Читать книгу The Last Time I Was Me - Cathy Lamb - Страница 13

“He should die,” Rosvita declared several evenings later, as we drank cognac in front of her fire. “Dan Fakue, owner of the infested, teaming, steaming migrant camps, should die.” She thudded her mug of cognac down on a little wood table next to her. Rosvita believes that cognac should be drunk from a mug, no need to shortchange yourself.

“There are so many germs doing their germy thing there. For sure there is Cryptosporidiosis. That is a disease caused by itty-bitty microscopic parasites, crawling and twisting in the intestines. The intestines. It can be spread through feces. Feces!”

Yuck. What a vision.

Rosvita counted off on her fingers all other diseases she thought one might acquire in a migrant camp. I settled deeper into my cushy red chair, put my feet up on a leather footrest, and had a nice long drinkie. We had flipped off all the lights so we could “rest our eyes.”

“Plus, there are children living there, children.” She shoved both fists up in the air. She did not wear gloves in her own home because she believed not a single germ lived or flourished there. “And I know something very creepy and illegal is going on there, very creepy, but I can’t get the women to tell me anything. I speak a little Spanish, but not much.”

I nodded. Rosvita was correct. She spoke a little Spanish, but not much. She had no idea, however, how absolutely awful her accent was with the little Spanish that she knew. I could barely understand her Spanish myself and I knew it backward and forward. I could see why a conversation with Rosvita would be a might challenging.

“I can smell it,” she said.

“You can smell something creepy or illegal? That’s not too surprising, Rosvita. It should be illegal to live in squalor. What’s the creepy part?” I tilted my cognac up to my lips again.

“I don’t know,” she muttered, twining her fingers, her black hair shining in the firelight. She was wearing a kimono. Red and black with a dragon on it. “I don’t know, but I know that pissant Dan and something’s up. He’s hiding something. I’ll bet he has paraphilia. That’s someone who has strange sexual desires and behaviors. He’s a dirty, germ-filled devil.”

I nodded. “He’s definitely the devil.” We both settled back in silence in our chairs.

I had seen Dan Fakue at the grocery store the other day. He was built like an old tank with fat, thickened shoulders, a bulging stomach, and the meanest face I’d ever seen. It looked like a combination of slug, bulldog, and vomit. He gave me a Boob-Waist-Butt Look (BWBL) and smirked at me as if he thought a flaming passion would overwhelm me because of his physical analysis and I would be sure to hoppity-hop-hop into bed with him, legs spread, ankles grooving in the air.

I stopped, staring at him from the top of his head to his toes, stopping at his nipples, his stomach, and his penis area. I gave him the once-over again-and laughed. Nice and loud.

He bunched up his fists like he was going to slug me. I was holding two gallons of milk, which I held up like I might heave them at his gnarly face. We stared at each other for a while until this weird light came into his eyes and I knew he was a demented man who liked to dominate feisty women and he would find it pleasurable to “tame” me, so to speak.

“Forget it,” I said aloud. “I don’t date men who force their employees to live in miniscule sewage-infested pits of hell.”

Dan the Migrant Devil, as I’d instantly dubbed him, looked surprised that I spoke, then recovered himself. “I didn’t ask you for no date, lady.”

“I know. I was giving you the chance never to waste your breath in future.”

He looked furious again. I do love my smart mouth.

“Do you want to go to hell?” I asked.

“When we die, we die, woman. There ain’t no hell and there ain’t no heaven.”

I nodded. “You’re so very wrong. I hope you like heat. Scratch that. I hope you like feeling as if your body is boiling. Scratch that. I hope you like catching on fire because you are going to hell when you die for the appalling way that you’re treating your workers.”

“Hey, fancy pants, I don’t give a flying fu-”

“Please don’t swear,” I told him.

He gave me a look of disgust, his face red, a vein throbbing in his neck like a pulsing snake. “Stay out of my business.”

“No.” I swung the milk gallons back and forth.

“What?”

“I said, no. No no no. I won’t stay out of your business as long as you’re abusing people.”

He laughed. It was a mean, sticky, black and gooey laugh that made my skin crawl. “All right. Go for it. Try to shut me down. Happened before, it’ll happen again, and I’ll win. But it’ll be fun to see more of you. A lot more.” He gave me the slimy, gooey look. Up and down (BWBL).

When he was done, I did the same. I cocked my head, got down on my haunches, set down the milk, and stared right, straight at his groin. I laughed. I laughed and laughed. Laughed at his groin. Laughed until I cried. (Tears come easily to me now, I might have mentioned.) “Is that it? Is that it?” I held up two fingers three inches apart.

“It’s more than you’ve ever seen!” His face was splotchy red, making his yellow teeth look all the yellower. “I ain’t had any complaints in that department.”

Wasn’t he a funny man! “You’re a funny man, Dan, so funny.” I held my fingers up again. Three inches. “How could you not have a complaint?”

He huffed and swore.

“Please don’t swear!” I cackled, still staring, straight at that midregion.

He took two steps toward me, which for some insane reason made me laugh even harder, and swore again.

“Please don’t swear!”

“Stupid bitch.”

I admonished him once more for his foul language and he spun on his fat foot and left the store, after bellowing “Cunttttt!”

Several older ladies with white hair were staring at me when I stood up.

I muffled my chuckles. This was not good. I imagined what they were thinking: New gal in town. On haunches. In grocery store. Staring, laughing hysterically at Dan’s dick.

Again, not good.

But, the above-mentioned situation proves that most of the time you shouldn’t try to guess what people are thinking about you.

One of them hobbled toward me, hand outstretched, smile beaming. “I don’t believe we’ve met, dear,” she said. “My name is Linda. These two crazy gals are my cohorts, Louise and Margie.”

After the introductions, the three women ogled me through these huge, matching glasses. The frames were either purple or blue or green. Louise leaned heavily on her cane, struggled down onto her haunches, and cocked her head, exactly as I had done to Dan when I was looking at his crotch. “Is that it? Is that it?” she asked, her voice cackling with age. She held her fingers up about two inches apart. “Is that it?”

Linda and Margie both sputtered, and the three of them, together, I kid you not, flung back their heads at the same time and laughed like hyena triplets.

Margie scooted her walker closer to me, peered at her friends through narrowed eyes and said, “Do you like heat? I hope you like feeling as if your body is boiling!” She said the word “boiling” deep and gravelly, for emphasis.

“I don’t date men who force their employees to live in miniscule sewage-infested pits of hell!” Linda cackled.

“Please don’t swear!” Margie announced. “Please don’t swear, dammit!”

“You’re a funny man,” Louise announced, shaking her finger. “A funny man!”

The women found themselves terribly amusing and their laughter tunneled through that store. Dear me, but they thought they were funny.

When they settled down, Linda wiped her eyes and said, “He’s trouble, Fancy Pants, you watch out.” Louise told me he was as dangerous as a rattlesnake. She hissed for emphasis. Margie said that she wished he would fall into a hole and land in hell, that everyone did, and wasn’t it disgusting how he treated the migrant workers? Shameful, horrible, we all agreed before the ladies ambled out, telling me to come to tea and vodka next Wednesday.

Why, golly gee, why do I court trouble? I asked myself as I left. But the answer came quick: I will not keep my mouth shut about sick and horrible things like vermin-filled sheds.

Rosvita and I had both made complaints with the state and the county about Dan the Migrant Devil. They all knew exactly who he was and all about the problems.

Clearly nothing would get done.

I knew that I would have to do something about dissolving that migrant camp. I didn’t know what, but I would.

Little did I know that the problem would be taken right out of my hands.

The next morning Rosvita and I went to breakfast at The Opera Man’s Café. Donovan was singing a song of joy, his voice booming off the log walls. When he caught sight of Rosvita, who was wearing a trio of white flowers in her black hair and a purple lace dress, he hustled on over. As soon as we were seated, menus in hand, coffee before us, he burst into song about a man in love with a woman who did not know that he existed. He sang it in Italian and English. With great gusto. He about blew my ears out.

Rosvita hummed along with him while she glanced at the menu, her white-gloved hands tapping the table. I marveled at Donovan’s incredible voice; Rosvita hardly seemed to notice. When he was done, everyone in the restaurant clapped. Rosvita asked for a mushroom and cheese omelet. “Cook those eggs until they are almost as hard as rocks,” she told him. “Hard as rocks.”

Donovan was our waiter, as usual, though he rarely waited on anyone else, I was told, except for Oregon’s governor, when the man was at his vacation home here in Weltana. Donovan thought the governor was a “real man, not a pansy. He says what he thinks, he does what he wants to do, and when he gets vacation time, he goes fishing.”

As I watched Rosvita and Donovan, I was surprised to feel a bit of a smile tugging at my ole mouth.

A wee smile. In that café with a brick fireplace, twinkling white lights, long wood tables, an ex-opera singer, and a germ fanatic.

A wee, tiny smile, but it was there.

That surprised me.

Each time I ventured into the river for my daily multihour crying/drinking walk, I noticed a two-story white house across the way from Rosvita’s. The paint was cracking and chipped like dead skin; the floorboards of the front and back decks rotted through and sagging; and the siding was falling off strip by strip like a house stripper. The house looked like it was sagging into itself as a deflating silicon fake boob might. It looked like it felt done for.

I related to that house like no one’s business simply because it looked like me. Only it was a house, I am a person and, I assumed, it did not have half the shoe collection that I had.

A few days later, on the way back from my crying/drinking walk along the river, with a bottle of wine, I stopped and stared. No one lived in the house, Rosvita had told me. The old man and his wife who had lived there died six months apart years ago and there were no relatives. A Realtor had tried to sell it for a while, but no one was interested. The sign lay flat on the grass.

I gingerly tiptoed up the sinking front steps and tried to open the door. At first, it wouldn’t budge. I pushed against it and it crashed to the floor. Dust and dirt billowed up in great clouds.

While I waited for the dust to clear, I took another gulp of wine straight out of the bottle. It was only 2:00 in the afternoon, so I was restraining myself.

I stepped on the door and invited myself in. The largish living room was to my left, the dining room to my right. Stairs climbed to the second story. It was dark and dreary inside, like an oversize cave, and the floor creaked beneath trodden-down green carpet. I smelled the expected must and mold.

The floor in the little hallway to the kitchen wobbled and I wondered if it would give out under my weight. The mice scrambled to hide, thoroughly put out, I’m sure, that a human had invaded their home. The kitchen cabinets, dark brown like poop, hung at odd angles and the laminate counters were chewed up and stained.

The kitchen opened up to a large family room and eating nook, but it had only one window over the sink and a cracked sliding glass door.

I decided to do some miniremodeling and pulled at the blinds. They came unhinged and crashed to the floor. Sunlight flooded in, making even that damp and dark room seem a thousand times more cheerful. I pulled the blinds off the sliding glass door, opened it, and let in clean mountain air. I could almost feel the house exhaling around me with relief.

I peered out at the river sparkling beyond the trees. The house had a great view, at least. I heard birds chirping, leaves rustling in the breeze and, right beneath my feet, the sound of an animal moving. I guessed it was a possum or a raccoon. I also heard a munching sound in the wall near me. I guessed it was termites. A spider crawled over my shoe. I guessed there were probably millions of them here.

I took another swig of wine, and studied the ceiling. It had a multitude of water stains. The wood paneling over the walls, also the color of poop, was peeling off, and the carpet was alternately wet, crunchy, or almost nonexistent. The putrid diseases Rosvita could find!

There was one bathroom. The tub was filled with mouse shit. The shower curtain was covered in yuck and, again, the ceiling was stained. The faucets on the sink were rusted through.

Feeling adventurous, I climbed the stairs up to the second floor, stepping carefully, much like a tightrope walker.

Upstairs, all the windows were covered with dark blinds. I yanked those blinds off again and the sun did its work. The landing was quite large, more like an upstairs loft, and there were three bedrooms. The mattresses were still in all of the rooms and smelled like urine, so I figured a few homeless people had been here in the past. There was also a collection of sick and tired furniture, including a rocking chair. Outside of the master bedroom, there was a small deck. I did not dare step on that deck. Falling through the air is not my idea of fun.

In the distance, about 100 yards beyond the house, I could see a smaller white structure nestled in a few pine trees. It was one level, but it looked like it might have a basement. I figured it had been used as a guest house.

I poked around again downstairs. The whole house smelled like a nursing home for old people without the disinfectant. I knew the stains on the ceiling indicated terrible water problems. The roof reminded me of the caved in part of a diaphragm. A rat scurried across the floor as my eyes located a pile of ants in another corner.

The house that looked like me was in ruins. It should be bulldozed.

Demolished and hauled away.

I loved it.

I ran back to Rosvita’s with my wine and called the Realtor.

I asked the price.

He told me.

I laughed, choked a bit on my wine, offered him half that.

He refused.

I laughed again, as if he had told a smashingly good joke. “If you can get someone to pay that price for that mouse-infested, urine-stained, mold-growing dump, I will eat my left arm off while wearing fake vampire teeth, buddy. Have a nice day.” I put the receiver down and waited.

The phone rang two minutes later and he agreed to the price.

I thanked him for his time.

When we were done with our little chat, I went back to my new house and listened to the music of the river, the high notes and low notes and all the notes in between.