Summertime, and the Living Is Easy

“You should buy it.”

“I don’t know. $15.00 dollars, seems like a lot.”

“What, you taking it with you? Live a little.”

I know when I should listen and when it’s best to pretend. Dennis always has the answers, most times, to the wrong questions. He means well, at least I hope he does, for his sake. Reputation around here means everything. Sometimes I have to wonder though, why our experiences, although similar, seem to leave us different messages.

It was like that, the day at the beach. I guess that is why I agreed to go. Dennis said it would be cooler and it would do me good to get out, get some fresh air, listen to the ocean lap at the beach. Bring back memories of the old times when we were young, and youth was all we knew.

“OK, don’t have a stroke. Which one do you think?”

“I’d get the one with the palm trees.”

“You don’t think it’s a little surreal, palm trees, and snow? I’m kind of thinking of this sea chest at the bottom of the ocean.”

“And you think there is something wrong with me. Snow, treasure chests, the ocean? Think about it.”

Dennis was right of course, but only slightly more right, than my ocean scene. I guess it don’t really matter, it’s the thought that counts. I think it’s still that way.

I just wanted to get something for the grandkids. I remember my grandma giving me little gifts. They weren’t much, but they meant a lot. She said the gifts were made of magic. Kind of made us closer. She lived off a ways like my grandkids do. Don’t get to see them much, but I’m goin next week, maybe. Being that I’m here, and saw these globes, thought I’d get something here and not have to make a separate trip somewhere. Don’t much like to travel out of the home much. Not the same out there. You just never know any more about…

“You getting that one? Give it a good shake, see if’n it works. Some of that stuff comes from God knows where. Best wash it good too, before you go givin it to anybody. I know the globe ain’t for you, but you got to see if the magic works. You ain’t got nothin in that room of yours anyone would find the least bit fascinatin, or magical. A little magic won’t do you no harm.”

“I’m getting it. I’m getting the one you like. You being close to a kid again, I figure you’d know what he’d like. Goin to get something else for the girl. Maybe a diary. See any diaries around?”

He’s wandered off. He’s got a habit of doin that. Sometimes I go look for him if he don’t show up for supper. Most times I find him down the street at the car wash. He sits on the bus bench and just watches the cars get washed. I watched him the other day. Three cars got watched and he didn’t move a muscle. I thought maybe he was dead, but when I poked him, he jumped. Said I almost gave him a heart attack. I told him I’d be more careful. It don’t matter much. By tomorrow he’ll have forgot all about it.

Dennis is a good man. He’s weird, but he can get you goin. He’s after me all the time to come over to his place and watch TV. I don’t like TV, too stupid, too many commercials to keep my mind focused on what’s happening. I’d rather go to the hall and watch a movie, even one I’ve seen a few times. Don’t matter, just killing time as it is. I might not be the smartest person on the block, but I ain’t the dumbest either. It’s just a matter of time. I can see the train commin.

But Dennis, he wouldn’t leave it alone, so I agreed. He keeps wantin to show me his magic. I kind of know what I think he means, but then he ain’t always playin with a full deck as they say.

I asked If I should bring anything. He says I should bring the palm tree globe. He’d like to take a good look at it. So I bring it along with some pop corn he likes. Sticky stuff I can’t eat, so I don’t. He says we are goin to watch a movie on TV called, The World According to Garp. I think I read the book but can’t really remember. Everything seems to bleed together after a while, like a water color painting I left out on the porch once, got rained on. Didn’t look like much after that. To tell the truth, didn’t look like much before, but one of grandkids made it, so!

Before we get too far into the story, Dennis stops the movie. He’s got one of those pause machines; think it’s because of his prostate problem. He’s got to get up and get gone, pretty often some days. Anyway he tells me to follow him. Well I don’t know what he’s got in mind. And to be truthful, I ain’t much for helpin those that are capable of helping themselves, and I wasn’t just sure, what he was askin.

But I follow him. That thing about disregarding my better senses again. He takes me to the closet and says for me to get inside. 

“Don’t be scared,” he says. Well, I’ve been in a few closets in my time, but that was back when I was a lot younger, and fun had a different meaning. But I thought, what the hey, I’ll play along. 

Should tell you, Dennis thinks he’s quite the practical joker.  No one has the heart to tell him he’s the joke. Oh well, we all have our faults. He also believes he’s some kind of magician. I’ve heard that a few times in my life. Usually just talk, so I don’t pay much attention any more. 

So I get into the closet. He closes the door. He asks if I’m alright. I thought it a peculiar question, being I was in the dark in his closet, not in some alley downtown. “Yep, just fine. Now What?”

“I’m goin to give it a shake and see what happens. You ready?”

I wasn’t sure, to tell the truth. “Give it a shake?”

 give what a shake, why, when?

“Here goes,” he yells.

The lights started to flicker from outside the door. I could see it dancing on the floor from the space below the door. Strange kind of light. Not like what you’d expect in a closet.

“You alright out there?... Dennis?”

Not a sound. Everything gets real quiet. I listen, nothing. The dark in the closet seemed to be getting darker. The lights under the door kept jumping around, and then what looked like Dennis was having a pillow fight started up. I could see this white stuff pilling up, cutting off the light. I started, to be truthful, getting scared. I thought maybe something happened to Dennis. Maybe he died or something. Would be just like him, and me in this closet.

I pushed the door open, and it was snowing. Snow, falling from the ceiling. Real nice snow, like the kind you get at Christmas, in the movies. Everything looked so beautiful. All I could think was Dennis really did it this time. Didn’t know he had it in him. To tell the truth, I didn’t know he cared that much. Bit old for that sort of thing.

Then I look out the window. The sun is shinin and Dennis is sitting out under the palm with Myrtle, she’s the old woman, the next door down from mine. But she looks different, younger somehow. They are drinking out of these big glasses with umbrellas sticking out of them. I’m not a jealous type, but sometimes, enough is enough.

I went over and wrapped on the window. Dennis, he turns and sees me. He gets up in his disjointed kind of way and comes over and looks in the window. I don’t know if he sees me, but all of a sudden, the room is tipping from side to side and I’m sittin on the floor and this big brown eye is looking through the window at me. 

Well, I assumed I was havin another one of my reactions to the pills they give me. But this is different. I look in the mirror, and for some reason I’m in all black clothes, got my favorite pearls around my neck, have on white gloves, and holding this old bible I used to use to keep my purse from tipping over, when I set it on the entrance table.

The room starts movin again, and I see this palm of someone’s hand, blocking the light from the window; long life line. And then it begins to snow like crazy. Not like normal snow, but snowin from up, down, and from side to side. Like a blizzard, but it wasn’t cold, not in the way it is usually when it snows. 

Then the room quits moving and I see Dennis once again out in the yard next to the palm tree. Don’t know what happened to Myrtle, hope she’s OK. Startin to wonder if his magic isn’t as good, as he says it is. I’ll have to ask him about it when I get back. That is, if it ever quits snowing.