while wondering how to be sure Annie Proulx was called for Jury Duty in the trial of Matthew Shepard's killers, I am hurling out the back door of the office. I will go 15 miles to let Lady back in the house. Lady, Blessed art thou amongst dogs. She who I let out at lunch from her nap, tottering out to the end of the drive way to smell for her friend, the neighborhood Chihuahua, who past in a multi colored jeep with its owner, alert to her presence, Lady oblivious. I had left her out in case later her friend might get to hop over and play with her. 112 in human years, she jumps and turns like a pup again. It, and baby asprin keep her going.
The phone rigns and it is my tenant, called to tell me he had hit up all his friends for money so he could get the rent to me, with apologies and tales of the idoits at the social security office, he has left it in the usual place, at the end of my driveway, under a rock, $250 in cash in a baggy between a pirce of Virginia Quartz and a greenish stone from North Dakota. He rents a little house over the hill from me. His x-old lady grew up in the house before her father lost it to foreclosure. He was anxious to rent it for her and called me on the phone to warn me: I have a tattoo on my face. He sure does.
Lady is nowhere to be found. She can barely hear, I walk all about whistling for her as loud as I can. Even is she hears me in her sleep, in the leaves some place, the effect might be only to make her dream of me, or maybe she has gone off to die. You never know. I am flustrated. I must now travel back to the other side of town to consume food with my mother.
Sunday I eat breakfast and supper with her and Mondays I eat supper with her, a hold over from the days before I had a washer and dryer, I would bring my laundry on Sunday and pick it up on monday. I couldn;t stop the practice, I am 8 minutes late. She says she is about to eat without me. Says my sister was there and wanted to see me. I tell her if it is important she will call me. She tells me about the ballet she saw, the jokes she heard and how her bowling team did.
Annie Proulx is waiting in a room in my head, waiting to be called before the prsecution and the defense. I give her a window so she can look out at the blue birds and the whiskey spring.
After 30 mintues I bolt, I go home and I get out the story to screenplay book and no, it is not there. Diana Ossana visited with her during the time Shepard died, but where.....I google. It is getting dark. I got to find the dog. I bolt again.
I listen to Madonna going up the road. "Once upon a time, there was a boy, there was a girl........I always thought we'd be together" I pull into the driveway and whistle loudly, and there she is, at the edge of the yard. She is Mrs. Twist on the porch, if she had an apron, she would smooth it.
She follows me in, says nothing, she just looks, just looks at me mixing her wet and dry food with the orange baby asprins. She is ready to eat, she emotes.
An official looking clerk type person stepps into the room in my head and tells Ms. Proulx she can go home now, court is adjourned for the day.
Topic: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings (Read 2629965 times)