On the Move Again

The police officer leaned forward in the chair, pursed his lips, and tapped his pen on his clipboard. Shifting in the chair he put down his pen and said, “Did you know Beth that your call came in at eleven fifty-nine on the full moon?” I felt cold and hot. My knees chattered and my eyes froze.

“As an officer for many years, I could tell you full moon stories that would curl your hair. I know nothing about you, but have a hunch that someone is sending you a message. You may want to give it some thought.”

As my friend Lucy always said, “When you stumble off your path into the bushes, the universe tugs on your collar until you get back on your destined path.” Rather than stumble, I careened into the oncoming paths of bone crushing rollovers. I became an expert first responder to fixer uppers. I had turned fifteen destitute apartments and houses into quaint flats and English cottages.

From the moment I vacated my childhood home, I went on the run when it came to houses. My moving habits became easy fodder for parody. Chris and Jim humorously captured my moving life in their rendition of “On the Road Again” which they aptly renamed “On the Move Again.” When Welcome Wagon showed up on my doorstep for the third move, the woman holding my basket rolled her eyes and said, “You again?” Friends started to lose track of how many times I moved and scattered at the sound of rustling cardboard boxes.

Come the fourth move, Chris and Jim looked like ninety-year old Sherpas climbing Mount Everest. After trudging up three flights of stairs to my apartment, my colonial couch teetered in their hands as did our friendship. By the fifth move, I traded in my colonial couch and chair for a light weight flipflop foam couch and wicker chairs. What couldn’t be lifted into the car, stayed in the store.

My other fixer upper specialty was ramshackle men. You broke? I fix. Jeff, my latest fixer upper felt like a third-floor walk-up every day. And every morning, a little voice in my head whispered, "You do not belong here." And yet, I continued to place my slippers underneath the bed beside his slippers every night.

Fixer uppers wore my fingers to the bone. By the sixteenth move I rid myself of hammers, saws, and paint brushes and found a builder. The design emerged in my head at age five when I found a dollhouse in the Christmas catalog. It was a two-story ranch house with tall windows that went from one end of the house to the other end. A balcony sat over top the garage. In my snowsuit and snow boots I trudged through the snow down to the mall and thrust the picture into Santa’s hand.

“So little girl what would you like for Christmas?” 

I can still recall how his crystal blue eyes pinched together when I said, “I want a home. A home with glowing lights that are always on at night or when it’s cloudy. And there must be a rocking chair where my dad can sit and read his newspaper every night. And a mom who doesn’t drink all the time. I mean sleep all the time and who makes the house smell like apple pie instead of beer and cigarettes. It’s all real you know. I see it when I walk up and down my street. The other people on my street leave their curtains open too.” That Christmas, Dad placed the dollhouse under the tree, and it became my mantra. Piece by piece I continued to rip out pages from catalogues and magazines and put them into my scrapbook. Thirty-eight years later, I built my dream home. Then I let Jeff talk me out of it which began the sequence of events that ended with a crash.

“Sure the house is nice, but it ain’t my house. I want something that is mine too.” He leaned up against the kitchen counter with arms crossed and glowered at me. Then as per usual when he felt uncomfortable, he shifted his hip upward and farted. My mother would have liked  Jeff and sung out “Bacon and eggs” at the sound of his fart, which is what she thought a good fart smelt like.

“I hear what you are saying Jeff, but the foundation has not even settled on this house, But more importantly, I love this house.”

“I bet we can make some good coin if we sell it. My buddy down at Brewster’s told me that house prices have gone way up in the last year.”

“We? I built this house with my money. If you want a house together then you will have to bring some of your own coin to the table and kick in your half of the mortgage payment.” His blank stare told me his pockets were also empty.

Jeff had never owned a house. Jeff had never rented his own apartment. Jeff had always bunked with buddies. Jeff’s life skills amounted to duct tape. 

Aborting all wisdom, I took to the high seas of bad decisions. I thought that if I helped him learn the ropes it would boost his straggling self-esteem and he would magically transform. Unfortunately, this muddied knight never got on the horse. I sent him links to house buying articles. I showed him location and design features that could raise or lower the value. My suggestions bounced back off the wall at my head. “This would make a great stereo room. Check out the garage. Add a big screen and this is a serious man cave for me and my buddies.”

Jeff chose a neighborhood close to his work. I had never lived northeast of anything. My cardinal direction sat due south. The narrow, tunnel layout of the house resembled a bowling alley. Living in the house felt like trying to squeeze myself into a dress two sizes too small.

I sunk the profit from my beautiful home into “our” house. Jeff offered nothing but empty promises about when he would give me his share. Three months later he moved out to shack up with Brenda the Brewster’s barmaid. When he did not cough up his share, I felt the universe tug at my collar and thankfully, put the house in my name only.

Before the incident that resulted in my call to the police, I had been in bed journaling, again. WTF journal entries softened to guise my displeasure with the holy one. “How about you pick up the phone. Voicemail? Text? A sign? Any sign? Bird droppings?” Then the shameful apology. “I’m sure you are busy with people who have more serious problems.” I will figure it out.

I stared straight ahead at the painting of a country home that sat in a field of wildflowers and made my stoic resolution. “I will make do in this neighborhood I loathe. I will make do in this house that I loathe. I will suck it up.” Bang! The sound of glass shattering and metal clanging on the cement echoed in the darkness.

My shepherd Sledge and I bolted out of bed. Sledge’s paws slammed up against the window. His black-grey mane fluffed out to twice the size as his high pitch howl-bark rang out. I ran out to the balcony off my bedroom. Clutching the iron railing, I leaned over and squinted into the darkness. A truck sat out front of my house. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It was not my truck. The truck’s engine revved, and the tires spun and squealed as it peeled down the back lane across the way leaving the acrid smell of burning rubber. I watched the truck disappear down the lane in a cloud of dust and out of the corner of my eye spotted my truck four doors down with the front half on the boulevard up against a tree. Shaking, I grabbed my phone and headed downstairs as I called the police.

I walked out the front door to horrified neighbors. Noel from next door came over and put his arm around my shoulders, “I’m so sorry Beth. I was watching football and this truck came screaming past and slammed right into the back of your truck. I don’t think he even braked.” The police siren rang out in the distance.

The neighborhood had been trouble from the get-go. One night at three o’clock in the morning, I heard Sledge growling at the window. Across the street, a woman stuffed my neighbor’s patio chair and rug into her SUV. She had been on a shopping spree for weeks. We suspected she had furnished her home with her hot deals. Someone had also thrown a piece of poisoned chicken over the back fence. I managed to get it out of Sledge’s mouth before he swallowed it, but he still ended up sick for three weeks. I had not heeded the warnings and tonight the universe screamed.

“Miss? Did you hear what I said? You called in at eleven fifty-nine on the full moon.”

I was not a stranger to warnings and messages. A few years back, I stomped to the mailbox with a hateful letter to my mother and a hawk dropped from the sky and landed at my feet. The day before I handed in my resignation after being looked over for a senior marketing position, a hawk cruised by my kitchen window and looked me dead in the eye. Then again, a hawk flew over right before I won a small lottery. I surmised after a few experiences, that low flying encounters or those where they nearly flew up my nose meant, “big mistake lady.” High-flyers brought tidings of good news.

At times, dimes cropped up on my path which are supposedly angels letting you know they are watching. Five hundred dollars blew into my front yard once, but I’m certain it was the result of a drug dealer down the street dropping his cash rather than an angel’s calling card. At times, I felt the urge to call someone and then found out they were sick or in need of help. And every time, shivers of awe, gratitude, and fear crept up my back. The invisible messengers were like movie ushers showing me to my seat next to someone who needed my help and to shuttered hopes and dreams tucked under the seat.

Sometimes they showed up in abstract ways. One of my fixer uppers, had dated and faded oak hardwood in the kitchen and worn out berber carpet in the living room. Almost every day I wished for gleaming cherry hardwood floors. After work one day, I came home and stepped into the lake covering the kitchen and living room. Water gushing from the water line that had worn away blasted me in the face as I looked for the shutoff valve. When the insurance company confirmed they would cover the damage, I heard the universe say, “You’re welcome.” Lucy had passed a few months earlier. After listening to me endlessly complain about my shabby flooring, a part of me thought she yanked out the water line as a parting gift. The universe has a perverse sense of humor. "So you want a new floor. No money. No problem. I've got a stellar idea."

Tonight, the messengers snuck in like ninjas. With eyes shut tight in denial I did not see the crash coming. I also wondered if the drunk driver who hit my truck and took off saw it coming. Then again, maybe he fell asleep at the wheel.

Like homing pigeons after the move, Sledge and I had returned every day to the old neighborhood for our walks. As soon as the car turned onto the main drive, Sledge’s dark fluffy ears perked up and his nostrils flared in recognition of his turf. For me, it felt like I had bumped into a long, lost friend. I had good neighbors at the new house. But the neighborhood felt detached as though cast adrift from the rest of the world.

After the police officer’s dark eyes looked back at me one more time before shutting the door, I knew I had to move. The next morning Sledge and I drove around the old neighborhood looking for sale signs. After almost giving up after an hour, we returned to the old street where I had built my home and there sat my Christmas catalogue house. The unit number of the house I built was eighty-eight. The number on this house with the sweet smell of fresh wood and paint was one-ninety-seven. Eight-eight two ways. "It's real. I've walked up and down this street and saw it with my own eyes.” And the universe whispered, “You’re welcome.”