rode into the airport that it hadn't occurred to her to ask Darryl what he thought about taking home a dying old woman. What would he say?

Sunday, March 1, 2009

July Mountain - Introduction

JULY MOUNTAIN – Chapter One

July, 2008

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Chapter 3 - Third Summer

As the year changed and Evy hoped for a better one, Ben alternated between being very funny or terribly annoying. One night when Christy’s friend Lori Clarke was over, he wouldn’t leave them alone.

“So girls, what do girls your age do for fun?” he asked that night.

“Oh, nothing,play games,” Lori replied in her nasally voice.

“Oh, nothing, play games,” he said, mimicking her.

“Daddy, that’s not nice. We play with dolls and sometimes softball.” When Lori looked at Ben, Christy made a “go away” gesture with her hand.

“I ain’t goin nowhere,” he said. “I’m suppose to watch you guys till your Mom comes home.”

We can get along OK by ourselves, Daddy,” Christy said.

“Go ahead. Don’t mind me.” Ben took a swig from his Miller High Life bottle. “You want some?”

“No.”

“Sure,” said Lori.

Ben jumped up and came back with two opened beers. “Your momma comes, hide ‘em in your fake oven over there.”

The girls went back to playing Christy’s new Stratego game, occasionally taking a small taste of the beer.

“C’mon, drink up, girls!” Ben guzzled through beer after beer, offering unsolicited color commentary of the game.

When he took a bathroom break after making a series of exploding sounds after Lori sunk Christy’s last ship, Lori said, “Your Dad is really strange. When’s your Mom coming home?”

“She had a meeting at the school to go to. She said she’d be home at six.”

“Does she allow you to drink beer?”

“No, never. But Daddy Ben sneaks me one sometimes.”

“What was your Dad like?” Christy asked.

“He used to call me his whirly girl, whatever that meant. He was really fat. That’s all I remember.” Lori’s Mom, Ms. Vivian, had been widowed for several years.

“Aloha, girls. I’m back!” Ben was standing at the door, wobbly already.

“When does your Mom get back?” Lori askes softly.

“Six. It’s five something right now, I think.”

Ben walked over to where the girls were sitting on the shag carpet. He patted Lori on the head affectionately.

“Mr. Morgan, please.”

“You’re a beautiful girl, Lorraine,” he said, exaggerating the second syllable of her name. “I always liked brunettes. Blonds, too. Never did a black girl…but I’d like to.” He let out a belly laugh.

“You’re stupid drunk already,” Christy scolded him. “You’re supposed to play toninght at that bar on Bel Air Road, aren’t you?”

“You girls don’t love me. Know why? ‘Cause you’re too old.” He laughed again. “I’m too young for you bitches.”

“Mr. Morgan!”

“You might have a point there,” Christy said.

“Ah, screw you guys,” Ben said, add ing a belch after ‘guys’. He walked to the door; then, back facing the girls, he dropped his pants to expose his bare buttocks.

“You’ve been officially mooned,” he said, pulling his pants up and leaving.

“Uggh!” Lori said as soon as he had left. “He’s gross.”

“I know and he’s my Daddy,” Christy lamented.

“Poor girl. OK, my turn.”

After a few games, the girls heard someone knocking at the door. It was Mrs. Clarke, there to pick up Lori. Ben had immediately offended her.

“Older women like to French kiss, you know?” he said, chuckling once again.

“You smell like a brewery, Mr. Everly,” she scolded. “Are you the only adult here? Lorraine!”

“Yes, Mom,” she replied as the two girls appeared at the front door.

“Mrs. Clarke doesn’t want to come in for some good old-fashioned lovin,” Ben said, stumbling a moment.

Mrs. Clarke was a short lady who always wore her hair up in a beehive. She was the daughter of Greek immigrants who settled in Baltimore around the beginning of the 1900s. Her husband died of a heart attack five years before. She was a very conservative lady who didn’t mix at all with Ben Morgan. They met only twice and she complained to high heaven twice. Each time, Lori wasn’t allowed to see her best friend for a month, despite Ben’s apologies.

It was Ben’s antics and rumors of Ben’s antics that convinced Ms. Vivian not to let her child go to Ocean City. Vivian Clarke was a straight arrow; a fussy Lutheran woman who sang in the choir every Sunday. Lorraine was her only child, and she watched over her carefully. Here Christy was an only child and her parents didn’t even know where she was half the time.

As the summer wore on, Ben was losing all control over his drinking. One night, he came into Christy’s room and urinated in the closet, thinking he was in the bathroom. A huge brawl ensued the next morning when Evy followed the smell to Christy’s closet.

Christy didn’t recognize the symptoms att the time, but the sexual relationship had fizzled between her mom and Ben. She only thought of it as better that she wasn’t wakened to the sound of two adults screaming orgasmically in the next room. She always thought of Mr. Carlin. “Dang loud. Dang loud.”

Then a week before what would be their last Labor Day trip to Ocean City, the unthinkable happened, or began to happen. Christy woke to find Daddy Ben in bed with her. She immediately tried to reason that it wasn’t happening, but the cold air on her groin area and the movement of Ben’s finger in her private area jolted her out of her dream state.

She began to scream, but he covered her mouth. “Just be a second, Sweetpea.” With his free hand he had grabbed hers and forced it onto his penis.

The look of ecstacy on Ben’s face poisoned Christy’s chance of intimacy with men for many years after. If she made the mistake of looking them in the eyes during the sexual climax, their facial expression would send her into a rage.

Daddy Ben would later argue to the prosecutor that it wasn’t rape because he didn’t have sexual intercourse with the 9-year-old.

Just before the Ocean City trip it happened again, then 2 times in Ocean City. In eeach case, Evy had refused him sex, and being drunk herself, passed out. Christy had become Ben’s illicit Plan B.

“I was sexually abused as a child,” Christy had said to her Saturday morning group. “The pain is real. It’s a memory you can never erase.”

She recalled how some of the women in the audience, poor or homeless, wept when she spoke about the need to forgive and move on. It was easier said and done.

Daddy Ben was her father, as far as she knew, until that day in Ocean City she found out the truth. Just the same, it was that bond of father to daughter, of man to girl, king to princess, that had been violated along with her sexual purity.

At the time the worst was the feeling of worthlessness. Ben didn’t even look her in the eye anymore. He was afraid, but he would continue to drown his fear in shots of Cuervo Gold and bottles of cheap beer. Then he would come to “fool around” with Christy.

“Is this sex?” Christy asked one night.

“No, it’s foolin around. We’re havin fun,” he whispered back.

On the way to Ocean City, the Datsun overheated over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. It took an hour to get the radiator to cool down before Ben could fill it back up with gallons of water in old milk jugs in the truck.

Christy had never seen the Bay from this angle, leaning over the railing looking down.

“Careful, honey,” her mom warned.

It was so far down. Would she die if she fell over? Could she swim to the side? The wind blew from behind her back, and she imagined being blown into the cold water far below.

If she did die, her mother would never find out what was going on, and she’d never have to weather the fight.

Ocean City was busier than past years, it seemed to Christy. More traffic. More drinkers for Mom and Ben to play to.

Ben held off his visits to Christy’s room until the third night. He and Evy had played at a dive bar called the Grey Pelican – something about animals with colors in OC. That was the first day, Tuesday, then Wednesday. The reunion on Thursday night at the Purple Moose brought out the temptation to “get wasted” as Ben called it. Christy went with them both nights. The Carlins were getting older and Evy didn’t want to impose on them. Little did she know that Christy was far better off in their care.

Evy passed out at 3 am after the Thursday night gig. Ben made his visit to Christy’s room, being more careful than usual so as not to provoke the old sofa-bed to make too much noise. Christy sobbed softly through the night after he left.

That night Mom and Ben were performing at the Purple Moose. Christy loved to watch her mom play piano while Ben played guitar and sang. They seemed so talented it didn’t make sense that they never had any money. Ben chose as his finale song a medley of Bob Dylan tunes, ending with “Positively 4th Street” – a lyric that had Christie laughing out loud. She didn’t understand all of it but got the story line of coming face to face with someone you can’t stand.

“I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you”

Ben and Evy finished up about 11 pm that night and were already sporting a pretty good buzz. A party from Virginia Beach was buying them beers and shooters in addition to shelling out tips. Ben hastily packed the equipment up and threw it in the back of the Datsun. Then they went back inside.

When Friday was turning into the same late-night routine, Christy, who had hardly slept in two days, protested loudly in the bar.

“Mommy, I’m tired. I wanna go home!” She stood firmly in front of her mother, who was sitting in a booth by the stage.

“Sorry, kid. We got a couple more sets, then we go.”

“Couple more sets? It’s midnight, Mommy, and I’m tired.” Christy slammed her foot down on the old oak wood floor.

A guitarist in another band noticed the tiff. “Evy, if you guys want to take off early, we can finish up. Tomorrow, you guys pick up our first set. How’s that?”

“No, that’s OK, Rico,” she said. “We’ll play as log as you can peel Casanova away from the bimbos by the dartboard.”

“I’ll get him,” Christy growled. She stomped over to Daddy Ben, who was openly flirting – for the firt time she could remember – with some college girls.

“Ben Morgan, we have to go home…now!”
The girls giggled to each other, then slowly moved to another dartboard. Ben looked at Christy incredulously. He had just been served a pint of dark beer.

“Hey, Sweetpea, you always stay up late with your Mommy and I. Now excuse me while I help these girls here; they’re music majors at the Peabody. They’re gonna be major league one day.”

“Yeah, as in ‘not like you’! I want to go home, and Mom said we can go…now!”

“Honey, c’mon. Can’t Daddy Ben have some fun?”

Her face red with rage, and fighting sleep, Christy reached out and grabbed Ben’s free arm, his left. In the blink of an eye, Ben shoved his beer towards Christy’s face. He stopped inches from her face, the cold dark ale covered her face, burning her eyes, and ran down her neck and shirt. She struck him with her left hand but lost the fighting instinct as it gave way to a crying fit. Christy was tired, miserable, angry, and now wet. Her feelings, being corroded rapidly over the last few weeks, finally reached a breaking point.

What hurt was that she had to stay in that smoky bar anyway. Ben kept slipping her cups of beer to make her fall faster to sleep. She fell asleep on the booth cushion, and didn’t wake up until she was back at the cottage in her sofa bed. Daddy Ben had woken her up for the second night in a row. Ben was so drunk that night that he passed out next to Christy. The next morning was Saturday, September 11th, 1976, a day whose memory would also strike terror in Christy’s soul.

Chapter Two - Second Summer

A two-syllable whistle sounded from the cell phone on the console. Voice mail. Christy called in to get the message. It was Katy, she found a lead on Eve Pantorelli’s most recent gig. Christy quickly hit the ‘Caitlin’ button on her Faves Menu.

“Hi Mom,” the young woman’s voice cut off some pop-song that had replaced a standard ring. Caitlin herself had programmed the special ring. I’ll have to learn how she does that, Christy thought.

“Hey, Katy. What’s up?”

“You won’t believe what I found! Grandma Evy is working Wednesdays during the Happy Hour at a bar called Darkhorse Tavern.”

Wednesday? Christy groaned, “Darn, that’s not enough time for me to get up to Baltimore and back. Are you sure she’s still playing there.”

“Well, you know what, I better make sure. She was on their Facebook page.”

“Still with the dark sunglasses?”

“Yeah, still with the sunglasses. That’s probably her stage identity or something.” No one was more delicate with Christy’s feelings than her youngest step-daughter. What did I do to deserve her? Christy thought.

“If she’s still there, can I go?”

“Katy, you’re supposed to be in Koinonia Wednesday morning. Don’t forget, your term paper depends on it.”

“I think they’ll understand if I sneak out Wednesday for a few hours. She’s got to be a great woman. I love how she stood up for you.”

“Katy, don’t bring that up now. And, anyway, I think it’s a mother’s instinct to protect her child.” The thumping sound of ash-wood against bone and flesh came back to her; the salty blood dripping down into her screaming mouth. Suddenly, Christy was breathless. She pulled the Avalon to the shoulder and began to take a few deep breaths.

“Mom, are you OK?” she could hear Katy saying. The cell phone had fallen into Christy’s lap. She quickly recovered and put it to her ear.

“It’s OK, just do me a favor. Call and make sure she’s there. Then call me.”

“Ok, love you,” Caitlin said.

“Love you, too.” She laid the cell phone back in the unused cup rest on the console.

Thirty-two years and the memory had rushed her like a thief in a dark alley. How desperately she needed to make amends with her mother. Darryl’s flight was scheduled to arrive Wednesday around 7. She couldn’t be at Baltimore-Washington International and Atlanta at the same time. She needed to see Vivian Clarke and Damon Jurgenson, but her Mom was the first priority. Darryl would have to understand the change in schedule. Christy turned back into the far right lane and continued going north, her breathing back to normal.

1975

In their last year and a half, Evy Everly and Ben Morgan had reached a point where they would either be fighting ferociously or having a blast together. It reminded Christy of her relationship with her mother later on in her teens and twenties. One of the good times was 4th of July, 1975. The aroma of the steamed crabs and the blaring of the music on the radio were still clear in her memory. They lived that year in an apartment off of Philadelphia Road out in Baltimore County. Evy worked days at a woman’s gym as a receptionist. She and Ben were also busy singing and playing the bar scene.

A familiar rhythm coming over the airwaves caused Evy to jump out of her seat.

“That’s it – we gotta learn how to play this!” She cranked up the volume.

“Ninety-Eight Rocks with Bowie!” The DJ groaned in an impossibly deep voice that always made Christy laugh. The twangy guitar riff was from “Fame” which began to fill the room.

“Fame – fame – makes a man take things over..”

Evy sang along as Ben laughed. Evy could hit the high pitch of David Bowie’s voice. Ben knew he couldn’t.

“How the hell am I gonna sing that shit?” he yelled above the sound.

Evy kept on singing. Ben took a long swig of his Miller High Life bottle. He looked over at Christy, who was laughing as much at her Mom as she was at the crab guts that covered her face.

“Damn, girl, we need to take you outside and hose you down! Somebody’s gotta teach you how to eat Balmer-style crabs.” Roaring with laughter, he took a paper napkin and wet it with beer and applied it to Christy’s face, gently taking off as much crab-fat that he could.

Evy danced around the room singing. When she turned her back on them, Ben tipped his beer into Christy’s cup. “Here’s some more Seven-Up, sweetpea.” He then got up to dance with Evy. Christy remembers laughing so hard that beer came out her nose.

The fireworks they could see in the distance coming from a public park were anti-climactic. They had already had so much fun. Christy passed out on the couch, and woke up the next morning with a headache. Ben would sneak her beer regularly from that time on.
Christy was growing by leaps and bounds. She reached 5 foot before her 9th birthday. Her hair was still a platinum blonde. Yet that she looked nothing like Daddy Ben didn’t cross her mind. Despite his occasional bad behavior, Ben was a lot of fun for Christy. He was like having an unpredictable older brother.

’75 was a tough year. Christy and her parents had to move twice, once in February and once in July. Evy had taken a job as a substitute teacher but only worked three months before school ended. Ben’s drinking became more of a problem although he still worked regularly in the bars in Dundalk, sometimes in Hallandale. It just wasn’t enough to tread water financially. Ben was also becoming more belligerent on occasion.

The Camaro was guzzling gas like Ben guzzled beer and shots, so he and Evy traded it for a Datsun B2-10, a small yellow bullet of a car. A 1970 model with 58,000 miles and a few prominent dings, Christy acted like she liked it because it looked like it needed a friend.

That year, Christy had become best friends with Lorraine Clarke. Lori was shorter than she was, covered with freckles, and lots of fun. Christy was devastated when Lori’s mom wouldn’t let her come with them to Ocean City for Labor Day week.

The Carlins were there again in OC and Christy slept over their cottage the first three nights while Ben and Evy played at the Greene Turtle and the Purple Moose. Christy relished every moment in the sun, every oddity of the hopping seaside town, every basket of Boardwalk Fries were like a trip to Heaven. But her mornings belonged to Prince and his family in the shower stall. The Camera Obscura effect took place every morning between 8:30 and 9.
Christy had trained her imagination to take on a lavish entry into the kingdom of light beyond. She waited each morning until a dragon fly or yellow jacket passed in front of the hole in the shower wall and she would ride the magnified insect into the land of the golden mountains and rivers of Jell-O.

One morning she jumped on a dragon fly and flew in over the residents of that dreamy community. She landed it – somehow – directly in front of the grinning prince.

“You look beautiful today, Ma’am,” he greeted her. “You’re a good Dragon Fly pilot, too.”

Christy stepped down onto the glowing yellow surface. “Thank you, my prince. Tell me, is this the only place you live?”

“Christy, you know, I’m from here. But I’m sure there are boys out there like me.” He motioned toward the hole in the stall.

“Everybody thinks I'm pretty. Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Sure, I do,” Prince said. “There’s a prince waiting for you out there, you know.”

“Who is he? Does he go to Glenmount?”

Prince laughed. “No, he’s far away right now. But at least he’s in your world.”

Christy looked around them. What a sight! There were birds with six wings flying around the mountains of gold and the rivers of Jell-O.

“How is the king?” she asked.

“He is right behind you,” Prince said.

Christy turned quickly as she had never seen the King face to face. But all she could see was the blinding sunlight. The glare was too bright to make out any detail of the king that she expected to see, if he were in fact there. But there was someone in the bright light, at least she could sense his presence. Prince placed his hand on Christy’s shoulder.

“Meet my Dad, the King,” he said.

Christy felt as if she was in a trance, but aware of her surroundings. Where had she felt like this before? She was overwhelmed with a happy emotion at seeing the king. Tears flowed down her face as he came into clearer view, although as a silhouette in the light.

“Christy, I’ve been waiting to meet you,” a strong manly voice called out.

Christy was speechless. Her feeling of security and happiness seemed to emanate from the glowing figure in front of her. There was nothing she could say or add to his presence. She only regaled in the presence and what is was imparting to her spirit. That this great king would be dying to meet her seemed impossible to Christy.

“I love you, and I have great things for you,” the King said just before the interruption.

“Christy! You’re gonna go blind lookin at the sun like that.” Evy Everly was up early and stood at the threshold of the shower. She could see Christy was crying. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Nuthin. I’m just really happen all of a sudden.” She wiped the tears with her towel. Her body had dried entirely except for where she sat on the floor.

“I got myself a sentimental girl,” Evy beamed. “Come on inside. I cooked up some scrapple and eggs.”

Scrapple smelled great but after Christy read the ingredients on the package earlier that year she wasn’t a fan any more. Beef lips, pork snouts, and beef hearts were the three that resonated most with her. She obliged her mom by eating slowly, but eating it nonetheless.

That night Evy and Ben were scheduled to play at the Purple Moose bar. The Carlins, who Christy had finally learned were named Presnell and Mabel, were going to Rehoboth Beach to stay over at a friend’s house. Christy would have to go along, and the Purple Moose didn’t a sofa in the office – the office being a closet in a corner. Christy would have to stay awake until they were done. In preparation for that, she tried taking a nap in the afternoon.

She had a memorable nightmare in the middle of the day. Christy could still see it in her mind all these years later.

Christy dreamed she was back in the house they moved from in February. It had a dark basement that always spooked her. There she was alone when Mr. Stench appeared.

The tall, lanky evilman was tied down to a chair, at first. Christy was scared, then relieved that he was tied down. There was a silhouette standing over him. It was the king.

“Thank you, King,” Christy said. “Mr. Stench is a bad man.”

The King said nothing.

“He’s just a shadow,” Stench growled. “He can do nothing for you.”

“Look’s like he’s got you tied down,” she replied.

“I tied myself down, sweetheart,” he said. He gave a smile full of broken, brown teeth. “Have you checked the cupboard under the bar lately?”

Christy said no and quickly turned to open the cupboard. She screamed as she was greeted by an array of bloodied body parts, most notably a few heads.

“You recognize your mother and your best friend forever, Lori, don’t you?” He began to laugh. “I tied myself up to lure you here. Your king ain’t real, you see?”

“No, no,” Christy cried in her sleep. “He’s real. I talked to him myself.”

“Look again,” Stench said.

Christy noticed that there was no one where the king had stood. Her heart raced as Stench slowly, and smilingly, removed the rope that wrapped around his arms and legs.

As the wretched creature from her own imagination came over to her, she awoke screaming.

Christy never understood nightmares until much later in life. It seemed impossible to scare oneself completely. Wouldn’t you, the producer and director of the horror flick, know what was coming? With the Mr. Stench nightmares, she knew something bad was going to happen but she never knew exactly what.

Ben and Evy’s friendship began to crumble noticeably in 1975. His drinking usually resulted in him drunk, and banished to the sofa in the living room.

Ben was gaining weight from the drinking, causing him to regularly sing short of breath. His performance waned and the call-backs for future gigs started to dry up.

Things got worse in December when he was arrested for driving under the influence. Visibly drunk and in possession of a half-ounce of marijuana, he spent two days in jail before Evy could bail him out. She should probably have let it end there.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Synopsis of JULY MOUNTAIN

[To read more, just click on the Title]

Synopsis of JULY MOUNTAIN

An upstanding Southern woman goes on a pilgrimage to face the three people she devastated in her previous life as an alcoholic stripper.

Christy Everly Blankenship is a respected member of her community; a local hero in confronting criminals and caring for the transient, homeless people who pass through New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Before her arrival 15 years before, she had led a very different life. As her life came crashing down around her, she brought three other people with her to the pit. She decides to go on a mission to seek their forgiveness. She would go to Baltimore to bear her soul to her best friend’s mom, then to Savannah to the policeman she wronged, and on to Atlanta, where her mother – her most direct victim – was reported to be performing in the lounge circuit. She had beaten her mother badly, having left her for dead at the beginning of her meltdown. “No daughter does what I did,” she tells her step-daughter in the opening.

Driving alone on the longer first leg of the journey, to Baltimore, she recalls her childhood and early adulthood. Evy Everly and her mother’s boyfriend, “Daddy Ben”, are her first family. They live a late-night party lifestyle as the two take jobs performing in nightclubs and cocktail lounges. Often, the little girl is brought along, sent to sleep on a sofa or armchair in the manager’s office. Christy reconnects with the little girl she once was and relives the peeling away of her innocence.

Christy grows up to be a tall, beautiful blonde who falls into the strip club scene in the Ocean City area. Her first great transgression is getting her best friend, Lorraine Clarke, to follow her into dancing. Lorraine is more timid and less strikingly attractive than Christy. She is a loyal friend and never jealous as she harbors a secret crush on her friend. As time goes by, Christy becomes more and more dependent on alcohol and Lorraine develops a heroine habit. Christy turns away Lorraine’s advances and Lorraine goes through a number of rocky relationships with other dancers who pass through. She and Christy share a small apartment as they save their money to move to Lorraine’s hometown of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Lorraine, an only child, and her mother, Vivian, lived there before moving to Baltimore when she was seven.

As Christy drives through the Carolinas, the tragic memories of 1992 flood back to her. Lorraine ODs on her birthday in February. Christy had procured the heroin as a favor for her friend. Devastated, Christy tries to console her friend’s mother at the funeral. Vivian punches her instead. Christy then decides to move on her own. At the bank, she realizes her money is gone except for $82, having been withdrawn by her mother to keep her failing Boardwalk concession afloat. Furious, Christy drinks heavily at a local bar before going to her mother’s house to confront her. Christy refuses to be calmed by her mother’s pleading. The argument leads to Christy striking her mother with a cast iron skillet in the kitchen. She leaves her there and heads south toward Florida.

Christy runs out of money and luck in Savannah, Georgia, where she is forced to live on the street. One ray of hope comes from a large, black man who befriends her the first day. Chris Jones, a chronically homeless man, fills the role of bodyguard for Christy. Life is hard on the streets as Chris fights off would-be attackers and is forced to deal with the heavy-handed racist policeman, Damon Jurgenson. An uneasy friendship develops between the two men after Jurgenson finds out that Chris is a talented baritone singer. Jones keeps Jurgenson at bay by singing for him. Chris, although illiterate, reveals a profound wisdom in his long conversations with Christy. Instead of saying something directly, he tells stories that Christy only sometimes understands. He also likes to make rosy prophecies about Christy’s future. She disbelieves his claim that she will live through the year and be out of harm’s way. Like all of Chris’s ramblings, it comes true.

Several months into the homeless era, Christy gets involved with Bruce Feeney, a nefarious conman. Tired of living on the street, she agrees to stay with him. At first unbeknownst to her, Bruce starts to rob banks in the Savannah area. He makes plans to hit a major bank the day after Labor Day. This time, he wants Christy to drive the getaway car, his old van. A wrench falls into the works when Christy finds she’s pregnant a week before the robbery. Bruce coerces her into having an abortion as he pays a clinic in advance, and schedules it for Labor Day. Christy reluctantly goes through with it, going alone, but has a harrowing experience. She is led out a back door where there are supposedly no protesters, but she is confronted by a young woman carrying an anti-abortion sign.

On the verge of breaking down completely, the robbery is botched and Bruce is shot by a security guard as he tries to get in the van. Christy drives wildly through a heavy rain with Chris Jones, who was unaware of the plan, with her in the car. Outside of town Damon Jurgenson is finishing up a police report as he sees the speeding vehicle motor down a side street. It matches the description of the van in the robbery, and he pursues. Chris stuffs something in Christy’s jacket pocket, later she finds the money, and moves toward the back of the van. As the pursuit continues down a country road, he raises the hatch, and throws himself down in front of the police car.

Christy goes into shock as she sees what was happening in the rear view mirror. The patrol car swerves off the road and rolls into a ditch. She deliberately tries to lose control of the van in the pouring rain, driving at breakneck speed. She plows over a sign marked “Bridge Out”. Moments later the van plunges into a tributary of the Savannah River.

Christy finds herself lying on the bank of the river at dawn. After she finds three thousand dollars in her pocket, she decides to take a bus to New Smyrna Beach. It is there that she will get her life back together at 25. Over the years, her guilt weighs heavily on her, compelling her to take this uncertain pilgrimage.

Arriving in Baltimore, Christy finds Vivian Clarke’s house in a rundown neighborhood in Patterson Park. The reunion starts off badly, but ends well. Darryl Blankenship, Christy’s husband of 14 years, arrives by plane to accompany his wife. Driving down to Savannah, Georgia together they talk about the early days of their relationship in New Smyrna Beach. Christy became a committed Christian in that first year while working as a waitress, where she met Darryl, who was divorced with two young daughters, Cassandra and Caitlin.

The girls play matchmaker over the course of the year although Darryl resists. He is the son of the governor, Claude Blankenship, and is rebuked by friends and family for entertaining a relationship with a waitress, no matter how beautiful. After a year, Darryl asks her out and the two fall in love. Still conflicted, he hesitates to ask her to marry him until one day his daughters get him to attend a service at her church. Looking up at the angelic blonde in the choir, Darryl loses his resistance to marrying Christy as the pastor leads an auction for a benevolence offering. He stands up and offers to pay the full stipend if the girl in the choir will marry him. Walking over the pews, he meets Christy by the altar and kneels down to formally ask her to marry him. This is the fulfillment of one of several prophecies that Chris Jones had made during her homeless days. A few years later their son is born healthy, though complications arise in the delivery, a consequence of the earlier abortion. Devin Blankenship is twelve at the present time.

In 1999, Christy stumbles on a house of prostitution just outside the town. Under-aged runaways are being brought in from random parts of the country to be “sex workers”. She and Darryl find resistance to their investigation as the owner of the property is a wealthy individual. Christy decides to take matters into her own hands and bring out the girls herself. As the rescue appears to be going south, the police step in at the eleventh hour and arrest the men at the estate before they can harm Christy and the girls. This makes Christy a local celebrity, inspiring the community to get involved in stopping crime from making a foothold there.

Her Saturday morning worship services for the homeless on the lawn at her church draw more and more congregants, slowly transforming the lives of the street people and poor. Christy’s work with the homeless seals her reputation as a local hero.

Darryl and Christy arrive in Savannah, where their prime concern is if there is still any interest in Christy as an accomplice in the robbery. Darryl, a government prosecutor by vocation, found no outstanding charges, either by her Mother in Maryland or in Georgia. There was still some risk involved in facing Damon Jurgenson.

They find Damon long retired from the force and running a homeless mission on Jefferson Street. Oddly, he is happy to see Christy. Though his account of the events of that night is emotionally jarring, he credits the incident for changing his life. Darryl and Christy go to Atlanta strengthened by the encounters.

As the week comes to a close (Monday to Sunday), leads on Evy Everly’s whereabouts are dead ends. An excited phone call from Caitlin changes the mood. Calling club after club in Atlanta from home in New Smyrna Beach, she has found where her step-grandmother was performing that very night. They only have a half-hour before her show ends. Christy pleads with Darryl to go alone. He lets her go.

Christy arrives at the lounge as her mother prepares to sing her last song of the night. Evy, going by Eve Pantorelli now, sits at the piano in the dark lounge with large sunglasses on. She is legally blind, a result from a skillet striking her temple, she tells the audience as she leads into her last song. Routinely, she dedicates the last song to her “beautiful daughter” whom she longs “to hold once again in her arms”. Emotionally distraught and disbelieving, Christy charges out of the club as her mother starts singing a song she used to sing to her as a child.

Outside the club, Christy remembers something Chris Jones had told her, and stops. She takes a few steps toward the entrance where a young black woman and a white girl covered in tattoos had been collecting a door charge. She asks the black girl whether Eve Pantorelli sings that song and makes that dedication to her daughter every night or just tonight. She suspects that her mother was expecting her.

The door attendant goes on a rambling speech on what she thinks about Eve, going on how she is a wonderful woman and, yes, she always ends her show dedicating the last song to her daughter. At least, she says, that’s what she’s done every night she’s been there, and that’s going back several months. But the girl has a theory that, although Eve is a great lady, she can also be a little batty. She concludes that the lost daughter she longs to hold is probably dead. The black girl suddenly stops her rambling there and asks, “Who are you?”

“I am…her daughter,” Christy says haltingly. She turns to the entrance as her mother is winding up her last song. When Evy Everly finishes her song a minute or two later, the audience withholds its applause. Trying not to show her perplexity at the silence, she looks around as best she can. A shadow blocked out part of the light to her right. This meant that someone had to be on stage next to her.

The soft, ever familiar sobbing of her daughter broke the extreme silence. A few gasps and coughs scattered among the packed house as the patrons waited to see if this was indeed the reunion that many had grown to anticipate themselves. “Baby?” Eve asks. “Hi, Mom,” Christy struggles to reply. Eve lets out a heavy sigh and jumps up from the piano bench to embrace her daughter. The emotion passes like a low-voltage electricity through the lounge. A burly redneck customer, seeing that his girlfriend has noticed tears rolling down his cheeks, starts to applaud loudly to divert her attention. The rest of the crowd follows suit, giving a long standing ovation.

Aside from a few tearful I love yous there are no other words exchanged between the two women in the manuscript. This is where the story ends except for a note that Eve Pantorelli came to stay with her family, the Blankenships.

JULY MOUNTAIN will be approximately 150,000 words long.

Character Sketches of Major Characters (Order of importance) – JULY MOUNTAIN

Christy Everly Blankenship – Strong-willed girl and woman until her life falls apart. She is gradually changed until the transformation is noticeable, and she re-channels her strong will.

Evy Everly (Eve Pantorelli) – Christy’s mother who had Christy out of wedlock at 18. Immature except for her loyalty to her daughter.

Chris Jones – Christy’s self-appointed bodyguard during her days on the street. Although illiterate, he mentors her and encourages her about the future.

Damon Jurgenson – A racist cop in Savannah who develops a growing respect for Chris Jones. When Chris throws himself in front of his patrol car, Damon is emotionally devastated.

Lorraine Clarke – Christy’s best friend from the third grade on. More timid and not as pretty as Christy, she never is jealous of Christy, as she has a crush on her.

Darryl Blankenship – The son of the governor, he falls in love with Christy. He is inquisitive and honest, useful qualities for a prosecutor.

Vivian Clarke – A bitter woman after losing her daughter, Vivian was always distant and cold. After a long, often volatile meeting with Christy in Baltimore, her wall starts to come down, revealing a heart that truly loved her daughter.

Caitlin “Katy” Blankenship – 20-year-old daughter from Darryl’s first marriage. She is her stepmom’s most ardent supporter. Her personality is feisty, yet deep and soul-searching.

Ben “Daddy Ben” Morgan – Immature, dissolute boyfriend to Evy Everly from 1970-76, a nightclub singer and alcoholic.

Cassandra Blankenship – 23-year-old daughter of Darryl and his first wife. Also very devoted to Christy, although more shy and reserved.

Devin Blankenship – 12-year-old son of Darryl and Christy, a passive pleaser of a boy.

Claude Blankenship – Governor of Florida, old-school conservative Democrat politician patterned after Lawton Chiles. An independent thinker, he supports his son’s decision to marry Christy above his advisors’ objections.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

July Mountain - The Poem

July Mountain

by

Wallace Stevens

-----------------------------

We live in a constellation

Of patches and of pitches,

Not in a single world,

In things said well in music,

On the piano and in speech,

As in the page of poetry-

Thinkers without final thoughts

In an always incipient cosmos.

The way, when we climb a mountain,

Vermont throws itself together.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Chapter One

"What if I knew now what I knew then? How different would it be?"

The two questions hung as one single, complex thought at the center of
Christy Blankenship's mind as she turned onto State Road 44 heading
west. She could still see her mother begging her to be reasonable.
"Money is not everything. I am your mother," she cried. Today she would
have seen the truth in that, and put the skillet back on the counter.
She couldn't take back what she did once she did it.

Time is unforgiving, she thought. Would her mother be unforgiving, too?
Would she even find her mother? Christy received a tip that an Eve
Pantorelli was singing and playing piano in clubs around Atlanta since
last fall. One club's Myspace page still had a photo posted of her even
though the manager said she'd moved on months before. It was great to
see that she was still alive, since Christy first thought she had killed
her. In the picture, she was wearing sunglasses in a dimly lit lounge.
Was there something wrong with her vision, or were the glasses a
gimmick? Christy hoped it was a gimmick.

Her family was very supportive of her mission to find those three people she hurt so much. They knew how important the reunions would be to Christy, most of all with her mother. Her husband Darryl had heard progressively more detailed accounts about the great battle between the two women. He understood how much it hurt Christy that she
had left her mother in that Salisbury apartment, bleeding on the kitchen
floor. Now as a respected mother and leader in the community the
incident ate at her conscience more and more. Regardless of whether her
mother wanted to see her, she had to see her mother. She needed
desperately to apologize and bring her mother back into her life,
somehow.

Her son Devin didn't know the whole story but was looking forward to
"having a new grandmother". "Don't forget to bring her back with you!"
the boy shouted as the car rolled down the driveway. Devin was another
miracle, she thought, remembering the circumstances of his birth 12
years before. Yes, her mother would be pleased at the little gentleman
of a grandson she didn't know she had.

The weeklong journey would take her first to Baltimore to meet with Vivian Clarke, her best friend’s Mom. Sixteen years had passed since Lorraine’s tragic death. It hurt to see Ms. Vivian so devastated at the funeral; Lorraine was an only child. Christy realized that she knew the circumstances around her daughter’s death when, instead of hugging Christy, she punched her in front of the coffin. How would Vivian receive her now?

She wasn’t returning Christy’s phone calls, which was not a good sign. Christy had found her address over the Internet. She still felt a great weight of guilt in her stomach when she heard Ms. Vivian’s voice on the answering machine. Time has a way of making guilt more insidious.

If the Clarke visit wasn’t a total disaster, she would be on to Savannah, Georgia to face Damon Jurgenson. She heard the police officer was retired for many years, and, of all things, operated a homeless mission on Jefferson Street. Jurgenson was not the picture of charity when Christy knew him. Though the newspaper accounts of how the events of September 8th, 1992 nearly destroyed the man had broken her heart. She caused the whole thing to happen. Darryl would be flying to Maryland to join her, and would definitely be by her side at that meeting.

By the weekend, she hoped to be in Atlanta looking up her mother. Evy Everly, now going by her mother's maiden name Pantorelli, was a unique victim in Christy's trinity of guilt. Vivian Clarke and Officer Jurgenson were indirectly devastated by her actions, and, importantly, she didn’t know them extremely well. Christy knew her mother as well as she knew herself, and had directly delivered the damage. She had done her mother in with her own hands.

What would her mother be like now? She's still playing in clubs, Christy
noted. If she was forty-two, then Mom had to be 60. A young sixty, no
doubt. Evy Everly always looked, and acted, younger than she was. She
was like an older sister, only much more irresponsible, Christy thought.
There were two types of interaction between Christy and her mom: the
best of times or the worst of times. Their relationship was always
volatile, but they always made up, until Christy crossed the line back
in February, 1992.

I-95 North, Jacksonville read the sign ahead to her right. She'd almost
passed the on-ramp, quickly grabbing the right lane with just enough
room between her Toyota Avalon and an old pick-up. The truck's driver laid on
his horn for a long second. Christy looked into the rear view mirror and
said, "Sorry!" even though the man couldn't possibly have heard her.
Years ago she'd be giving him the finger and telling him to f- but, no,
she had spaced out and jumped in front of him. She gave a friendly wave to the rear view mirror.

Just after mid-day, I-95 at the New Smyrna Beach exit was flowing
smoothly. Christy had gotten a late start and would no doubt be hitting some rush hour traffic as she passed Savannah and Charleston.

Six months ago Darryl had balked at the first mention of the road trip
to Maryland and back through Georgia. Oh, but how the girls stood with
Christy. Cassandra, now 23, and Caitlin, now 20, defended their
step-mom's plan to revisit the people in her past. Caitlin, the more
sentimental of the two, even went on about how Jonathan's brothers had
to face their guilt in the book of Genesis. Jonathan, the one that they
had sold into slavery, was the one who held the key to their freedom. To
her step-mom, Caitlin argued, Ms. Vivian, Officer Damon, and her
grandmother, Evy Everly, still held the keys to Christy's freedom. How
true that was, and Christy thought, is.

The two young ladies were always Christy's angels. They'd used
every tactic to match their father with her back in those days she
waited on them at J.B.'s Fish Camp in New Smyrna. Cassy was eight years
old and Caitlin five. Since their Mom had remarried, they made it their
mission that Daddy would marry the most beautiful lady they knew,
Christy. Over a period of a year, the friendships grew until one night
at J.B.'s, Darryl, pressed on once again by the girls, asked her out on
a date.

Over dinner at Harry's on the Beach two days before, Caitlin was excited
that Christy found where her mother had been recently.

"I'll even go with you," Caitlin had said exuberantly. "I'll cancel the
Koinonia trip." Koinonia was a Christian agricultural community outside Americus, Georgia, a still-thriving experiment from the 1940s.

"No, Katy," Christy had replied. "I think it's better I go alone. It’s a long trip and I don’t know how Mom will react when she sees me."

"I can help you look. I'll make local phone calls from the hotel."

"It's not even a nice hotel. And you and Josh have been planning the Koinonia trip for a long time now," Christy said.

"You sure? I'd love to meet my grandmother."

"Step-grandmother, you might - "

"No, grandmother," Caitlin corrected. "You raised me from 5 years old,
remember?" She smiled as she looked down at the food the waiter was
serving her. "Oh, you can take the crackers away..Thanks." She looked
approvingly at her Smoked Fish Dip with baby carrots and celery stalks.

"Dieting again?" Christy asked, trying to change the subject. "You only
weigh, like, 120 pounds."

Caitlin leaned toward her step-mom and whispered, “130. And I'm only five seven. If you were my biological Mom I'd be taller and that'd be fine." Christy was 5’ 11”.

“Wait," Christy started, "if I'd married your Dad and had two girls they
wouldn't be you and Cassy."

"No, I guess not," she said. "Really, though, why don't you want me to
go? Koinonia will still be there. Besides, I'm bored and college doesn't start for another 5 weeks."

Christy leaned back and looked out over the ocean. They were sitting on
the barstools by the front window. The beach wrapped around the
foreground; Harry's being on a bend in the shoreline. Lightning
flickered in a patch of distant clouds over the water.

"What I did to my Mom was horrible," Christy said still staring at the
ocean. "She could've died if the neighbor hadn't heard us fighting and
gone to investigate." She took a deep breath.

"I want to….I mean, I need to ask for forgiveness one on one," she continued.
"She might look at you as some kind of. buffer I brought along to, I
don't know, keep her from freaking out, perhaps."

"But, you're still her daughter."

"No." The statement stirred up an old memory in Christy's mind.

"I am your Mother."

Moments later the skillet rose from the counter.

"No, a daughter doesn't do what I did. I am not her daughter." Christy
had lost her appetite, her Chicken Salad sat untouched in front of her.
"I am to my Mom whatever she says I am." She looked at Caitlin. "I have
to go alone, Katy."

“What about Dad?” Katy asked.

“We talked about it,” she had replied. “He’s willing to wait outside.” Darryl was flying up to Baltimore on Wednesday. In his job as Volusia County prosecutor, he had to be in court Monday and Tuesday.

In the two days since then, Christy's stomach was either full of
butterflies or tied in knots; butterflies when she was hungry, in knots
when she tried to eat. In front of others, she would say it was up to
God what her Mother would say. She would trust God, she said, but deep
down she wasn't sure God wasn’t going to have Evy Everly kick her butt.

What was her earliest memory of Mom? A young sandy blond-haired beauty
floated into Christy's mind. She wore bell bottom jeans with rips at the
knees, the material faded. Her pinkish tie-dye T-shirt hung over her
waistline. She would have been in her mid-twenties when they went to
Ocean City. That first Labor Day week they spent at Uncle Bill's cottage
was 1973. They had that week at the little cottage between 78th and 79th
Streets to themselves for four straight years.

Uncle Bill rented the cottage out for extra income, but that week he
gave it free to his niece. Bill Pantorelli was such a good man, Christy
thought. He was the only decent father figure she knew in her childhood.
It was a shame they weren't closer. Her Mom's lifestyle of late nights,
alcohol and drugs made it hard to be too close to a devoted family
man. Bill died of a heart attack in 1990.

As Christy settled into the middle lane of I-95, she lingered on the
earliest memories of her mother. Perhaps Ocean City in 1973 came to mind
because vacations were fertile ground for childhood memories; a break
from the routine.

1973

"Great catch, Christy! Woohoo!" she could hear her mother saying. The
little platinum blond-haired girl, three weeks shy of her seventh
birthday, had caught the beach ball off balance, but hadn't let it drop.

She threw it with all her might, but it landed only a few feet away,
bouncing twice before it reached Evy. They threw the ball back and forth
for a few more minutes before it bounded past Christy. It came to rest
in a crabgrass patch near a neighboring cottage. The little girl ran
after it.

Evy looked over toward the cottage and grimaced at her boyfriend, Ben
Morgan, standing just outside the cottage door wearing only his dark
blue underwear.

"Ben, put some frigging clothes on, will ya?" she growled. "Go inside
before she sees you, honey." Her strong East Baltimore accent made the word “honey” come out “herny”.

"You coming to bed?" he asked. Ben had curly blond hair and stood the
same height as Evy, five-eight. She knew he'd have to be hung over
again, after last night's binge.

"To bed? It's 1 in the afternoon." Evy said in disbelief. Her "oo" came out in an elongated "ew" sound. Her o's were also stretched as in "call the POE-lice", as was and is customary in the Dundalk area of Baltimore. As Christy turned to walk the ball back to
where they were playing, Evy shouted, "Go ahead, get in there! I'll be there in fifteen minutes, OK?"

Ben went back inside the cottage as Christy asked, "Is Daddy going
swimming?"

"No, honey," Evy said "Throw the ball to Momma now."

Christy didn't know for three more years that Ben Morgan wasn't her
biological father. It seemed to her he was always around, until the
break-up, which made her his father. Nevertheless, Ben didn't start
dating Evy until early 1970, when Christy was three.

In those early years, Christy loved her "Daddy Ben", which was the name
her Mom called him when she and Christy were alone. The little girl
thought of it as an endearing nickname, never realizing on her own that
it likely meant he wasn't her real "Daddy". He was charming and
attractive; not tall but in good shape. He didn't have any belly until
the drinking started to take its toll in 1975 and ‘76. All the Dundalk
girls were nuts over the good-looking and talented singer. He too spoke
in that Dundalk accent, which, of course, Christy thought was normal.

Christy thought then that she'd been born to the cutest couple who ever
lived. Night club royalty they were, as everyone knew the piano-playing
babe and the Bob Dylan-crooning heart-throb. They would pack the bar
they played at in Dundalk or Highlandtown. Little Christy was often
there till the wee hours, waiting for her Mommy and Daddy to finish playing and partying. Often they would gather her sleeping frame up off the sofa in the
owner's office at three in the morning. For the most part, Christy
thought she had a wonderful life.

They always had fun even if they never had much money. Evy and Ben always rented apartments and moved often. Ben hated to move Evy’s old piano. On one such move, he threw a nuclear temper tantrum after his foot got caught between the black Gulbransen and the marble steps.

Little Christy threw the ball to her Mom, not asking why Daddy Ben was wearing his bathing suit if they weren’t going to the beach. The ball bounced only once this time on its way to Evy. “Good girl!”

Just then a huge dragon-fly zoomed right up to Christy’s nose. Screaming she turned and ran, her mother and dragon-fly in pursuit.

“Christy, stop!” her mother yelled. “They don’t do nothin’. They don’t bite.”

The little blonde fell to her knees and placed her hands over her head, guarding against the evil dragon-fly. Her mother came up from behind. “Don’t move! He’s on your back.”

Christy stiffened up as her mother put her hands on either side of her rib cage and started tickling her. “I got him!” she growled as Christy laughed heavily. This went on for a few more seconds. Then they went inside to have lunch.

Evy put a sandwich in front of her daughter, who was seated at the kitchen table, which doubled as the dinner table. The cottage was very small: two tiny bedrooms and a half bath. The shower stall was outside.

“Your favorite, PB and J,” her Mom said placing a sandwich on a paper plate in front of Christy. “Milk or Sunny D?”

“Milk, please,” she replied.

Seconds later a cold glass of milk sat next to her plate.

“OK, I got some business to take care of with your Daddy,” Evy said. “I’ll be right back out.”

Christy groaned. “Business again? Now? Can’t you wait till I’m asleep at night?” She didn’t like their version of “business”. It was very noisy, though she was a heavy sleeper.

“We’ll try not to make much noise, love,” Evy said as she began to close the door to the bedroom behind her. Christy could hear giggling on the other side of the closed door.

Christy sped up the eating of her sandwich, but the peanut butter was hard to eat fast, sticking to the roof of her mouth and between the gaps in her teeth. Before she could finish, it started. The surface of the milk started to ripple as a swooshing sound came from her parents’ bedroom. The rickety bamboo bed with leather ties seemed as if it might not survive too much “business”.

Luckily by the time the groans started Christy was finished her sandwich and had freed her hands to cover her little ears. She was afraid to go outside out of fear someone would see her and….hear that. When the orgasmic screams began, Christy ducked her head down so none of the neighbors could look in the window and see she was there. Within a few interminable minutes, the creaking and groaning had died down completely.

Christy slowly raised her head up and pulled the fingers out of her ears. Her ear lobes were sore from the pressing down. It made her very embarrassed, this “business”, even though she couldn’t be sure why. It was the first time Christy remembered ever thinking her parents weren’t all that normal. She had slipped once in school when her English teacher asked her what her father did at work. “Oh, he does business with my Mommy three times a day.” Ms. Kopowsky turned three shades of red.

Later that day, Christy remembered they went to the beach. The waves in Ocean City were always rough, especially on a little girl. After a couple of super waves had rubbed Christy’s sunburnt face in the dirt, she went crying to her mother, who was camped under an umbrella. “C’m’ere, sugar,” she said in that soothing Mother tone. “Oh, damn, you’re really burnt.”

“That wave scraped my face off,” Christy sniffled. “I hate waves. I hate Ocean City!”

Evy cuddled her in her arms. “Oh, no, you don’t. The redness’ll go away, honey. I promise.”

There was a song playing on Ben’s transistor radio that he turned up then. He started crooning along with “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones. During one instrumental solo, he took another swig from his can of Schaeffer’s. He sat down on the sand next to them. As Mick Jagger began to sing again, he sang to his girlfriend and her daughter, using the can of cheap beer as his microphone.

“I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie, I have my freedom but I dont have much time. Faith has been broken, tears must be cried. Let’s do some living after we die.”

Evy smiled, trying to repress a laugh.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Wild, wild horses, well ride them some day. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Wild, wild horses, well ride them some day.”

He toned down the radio with his free hand before the DJ’s noisy station identification could spoil the mood. “Awesome song,” he concluded. Wild Horses had been all over the radio that summer, Christy recalled.

“What time we gotta be at the Greene Turtle tonight?” Ben asked.

“Whenever the Glen Burnouts get done,” Evy replied. “Probably ‘round midnight. What‘ll we do with Missy here?”

“I’m not Missy,” Christy said softly.

“Jake is closing manager tonight,” he said. “I think he’ll let us put her to sleep in the office.”

“I don’t know. How ‘bout those people in the cottage next to us? The Carlins was their name? They’re nice people.”

“Evy, we only just met them two days ago.”

“Yeah, like you know Jake a whole lot better. Maybe we shouldn’t go,” Evy proposed.

“Hell, no,” Ben protested, “it’s 75 bucks….easy money.”

“You’re turning into a lobster, too,” Evy said. “Get under the umbrella.” Ben inched a little closer until he was half under the umbrella. He swallowed down the last of the can of beer.

“Shit, it got warm while I was singin’,” he complained.

The Carlins turned out to be very nice people. Very old, too. Mrs. Carlin gave Christy a whole bowl of candied corn. She used to love them, even though it didn’t seem right two months before Halloween. That’s when Christy generally saw those candies. She’d nip off the white tip of the bullet-shaped candy, then nibble her way up the orange midsection toward the yellow top. She repeated this process as much as she had to to get to the bottom of the bowl. The next morning she didn’t want to get out of bed. Mrs. Carlin had tucked her into their sofa-bed with the TV on. Leave me with these people more often, Christy pleaded with her parents.

She slept till noon the next day, when a noise in the distance drew her attention. Mr. Carlin was looking out the window indignantly.

“I know it’s nature an’ all but do they have to be so dang loud,” he was saying. Mrs. Carlin stood behind him, her hand over her mouth. After a few moments, she noticed that Christy was stirring in the sofa-bed. She rushed over.

“You can go back to sleep, buttercup,” she said warmly. “You were up late last night.”

The shouts from the cottage next door grew louder and louder; Ben and Evy’s cottage.

“Dang loud!” Mr. Carlin growled. He was short and stocky, about 70 years old. His wife was thin, a few inches taller with dyed black hair. Her skin betrayed her age, probably the same age as her husband. Despite all the times they babysat her those first three Labor Day weeks in OC, Christy never learned their first names.

Christy knew just what to say. She sat up in her bed and said, “They’re just doin’ business! They do that all the time.”

Mr. Carlin looked at her sympathetically. “We understand, little one. They just don’t have to be so dang loud about it, is all.”

Fro then on, she thought her parents were understandable. Even Mr. Carlin could understand them. But they were not the most normal couple because they were very loud. Later, it became clear to Christy that most parents didn’t stay out till 5 in the morning either. Or get drunk every night. Or smoke pot.

1974
The first joint she saw Daddy Ben smoke was in 1974. He’d taken her to an Orioles Sunday afternoon game a few days before leaving on the second Labor Day trip to Ocean City. She had decided that Mike Cuellar was her favorite Oriole and had begged her Daddy Ben to take her to see him pitch. In retrospect, Christy remembered that she really liked the sound of his name. Originally, she thought it was pronounced Mike Killer, and thought that was cool. Later, she heard it was pronounced QUAY-ar. He pitched a complete game shutout just the same. On the way home they stopped at a convenience store on Northern Parkway.

"Daddy Ben, can you reach me those carameals over theyah?" Christy asked him.

Ben replied, "Sure, honey. How many do you want? I'll give you a
hint. These Goetze's caramel creams - you can't eat less than a dozen of
them at one time!"

"I'll take two dozen - that OK?"

"Sure, sweet pea. Here." He counted out 24 from the candy box and put them in one of the small paper bags hanging next to the candies. He waved the bag at the cashier and asked, "How much I owe ya?"

"Well that's $1.20 for the candy and $2 for the six-pack of beer..comes
to $3.38 with tax," the man behind the counter replied.

Reaching into his pocket, Ben mumbled, "Damned inflation.." and
produced a 5 dollar bill.

"The Goetze's caramel creams have to be eaten two by two now, ya hear",
he continued as they got into his blue, ’66 Camaro. Little Christie already had
three in her mouth and she suddenly found herself gagging.

Ben turned the ignition key. "Uh oh, looks like you done Od'd," he
chuckled, looking over at the little girl in the passenger's side, all
her resources focused on how to keep the chewy and wonderfully sugary
blobs from coming back up. After a half a minute the panic started to go
away. It appeared that this batch of caramels was going to be a success
after all.

"What you do is keep one of 'em over in the side of your mouth, let it
get soft...and the other one you put in the tip of your tongue...like
this," he placed one in his mouth. With his speech partially blocked by
the soft lump of sugar, he garbled, "Then you push the white creamy part
out of the caramel circles wit' your tongue and let it dissolve.Mmmmm!"
As the sugar broke apart and started to go down her throat, she grunted,
"Umm-hmm!"

Ben turned the key in the ignition. As the car roared for a few seconds before coming to an idle, he realized he wanted to put on his sunglasses. As he flipped down the visor above his head, a pair of sunglasses fell down along with a small cigarette.
He smiled. “Damn, almost forgot about my doobie.” He picked it off his lap with one hand while donning his sunglasses with the other. “Anybody lookin?” he said, glancing around the car. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the cigarette. Within seconds the car filled with a putrid burning smell. He took a few quick puffs, careful to make sure no one noticed him…except Christy.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said. “That smells bad, anyway.”

“Helps me relax, sweetpea,” he said. “Maybe when you get bigger you can try it.” He took one more puff then snuffed out the smoldering end with his finger tips. He put the joint back up in the visor.

That night Christie's mom was due to debut in a bar on a well-known stretch of clubs on Baltimore Street. For many years Christie thought that this was a prestigious street in
Baltimore - its namesake nonetheless - but she didn't find out until years later that it was in the heart of the “red light” district.

As the perforated yellow lines passed by Christy’s SUV on I-95, the memory of that awkward night came back very clearly. Ben and Evy couldn’t find a babysitter so they brought their little girl along. The place was called Chez Joey and had just opened. Christy remembered looking around the interior by the entrance at the glamorous décor. There were floor-to-ceiling mirrors and flashy disco balls hanging from the ceiling. She could still see herself in the mirrors that night, blond pigtails and her sky blue Barbie dress.

Booths ran along the wall all the way around. Each booth had its own curtain and, since no customers were there yet, the curtains were all draped to a side. Christy, almost 8 at that point, was in awe of the impressive layout. After a few minutes, she noticed her parents and the manager seemed to be arguing. It got so heated, she walked over to them and asked if they had to leave.

“No, honey,” her mom said. “We just had a little mix-up.” She looked at the manager, a dark-haired man with a moustache, then back at her daughter. “Baby, we’re gonna have to put you back in the office over there. This ain’t the kind of place you can hang around in.”

Evy took her by the hand and they followed the manager to the office, a 5’ by 10’ room in the corner behind the last booth. There was a worn-out, old sofa on the right, a large desk and bank lamp to the left. Next to that was a safe and, oddly, a toilet sat at the opposite end of the door.

“This was a powder room for the guests before,” the manager said as they entered. “We converted it to an office. We can lock the door so no one can get in. If she needs to contact one of you, she can dial ‘0’ from this phone here.” He pointed to an old circular dial phone under the bank lamp.

“Do you have any games to play?” Christy asked.

The manager shook his head. “No, kid.”

“Why are you doing this?” Christy whimpered. “I’ll be good out there. I promise.”

“How about that clock-radio over there?” Evy asked, visibly disturbed that her daughter would be locked in a pint-size office in a nightclub with nothing to do all night.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” the manager said. He took the box and plugged it in next to the sofa. Seconds later he had on a local radio station playing Top 40. “There – that’ll do it!”

“Sorry about this, babycakes,” Evy said, still distressed. “Love you.”

Moments later Christy was alone and the door locked behind them. She looked at the door in disbelief. She never got to the office until she fell asleep in one of the empty booths. What was she going to do here for who knows how many hours?

Then her favorite song at that time came over the clock-radio, Terry Jacks’s Season’s In The Sun. Christy had fallen in love with the song, especially about the last line: “But the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach”. Also, the words, “Too much wine and too much song, wonder how wee got along” reminded her of Mommy and Daddy Ben. Although, she never told them that.

Thinking back to those innocent days, Christy felt that wistful, dreamy hopefulness indwelling the eight-year-old she once was. Maybe the blissful memories were due to her not knowing any better. She thought she’d been put in a great home with a great Mommy and Daddy. 1974 was a hopeful time for her, though in retrospect she couldn’t remember why, aside from her own imagination.

The long, boring hearings on TV that summer hadn’t dented Christy’s spirit a bit. She didn’t know what Watergate was and she didn’t care. It didn’t have anything to do with her. She wasn’t even aware that Mr. Nixon was the leader of the country until he resigned. Mr. Ford was the first president she remembered anything about: his baldness, his bad knee that gave out whenever the cameramen were around. He was boring anyway. Why couldn’t they have somebody like Daddy Ben as president?

Soft rock music rising from the radio lulled Christy to an early sleep, around 10 pm. Neil Young’s Heart of Gold and James Taylor’s You’ve Got A Friend were favorites but they did tend to put her to sleep. By 10:15, Christy was out like a light on the musty, black leather sofa.

Some time later, Christy became aware that he had come back. He sat at the end of the sofa and started to massage her feet. When she realized who it was, a fear pierced her and caused her to open her eyes. As she dreaded, it was him. Then she remembered she was locked in the office. There was no escaping.

“Christy Everly,” he said in that creaky, creepy voice. “Oh, Christy Everly.” His face and skin was pale as milk and he was thin and tall. His nose jutted out like Pinocchio’s and his long, black hair fell down around his shoulders.

Christy could hardly breathe. “What do you want? Go away!”

“I can’t leave you, Christy,” he said. “I’m here to take your life.” He laughed in a most sinister way.

Christy was frozen in terror. Mr. Stench would appear at random to terrorize her. His entire goal in life was to horrify her and make her die. And he was always happy about it.

“Stench, go away!” she cried. “I don’t want to see you.” She tried to move her feet from his hands, but moving in general was impossible for her. It felt as if she was paralyzed.

“Why don’t you die for me, now, Christy,” he growled. “I want to be the last one to see you…alive.” He laughed that sinister laugh. The grip on her feet tightened.

Christy tried to scream but she couldn’t just yet. Stench moved over to where he was looking at her face to face. His breathe smelled awful and his black overcoat reeked of rotten cabbage. As his hand with the long fingernails reached her neck, she found the strength to push him far, far away. He fell over backward as she screamed, and sat up.

Laughter filled the small office as little Christy awoke. She had been dreaming again. Of course, she thought, Stench only showed up in her nightmares. Instead of finding Stench falling to the floor, she found three men sitting at the desk.

“Auggie, you loud-ass motherfucker, you woke the little girl up!” A heavyset man in a white suit had said this.

“Fuck you, Joey, it was you snorting like a fuckin’ pig!” the man named Auggie said in his defense, laughing. He, too, was overweight but well-dressed in black leather jacket and pants.

Who were these men? Stench disappeared, as he always did. He was imaginary. These guys were real, and they were three feet away.

The third man said, “Sorry, little tyke, we were just enjoyin’ some herbal delights, but these clowns had to bring in their profanity…and this one” – pointing to Auggie – “he’s insulting our palates by fartin’ uncontrollably.”

“I didn’t fart, you ass,” Auggie grumbled.

“Yeah, it’s your ass that farted,” the man named Joey started, “and that’s what woke up the little cunt. Nuclear fallout.”

The third man said, “Let’s finish this shit and get back to the floor.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Auggie chimed in.

Christy trembled as the three vulgar men each took a straw and placed it in one nostril. With a grunting sound they ran the straw over the surface of the desk. What were they doing? Picking up dust? She turned toward the wall and put her hands over her eyes.

The clock-radio read 11:24 pm and the radio was playing Shangri-La by Three Dog Night. Where were her parents? What were the men going to do to her? She trembled as the men laughed and bantered on for a few more minutes.

“OK, guys, back to work!” the man named Joey barked, and the three men shuffled out, locking the door behind them.

“Who’s idea was it to bring their friggin’ kid?” Christy could hear the third man asking on the other side of the door, as one of them locked it.

“It was the music…talent,” Joey replied. “Don’t worry, we ain’t having them back. If the little dame was older we’d put her to work, but…” his voice trailed off.

Christy’s eyes filled with tears. It was the first time any of the bar people had frightened her. Maybe it was because she was asleep, and woke up frightened, she thought. As Shangri-La ended, Seasons in the Sun came back on. It was at the top of the charts so the Top 40 stations were playing it more than once an hour.

At midnight, Christy was growing worried that her parents had left her. They hadn’t stopped by all night. She couldn’t stop crying, feeling something must have happened to them. Then the door was unlocked and the manager appeared. Evy and Ben were right behind him. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother what had happened.

“Here we go, baby,” Evy said. “We’re leaving. It’s OK. She knelt down and gave Christy a hug, lifting her off the sofa. Ben stood smiling behind them, a bit unsteady.

“Mommy, there were these men and they scared me!” Christy whimpered.

“It’s all right, baby. They weren’t going to hurt you.”

Christy wept softly onto her mother’s shoulder. Evy turned slowly toward Ben. “Did they give you the money?”

“Yeah, the difference was…let me see,” he said, fumbling in his pocket for her pay. “There, twenty.”

Evy squinted her eyes. “Twenty? What’s twenty? Where’s the rest of it?”

“This is…the difference.”

Christy had seen Ben more than a few times in this state. Her mom wasn’t amused this time. She had done all the playing while Ben watched….and drank.

“You mean to tell me you spent 80 dollars drinking?”

Ben shrugged. “Well, there was some tip involved, and you….you had some wine.”

“One glass of wine! Did you even check on Christy like I asked ya?”

“Oh, she was all right,” Ben said, trying to smile.

Evy stormed past him with Christy on her shoulder. “Let’s get out of this shit-hole. Honey, close your eyes.”

Of course, Christy didn’t close her eyes. The place was packed with people, and a bunch of them, Christy noticed, didn’t have any clothes on. The ones without the clothes were all girls. As she passed one of them, the lady smiled at her and blew her a kiss. “How cute!” “Adorable!” said another. They seemed pretty normal, she thought. They just must have forgotten their clothes.

The battle between Evy and Ben heated up as soon as they were in the car. Actually, it started with Evy. Ben was driving, erratically.

“You bastard!” Evy started in. “I didn’t play piano for four hours so you could get drunk and watch a bunch of naked women! Unbelievable.”

He hit the gas hard, squealing his tires against the pavement as they pulled out onto Baltimore Street. “You never want me to have any fun, dammit!”

“No fun? That’s all you do is have fun. You’re a frickin’ baby.” She pulled out the cigarette lighter and lit a Marlboro.

The movement of the car frightened Christy. She slid around in the back seat as there were no seat belts.

“And I can’t believe you didn’t check on Christy once all night!” Evy was fuming. The smoke rolling out of her nostrils made her look like an angry dragon.

“I did. I did,” he said defensively. “She…she was asleep.”
“Yeah, right.” Evy glanced back at Christy, who gave a negative shrug. Evy nodded. “Slow down, you idiot!” she growled, feeling her temper slipping away. “Eighty frickin’ dollars. Jesus Christ, Ben! Rent’s due tomorro’.” She glared at the road ahead and inhaled her cigarette.

Christy looked up at her mother from where she lay flat on the back seat, her arms pressed up against the back of the driver’s seat to keep her from moving. From there she got a good look at Evy’s profile. Even seething with anger, Evy was a beautiful young woman, she thought, prettier than the naked ones in that awful bar. Some of the moms at school were ugly as sin, she thought. Christy was never embarrassed by her mom. She was always pretty even when she threw herself together in two minutes. Of course, in retrospect, she was 10 years younger than the other moms.

Christy couldn’t remember what happened after that. She was looking glowingly at her mom as she puffed on her cigarette, chewed Ben out, puffed on her cigarette, and chewed Ben out some more. Ben kept telling her to shut up, “just shut up”, then everything went blank. Later she was told Ben had lost control of the car, hitting a parked car at full speed. The Camaro bounced off the car and struck a pole. That’s when Christy’s leg was fractured in several places. Her feet went into the rear passenger’s side door first, and her body followed like an accordion.

She woke up in the ambulance on the way to Franklin Square Hospital. Her mom was sitting next to her, crying. She was not hurt physically, though. Christy was in the stretcher. Ben wasn’t around.

“What happened, Mommy?” Christy asked.

“Your leg – they think it’s broken,” she replied, struggling to control her tears. “I’m sorry, baby.” She put her hand on Christy’s shoulder and turned away. The little girl placed her hand over her mother’s.

“It’s OK, Mommy,” she said. “It’ll be all right.”

That trip to Ocean City was the year she went with a cast on her right leg.

Ben shaped up for a while after that. Evy forgave him, saying she had pulled his hand down when he tried to cover her mouth. Supposedly, this caused him to swerve to the right and strike the parked car. The Camaro still ran great, although the front fender and rear door were banged in. They drove it to OC. There was no money to fix it anyway.

Her mother said nothing for nearly the entire trip down. Pippi Longstocking was Christy’s passion that summer. She leafed through the picture books, backwards and forwards, passing the time. It was over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge her mom finally said something, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

“I had a dream once that I drove my car off a bridge,” Evy said. “I can’t remember if I survived. I guess I did.”

The water was ice cold at the beach that year. Christy couldn’t go in the water with a cast on, anyway. She had fun just the same in the arcades on the boardwalk. Likely out of a feeling of guilt, her parents let her spend all day playing the games. At night, Ben and Evy picked up several gigs for extra money. Greene Turtle paid the most, Christy remembers, hiring them for three nights. Ben’s Bob Dylan impersonation was getting better, and more called for, by the day. Evy’s mood rebounded well during that trip, probably because Ben was acting like a gentleman for once.

Christy spent the nights with the Carlins, the wonderful old couple from the bungalow next door. They taught Christy how to play Yahtzee, which they’d play until the Carlins went to bed at 10. They let Christy stay up as late as she wanted, watching TV. There wasn’t any real selection since there was only one good signal – out of Salisbury, and two really weak signals from Baltimore. One other channel was so snowy you could only see the station’s logo, something in Philadelphia, and it played the national anthem at midnight. Christy was more relieved she didn’t have to stay out at any bars. She could live with bad TV, plus she loved watching the I Dream of Genie reruns. She wanted to be blonde and beautiful like Barbara Eden when she got older. She was blonde, but she had a long way to go.

Between the summers of 1973 and ’74, someone had poked a hole in the wall of the shower stall at their cottage. Christy woke up each day before his parents, ate breakfast with Mr. and Mrs. Carlin, and went to take her morning shower. Thinking back on those days, she was amazed at how carefree she had been. Walking from one cottage to the other to take a shower…outside. That isn’t something an eight-year-old girl would do in 2008, unless there were some desperate circumstances.

As the hot water flowed down from the showerhead, Christy became aware of a yellow circle under it, about eye level. At that hour, eight am, the sun showed right through the hole. She was amazed at how bright it was. Turning off the water she sat down and focused exclusively on the accidental camera obscura.

She was fascinated by it. Even the smallest gnat could be seen in detail when it fluttered past the opening in the wall. She loved when the dragon-flies would hover around; what a beautiful way of dancing about they had. An hour would go by and all she wanted to do was watch what was zooming about outside. On the hotter mornings the rippling heat waves could be seen. The longer Christy looked at the camera the more it became surreal.

She imagined she could enter into that yellow circle of light. There was a mystical land on the other side; bright yellow with large and wonderful dragon-flies buzzing around. Mountains of gold towered above her with rivers of cherry Jell-o running between them. There on the other side of reality, Christy saw people walking around; men, women and children, some floating, some walking, but all of them happy. They all knew her name though she knew no one.

“Christy!” Shouted an old man jovially as he floated by her. Sitting on a diamond near her was a young man extravagantly dressed.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“I’m a prince. And you’re Christy Everly. Everyone knows that.”

“Nice to meet you. But what is your name?”

“It’s prince. Nice to meet you.” He knelt in front of her and kissed her hand. “You’re very pretty.”

“Thank you, Prince? That’s your full name?”

He was a handsome boy, she mused. He had dark hair and emerald green eyes with a light complexion. He didn’t look like any of the boys at Glenmount Elementary.

“You’ll know my name one day,” the Prince said as he stood up. They were the same height.

“But you’re not real.”

“Real? What is real?” He looked over her shoulder. “Is that bee real?”

Christy turned to look at a yellow jacket the size of a two-story building. The light shining around the bee blinded her. It was pulling itself into the hole in the shower stall. As it flew over to the showerhead, Christy moved in the opposite direction, picking up the towel that was laying on her cast and wrapping herself in it.

Her fantasy was cut short. Bees always scared her. After all, she had just gotten over being afraid of dragon-flies months before. A yellow-jacket stung her once when she was on the playground in kindergarten. She’d dreaded them ever since.

For the last few days in Ocean City, Christy made a point to take her shower before 8 am, then turn off the water and meditate on the sun that shone through the camera obscura. Thinking back, her fantasy world was predictable. Prince’s Dad was the king and the others in the family were all generic royalty names, even if they had distinct personalities. The regal splendor of that world never ceased to astound her, though. As more bugs and birds flew by her camera, she saw them in that world as majestic projections of themselves, benign and unthreatening. Even the yellow-jacket didn’t seem to scare her as much after a few meditations.

Welcome to Georgia the sign read as Christy Blankenship left Jacksonville and Florida behind. Christy’s farewell to Florida would only be for a week. When Stevens wrote his “Farewell to Florida”, it seemed to her he never came back.

Farewell and to know that that land is forever gone
And that she will not follow in any word
Or look, nor ever again in thought, except
That I loved her once…..Farewell. Go on, high ship.

As I-95 stretched out beyond the Toyota’s windshield, Christy thought that Wallace Stevens was touching on another truth: Once you leave a place behind, it will never be again what it was when you fell in love with it. While the rundown cottage with its outdoor shower stall and crabgrass-infested sand stayed the same for many more years, it was Christy that was going to change. Never again in thought, as in that far-off time, would she love that cottage the same way. She was about to change whether she liked it or not.