Psychic Warriors

 

“What are you reading?” I ask Dave, who’s moved a ratty old porch chair out onto the sidewalk to take in the sun. It’s been raining, and I mean RAINING, for days. A ‘bomb cyclone.’ Doesn’t that sound violent and dangerous? And, I think it was for some. Flooding. Power outages. Car accidents. But for us here in Richmond, we just got the torrential rain and wind. Which we need. I love the rain. Though it was nice to get a break today.

            Dave looks up from his book, his tired eyes blinking behind wired rimmed glasses. A stale cup of coffee with ‘meow’ written all over it and little brown, orange, and yellow cats sits on the sidewalk next to him. It looks like it’s been there for days with a chalky white film covering the top.

            “Oh, hello!” he responds, smiling under his dirty mustard colored wool cap. “I’m reading Psychic Warriors.” Without my prompting he launches into a lengthy description of the plot. “It’s about a group of Jordian warriors who are in the Valley of the Ghouls fighting the….” I space out for a moment. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I got stuck on Valley of the Ghouls. What would this look like? Is it a vast depression in the mountains of Jordan (Does Jordan even have mountains? ) where various spectral apparitions float about, causing much terror and trauma for anyone who ventures into their domain?”

Folger Shakespeare Library

            “….and what happens is that these Psychic Warriors can communicate with the angels and with God so that order can be brought into the Kingdom.”

            Dave pauses for a moment, shaking his head in wonder. I know that he believes in angels and God. He’s read me passages from the Bible about healing when I had first met him this last summer after breaking my wrist.

            Now he takes a look at me, squinting. “How’s the wrist?”

            “Oh, it’s much better.” I flex my fingers and wriggle my hand to show him. He smiles up at me from his seat.

            “What are you reading?” he asks. I tell him, briefly, about Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. “Eleanor is a funny, sympathetic and quirky character. I’m really enjoying her voice. In fact, I’m also listening to her on the audio books with the Libby app.”

            “Oh, isn’t that nice,” Dave comments. “You get to enjoy it in two ways.”

            “Yes.” And I marvel at finding another person who gets the value of reading. Who actually reads books! And while maybe his choice of reading material isn’t mine, it’s still reading. And thinking! I glance down at the book he’s holding in his lap. Its paper cover is tattered. The pages well-worn with tabs and fold downs at the corners. He isn’t just reading it; he’s studying the Psychic Warriors.

            And with a title like that, it must demand a lot of studying, right?

            He is staring into space for a moment, before launching into a long indecipherable story about his niece, Star, a firefighter in Washington State and how she needs equipment dropped out of a plane down in San Bernadino to fight the wildfires down there. I had commented on the rain and how wonderful it was to have the all the water. He’d agreed. “It’ll help to put out all these fires that my niece has been fighting.”

            “It’s great that she’d doing that. That there are young people who are doing that kind of valiant work.”

            He nods. “Yes it is….”

            I start to move away, eager to continue my walk before the sun gets too high. “Well, it was nice seeing you,” I say.

            “Yes, you too.”

            “Say hi to CiCi and the pets. The cat and …” I pause for a moment, thinking how I hadn’t seen the limping cancer-stricken dog for months. “…is the dog….?”

            “No,” Dave sighs softly. “Dorothy…. she passed let’s see…today is Saturday…so, yeah, it’s been about 10 days. Died in her sleep somewhere between 2 and 6 am we think.”

            “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I offer, knowing how heartbreaking it is to lose a beloved pet.

“I would imagine that CiCi misses her terribly.” I would always see the two of them, the dog limping painfully, CiCi leading her gently, on their short walks up and down 32^nd Street.

            “Yes, she does. She does….” He paused again. “I’ll tell CiCi that you said hello. That you give your condolences. She’ll like that.”

            “Yes, please do….”

            I take a few steps.

            “Enjoy the rest of your walk,” he says.

            “Thanks, I will.”

            I wave goodbye as he opens his book, head bent down, deeply engrossed. In the Valley of the Ghouls? Or the communication of the angels? Or remembering Dorothy?

            A wall of bright white puffy clouds floats in the sky ahead of me, a lone palm tree swaying in the slight breeze. I breathe in deeply as a lone crow caws at me from atop a telephone pole.

 

Beagle Treats

 

“Is that a beagle?” Tromping down the final hill at Wildcat Canyon, I’ve spotted a beagle within in a group of chatting hikers. Ian and I have been walking for over an hour and while it’s been lovely to be outside in nature with the old oak trees, brown grasses, and puffy clouds, we’re both pretty puffed at this point.

            But I can’t resist a beagle!

            “Yes, it is,” the woman who’s holding him on his leash smiles at me.

            “Cute!” I exclaim. “My parents had a beagle. They are just the cutest.”

            “Yes, they are,” she agrees, answering me even though I’m interrupting the conversation she’s having with two other women and a couple guys, who Ian and I had seen earlier. Or mostly, heard: “I’d rather have the Toxins in my body, eat the toxins, and live 5 years less, than deprive myself of them,” one of the guys had blared into the air. Ian had shaken his head, “Easy for him to say, he’s young. Wait till you’re an old man!”

            Now Toxin Guys are here chatting with Beagle Lady and her two other women friends. It’s a friendly place, Wildcat Canyon is.

            Back to the beagle. He completely ignores my overtures. The more I try to coax him over, the less interested he is. “Here, I’ll give you guys a treat to give him. Then you’ll be his best friend.”

            Beagle Lady retrieves two treats from her fanny pack, begins to hand them over to us when….WHOOOSHHHHH! A bike whizzes by, the man on it earbudded in. He careens very close to the group, going at least 40 miles an hour. Or so it seems.

            Beagle Lady shrieks. Backs up. Toxin Man starts yelling: “HEY! ASSHOLE! WATCH THE HELL WHERE YOU’RE GOING. SHARE THE ROAD AND ALL THAT SHIT!!!!”

            Zooming Bike Man makes no response; he’s long gone down the path now, probably not even hearing the yelling.

            “FUCK YOU!!!!!” Toxin Man screams at the top of his lungs. Steam coming out of ears if that were possible.

            The rest of us all sigh a collective breath of relief. But Toxin Man isn’t done. “Those guys make me so mad! I have a friend who was recently hit by a bike.”
            “Oh, no!” Beagle Lady exclaims. “Were they hurt?”
            “Yeah, yeah, they were. They’re okay, but I don’t get it. What’s with the Share the Road and all that shit? I mean….”
            Another bike comes whizzing through us; this time it’s a woman clad in black spandex and a long brown ponytail trailing after her.

            “HEY! FUCKER!” Toxin Man yells again.

            She ignores him.

            “See what I mean?” Toxin Man shakes his head vigorously, his sweaty bald pate glistening in the early afternoon sun.

            “I am all for sharing the road,” Beagle Lady offers, “but they have to share it!”

            Ian and I are just standing there. Trying to avoid getting hit by either bikes or profanity.

The beagle is unfazed. Now starts sniffing around me for his treat. I bend down and give it to him.

            He chomps it down. Heads over to Ian who also produces a treat.

            Beagle Lady tries to smile, “I told you he’d be your best friend with a treat.”

            “Of course,” I grin, bending down to give the beagle a pat on the head.

But he’s finished with me. Knows I don’t have any more treats. His nose to the ground, straining at the least. He’s ready to get on with his odor exploration.

            I rise to leave, “Well, thanks for letting us pet the beagle.”

            Beagle Lady nods, “Sure.”

            She turns back to her friends, starts in on another chat. Toxin Man and his companion aren’t moving, maybe still fuming. Such rage may make it hard to walk.

            Ian and I continue down the shady tree lined path. A lone hawk circles over us, high in the bright blue sky. A cow moos in the distance. The breeze rustles a few fall leaves from their bough that fall in our path.

            I wipe the beagle treat dust on my pants leg and open the car door, plopping down in the passenger seat, ready to head home to a bathroom, some lunch and a nap. 

            The ring of profanity still in my head as I close the car door and settle in for the ride home.

           

           

           

The Exterminator

 

The dusk was warm and still. After the intense heat of the day, a blanket of soft air surrounded me as I marched down Clinton Street. I loved the evenings after a hot day. No cold wind. No suffocating jackets. Only the stillness of the heat.

            It was magical.

            Turning the corner from Clinton onto 32^nd, I spied a line of cats on Evelyn’s lawn. She and I have chatted over the years about cats, the weather, holidays. You know, the important stuff. Tonight, as I stopped in front of her house, I noted four cats lined up: Ozzie, the big established irascible orange tabby; Kitty, the sweet fluffy black cat; Sammy, the shy brother of Ozzie and Kitty; and an unfamiliar fuzzy orange and white cat next to Sammy.

            “Evelyn!” I called out to her as she emerged from the house. “There’re a lot of cats on your lawn tonight.”

            She laughed, welcoming. Wiping a stringy dark bang out of her eye, she came toward me and then stopped to survey the cat line.  Clucking her tongue, she hollered: “SAMMY SAMMY! Get away from there!”

            Turning to me, she rolled her eyes. Her thick mascara dripping. “He has a rat!”

            “Oh no!” I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the rat. I hadn’t noticed this before she pointed it out, but now that I looked more closely, I did see a motionless, rumpled grey carcass at Sammy’s feet.

            Now, Sammy eyed Evelyn distrustfully. I could hear him saying, “You are NOT taking away my treasure! I worked hard for this and I’m proud of my accomplishment. Let me finish him off in peace!”

            But Evelyn was having none of it, stomping over the lawn toward him, shooing and yelling. “Git away! Sammy! NOW!”

            Sammy backed off slightly; the other orange fluffy cat fled over the fence. “Oh, Spooky! I’m sorry! Oh, dear,” she shrugged, looking back at me, “I hope I didn’t scare Spooky.”

            With a name like that, I thought, it should have been the other way around. But maybe Spooky had been instrumental in the hunt, capture, and murder of the rat.

            Now Sammy was back at the rat’s spot. He was not gonna give in easily. Evelyn came back and stood next to me. “He’s the Exterminator. That Sammy. He kills rats.” She sighed, heavily. Then pointed at the black cat, Kitty, “And that one, my sweet Baby, she kills birds.” I tried not to gasp, thinking of how awful this was, but hell, cats will be cats. Killing is in their nature. They are beasts of prey. “And that one, Ozzie!” She laughed softly, shaking her head, “He kills bugs!”

            We both burst out laughing. Perfect, I thought, the biggest cat kills the smallest prey.

            Sammy moved a paw tentatively toward his lifeless conquest. Batting it slightly. “SAMMMY!” Evelyn hollered again. “Git away from that!”

            I was secretly hoping that if she could get Sammy away from the rat, that it was just playing dead. I will never forget the time that my Big White Cat, Pablo, came into the house one rainy night, and deposited a lifeless mouse on the floor in front of me and my friends, deep into watching Lady and the Tramp. “Meow” he had announced. Two of us had shrieked, scooching up on the sofa, that archetypal woman v. mouse fear rising up and overwhelming. Then the mouse had lifted its tiny head and ran under the piano. It wasn’t dead after all, evidently. Julianne, the brave one of us, coaxed it out from the piano somehow and captured it with an elaborate contraption built from a flattened granola bar box and a cheese grater, which she positioned over the mouse, trapping it. Then she’d carried it out the front door, releasing it into the stormy night.

            Pablo sat there, unfazed, before turning and sauntering away.

            So, tonight, I was hoping that the same fate would befall this rat, but sadly, it did look quite dead.

            I needed to walk on. The night was falling and Evelyn had work to do.

            “Well, good luck with the Rat Retrieval,” I said, waving good bye.

            “Thanks,” she shook her head, “I’ll need it.”

            She stalked back into the back yard, presumably to find some sort of apparatus to remove the dead rat.

            As I continued down the street, the warm night now tinged with the hilarity of cat jobs, I smiled to myself.

            Cats: wild beasts, ferocious felines, and eradicators of vermin.

            A car passed by, its headlights illuminating the asphalt. The crunch of its tires breaking the quiet of the night. A small screech from a night bird sang out.

            I quickened my pace as the darkness approached, the silhouette of a large cat up ahead, sitting plumply in the middle of the sidewalk. Who knows what vermin lurk in the night?

            Good thing the cats are on the job!

Friend?

 

 

“Your friend is here today," she said.

I’d hailed my neighbor a few seconds earlier from down the block, spying her going back into her yard after getting out of her car. We'd chatted before about her terrible barking dog going to stay with her ex.  That I didn't need to worry about being barked at anymore. Was the dog my 'friend'? I had never thought so, but evidently the woman did.

This morning, she hadn’t waved back, but was waiting for me as I approached her house, surrounded by a tall steel fence, shaded by overgrown palm trees, miscellaneous detritus scattered on the dead lawn: pieces of cloth, empty Dr. Pepper cans, newspapers, and dead twigs.

            As I come up to her house, my ‘friend’ starts into a frenzied barking.

            “Tasha! NO NO!”

            I pause. It seems my ‘friend’ isn’t that friendly.

            A tall regal looking man appears from behind the barking canine. “NO! NO! C’mere!”

            The dog continues to bark furiously at me. Snarling, showing her back gums and saliva covered sharp teeth.

Photo by Milan Krasula

            “She just acting like that cuz she behind the fence,” the man asserts.

            “Oh,” I say, backing up a little, but there’s little room for me on the sidewalk. “I guess that makes sense,” I offer.

            “Yeah, if she out there not behind the fence she don’t act like this.”

            The dog continues to bark and jump wildly from behind the fence. Then the man comes up onto the sidewalk, stands next to me, and lets the dog out! She runs up the street a few feet. “HEY! You git back here!” he commands.

            She stops, turns, and then trots back, tentatively.

            Then comes up to me, no longer barking. What do I do?

            “See, she okay now,” the man says. “I just had to make sure for myself. I been training her.”
            I nod. What about me? I yell in my head. Sure, you can check if your training has worked but don’t use me as your guinea pig!

            I stand very still. Tasha comes up and sniffs me. Is she my friend now?
            I don’t reach out to pet her though. Afraid she’ll bite me. I don’t need a dog bite on top of my still healing wrist!

            “You walk every day?” the woman asks, giving me a crooked half smile, her beady brown eyes staring into me.

            “Yeah, I try to. But I have to be careful not to fall down. I broke my wrist this summer.”

            “ME TOO!” She turns over her arm to display a scar just like mine running down the length of her arm.

            “Wow,” I murmur, thinking how the surgeon had told me it was a very common injury.

            The dog now backs away from me, retreating back to the man. “You see? She okay. She hear us talking here. Know we know each other.”

            I nod. Glancing down at the dog, who does seem to be listening.

            The man takes her by the collar and pulls her back behind the fence, shutting the gate. Tasha immediately reverts into her snarling, ferocious attack barking.

            I laugh nervously. “I guess we’re not friends yet.”

            “You are,” the man says. "Just not when she behind the fence. She got a job to do.”

            “Yes, I can see that.” I begin to walk away. “Y’all take care. Have a good day,” I call out. As I pass the yard, Tasha is rabid now. Jumping on the fence, snarling and biting the chain links.

            “TASHA! STOP THAT!” the woman calls out.

            I hurry down the block, the sound of barking echoing in the otherwise still sunny morning.

            Friends? I guess it depends on your definition of the word. For me, it’s someone who I can count on, enjoy spending time with, have loyalty toward.

            For Tasha?

            It’s someone she can devour for breakfast.

            Friend? You sure taste fine!

Be Careful!

The sidewalks are always flooded with water outside of this house on the corner of Barrett and 29^th Street. I’ve always wondered who lives here and what they’re doing with all the water that leaks from under their fence onto the sidewalk, creating puddles of this precious resource.

Today I find out. There’s a woman, round and curvy, with short brown hair and big sunglasses on, rinsing off her silver Prius in the street. I step off the curb in order to walk around her but she gives me a big smile and waves. Do I know her? I don’t think so yet she acts like she knows me.

“Oh, you hurt yourself you poor thing!” she exclaims, pointing at my bandaged wrist in my blue scarf sling. “What happened to you?” she asks, sympathy dripping from her. I shrug. Stop in the middle of the street to avoid getting hosed.

“I fell and broke my wrist.”

“Oh, you poor poor thing! That is just terrible! It happened to me too!  Your wrist! It is very bad!”

“Yeah, I tripped over somebody’s garden  driftwood border and fell hard on the sidewalk and caught myself with my hand and my wrist just snapped in two.”

She shakes her head, makes a Oh-I’m-so-sorry-face as a  big black car turns from Barrett and starts to barrel down the middle of the street. She quickly pulls me onto the sidewalk “Oh be careful!” she says, laughing.

“I know,” I say. “I do need to be careful. I don’t need to get run over on top of everything else! She nods serious. “So, you broke your wrist, too?” I ask.

“Oh yes. It was a long time ago!” She laughs softly, shaking her head. “What happened? We’re old! (Am I? I always resent being included in this category but I have to admit now that it’s true) “I am 65 now,” she continues.  “The bones they are not as strong as when we were younger.”

 “That’s true,” I say. “I have osteoporosis.”

She nods, frowning slightly. “Yes, and the food we eat it; is not as good as when we were younger. I went to the farmer’s market and there were all of these baby chicks with their little heads and then I look over and there was a grown chicken but it still had a little head. Its body was huge and round!” She draws a round ball motion in the air with her hands to show me how huge the chicken’s body was. It was about the size of a basketball. Then she showed me with her thumb and index finger a little circle for the size of the chicken’s head.  Sighing in disgust, she pronounced: “It's hormones! And then we eat that-- it is not good for our bodies!”

 I nod my head in agreement. “Yes, plus all of the pollution in the air!” I wave my good hand at the smoky sky. She nods, “Oh yes ! The sky, the clouds, the food, the air ! It is all pollution!”

We stand for a moment together in the street before I ask her if she speaks Spanish. I always try to ask people without just assuming simply based on how they speak or look because you never know. She beams though. “Si, hablo Espanol!” And then takes off on a torrent of fast Spanish-- something about owning her house --something about La Senora that lives with her --something about cooking. I can’t follow it of course and start laughing. She doesn’t notice at first but continues her fast-paced narration talking about how when she learned English she had to practice speaking even though she was shy about it. This much I get and nod and say, “Yes, yo necessito practicar mas tambien!” I switch to English, “However, my pronunciation is terrible!”

She shakes her head no. “No es bueno!”

 I laugh. She’s so sweet.

Finally, I ask her her name. “Hilda,” she says.

“I’m Carolina.”

“Oh Carolina!  she repeats. “It is so cute!”

 I don’t tell her this is my Spanish name; that my real name is Carol. I actually like Carolina a lot and remember how I was dubbed this when I taught up at Merritt College in the writing center. I worked with a group of young women who were from Mexico. When they found out I was Carol they all laughed and said, “Oh Carolina! You are Carolina!”  From then on, I kept this as my Spanish name. But today Hilda just gets my Spanish name because after all we are speaking Spanish. Well at least she is!

She goes on to tell me about how her mother broke her hip and how the hip is a very bad bone to break.  I agree and tell her the story of how my grandmother broke her hip when she was in her 90s and we all thought that that was it; she wasn’t going to carry on in this world any longer but, in fact, she recovered and lived for several years after this. Hilda loves this story. It makes both of us laugh, happy, that even though we are in our 60s, if we break our hip years from now, we will heal and still live for years.

  I tell her that I need to go; that I have to work. She nods and turns on the hose again to finish cleaning the Prius. I want to say how her car will be very pretty and clean in Spanish but it’s just too much effort so I say it in English. However, I can say nice to meet you in Spanish: “Mucho gusto, Hilda.”

She beams and says, “Mucho gusto, Carolina. Be careful!”

 I wave, signaling will do as I walk gingerly round the corner up Barrett St., the sound of hosed water hitting car metal following me. A cadence of Spanish singing in my head.

Healing Prayer

 

“What happened to you?” Dave is ambling down his front walk waving at me and Ian in front of his house here on 32^nd St. Cici pops her head up. She’s been working in the garden hidden behind gigantic pink floral monstrosities that had taken over the yard. She gives us a toothy grin, wiping the dirt on her soiled apron.

“I broke my wrist,” I answer, glancing down at my heavily bandaged arm resting in my impromptu sling of a turquoise blue scarf.

Dave shakes his head serious, “I’m so sorry to hear this. How did you do it?”

“I was just walking past my neighbor’s garden and there was a piece of driftwood that was hidden underneath some overgrown plants on the sidewalk and I tripped over it and fell hard and broke my wrist.”

“I understand. We’ve been there.” Dave doesn’t elaborate though I wonder what he’s broken and why. Maybe it’s tied to his 40 years of being a smoking dumbass; maybe he was walking down the sidewalk smoking up a storm not paying attention to where he was going and he fell over on a trip hazard in the sidewalk. After all, there are so many! Earlier this week, another neighbor had stopped me and asked what had happened and then shaking his head said, “Walking is so dangerous! There are so many places to trip!”  I had told him, “Yes! Be careful! You don’t want to break your wrist!”

            Now Cici comes toward us, her grin wider, revealing yellow and worn cracked teeth. “I was over here in the garden being a monkey!” she exclaimed.  “I just get down on my hands and knees and then I realize that rooting around like a monkey on my hands and knees really hurts my knees!” She performed a toothy grimace for us to demonstrate the knee pain.

“Yes, I agree you have to be careful with your knees; they can be really hard to heal,” I say.  “My mom tore her meniscus a few years ago and she was laid up and in a wheelchair with had a lot of pain.”

Dave shook his head, “Yes we need to be aware of our bodies and what can happen if we’re not… hold on just a minute, Carol, I’ll be right back.”

Ian and I stand in the broiling sun. I can tell he wants to leave but I don’t want to be rude. Plus of course I’m curious. What does Dave have for me? Cici continues to grin at us until a fluffy cat comes trotting out and does a rollover in front of us. She giggles.  “Oh, would you look at her? That’s Lily. She wants to be friends.”

Ian bends down, holding his finger out, always wanting to be friends with every kitty that he sees. “Hi Lily.  Do you want to be friends?” She does a coy rollover just out of his reach and we all laugh.

Dave has returned with a small pink book in his hand. “I just want to read something for you, Carol. In addition to being your neighbor, I’m also a preacher down at St Luke’s. I think I told you that but I have something here that I think will help you.”  He opens up the small pink book and takes a breath. “Let us bow our heads in prayer.” Cici follows the command. Ian and I glance at each other and shrug, bowing our heads in slight compliance. Dave starts to read something about the body as a temple and taking doctor’s advice when it is good advice and healing quickly and the Lord will help us with all of this if we only give ourselves over to Him….

Whenever I hear this idea of giving over myself to the Lord, some one that I don’t even believe in, mostly because I’ve never seen any evidence of him but also just because I wasn’t raised this way, I have resistance to this command. The last couple of nights I’ve been watching a show on Netflix called America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Many of the cheerleaders are extremely religious and always talk about how they just give their lives over to Jesus and if He deigns to give them a spot on that cheerleading squad then so be it and if He doesn’t, well then it is in His hands. They will accept His will.  I suppose I just feel like this is a cop out to our own personal responsibility; that we have our own will and our own choices that we make in our everyday lives and in the longer scheme of things. But today when I listen to Dave and how earnest he is with this prayer, I can’t help but be moved by his genuine caring over my broken wrist. He really does seem to want to help me and since this prayer and God are his way of helping, I will go with it.

He finishes the prayer, “Amen,” he murmurs.

“Amen,” we all repeat.

“Thank you for that, Dave,” I say. At this moment, I really mean it. It is sweet of him to come out and read me a healing prayer. It can’t hurt, right? And who knows, it might help!

“Oh, you’re very welcome, Carol. I know how hard it is and I hope that this helps. You take care of yourself now, okay?”

“I will,” I say.  Ian and I start to walk away. Cici is back in the garden working away in her monkey mode while Dave ambles back into the house, the Little Pink book clutched in his large calloused palm.

 

Arnold and Theo

 

At the corner of Roosevelt and 30^th street, I see her bending over to gather up plastic bags of something inside the backseat of her car. When she backs out, she smiles at me. I wave, “Como esta Theo?”

            I’ve talked to her before and know that Spanish is her native language.

            She doesn’t answer me in Spanish, however. “Theo he is very big!”

            She’s inside her front yard now, dumping the plastic bags on the black tarp covering what must have been, at one point, a lawn or dirt. Wiping her brow, her grin expands. Theo is the golden lab puppy that I’ve been seeing for the last few months. Bouncing and floppy, but now, he’s big!

            He’s nowhere in sight. But this doesn’t stop her from enthusiastic description.

            I nod now, hanging over her front fence that it about chest level on me. “I bet he’s grown a lot!”

            “Yes, grown a lot!”

            “And, I bet he has a lot of energy!”

            “Yes! A lot of energy.” I notice how she repeats my sentences. To improve her English? Or give herself time to think and then speak in English? I wish that she would speak Spanish to me. I’m curious how much I’d be able to communicate. But this doesn’t occur to me till after our exchange.

            She continues, kicking a worn soccer ball that wobbles on the black tarp briefly, rolling to a stop. “He likes to play with this.” She laughs, joyous. “And when we are home, we let him out here in the front. But when we are not here, he is in the yard. I do not want him to….” She pauses, searching.

            “….to jump over the fence?” I offer.

            “Yes! I do not want him to jump over the fence.” She pauses again, then shakes her head.  Sad all of a sudden. “You remember Arnold?”

            “Of course,” I say. Arnold was a big lion of a dog. He would lie around on the black tarp in the warm sun, then rouse himself to wander around the block. The first time I saw him, he was out on the sidewalk, lumbering slowly up and down Roosevelt. He was huge! Some sort of Shepard/Wolf mix?

            I was leery of walking near him and so crossed the street. He paid no attention to me, but wandered back into his yard, and plopped down on the tarp. I found out his name from his young master who informed me one day while skateboarding aimlessly on the sidewalk that the dog’s name was Arnold.

            Such a funny name for a dog. But is suited him somehow.

            Today, when the woman mentions Arnold, I can see that she misses him. “He got the cancer. In his mouth. He lose his….” Again, she searches for the word, “…teeth…. And so, we give him the soft food. Then we take him to the doctor and he says the cancer it is aggressive.”

            I shake my head, remembering my old white cat who lost all his teeth and couldn’t eat. It hadn’t been cancer that caused the tooth loss. At least as far as I could recall. But the fact that he couldn’t eat, soft food included, meant that I had to put him to sleep.

            It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

            So today, when this woman pauses, thinking of Arnold and his aggressive cancer, I know she is thinking of the sadness of losing him.

            “How old was Arnold?” I ask now.

            “He was 13.”

            “That’s a long time! Especially for a big dog.”

            “Yes, it is a long time,” she agrees.

            She stares at me for a moment, then smiles slowly. I wave, “Well, now you have Theo!”

            “Yes!” She laughs.

            “Have a good day,” I call out, starting to walk down Roosevelt.

            “Yes, have a good day,” she repeats.

            I hear a dog barking as I head up the block. Was it Theo? Happy to have mom home?
            Or was it Arnold, a bark from the great beyond, sending me on my way home for another busy Friday.

A Christian in the 21st Century

 

The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, (1475-1564 CEI)

“I had me a good sermon this last Sunday down at St. Luke’s…” Dave has spied me walking past his house and has fallen into step beside me. He has a lot to say about God, evidently. “…for next time, Sunday, June 2^nd, my sermon’s gonna be about what it means to be a Christian in the 21^st century.”

            I nod, keeping my answer to myself: “I could write a sermon about what it means to be an Atheist in the 21^st century.” Dave might or might not get the humor in this.

            I quicken my pace, not really wanting to get into a Christians v. Atheists debate with him. Though I do wonder what it means to be a Christian in the 21^st century. First, to be a Christian, very generally, I suppose, is someone who believes in the one almighty God: White male, all powerful, kind when He feels like it; cruel when He doesn’t. Of course, there are those who embrace various sects of this religion: Catholic, Protestant, Episcopalian. I’m not sure which branch St. Luke’s is in. And, of course, God created everything! The trees, the flowers, the animals, the sky, the oceans, the people. He is the Great Creator. And the only One!

            Then there’s the behavior of Christians, right? They are ‘do gooders’ correct? Taking care of their family, neighbors, friends without any payment but a ticket into heaven for their good works.

            Okay, I’m being a little snide here, I know. This is why I didn’t want to get into a discussion with Dave. I’m sure he’d have a very different definition. And the fact that he’s narrowed his sermon to the 21^st century, I’m sure, will give his sermon a present-day utility about it.

            Yet, what is it about the 21^st century is he gonna focus on? How Christians view technology? What do they think about AI? Has AI taken over the role of their God? Maybe they need to get rid of AI. But then wouldn’t that require, at the very least, nefarious technological weaponry? Would this be ‘Christian’?

            And to be an Atheist? Well, for me this is straightforward. I don’t believe in this one powerful male deity or a ‘heaven’ after our time here on Earth. I think that we’ll all just end up in the same unknown void that we were in before we were born. And who knows what that was or what it will be. I have no memory of it nor do I have a crystal ball to see it in the future.

            Unless, AI can find a way to delve into the future. Robots will tell us what happens after we die! Yes! Of course! They can be ‘killed’ and then brought back to life and then they can tell us what it was like. Though since they’re robots and not humans, they may not go to the same place that we would.

            Oh, it’s all too much to think about at 10 in the morning walking up 32^nd street with Dave at my side trying to gain my ear.

            “…I haven’t put together my sermon yet, but I’ve got some great ideas and…” I’m marching down the middle of the street at this point, trying to shake him. He’s not getting the idea, but continues keeping pace with me. However, I know he has stage 4 lung cancer and I can probably outpace him.

            Of course, this isn’t a very Christian thought, is it? ? But since God creates everything, he created Lung Cancer too, right?

            Or did Dave have just a little to do with this given his dumbass smoker history? Did God create dumbasses?

            Grinning to myself, I wave goodbye, “See you later, Dave.”

            He’s slowing down, getting the hint? Or just cancer tired?

            I don’t care as I turn the corner at McBryde, leaving Dave in the middle of the street to ponder some more about what it means to be a Christian in the 21^st century.

           

           

Dumbass Smoker

Tromping up the final block of 32^nd Street before McBryde, I spy the trio up ahead hogging the sidewalk. It’s the lady with the should be dead dog and her husband. I’ve spoken to them over the years of walking by their house, but have never seen the 3 of them all together before.

             I turn off the sidewalk, veering toward the street, thinking it’d be a good idea to give them wide berth, esp. with the poor limping dog.

            “Hey!” the man hollers at me, not unfriendly, “you don’t have to go into the street.”

            I slow my pace. Keep on the sidewalk. This morning I’m not averse to a little neighborly conversation.

            “You sure?” I grin.

            “Yeah!” he chuckles. “Plenty of room for all of us.”

            The woman stops and points at the dog. “She just turned 18. Gonna be 19!” Proud and toothy, she smiles at me, her round wrinkled white face and bright blue eyes staring at me.

            “Wow,” I say, “that’s amazing!”

            I glance down at the dog. She’s skin and bones, hunched up on 3 legs, a sad doggy expression of ‘why can’t I just keep going’ on her mug.

            “You know,” the man continues, “we don’t even know your name after seein’ you walk by our house for all these years. I’m Dave, this is Cici,  and that is Chelsea, the dog.”

            “Ah,” I nod, “I’m Carol.”

            “She was ‘Bone in the USA,’ Cici says to me, pointing at the dog’s sweater with images of dog bones patterned on the top. I laugh.

            “Where you live?” Dave continues.

            “Just down the street. This is 32^nd, right?”

            “That it is.”

            “I’m just down between Barrett and Roosevelt.”

            “That’s a good distance you cover. I was a Dumbass Smoker for 40 years. Got stage 3 lung cancer. I can make it down to Garvin now, but before, boy I tell you, it was a miracle if I made it to the end of the block. Going on 3 years now since my diagnosis.”

            “Wow!” I exclaim. “That’s pretty great.”

            “Yeah, beats being dead or in a wheelchair.”

            And I have to agree. He seems pretty sturdy. Tall and gnarled white guy in his 70s? 60s? Who can tell? I hear about people surviving lung cancer more often than in the past. My Spanish teacher, Mabel, has stage 4 lung cancer. She was getting ‘infusions’ 3 times a week when we were taking Spanish from her last fall. I’d asked my friend, Wendy, who had found Mabel, if she’d been a smoker. Wendy thought probably, but didn’t know for sure.

            Why would anyone smoke? I’ve always wondered this. It’s been known for decades to cause cancer. Yet I still hear about smokers or see smokers around. Fat guys driving by in trucks, cigarettes hanging out the window. Middle aged men, squatting on their stoops, puffing away. It baffles me.

            Who wants to risk lung cancer?

            At least Dave knows he was a ‘Dumbass’. But what good does that do him now? He’s got cancer and he’s compromised because of it, walking 2 blocks is a good day.

            Of course, I was a Dumbass Sunbather when I was younger. Then melanoma appeared. I was lucky. The doctors found it in time. If it had gotten to stage 3, I wouldn’t be here today. Scary thought.

         

   I suppose that we all think we’re immortal when we’re younger. We can smoke. We can sunbathe. We can jump off mighty cliffs into the sea.

            Yet, at this point in my life, I know there’s an end in sight. Who knows when? I’m just grateful that being a dumbass didn’t cost me my life.

            Well, at least not yet.

            “It’s nice to meet you,” I say now, starting to head up the block.

            “Likewise,” Dave grins.

            “I like your hat,” Cici comments.

            I nod, wave goodbye. An old mangy cat is doing rollovers on the warm sidewalk up ahead of me. When I get to her, I stoop down to give her some pets. “Meoorrrowww!” she purrs.

            “Hello, Ol’ girl,” I coo, wondering what kind of cancer she might have. Or maybe she’s just old.

            Hard to tell. With cats. With dogs. Or with people.

            A mockingbird trills. A crow swoops down and lands on a lawn. Smiling, I turn the corner and head down McBryde into the bright morning sunshine, Mt Tam in the distance, a whole day head of me.