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fourteenaway · 4 years ago

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Dancing in the Dark | The Story of Cary / Part VI

tw: mental illness

Whenever Cary’s dad didn’t pick Cary and his mother up from the school during the weekends, Cary would fetch his bike and would travel the winding narrow road without any houses until he came to the huge deserted mansion that invariably drew his eyes, making him wonder who had lived there and why they had deserted it? When he saw that house he automatically slowed, knowing soon he'd be home.

An acre from that house was his home, sitting isolated and lonely on a road that had more twists and turns than a puzzle maze that leads the mouse to the cheese. They lived in Fairfax, about twenty miles north of San Francisco. And while Cary spent most of his time at his boarding school for performing arts,the summer and most weekends he spent at home with his mom, dad, and kid brother, Harry. He was one of the few people that lived near the boarding school and therefore got to spend time at home.

There was a redwood forest on the other side of the mountains, surrounding his house,and the ocean too. Theirs was a cold place, sometimes dreary. The fog would roll in great billowing waves and often shrouded the landscape all day, turning everything cold and eerie. The fog was spooky, but it was also romantic and mysterious.

As much as Cary loved his home, he had vague, disturbing memories of a southern garden full of giant magnolia trees dripping with Spanish moss. He remembered his dad tall and always smiling leaning down to ruffle his hair and hold him in his arms.But most he remembered the nice warm and safe feeling he always gave to Cary. He guessed one of the saddest things about growing bigger, and older, was that no one was large enough, or strong enough, to pick you up and hold you close and make you feel that safe again.

Daniel was his mother's third husband. His own father died before he was born; his name was Leeland Laurent, and everyone in the ballet world knew about him. Hardly anyone outside of South Carolina, knew about William Walters, who had been his mother's second husband, and his brother’s father. In that same southern state, lived his paternal grandmother, Madame Milena.

She was the one who wrote him a letter each week, and once a summer they visited her. It seemed she wanted almost as much as he did, for Cary to become the most famous dancer the world had ever known. And thus he would prove to her, and to everyone, that his father had not lived and died in vain.

By no means was his grandmother an ordinary little old lady going on seventy-two. Once she'd been very famous, and not for one second did she let anyone forget this. It was a rule that Cary was never to call her Grandmother when others could overhear and possibly guess her age. She'd whispered to him once that it would be all right if he called her Mother, but that didn't seem right when he already had a mother whom he loved very much. So he called her Madame Milena, or Madame M, just as everyone else did.

Their yearly visit to South Carolina was long anticipated during the winters, and quickly forgotten once they were back and safely snuggled in their little valley where their long redwood house nestled.

"Safe in the valley where the wind doesn't blow," Cary’s mother said often. Too often, really, as if the wind blowing greatly distressed her.

Cary reached their curving drive, parked his bike and went inside the house finding no signs of Harry or his mother.

Damn!

Cary raced into the kitchen where their maid, Mary was preparing dinner. She spent most of her time in the kitchen. She had a long, dour face unless she was smiling; fortunately, she smiled most of the time. She could order you to do this, do that, and with her smile take the pain from the ordeal of doing for yourself, which was something his brother Harry refused to do.

Cary suspected Mary waited on Harry more than him because he spilled when he tried to pour his own milk. He dropped when he carried a glass of water. There wasn't anything he could hold on to, and nothing he could keep from bumping into. Tables fell, lamps toppled. If an extension wire was anywhere in the house Harry would be sure to snag his sneaker toes underneath and down he'd go, or the blender, the mixer, or the radio, would crash to the floor.

"Where's Harry?" Cary asked Mary, who was peeling potatoes to put in with the roast beef she had in the oven.

"I tell you, Cary, I'll be glad when that boy stays in school just as long as you do. I hate to see him come in the kitchen. I have to stop what I'm doing and look around and anticipate just what he might knock off or bump into. Thank God he's got that wall to sit on. What is it you boys do up on that wall, anyway?"

"Nothing," Cary said.

He didn't want to tell her how often they stole over to the deserted mansion beyond the wall and played there. The estate was off-limits to them, but parents weren't supposed to see and know everything.

Next he asked "Where's Mom?"

Mary said she'd come home just a little earlier than him from the boarding school where she teached, due to class being cancelled which he already knew being a part of that class.

“Half the class has colds," he explained, “Half the school really, but where is she now?"

"Cary, I can't keep my eye on everybody and still know what I'm doing. A few minutes ago she said something about going up to the attic for old pictures. Why don't you join her up there and help her search?”

Cary knew that was Mary’s nice way of saying he was in her way. He headed for the attic stairs, which were hidden in the far end of their large walk-in linen closet in the back hall.

Just as he was passing through the family room he heard the front door open and close. To his surprise he saw his dad standing stock-still in the foyer, a strange look of reflection in his blue eyes, making Cary reluctant to call out and break into his thoughts.

Cary paused, undecided.

He headed for his bedroom after he put down his black doctor's bag. He had to pass the linen closet with its door slightly ajar. He stopped, listening as Cary was to the faint sound of ballet music drifting down the stairs.

Why was his mother up there? Dancing there again? Whenever Cary asked why she danced in such a dusty place, she explained she was "compelled to dance up there, despite the heat and dust.

“Don't you tell your father about this," she'd warned him several times.

After he’d questioned her, she'd stopped going up there—and now she was doing it again.

This time Cary was going up and his time he was going to listen to the excuses she gave him. For his Dad would catch her!

On tiptoe Cary trailed his dad up the steep, narrow stairs. He paused directly under the bare electric bulb that hung down the apex of the attic. He riveted his eyes upon Cary’s mother who kept right on dancing as if she didn't see him there. She held a dust mop in one hand and playfully swiped at this or that, miming Cinderella and certainly not Princess Aurora from The Sleeping Beauty, which was the music she had on the ancient record player.

Cary watched his dad’s heart seemingly jump right up into his eyes. He looked scared, and Cary sensed she was hurting him just by dancing in the attic. How odd.

Cary didn't understand what went on between them. He was fourteen and Harry was nine, and they were both a long, long way from being adults. The love they had for each other seemed to Cary, very different from the love he saw between the parents of the friends he had. Their love seemed more intense, more tumultuous, more passionate. Whenever they thought no one was watching they locked eyes, and they had to reach out and touch whenever they passed one another.

Now that Cary was an adolescent, he was beginning to take more notice of what went on between the most meaningful models he had. He wondered often about the different facets his parents had. One for the public to view; another for Harry and him; and the third, most fervent side, which they showed only to each other.

How could they know their two sons were not always discreet enough to turn away and leave like they should?

Maybe that was the way all adults were, especially parents.

Cary’s dad kept staring as his mom whirled in the pirouettes that fanned her long blonde hair out in a half circle. Her leotards were white, her pointes white too, and Cary was enthralled as she danced, wielding that dust mop like a sword to stab at old furniture that Harry and Cary had outgrown.

Scattered on the floor and shelves were broken toys, kiddy-cars and scooters, dishes she or Mary had broken that she meant to glue back together one day. With each swipe of her dust mop she brought zillions of golden dustmotes into play, Frenzied and crazy they struggled to settle down before she attacked again and once more and drove them into flight.

“Depart!" she cried, as a queen to her slaves. “Go and stay away! Torment me no more!" and round and round she spun, so fast Cary had to turn to follow her with his eyes or end up dizzy just from watching.

She whipped her head, her leg, doing fouettes with more expertise than Cary had seen on stage. Wild and possessed she spun faster, faster, keeping time to the music, using the mop as part of her action, making housework so dramatic Cary wanted to kick off his shoes and jump in and join her and be the partner his father had once been. But he could only stand in the dim purplish shadows and watch something he sensed he shouldn't be watching.

Cary’s dad swallowed over the lump which must have risen in his throat. Cary’s mom looked so beautiful, so young and soft.

She was thirty-seven, so old in years but so young in appearance, in Cary’s mind, and so easily she could be wounded by an unkind word. Just as easily as any sixteen-year-old dancer in her classes.

"Caren!” cried Cary’s father, jerking the needle from the record so the music screeched to a halt.

“STOP! What are you doing?"

She heard and fluttered her slim pale arms in mock fright, flittering toward him, using the tiny, even steps called bourrées. For a second or so only, before she was again spinning in a series of pirouettes around him, encircling him-and swiping at him with her dust mop!

"STOP IT!” he yelled, seizing hold of her mop and hurling it away. He grabbed her waist, pinioning her arms to her sides as a deep blush rose to stain her cheeks. He released his hold enough to allow her arms to flutter like broken bird wings so her hands could cover her throat.

Above those crossed pale hands her blue eyes grew larger and very dark. Her full lips began to quiver.

When his mom spoke then, her voice was husky and scared, "Daniel? You're home? You don't usually come home this early ..."

He'd caught her and Cary was relieved. Now he could straighten her out, tell her not to dance up here again in the dry, dusty air that could make her faint. Even Cary could see she was having trouble coming up with some excuse.

“Caren," Cary’s dad went on in the same cold, hard voice, "don't stand there and try to look innocent, like some wicked child caught stealing. Why are you up here?”

Cary drifted closer, then hid behind a strut that rose to the rafters. Something sad and painful was between them; something young, fresh, like a raw wound that refused to heal.

Cary’s mother looked ashamed and suddenly awkward.

The man Cary called Dad stood bewildered; Cary could tell he wanted to take her in his arms and forgive her. “Caren, Caren," he pleaded with anguish, "don't be like your mother in every way!"

Cary’s mother jerked her head high, threw back her shoulders, and, with arrogant pride, glared him down. She flipped her long hair back from her face and smiled to charm him.

Was she doing all of that just to make him stop asking questions she didn't want to answer?

Cary felt strangely cold in the musty gloom of the attic. A chilling shiver raced down his spine, making him want to run and hide. Making Cary ashamed, too, for spying was Harry's way, not his.

How could he escape without attracting their attention? No, he couldn’t, he had to stay in his hidden place.

"Look at me, Caren. You're not the sweet young ingenue anymore, and this is not a game. There is no reason for you to be up here.”

Her arms spread wide as if to hug him, but he pushed her away and spoke again, “Don't try to appeal to me when I feel sick to my stomach. I ask myself each day how I can come home and not be tired of you, and still feel as I do after so many years, and after all that has happened. Yet I go on year after year loving you, needing and trusting you. Don't take my love and make it into something ugly!"

Bewilderment clouded her expression and it clouded Cary’s too

Didn't he truly love her? Was that what he meant? Cary wondered.

"Daniel, help me!" she choked, stepping closer and opening her arms again. He put her off, shaking his head.

She implored, "Please don't shake your head and act like you don't understand. I don't remember why I came up here. I really don’t.”

“Caren.”

"Move out of the shadows. I can't see you where you are,” Cary’s mother said as she lifted her small pale hands, seeming to wipe away invisible cobwebs. Then she was staring at her hands as if they'd betrayed her-or was she really seeing spiderwebs tying her fingers together?

Just as Cary’s dad did, he looked around again. Never had the attic been so clean before. The floor had been scrubbed, cartons of old junk were stacked neatly. She had tried to make the attic look homey by hanging pretty pictures of flowers on the walls.

Cary’s dad was eyeing his mom as if she were crazy. Cary wondered what he was thinking, and why he couldn't tell what bothered her when he was the best doctor ever. Was he trying to decide if she was only pretending to forget? Did that dazed, troubled look in her terrified eyes tell him differently?

It must have, for he said softly, kindly, "Caren, you don't have to look scared. You're not swimming in a sea of deceit anymore, or helplessly caught in an undertow. You are not drowning. Not going under. Not having a nightmare. You don't have to clutch at straws when you have me."

Then he drew her into his arms as she fell toward him, grasping as if to keep from drowning.

"You're all right, darling," he whispered, stroking her back, touching her cheeks, drying the tears that began to flow. Tenderly he tilted her chin up before his lips slowly lowered to hers.

The kiss lasted and lasted, making Cary hold his breath.

"You’re okay. You’re here with me. You’re safe.”

Cary shivered. What were they talking about? Cary was terrified.

“I guess I did drift into nightmares after I finished my bath and laid out on the bedroom patio. I don't even remember climbing the stairs up here. I don't know why I come, or why I dance, unless I am losing my mind. I feel I am her sometimes, and then I hate myself!"

"No, you're not her, your mother is miles and miles away where she can never hurt you again. Virginia is three thousand miles from here, and yesterday has come and gone. Ask yourself one question whenever you are in doubt, if we could survive the worst, doesn't it stand to reason we should be able to bear the best?”

Cary wanted to run, wanted to stay. He felt he, too, was drowning in their sea of deceit even when he didn't understand what they were talking about.

Cary saw two people, his parents, as strangers he didn't know, younger, less strong, less dependable.

"Kiss me," Cary’s mom murmured. "Wake me up and chase away the ghosts. Say you love me and always will, no matter what I do."

Eagerly enough Cary’s dad did all of that. When he had her convinced, she wanted him to dance with her. She replaced the needle on the record and again the music soared.

Shriveled up tight and small, Cary watched him try to do the difficult ballet steps that would have been so easy for Cary. He didn't have enough skill or grace to partner someone as skilled as his mom. It was embarrassing to even see him try.

Soon enough she put on another record where he could lead.

‘Dancing in the dark, till the tune ends, we're dancing in the dark’

Now his dad was confident, holding her close, his cheek pressed to hers as they went gliding around the floor.

"I miss the gardens sometimes. And that room, with Cassidy asleep just down the hall,” she said softly.

His dad’s eyes were closed, his voice soft and dreamy, "I love you, the moment I saw you. Even when you were with William. I loved you so much.”

But now that the dance was over, the argument began again: "Okay, you're feeling better, yourself again," Cary’s dad said, “I want you to solemnly promise that if anything ever happens to me, be it tomorrow, or years from now, you swear that you will never, so help you God, abandon Harry and Cary so you can go unencumbered into another marriage!"

Stunned, Cary watched his mom jerk her head upward before she gasped: “Is that what you think of me? Damn you for thinking I am so much like her! Maybe I did come up here but never once did it cross my mind to...to ... Daniel you know I wouldn't do that!"

Do what, what? Cary wondered.

His dad made her swear. Really forced her to speak the words while her blue eyes glared hot and angry at him all the while.

Sweating now, hurting too, Cary felt angry and terribly disillusioned in his dad, who should know better. His mother wouldn't do that. She couldn't! She loved him. She loved Harry, too Even if she did look at him sometimes with shadows in her eyes, still she would never, never abandon them, right?

His dad left her standing in the middle of the attic, turning to confront Cary’s mother again he said,

"Perhaps you’re only reliving the part you feel you were born to play. Perhaps you only finally came to me because all other options had been exhausted. Perhaps in the end both Cary and Harry will come to forget me like all the others and you’ll forget me too. So don't whisper to me tonight when we're in bed about adopting another child. We cannot afford to involve another child in the mess we have. Don't you realize, Caren, that everytime you come up here you’re thinking about what to do if things fell apart.”

"No," she objected, spreading her hands helplessly. “I wouldn't. I couldn't do that...

"You have to mean that!” he snapped. “No matter what happens, we will not, or you will not, abandon our children or lock them away to save yourself or me.”

"I hate you for thinking I would!"

"I am trying to be patient. I am trying to believe in you. I know you still have nightmares. I know you are still tormented by all that happened when you were young and innocent. But you have to grow up enough to look at yourself honestly. Haven't you learned yet that the subconscious often leads the way to reality?"

He strode back to cuddle her close, to soothe and kiss her, to soften his voice as she clung to him desperately.

Why did she have to feel so desperate?

“Caren, my heart, put away those fears instilled by your. There is no hell but that which we make for ourselves. There is no heaven but that which we build between us. Don't chip away at my belief, my love, with your 'unconscious' deeds. I have no life without you."

"Then don't make me go see my mother this summer."

He raised his head and stared over hers, pain in his eyes.

Cary slid silently on the floor to sit and stare at them. What was going on? Why was he suddenly so afraid?

On Sunday Cary spent the day outside with Harry and smiled as he said, “And on the seventh day God rested," read Cary as Harry finished patting the earth nice and firm over the pansy seeds that were meant to honor their aunt Cassidy and uncle Cody's birthday on May 21st.

Both been dead a long, long time. Cassidy was around for Cary for awhile, but Cody was long dead before he was born. It seemed people died easy in their family.

Harry wondered why they liked pansies so much? He thought they were silly little nothing flowers with pudding faces.

Harry wished his mother didn't think honoring dead people's birthdays was so important.

“You know what else?" asked Cary, making Harry feel like nine was a dumb age, and he was a big adult.

“In the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, they lived in the Garden of Eden without wearing any clothes at all. Then one day an evil talking snake told them it was sinful to walk around naked, so Adam put on a fig leaf.”

“What did Eve put on?" Harry asked as he looked around, hoping to see a fig leaf.

Cary went on reading in a singsong way that took Harry into the story. Cary was good at that. Telling stories, making stories, or singing songs. Cary was good at everything in Harry’s opinion. His voice was soft and rich and good for singing, and he could make up any little story or song on the spot, but even still all Cary ever seemed to want to do was dance.

"Cary, where do you find fig leaves?" Harry asked.

"Why?" Cary asked back looking up from the flowers.

"If I had one, I'd take off all my clothes and wear it,” Harry told him.

Cary laughed, “Jesus, Harry, there's only one way for a boy to wear a fig leaf, and you'd be embarrassed."

"I would not!"

"You would too!"

"I'm never embarrassed!” Harry told him.

"Then how do you know what it's like? Besides, have you ever seen Dad wear a fig leaf?"

"No…," Harry said, “But I’ve never seen a fig leaf so how can I know if I have or not.

Cary laughed loudly and said, "Boy, you'd know!”

Harry watched then as Cary grinned and started jumping up to leap up all the marble steps in one long bound that Harry couldn't help but admire.

Harry, he had to trail along behind. He wished he was graceful like Cary. He wished he could dance and charm everybody into liking him. But no, Cary was bigger, older and smarter, but Harry thought he would make himself smarter if not bigger.

But he'd grow taller by and by, catch up with Cary, and then bypass him. Why, Harry would grow taller than their dad.

He was nine years old, but boy did he wish he was fourteen.

He looked up, and there was Cary sitting on the top step, waiting for him to catch up.

Harry found it insulting and hateful. God sure hadn't been kind to Harry when he passed out coordination.

Harry remembered five years ago when he was four and Mary gave each of them a baby chick, all soft yellow fuzz, making chirps and cheeps.

He’d never felt nothing so good before in his whole live long life. There Hary was loving it, holding it, and sniffing its baby smell before he put it kindly on the ground, and darn if that chick didn't fall over dead.

"You squeezed,” said their dad, who knew about stuff like that, “I warned you not to hold it too tight. Baby chicks are fragile and you have to handle them with care. Their hearts are very near the surface, so next time, gentle hands, okay?”

Harry thought God might strike him dead then and there, even though most of it was God’s fault anyway. It wasn't his fault that God didn't make his nerve endings go all the way to the surface of his skin. It wasn't Harry’s fault he couldn't feel pain like everybody else.

Harry shivered, fearful God might do something. But when he was forgiven Harry went an hour later to the little pen where Cary's live chick had been walking around lonesome. Harry picked him up and told him he had a friend.

Boy, they had a good time with Harry chasing him and the chick chasing Harry, when all of a sudden, after only two hours of having fun, that chick keeled over dead too!

Heated stiff cold things. Why'd it give up so easily?

"What's the matter with you?" Harry shouted. “I didn't squeeze! My hands didn't hold you! I was careful, so stop playing dead and get up or my daddy will think I killed you on purpose!"

Once Harry had seen his dad haul a man out of the water and save his life by pumping out the water and blowing in air, so Harry did the same things to the chick, but it stayed dead. Next Harry massaged its heart, then he prayed, and still it stayed dead.

Harry was no good. No good for anything, he thought. He couldn't stay clean. Mary said clean clothes on him were a waste of her good time. He couldn't hold on to a dish when he dried it, and new toys fell apart soon after they came his way. New shoes looked old in ten minutes after knowing his feet. But it wasn’t his fault if they scuffed up easily. People just didn't know how to make good, unscuffable shoes. Harry had never seen a day when his knees weren't scabby or covered with bandaids.

When he played ball he tripped and fell between bases. His hands didn't know how to catch right, so his fingers bent backward and twice he'd had fingers broken. Three times he'd fallen from trees. Once he broke his right arm, and once his left arm. The third time he only got bruises.

Cary never broke anything.

It was no wonder he thought that their mom kept telling him and not Cary to not go next door to that big house with so many staircases, cause sooner or later she knew he'd fall down steps and break all his bones.

"What a pity you don't have much coordination," mumbled Cary. Then he stood up and yelled, “Harry, stop running like that! Lean forward, use your legs like pumps. Put your heart in it and let go! Forget about falling. You won't if you don't expect to. And if you catch me I'll give you my superspeed ball!”

Boy there wasn't nothing Harry wanted in this whole wide world more than he wanted that ball of Cary’s.

Cary could throw it with a curve. When he pitched at tin cans sitting on the wall, he'd hit them one after another. He could be a baseball player too Harry thought if he ever did anything but dance. Harry never hit anything he aimed for, but he did hit a lot he didn't even see, like windows and people.

“I don't want your old speedball?" Harry gasped, though he did want it. It was a better ball than his; they were always giving Cary better stuff than Harry.

Cary looked at Harry with sympathy, making him want to cry. Harry hated pity!

"You can have it even if you don't win the race and you can give me yours. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I just want you to stop being afraid of doing everything wrong, and then maybe you won't. Sometimes getting mad enough helps you win.”

He smiled, and Harry guessed if their mother had been around she would have thought his flash of white teeth was charming.

Harry’s face was born for scowling, “I don't want your old ball," Harry repeated, refusing to be won over to someone handsome, graceful and fourteenth in a long line of Russian ballet dancers who'd married ballerinas.

What was so great about dancers? Harry wondered. Nothing, nothing. God had smiled on Cary's legs and made them pretty, while Harry’s looked like knobby sticks that wanted to bleed.

"You hate me, don't you? You want me to die, don't you?" Harry cried to Cary.

Cary gave him a funny, long look and then shook his head sadly and said, “No I don't hate you,” cause of course Cary didn’t hate anyone, “I don't want you to die. I like having you for my brother even if you are clumsy and a squealer."

"Thanks heaps," Harry said back.

"Yeah... think nothing of it,” Cary smiled at him, “Let's go look at the house."

On the weekends and during the summers when Cary was home from school they went to the high white wall and sat up there, and some days they went inside the house.

Soon school would be over and Cary would be here all the time with nothing to do all day but play with Harry and he hated that he couldn’t wait for Cary to be back with him. One year he’d been going to that fancy performing arts school and Harry missed him terribly. But it was nice to know the house was there, waiting for them.

A spooky old house with lots of rooms, jagged halls, trunks full of hidden treasures, high ceilings, odd-shaped rooms with small rooms joining, sometimes a row of little rooms hiding one behind the other. Spiders lived there and spun webs on the fancy chandeliers. Mice ran everywhere, having hundreds of babies to put droppings all over. Garden insects moved inside and climbed the walls and crept on the wood floors. Birds came down the chimneys and fluttered about madly as they tried to find a way out. Sometimes they banged against walls, windows, and they'd come in and find them dead and pitiful.

But sometimes Cary and Harry would arrive in the nick of time and throw open windows and doors so they could escape.

Cary figured someone must have abandoned the old house quickly. Half the furniture was there, sitting dusty and molding, giving off smelly odors that made Cary wrinkle his nose.

Harry thought he could stand real still and almost hear the ghosts talking, and if they sat still on a dusty ole velvet couch and didn't talk, up from the cellar would come a faint rustling like the ghosts wanted to whisper secrets in their ears.

“Don't you ever tell anybody ghosts talk to you, or they'll think you're crazy," Cary had warned.

They already had one crazy person in their family, their mother’s mother, who was in a nuthouse way back in Virginia. Once a summer they went East to visit her and old graves. Their mother wouldn't go in the long brick building where people in pretty clothes strolled over green lawns, and nobody would have guessed they were crazy if attendants in white suits hadn't been there too.

Every summer their mother would ask, when their dad came back from seeing her mother, "Well, is she better?"

And their dad would look sad before he'd say, "No, not really much progress... but there would be if you would forgive her."

That always shook their mother up and she acted like she wanted that grandmother to stay locked up forever.

"You listen to me, Daniel, darling!” Their mother had snapped, "It's the other way around, remember! She's the one who should go down on her knees and plead, she should ask for my forgiveness!"

Last summer they hadn't gone East to visit anybody. Harry hated old graves and old Madame Milena with her black dusty clothes and her big bun of white and black hair. Harry didn't care if those two old ladies back East ever had a visit from them again. And as for those down in those gaves, let them stay there without flowers! There were too many dead people in their lives, messing it up.

"C'mon, Harry!" called Cary. He had already scaled the tree on their side of the wall, and was up waiting for Harry. Harry managed the climb, then settled down next to Cary, who insisted he sit against the tree trunk, just in case.

“You know what?" said Cary wistfully, “Someday I'm gonna buy Mom a house just as big. Every once in a while I overhear her and Dad talking about big houses, so I guess she wants one larger than the one we already have.”

"Yeah, they sure do talk a lot about big houses,” Harry sighed.

"I like our house better," said Cary, while Harry set about drumming his heels against the wall, which had bricks under the crumbling white stucco.

Their Mom had mentioned once she thought the bricks showing through added an "interesting texture contrast," so Harry did what he could to make the wall more interesting.

But it was sure true that in a big house like that one over there you could get lost in the dark and ramble on and on for days on end. None of the bathrooms worked. They had no water. Just crazy sinks with no water and a stupid fruit cellar with no fruit, and a wine cellar with no wine.

"Wouldn't it be nice if a big family moved in over there?" Cary said, wishing like Harry that they could have lots of nearby friends to play with. But they didn't have anybody but each other once they came home from school.

"And if they had two boys and two girls it would be just perfect," went on Cary dreamily before he coughed and added, “Though it sure would be cool to have all girls living next door,” he chuckled though Harry noticed a weird far off look in his eyes and a flush to his neck.

Neat, sure. Harry bet he was just wishing Harmony Fincher would move in over there. Then he could see her every day and hug and kiss her like he'd seen him do a few times. Or maybe he’d prefer that boy Joey who he went to the boarding school with too but who lived in North Carolina during the summers. When they went back to South Carolina to visit Cary’s grandmother and the graves he was always talking about visiting Joey too. Harry was jealous that he had another friend that wasn’t him.

“I hate girls,” Harry declared, “I want all boys!"

Cary laughed and said that Harry was only nine and soon enough he'd like girls more or just as much as boys, or maybe he wouldn’t, and that was okay too.

Harry didn’t know what he meant by any of it, so he just wondered, “Is Harmony related to a finch bird?” Harry asked.

"Do you realize how dumb that makes you sound? That's her last name, it doesn't mean anything."

Just when Harry wanted to say he was the dumb one because all names had to mean something, or else why have them, two trucks pulled up in the long driveway of the mansion.

Nobody ever went over there but them. They sat on and watched the workmen running around doing this and that. Some went up on the orange roof their mom said was called "pantile” and began to check it over.

Others went inside the house with ladders and cans that looked like they held paint. Some had huge rolls of wallpaper under their arms. Others checked over the windows, and some looked at the shrubs and trees.

"Hey!" said Cary, looking very upset, "Somebody must have bought that place. I'll bet they'll move in after it's fixed up."

They didn't want any neighbors suddenly, who would disturb their mom and dad’s privacy. All the time they were talking about how nice it was to not have close neighbors to "disturb their privacy."

Cary and Harry sat on until it grew dark, then they went into their house and didn't say a word to their parents, for when you said something out loud, that meant it was really true. Thoughts didn't count.

The next day it was Sunday and they went on a picnic at Stinson Beach, then came the afternoon and Cary and Harry were back up on the wall, staring over at all that activity. It was foggy and cold, but they could see just well enough to be bothered. But they couldn't go over there and have a place of their own anymore.

Where would they play now?

"Hey, you kids!" called a burly man one day when they were only watching, "What are you doing up there?"

"Nothing!" yelled Cary.

Harry never talked to strangers, and Cary was always teasing him for not talking to anybody much but himself.

"Don't you kids tell me you're not doing anything when I see you over here! This house is private property, so stay off these grounds or you'll hear from me!"

He was real mean, and fierce looking and his work clothes were old and dirty. When he came closer Harry saw the biggest feet in his life, and the dirtiest boots. Harry was glad the wall was ten feet high and they had the advantage over him.

"Sure we play over there a little," said Cary, who wasn't scared of anybody as far as Harry could tell, "but don't hurt anything. We leave it like we found it."

"Well, from now on stay off altogether!” he snapped, glaring first at Cary, then at Harry, "Some rich dame has bought this place and she won't want kids hanging around. And don't you think you can get by with anything because she's an old lady living alone. She's bringing servants with her. Rich people can have everything their own way," muttered the man on the ground as he moved off, “Do this, do that, and have it done yesterday. Money. God, what I wouldn't do to have my share."

They had only Mary, so they weren't really rich. Besides Mary was more like a maiden aunt, not really a relative or a servant. To Harry she was just somebody he'd known all his life. Somebody who didn't like him nearly as much as she liked Cary, but that was pretty much everyone as far as Harry could tell. Besides he didn't like her either, so he didn't care.

Weeks passed and school ended so Cary was back home all the time and Harry was happier than he cared to admit about that. He liked sharing a room with him again and being able to crawl into the bed alongside him when he had a bad dream.

Still those workmen were over there though, and by this time their parents had noticed, and they weren't too happy about neighbors they didn't intend to visit and make welcome.

Both Cary and Harry wondered why they didn't want friends coming to their house.

"It's love," whispered Cary. "They're still like honeymooners. Remember, dad is our mom's third husband, and the bloom hasn't worn off.”

What bloom? Harry wondered, he didn't see any flowers. Cary and his poetry words didn’t make any sense to Harry. Still it made no sense for the love to not have faded some, they had been married for seven years now.

Cary was going to be in his freshman year of high school after this summer, and he’d passed with flying colors at the top of his class. Harry saw how happy that made their dad who was studious himself.

Harry had just barely sneaked by and would be in fifth grade at the end of the summer. He hated school.

Gone were all the spooky, eerie times they had though when they’d had lots of fun over in that mansion.

"We'll just bide our time until we can sneak over there and see that old lady," Cary said, whispering so all those gardeners trimming the shrubs and snipping at the trees wouldn't hear.

She owned acres of land, twenty or more. That made for lots of cleanup jobs, since the workmen on the roof were letting everything fall. Her yard was littered with papers, spills of nails, bits of lumber left over from repair jobs, plus trash that blew through the iron fence in front of the driveway that was near what Cary called "lover's lane."

That hateful construction boss was picking up beer cans as he headed their way, scowling just to see them when they weren't doing a thing wrong.

“How many times do I have to tell you boys?" he bellowed. "Now, don't force me to say it again!" He put his huge fists on his hips and glared up at them, “I've warned you before to stay off that wall. Now. Scat!"

Harry looked at Cary who looked aloof and unwilling to move from the wall when it wasn't any harm to just sit and look.

"Are the two of you deaf?" the man yelled again.

In a flash Harry watched as Cary's face turned from handsome to mean.

"No, we are not deaf! We live here. This wall is on the property line, and just as much ours as it is hers. Our dad says so. So we will sit up here and watch just as long as we like. And don't you dare yell and tell us to 'scat' again!"

The man scowled and grumbled, “Sassy kid, aren't yah?" and off he wandered without even looking at Harry who felt he was just as sassy inside.

#cary: musing #cary: story #harry: musing #caren: musing #danield: musing

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tinyprofessor · 7 years ago

Text

All the things I want to buy right now.

Capitalism - it’s pernicious. Between my amazon app, the ads in my instragram feed (how do they know?) and the phenomenon that is American drugstores, recently I have found myself spending money like…someone who has a lot more money than I do.

Yet the battle against stuff and clutter also preoccupies me. It doesn’t make sense, right?

For me, spending is often something that feels productive. I might never get to the bottom of the laundry pile or properly clean out my pantry, but I can sure as hell order that “necessity” from Amazon and get it within two days with prime. Done! It feels good. And then bad…when the boxes start to show up, full of those air-filled plastic pockets - boxes that need be crushed and stealthily placed in the recycling pile lest the neighbors label me a shopping addict. Not to mention all the new things demanding storage space in an already strained apartment…

So I’m gonna try this - here’s all the things I would like to buy right now. Enjoy. Hopefully this will help me get it out of my system…

This dinnerware. Or just any old new cups. We have a shamefully small collection and it bums me out to keep drinking from novelty tourist mugs.

Also a new cutlery set. I think we are down to two regular spoons and two teaspoons - but a zillion forks? - which is pretty dire. I don’t even care where this comes from but surely matte stainless steel from Italy would be the ultimate?

A plane ticket to Australia. Because family. And then that means I have to think about stuff for Atlas to play with on the plane. Like gel crayons. And playdoh.

This rug for the kid’s room - because the downstairs neighbor complains about the noise of toys hitting the floorboards. Oops.

Or maybe this rug by Dusen Dusen for West Elm? It’s maybe too muted and adult for a kid’s room but I really like the subtle tonal pattern.

Here’s a perfect example of the sort of boring thing that I will research for weeks, reading amazon reviews (”I LOVE it” – “no I HATE it”!) until I’m ready to throw my phone out of the window. It’s nothing more than a storage net for my kid’s bath toys. Yup, a thing to put more things in. I’m doomed, aren’t I?

Speaking of which… I really want to get a pair of bloomers for my kid to wear in summer. Because boys in bloomers - do I need any more reasons?

And a push car, also for said kid. Jeez this kid gets a lot of crap. I really want to get this second hand as the whole concept offends me, to be honest, so I’ve put a call out for one on the neighbourhood listserve in case anyone is looking to sell one.

A bluetooth speaker like this B&O one, or the cheaper Urban Ears version. I don’t even know why. Our old UE boom still works but it’s old. I am the actual worst!

This floral wrap dress from Zara which I saw on Goop and which, because of all the other stupid Goop sycophants, is already sold out. Stupid Goop. (Not really, I love you Goop!)

A cutsie slogan t-shirt from J.Crew which I only saw because I got sucked into their website by an email about 40% off summer clothes, and I really need summer clothes. And then I found this t-shirt, and I thought, great, a cute, cheap t-shirt with a slogan I can get behind, and so I added it to my cart and it’s on back order until SEPTEMBER. I mean c’mon. It could be snowing by October. Not really, but still. I cannot be waiting for cute t-shirts. CANNOT.

This overpriced denim skirt by Rachel Comey which is not on sale even though half the brand is on sale right now. Of course the one thing I really really want is full price. Fuck.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, the new book of essays by Samantha Irby. Let’s face it, if this was out on Kindle I would have bought it by now because Kindle purchases don’t feel real, but as I have a guilty stack of real books to get through already, I felt too bad to pick it up at McNally Jackson yesterday. I mean surely I deserve to buy myself something for leaving McNally empty-handed though, right?

This MTA subway art print by Jillian Tamaki. I first spotted it on the subway, had to look it up immediately, and was thrilled to find that I could buy it. And so it’s been sitting in an open tab on my phone ever since. I should either just buy the damn thing or keep enjoying it when it pops up on my train, which it still does from time to time.

A Call Your Girlfriend tank top. This one I can justify because a) I love that podcast and would be thrilled to give my money to those two women; b) it might help me find My People (although this is risky); and c) it’s only $25.

Face cream from Mad Hippie. Because the last moisturizer I bought is bright blue and smells like toilet cleaner (this one - avoid, avoid!) so I need to do a 180 and correct course with some herbs and shit.

Some plain t-shirts for summer that I can throw on with shorts or leggings or whatever (because I am a mom). Everlane make nice ones - and the price is right. Right?

These plastic-but-not-crocs shoes for my kid. I don’t know why. I have a problem.

Tickets to Cuba. Because we can and it’s a 3.5 hour flight and I just WANNA. But am I crazy for this?

A bike. Look how cute this one is! Or this one! I have visions of riding around Prospect Park behind my manperson on his bike with a kid in a seat on the back. Which means he needs a bike too. See how this works? PERNICIOUS.

A Liz Cook chart because I saw one on momstagram (it’s a thing). I’m set on the nutrition one, but they’re all cute and say “hippie and possibly vegan but not in a burlap sack kinda way”.

Some time in one a tupa upstate. Because look at them! Plus there’s no wifi or phone reception which clearly would be of benefit.

A fitness tracker. Because nothing counts unless it’s quantified and gamified, right? The thing is my phone has a built in step counter and I freaking love it. Days I get 10K steps without trying are such victories. But then of course it’s not enough. It’s not accurate, or I don’t carry my phone so it doesn’t count a long walk when it’s in the bottom of the stroller so WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT? So I must need a fitbit right? I’ve had this sweethome guide to fitness trackers open in a tab for aaaaaages. God help me.

A baby animal sheet mask. No explanation needed.

Minimal wooden curtain rods from Ikea (only $7.99!) to replace the hideous ones in our living room which were left behind by the old tenants. In fact I think I paid them for them. Ugh.

The new sonos soundbar. Totally justifiable because I never go out anymore so TV is my nightlife. Hmm.

A few nights in a fancy airstream in the California forest. Because life is for instagramming - am I wrong?

A designer handbag. I could quite see myself with a candy pink Gucci number. I’ve been saying I’m going to splurge on something like this for years. I mean there’s absolutely no need. Most of the time I squeeze my essentials between a change mat and a snack container in a diaper bag (mine is at least low-key), and when I do leave the house sans child I have a perfectly nice leather backpack from Cos that does everything I need. But… when I was pumping breast milk for ages at all hours of the day and night, when I got mastitis but had to keep going, when I didn’t give up even though I fucking hated it, I told myself I would reward myself with a designer handbag. And then I didn’t. So I should, I guess. Maybe one day.

I am a fucking fiend for looking at shoes and then never buying them. On the one hand I am thinking about making a return to clogs. I wore something very similar for about four years straights a while back, and I feel like I’m ready to go back there. I mean it’s either that or get into the crazy sandal game - hello Maryam Nassir Zadeh. Or feel ok about getting MNZ knock-offs, which can be perfectly lovely too.

A marble cropped tank top. Say that five times fast.

A body lotion, because I’m currently out and using hand cream all over which is so not chic. I’ve been looking at something with a light spf so I get coverage all through summer without having to think about it. Plus I found one called DAILY SHADE and it really speaks to me.

Ok that’s enough. Phew! Thanks for allowing me to purge. Until next time… may you throw shade on the daily.

#shopping #spending #shoppinglist #mom #tinyprofessor #dailyshade

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