Post by goldenmyst on Sept 27, 2018 15:12:03 GMT -6
Bless My Crazy Ole Husband's Heart - Happy Ending
The sun has not yet risen when my lash hooded almond eyes open. My husband is sound asleep. Moonlight streams through the window. It is spring and cool this morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My oval face appears serene in the mirror from the moon glow pouring through the window. My complexion is that of creamy mocha. My thick chestnut hair falls down to my shoulders in kinky curls.
When morning breaks, Paul rings the old brass bell hanging from the bedpost to wake me up for breakfast. We begin to eat our meal of scrambled eggs and hash browns when Paul pipes up, “Damn Rosie, you sure had a good idea to move us here. We should move out to the mountains, grow rhubarb, and live off the fat of the land.”
I laugh and say, “There you go dreaming again. I don’t have a green thumb and we’re too citified to garden. We’d end up panhandling.”
He replies, “My grandpa was a sharecropper. It runs in the blood. We can learn to farm.”
I say, “Honey you’re no farmer, but if you want, we can grow some herbs on the balcony. That’ll be your crop.”
“Maybe we can grow some tomatoes too. We can harvest them and make salads.”
I say, “Knowing those red juicies were grown by you, those tomatoes would be very delicious.” We are silent for a moment and he suddenly breaks the silence and asks, “Let’s get out of the city for a while. We need fresh air and quiet.”
I say, “We sure do. Everyone has an angle here.”
Paul then asks me, “What gave you the notion to relocate us out here? I mean, don’t you miss the greenery back home? This place is beautiful but it takes some getting used to for a southern boy like me.”
“Aw shucks honey. I guess I just wanted a change of scenery, but I figured it would do us both good. The south was to me, been there, done that. So I decided that I had to change not only my head but my geography too.”
He says, “Was our old clunker stuck in the mud?”
I say, “Aw no honey. I tell you, I was getting kind of batty. My fantasy life was out of control.”
He says, “What was running through your head at the time?”
I say, “Sometimes I hate all men for the pain they have caused me. I feel like draining them of their energy and leaving them with only an empty husk. I want to emasculate them.”
He says, “I’m not afraid of you Rosie. I know the light in your heart will overcome the darkness. I see compassion in your eyes and I will always love you.”
“I’m no feistier than a kitty cat. I may nip at you sometimes, but that just makes me sexier.”
“I love your dark side. Now, what’s for dessert?” Paul asks quickly, changing the subject.
“Boy, you have a one-track mind.” I laugh and shake my head.
While dining he breaks some news for me. “Hey let’s try this on for size. Rosie, I want to take you out into the deep desert. Maybe we’ll see some sandworms like in the Dune books.”
I say, “You’re so crazy, but truly we could come home and find our balcony egged or draped in toilet paper. The signs ain’t good darling.”
“Oh come on. The kids here are good eggs. They won’t do such things.” Paul replies with a wave of his hand.
“Well OK, but I warned you.” I get up, take our dishes, put them in the sink, and wash them.
The next morning our time comes to depart for the New Mexican outback. I strap myself in the seat belt. He drives us in his convertible with the top pulled down and the wind rushing over my ears. We drive north along the dusty road. We then turn west to Abique. We pass over a dam, spotting out clear blue water in the large lake below. After passing the dam, we encounter the side of a barren red pyramid-shaped mountain, a thousand feet tall. The red color of the mountain is so rich and vivid that it seems to glow in the afternoon desert light.
After we pass through fantastical red rock canyons and knife-edged mountains, we pass into the Bisti badlands whose gray rounded hills and strange contorted black rocks resemble a moonscape. I have never seen such magnificent desolation in all my life. After that, we get to the Nageezi Trading Post. It looks like something out of the old west, but we aren’t here to sightsee and we pass on.
After Nageezi, we head south on a washboard dirt road. The car shakes so badly that it feels like it will fall apart at any moment. We travel deeper and deeper into the brown empty rolling desert land, not encountering any other vehicle but our own. A vast panorama stretches out ahead of us and I begin to notice the walls of a canyon on the distant horizon. We pass Navajo Hogans and herds of sheep roaming the wilderness. We enter Chaco Canyon. The yellow canyon walls look like they are about two to three hundred feet tall and are spread apart by a few miles. A huge jagged mesa stands behind us to the left towering over the yellow desert sandy plain. We follow the narrow asphalt park road through the canyon past Pueblo Bonito whose huge walls stand in silent witness to the ancient ones.
We park where the road curves back into a circle. We get out our backpacks with blankets, food, and other supplies to help us survive the merciless wilderness. He carries one pack and I another as we walk silently across the parched land into the wilderness. We follow an ancient Anasazi trail for hours ‘till the sun is low on the horizon. The trek is tiresome and the whole thing was done in silence, comfortable silence.
Finally, we come to a ruin whose brick stone walls stand on a rise in the desert. We walk through a gap in the wall and into the Kiva. It is a hole dug out of the earth and lined with stone bricks which stick up above the floor of the ruin. We spread our blankets on the dusty floor. We are covered in shadows from the ruin walls as the sun starts to sink below the horizon. I hear coyotes howl mournfully in the distance. Soon we are immersed in pitch-black darkness. The stars shine like millions of candles in the velvet black bowl of the night sky. I ask Paul, “Are you afraid?”
He says, “No more than normal.” We undress and wrap the wool blankets around us to keep warm with each other’s bodies in the cold desert night. He asks, “Are you going to seduce me with black magic?”
I reach over and put my finger to his lips and say, “Of course. You know with your high cholesterol and atrocious diet, you are a prime candidate for a heart attack. I could give you a
coronary.”
He laughs and says, “What better way to join the choir invisible?”
I say, “That’s not funny.”
He looks up at me and says, “Don’t worry. My heart is as strong as an ox.” I beam my lipstick smile upon him.
I say, “Well your physician said you can take a licking and keep on ticking. So who am I to dispute a board-certified doctor?”
Then I ride my dragon into crystal blue nirvana. My fractal ellipses into a kaleidoscope until my sentience swarms like a cloud of butterflies and my communal being coalesces into cellular heaven.
I look down at his face. The soft smooth roundness of his cheeks and the look of innocence in his eyes make him look childlike in the moonlight. He closes his eyes and appears as though in a trance. He has the same look on his face as the face of the Buddha, sitting under the Bodhi tree, just after achieving enlightenment which I’d seen in a Nepalese painting.
Suddenly I hear footsteps and a scraping sound. I stand up, look over the edge of the Kiva, and see two glowing eyes look back at me. I shine my flashlight and see a majestic mountain lion, muscles rippling in the desert night, perched on the wall of the ruin. I can tell her sex because of the absence of the black spot, between her hind legs, which signifies she is a female.
She opens her mouth and reveals huge sharp ivory incisors in the beam of my flashlight. We stand there, looking at each other for a moment, and I feel real fear. I can see the hunger in her eyes and it connects somehow with my own hunger. We stare at each other. I see her eyes glaze. My heart beats wildly and I freeze. The lioness leaps off the wall and I hear her running into the desert growling.
The fire we built is dying down, the fumes turning from the cool breeze. I blow on the glowing coals and try to get it to start again. Paul shivers and says, “Those critters are more afraid of us than we are of them. Don’t fret pumpkin.” He continues, “No campout is complete without a campfire. Stay here darling while I look for some tumbleweed to burn.”
I hold his arm and say, “No Paul. Please stay
here. The lioness is hungry. I can see it in her eyes.”
Paul kisses me and says, “She’s probably hunting for deer.” He gets up and walks through an opening in the walls of the ruin. I follow him with my flashlight. Hours pass like in a movie. With the terror of recognition, I see the lioness. Her mouth is bloody no doubt with Paul’s blood.
I say, “Paul if you can hear me stay still.” I can see she is stalking. I take Paul’s colt 45 out of the pack and aim it between her eyes. She looks at me and I feel an empathetic connection with her. For a moment I freeze and then pull the trigger. She falls like a limp rag doll. Daddy taught me well and my aim was good. I got her between the eyes. This is my first kill. I remember how daddy had the boys cover themselves with the blood of the first deer they killed.
I take Paul’s hunting knife out of the pack. I walk up to the dead lioness and crouch down beside her. I pet her head and then grasp her ears to pull her head back and slit her throat. I paint my naked body with her blood. My body becomes a red flag scented with blood to make Paul’s nostrils flare like those of a bull who lusts for his matadora.
I wait for his return until the first blush of dawn arrives. In my heart, I know the lioness took his life. He would never leave me alone from midnight until dawn otherwise. There is no other explanation.
On either side of me, dust devils swirl like wraiths as though welcoming Paul to Hades. I don my apparel for the hike back to the ranger station. I am garbed in floral prints like a bridesmaid. How dare I dress for a wedding with vultures already circling overhead?
With the desperation of a madwoman who won’t let go of her delusions, I call out, “Come back, Paul. It is time for breakfast. Let’s go home. Paul, soon you’ll be hiking in the heat of the day. You forgot your canteen. You could be getting dehydrated. We can’t risk you getting heat stroke.”
God must be a real Screwing bastard to let this happen to me. I sit in a butterfly pose and rip my skirt, exposing my knickers for all the decent world to see. I rend my panties to tatters letting my black fleece brazenly poke out. Then I tear my blouse to rags with my bra my only concession to modesty.
Then I retrieve the scissors from Paul’s first aid kit and cut off my long hair which Paul so loved. My locks carpet the ground like molted feathers from a once beautiful blackbird. Let my beauty die with him. Like someone in the early phase of chemo, I cover the ragged clumps of my hair with his bandana.
I weep while the sun rises like a succulent orange resurrecting my hunger for endless life. I hike back to the car under the newborn Sun, without a care in the world who sees my bloodstained body. I breathe to the rhythm of my steps. Each breath is a silent prayer to hear him call, “Wait for me” or see his footsteps, sending up a cloud of dust upon his shoes.
Upon my arrival at the car, Paul is sitting on the hood. He says sadly, “Remind me never to leave a campsite without a compass. God sweet pea I was lost. Just lucky I made it back to the car. I’m so sorry to put you through this.”
“You had me out here going batshit crazy. I oughta warm your britches with a hickory stick.”
“Are you dressed for a Halloween party?”
“Do I look like a girl from the Rocky horror picture show?”
“What happened to your clothes?”
“I needed a new wardrobe. So I ripped the old one apart as an excuse to get another.”
“My God what did you do to your hair?”
“This is my new look. I’m going for the feral style. I used the scissors from your first aid kit on my thatch.”
“What in the hell?”
“Don’t be fooled by my stubble. My raggedy look belies my tresses which will flow again.”
“What drove you to such desperate straits?” he implores.
“I thought you were dead. So I went crazy with grief. You dodo bird.”
“Had I stayed it wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s right you dingbat! How could you let me think the lioness got you? God, I can’t believe you left me there to collect firewood.”
“I was about to go back to you but it was dark and I’ll be damned I was walking in circles.”
“Now tell me, why did you bring me here? Was it so I’d have nothing better to do than make out?”
“I thought you needed to get off the consumer bandwagon for a while to a place with no stores.”
“So you took me to a place with big cats prowling around. When that bitch came back I was sure it wasn’t a social call. She had blood on her mouth which to my thinking was yours.”
“Oh love of my life, please forgive me.” Paul looks at me, eyes brimming with tears, begging.
“Thank the Lord your six-shooter was loaded. Good thing daddy brought me up like one of the boys. I was a good shot. I got that lioness between the eyes.”
“You are a marksman if I ever saw one. You are hereby entrusted with carrying the pistol.”
“What an honor to tote heat. But I still want to wear perfume and dress in frilly clothes.”
“You don’t have to wear camo to be the best shot in this marriage.”
“You scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. We aren’t coming back here again. This place is bad medicine.”
“You have my gentleman’s oath never to take you around these parts again.”
“Now let me sit here and calm down. I need to collect my wits.” I sit on the hood and gaze at tumbleweeds rolling across the sand. The desolation of my heart reflects the emptiness of the land. The world around me is quiet as before the earth was born. The world grows colder with my hands numb against the steel of the car. This chariot of steel brought us across the continent. The sun crawls across the sky like a saffron cloud. The canyon is silhouetted like a for a funeral
I slip out of my tattered frock and the cool morning air rushes over my naked skin. I unpack my second dress and slip it on. Cleaning the blood off will have to wait for a shower at home. The tide of sunlight floods into the sky in the final moment before Paul turns the ignition in our flight back to home to rewrite the ending of our story. He sits in the driver’s seat, next to me, turns the key, and we follow the road to humanity.
The sun has not yet risen when my lash hooded almond eyes open. My husband is sound asleep. Moonlight streams through the window. It is spring and cool this morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My oval face appears serene in the mirror from the moon glow pouring through the window. My complexion is that of creamy mocha. My thick chestnut hair falls down to my shoulders in kinky curls.
When morning breaks, Paul rings the old brass bell hanging from the bedpost to wake me up for breakfast. We begin to eat our meal of scrambled eggs and hash browns when Paul pipes up, “Damn Rosie, you sure had a good idea to move us here. We should move out to the mountains, grow rhubarb, and live off the fat of the land.”
I laugh and say, “There you go dreaming again. I don’t have a green thumb and we’re too citified to garden. We’d end up panhandling.”
He replies, “My grandpa was a sharecropper. It runs in the blood. We can learn to farm.”
I say, “Honey you’re no farmer, but if you want, we can grow some herbs on the balcony. That’ll be your crop.”
“Maybe we can grow some tomatoes too. We can harvest them and make salads.”
I say, “Knowing those red juicies were grown by you, those tomatoes would be very delicious.” We are silent for a moment and he suddenly breaks the silence and asks, “Let’s get out of the city for a while. We need fresh air and quiet.”
I say, “We sure do. Everyone has an angle here.”
Paul then asks me, “What gave you the notion to relocate us out here? I mean, don’t you miss the greenery back home? This place is beautiful but it takes some getting used to for a southern boy like me.”
“Aw shucks honey. I guess I just wanted a change of scenery, but I figured it would do us both good. The south was to me, been there, done that. So I decided that I had to change not only my head but my geography too.”
He says, “Was our old clunker stuck in the mud?”
I say, “Aw no honey. I tell you, I was getting kind of batty. My fantasy life was out of control.”
He says, “What was running through your head at the time?”
I say, “Sometimes I hate all men for the pain they have caused me. I feel like draining them of their energy and leaving them with only an empty husk. I want to emasculate them.”
He says, “I’m not afraid of you Rosie. I know the light in your heart will overcome the darkness. I see compassion in your eyes and I will always love you.”
“I’m no feistier than a kitty cat. I may nip at you sometimes, but that just makes me sexier.”
“I love your dark side. Now, what’s for dessert?” Paul asks quickly, changing the subject.
“Boy, you have a one-track mind.” I laugh and shake my head.
While dining he breaks some news for me. “Hey let’s try this on for size. Rosie, I want to take you out into the deep desert. Maybe we’ll see some sandworms like in the Dune books.”
I say, “You’re so crazy, but truly we could come home and find our balcony egged or draped in toilet paper. The signs ain’t good darling.”
“Oh come on. The kids here are good eggs. They won’t do such things.” Paul replies with a wave of his hand.
“Well OK, but I warned you.” I get up, take our dishes, put them in the sink, and wash them.
The next morning our time comes to depart for the New Mexican outback. I strap myself in the seat belt. He drives us in his convertible with the top pulled down and the wind rushing over my ears. We drive north along the dusty road. We then turn west to Abique. We pass over a dam, spotting out clear blue water in the large lake below. After passing the dam, we encounter the side of a barren red pyramid-shaped mountain, a thousand feet tall. The red color of the mountain is so rich and vivid that it seems to glow in the afternoon desert light.
After we pass through fantastical red rock canyons and knife-edged mountains, we pass into the Bisti badlands whose gray rounded hills and strange contorted black rocks resemble a moonscape. I have never seen such magnificent desolation in all my life. After that, we get to the Nageezi Trading Post. It looks like something out of the old west, but we aren’t here to sightsee and we pass on.
After Nageezi, we head south on a washboard dirt road. The car shakes so badly that it feels like it will fall apart at any moment. We travel deeper and deeper into the brown empty rolling desert land, not encountering any other vehicle but our own. A vast panorama stretches out ahead of us and I begin to notice the walls of a canyon on the distant horizon. We pass Navajo Hogans and herds of sheep roaming the wilderness. We enter Chaco Canyon. The yellow canyon walls look like they are about two to three hundred feet tall and are spread apart by a few miles. A huge jagged mesa stands behind us to the left towering over the yellow desert sandy plain. We follow the narrow asphalt park road through the canyon past Pueblo Bonito whose huge walls stand in silent witness to the ancient ones.
We park where the road curves back into a circle. We get out our backpacks with blankets, food, and other supplies to help us survive the merciless wilderness. He carries one pack and I another as we walk silently across the parched land into the wilderness. We follow an ancient Anasazi trail for hours ‘till the sun is low on the horizon. The trek is tiresome and the whole thing was done in silence, comfortable silence.
Finally, we come to a ruin whose brick stone walls stand on a rise in the desert. We walk through a gap in the wall and into the Kiva. It is a hole dug out of the earth and lined with stone bricks which stick up above the floor of the ruin. We spread our blankets on the dusty floor. We are covered in shadows from the ruin walls as the sun starts to sink below the horizon. I hear coyotes howl mournfully in the distance. Soon we are immersed in pitch-black darkness. The stars shine like millions of candles in the velvet black bowl of the night sky. I ask Paul, “Are you afraid?”
He says, “No more than normal.” We undress and wrap the wool blankets around us to keep warm with each other’s bodies in the cold desert night. He asks, “Are you going to seduce me with black magic?”
I reach over and put my finger to his lips and say, “Of course. You know with your high cholesterol and atrocious diet, you are a prime candidate for a heart attack. I could give you a
coronary.”
He laughs and says, “What better way to join the choir invisible?”
I say, “That’s not funny.”
He looks up at me and says, “Don’t worry. My heart is as strong as an ox.” I beam my lipstick smile upon him.
I say, “Well your physician said you can take a licking and keep on ticking. So who am I to dispute a board-certified doctor?”
Then I ride my dragon into crystal blue nirvana. My fractal ellipses into a kaleidoscope until my sentience swarms like a cloud of butterflies and my communal being coalesces into cellular heaven.
I look down at his face. The soft smooth roundness of his cheeks and the look of innocence in his eyes make him look childlike in the moonlight. He closes his eyes and appears as though in a trance. He has the same look on his face as the face of the Buddha, sitting under the Bodhi tree, just after achieving enlightenment which I’d seen in a Nepalese painting.
Suddenly I hear footsteps and a scraping sound. I stand up, look over the edge of the Kiva, and see two glowing eyes look back at me. I shine my flashlight and see a majestic mountain lion, muscles rippling in the desert night, perched on the wall of the ruin. I can tell her sex because of the absence of the black spot, between her hind legs, which signifies she is a female.
She opens her mouth and reveals huge sharp ivory incisors in the beam of my flashlight. We stand there, looking at each other for a moment, and I feel real fear. I can see the hunger in her eyes and it connects somehow with my own hunger. We stare at each other. I see her eyes glaze. My heart beats wildly and I freeze. The lioness leaps off the wall and I hear her running into the desert growling.
The fire we built is dying down, the fumes turning from the cool breeze. I blow on the glowing coals and try to get it to start again. Paul shivers and says, “Those critters are more afraid of us than we are of them. Don’t fret pumpkin.” He continues, “No campout is complete without a campfire. Stay here darling while I look for some tumbleweed to burn.”
I hold his arm and say, “No Paul. Please stay
here. The lioness is hungry. I can see it in her eyes.”
Paul kisses me and says, “She’s probably hunting for deer.” He gets up and walks through an opening in the walls of the ruin. I follow him with my flashlight. Hours pass like in a movie. With the terror of recognition, I see the lioness. Her mouth is bloody no doubt with Paul’s blood.
I say, “Paul if you can hear me stay still.” I can see she is stalking. I take Paul’s colt 45 out of the pack and aim it between her eyes. She looks at me and I feel an empathetic connection with her. For a moment I freeze and then pull the trigger. She falls like a limp rag doll. Daddy taught me well and my aim was good. I got her between the eyes. This is my first kill. I remember how daddy had the boys cover themselves with the blood of the first deer they killed.
I take Paul’s hunting knife out of the pack. I walk up to the dead lioness and crouch down beside her. I pet her head and then grasp her ears to pull her head back and slit her throat. I paint my naked body with her blood. My body becomes a red flag scented with blood to make Paul’s nostrils flare like those of a bull who lusts for his matadora.
I wait for his return until the first blush of dawn arrives. In my heart, I know the lioness took his life. He would never leave me alone from midnight until dawn otherwise. There is no other explanation.
On either side of me, dust devils swirl like wraiths as though welcoming Paul to Hades. I don my apparel for the hike back to the ranger station. I am garbed in floral prints like a bridesmaid. How dare I dress for a wedding with vultures already circling overhead?
With the desperation of a madwoman who won’t let go of her delusions, I call out, “Come back, Paul. It is time for breakfast. Let’s go home. Paul, soon you’ll be hiking in the heat of the day. You forgot your canteen. You could be getting dehydrated. We can’t risk you getting heat stroke.”
God must be a real Screwing bastard to let this happen to me. I sit in a butterfly pose and rip my skirt, exposing my knickers for all the decent world to see. I rend my panties to tatters letting my black fleece brazenly poke out. Then I tear my blouse to rags with my bra my only concession to modesty.
Then I retrieve the scissors from Paul’s first aid kit and cut off my long hair which Paul so loved. My locks carpet the ground like molted feathers from a once beautiful blackbird. Let my beauty die with him. Like someone in the early phase of chemo, I cover the ragged clumps of my hair with his bandana.
I weep while the sun rises like a succulent orange resurrecting my hunger for endless life. I hike back to the car under the newborn Sun, without a care in the world who sees my bloodstained body. I breathe to the rhythm of my steps. Each breath is a silent prayer to hear him call, “Wait for me” or see his footsteps, sending up a cloud of dust upon his shoes.
Upon my arrival at the car, Paul is sitting on the hood. He says sadly, “Remind me never to leave a campsite without a compass. God sweet pea I was lost. Just lucky I made it back to the car. I’m so sorry to put you through this.”
“You had me out here going batshit crazy. I oughta warm your britches with a hickory stick.”
“Are you dressed for a Halloween party?”
“Do I look like a girl from the Rocky horror picture show?”
“What happened to your clothes?”
“I needed a new wardrobe. So I ripped the old one apart as an excuse to get another.”
“My God what did you do to your hair?”
“This is my new look. I’m going for the feral style. I used the scissors from your first aid kit on my thatch.”
“What in the hell?”
“Don’t be fooled by my stubble. My raggedy look belies my tresses which will flow again.”
“What drove you to such desperate straits?” he implores.
“I thought you were dead. So I went crazy with grief. You dodo bird.”
“Had I stayed it wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s right you dingbat! How could you let me think the lioness got you? God, I can’t believe you left me there to collect firewood.”
“I was about to go back to you but it was dark and I’ll be damned I was walking in circles.”
“Now tell me, why did you bring me here? Was it so I’d have nothing better to do than make out?”
“I thought you needed to get off the consumer bandwagon for a while to a place with no stores.”
“So you took me to a place with big cats prowling around. When that bitch came back I was sure it wasn’t a social call. She had blood on her mouth which to my thinking was yours.”
“Oh love of my life, please forgive me.” Paul looks at me, eyes brimming with tears, begging.
“Thank the Lord your six-shooter was loaded. Good thing daddy brought me up like one of the boys. I was a good shot. I got that lioness between the eyes.”
“You are a marksman if I ever saw one. You are hereby entrusted with carrying the pistol.”
“What an honor to tote heat. But I still want to wear perfume and dress in frilly clothes.”
“You don’t have to wear camo to be the best shot in this marriage.”
“You scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. We aren’t coming back here again. This place is bad medicine.”
“You have my gentleman’s oath never to take you around these parts again.”
“Now let me sit here and calm down. I need to collect my wits.” I sit on the hood and gaze at tumbleweeds rolling across the sand. The desolation of my heart reflects the emptiness of the land. The world around me is quiet as before the earth was born. The world grows colder with my hands numb against the steel of the car. This chariot of steel brought us across the continent. The sun crawls across the sky like a saffron cloud. The canyon is silhouetted like a for a funeral
I slip out of my tattered frock and the cool morning air rushes over my naked skin. I unpack my second dress and slip it on. Cleaning the blood off will have to wait for a shower at home. The tide of sunlight floods into the sky in the final moment before Paul turns the ignition in our flight back to home to rewrite the ending of our story. He sits in the driver’s seat, next to me, turns the key, and we follow the road to humanity.
