Lolly's Story

 Lolly’s Story

           As a young child, I had three fictional best friends, young children, my age, almost seven, two girls and one boy. Annie Doonie and Doonie Annie, the sisters, wore white, and yellow pinafores with black Mary Jane shoes. Oh, those shoes! That glossy surface made it seem as if the girls danced through life. And that they did, they laughed and capered until they wore me out.

           Thom Piddow was the handsomest of boys! The short ends of his crew cut caught the glitter of sunbeams, allowing him to dazzle me anytime he wished. Thom was adept at this when he wanted my box of Cracker Jacks so he could get the lousy little cheap toy. I’d be happily munching on the stale papery tasting popcorn and nuts, keeping to the Rule that you had to eat all the crappy stuff until the toy revealed itself. But then, Thom would appear. Sparks from his hair made me spill the entire Cracker Jack contents onto the ground, breaking the Rule.

            Imaginary buddies can be a real pain, making you do things you didn’t ordinarily want to do. The girls frazzled me, but my life would have been dismal without them.

           “Lolly, stoph zee playing und wash hinds. Zee dinar sets on zee table. The Slovenian lilt of our maid The Dotty hit the air like a gong. “Don’ts lets zee Dog eat zees tings. Its threws ups, makes zee biggest muss.” I could hear her head shaking from my doorpost vantage point. The Dotty shook her head so vigorously that at times I was scared she’d rock it off her body.

           The most popular curses in the Slovene language are “Tristo kosmatih medvedov”, translated as three hundred bears and “Naj te koklja brcne”, meaning a hen should kick you. The people of The Dotty’s country needed and reached for a stronger expression of negativity. Everyone passionately shakes their head because the swear words just don’t cut it.

           The Dotty had common sense. How could you not if you were the recipient of a life-changing event like being shipped in a wooden chest from Port Koper, Slovenia to America?

           When she spoke it sounded pretty weird. My miss youzze being vary observatory teday” or “Youzze fourths can reach the pineapple of saccess.” I’d a hunch that The Dotty speech irregularities were caused by her crate’s interior was sprayed with pesticides due to international fumigation regulations.

           Our parents went through a Tommy B. stage where half of the house was swathed in equatorial furniture sporting fruity designs and natural woven fabrics. The remaining unsalable pieces were shifted into our room aka study and left to our naughty children’s whims.

           Simon whittled the Samba game table to shavings of its former self. Ruby used the Fire Island Fire Pit as both a cradle for her multitude of dolls and toilet if the urge took her by surprise. Charl and I were fairly respectful of most of the leftovers, except for the St. Kits Media Hutch. We hated it.

           The Dotty’s voice soothed our nighttime Wall escapades. “Kids, childs, zis  lives on zee walls. Zems friends.”

           She’d end her Wall lecture, purple lips spouting wet kisses, as she deftly rolled Simon into cotton sheets. When The Dotty was finished, the poor guy looked like one of those Egyptian mummies that you see in horror movies.

           After completing her tasks, The Dotty gave each of us a tiny wave as she firmly shut the door, bolting it from the outside. Once The Dotty left, it was imperative for each of us to help unravel Simon. Otherwise, he’d be stuck like a half-eaten hot dog still in its wrapper.

                       The Dotty was wrong regarding the Wall. Our bedroom Wall swarmed at night with creatures. Charl, Simon, Ruby and I were fully aware of its potential for peril. We scanned our encyclopedia, looking for objects to ward off evil. In the beginning, the Wall was only subtly active. We’d spotted a few crawlies meandering along the ceiling’s molding – nothing like the full-blown top to bottom plague has become.

           Back then we shared a computer that had Internet. Charl drove the machine like Mozart writing his Symphony No.4 1^st Movement “Allegro”. Under Charl’s masterful fingers, amazing images flashed on the screen.

           Simon, Ruby and I tried to have her slow down a bit. We repeatedly hollered “That one! Stop! That one” to no avail. Amulets, talismans, fetishes, lucky pieces zipped by our noses – Charl wasn’t going to quit until she found it, the perfect protection.

           One unfortunate morning we lost our way in cyber space, the information super highway. During our hunt for Juju, Charl and I entered into some tricky business on the infobahn. We got shutdown, every bandwidth of computer access denied

           How could we battle The Wall without the Web? Our army of support was ripped right from under our eyeballs. Shock and terror enveloped each of us like a terminal disease. We dearly loved The Dotty and didn’t rust a word she’d said.

           Simon began to throw his knife at The Wall, even though being lit by the dawning sun all nefarious activities had ceased. Ruby began peeing right there on the spot. Thank the fairies that The Dog was visiting. It licked up the yellow dribble with gusto.

           The Dog wandered off as Charl announced her decision ­– a Black Cat Bone! Charl claimed that a Black Cat Bone was the solution for our invisibility. The Wall monsters, chimeras, whatevers, wouldn’t be able to discover our soul underneath bed sheets.

            I understood her perspective, but I’d problems with Charl’s method of acquisition. Having the priority status of being the first born, Charl bossed and rode herd on us like the reluctant rats that we were. 

           Our surprise came when Charl stipulated the exact scheme in which she would obtain a Black Cat Bone. She ordered Simon, Ruby and I to cooperate and collaborate with her.

           “Simon stop carving on the Samba and sit in on the fake tiger skin foot stool, Lolly, give up trying play a movie from Nevis media set-up. It never worked. Why do you think it was handed over to us? And Ruby, for goodness sake stop peeing in the fire pit, you know how I hate to have to ask The Dotty to buy more kitty litter. “

           Simon slunk to his furry seat. He hated to be interrupted when he was doing art chiseling. Simon was sure that when he grew up he’d become famous for taking a pre-exiting form and carving it down to something unrecognizable. Not one of us had the heart to tell Simon that we doubted if there would be much interest among art patrons in piles of sawdust.

           Ruby pulled up her pink and yellow polka dotted panties, scowled at Charl’s order and flung her chubby little body on the floor between my legs, almost knocking me into the Nevis.

           I growled “Ruby Tuesday knock it off!” She despised being called a restaurant chain, which served middling to poor burgers. I knew this, and used it as one of my training tools to keep Ruby in line.

           “Ruby and Lolly, stop roughhousing and go settle yourselves on the Kohala coconut wood bench.” I shot Charl a nasty upper lip snarl, she knew that I hated that pew. Miserable missionaries had sat on the thing. You could see white marks from their sweaty butts.

           But even worse, the bench had woven banana leaf backing that housed a formidable family of bugs. Ten minutes of sitting, and I’d sport a rash of red and white bites up and down my thighs, arms, back, and shoulders. Ruby was immune to the infestation, which made me angry that Charl had commanded us to take up our listening position at that spot.

           In an unusual light and bouncy mood, Charl moved over to the zebra skin covered boom box, snapped open a CD, placed it in the machine and pushed the go button. Our study filled with the raspy voice of Muddy Waters signing “Got a black cat bone, and got mojo too.” Charl punched the pause icon.

           Imitating a Greek tragedy chorus, we cried “ More! You can’t stop there! More! We need to hear more. More black cat bone mojo”. Charl waved her index finger at us, indicating that we had to shut our traps or there’d be no more casting magic tunes.

           “I will play the rest for you three when the right time comes. This isn’t the right time. Each of you must follow my orders to the T, or else.” Charl often threatened us with her “or else”. So far, no one had wanted to see what those words meant or held.

           Simon rotated his head so energetically that part of the phony tiger fuzz wafted into the air like he’d been blowing on dandelions. Ruby and I stared into space.

           I thought I’d spotted a Tokay lizard climbing up the artificial Bali Palm tree, but I assured myself that I was allowing my vivid imagination to run wild. Tokay lizards live in Southeast Asia, not in Bali. Or least I didn’t think so.  

           “Simon,” more fluff hit the space surrounding him, “ Your job is to grab the next door neighbor’s black cat”. I didn’t like the sound of this, but Charl continued.

           “ Lolly, you know that large pot in the back yard? The one you used last year to house your king snake? “

           I took my eyes of the putrid green palm fronds, and nodded. Certainly I knew the pot, by every inch, crack and peel. King and I had happy memories of it. But, what did Charl want with the pot? I was getting my old queasy tummy feeling. I didn’t trust her.

           Simon scratching his arms with his pairing knife, replied, “Yeah, I can snag that old cat. Though, I gotta user your glass-blowing gloves Charl, cause that’s one mean kitty. And maybe your HAZMAT suit?”

           Charl put one hand on her hips, with the other picked at her left ear, and pulled out a huge lob of orange earwax. She inspected this awesome material for a few seconds and then replied, “ Yes on the gloves. No on the HAZMAT gear.”

           Simon, denied the second wish, leapt off his tiger and began to whine, “ Oh, come on Charl! That thing has teeth and claws that won’t quit. Mmmmember when You told mmmme to pick it uuup? Thhhrow it like a javelin into the fountain? Iii..”

           “Can it Simon. This is more important than your skin. I need…” Charl’s squinty eyes looked at our faces and realized if she wanted agreement, she’d have to back track a bit. “Simon, Lolly and Ruby, we need this Black Cat Bone for our safety. Our invisibility. It is a life or death issue. Each of you realize that, don’t you? “

           Ha! I knew a ploy if I ever saw one, but right now I was going to sit tight, see how this all played out. Unless, of course, my bug bites become septic and I die from an infection that instantly spreads through my body, sending me into grand mal seizures and a coma from which I never return. A chill charged through the upper glands on my neck. I could feel them exploding, I had to get off this coconut husk from hell.

           “Charl, I’m popping out to the garden right now to collect it. Be back in a flash.” I made a dash for the doorway.

           “Don’t raise another foot, Lolly. Put’em both on the ground, and stay there – I told you it is all about the timing.” I crossed my legs and shimmied down onto the rug. Well, at least I was off the torture rack. 

           Crockery, while I was bugging myself about the bugs, Charl had reigned in her trot and moved towards the ghetto blaster. Simon, Ruby and I laid off breathing for a few secs. We gawked at her elbow as it punched the CD player’s on symbol.

           The study was awash with hoochie coochie man. Ruby, Simon and I vaulted into the jazzed-up air. We leapfrogged over one another as Charl belted out the words “ The gypsy woman told my mother before I was born, I got a girl child’s a coming’, she’s gonna be a daughter of a gun.” Sure, Charl’s changed the gender from boy to girl, but who cares? We’re backed by Muddy mojo!

           Our euphoria ended as abruptly as it began. The stereo froze on the words “I’m gonna mess with you”, tried to come to life again on “ On the seventh hours” and then went totally on the fritz. We collapsed like broken stringed puppets.

            Revived, we headed towards our usual stations of amusement. Simon went back to his blade and Samba table, Ruby dawdled to the fire pit for a pee and I traipsed over to the chartreuse colored palm tree in the far corner of the study. I just had to know if a Tokay gecko had decided to take up residence.

           In the midst of my scientific scrutiny, Charl hurled the words “hoochie coochie woman” across the room, giving me a whiplash it its aftermath.

           I chewed my upper lip in anxiety over Charl’s intrusion. 

           “Charl, Big Sis, what in the heck do you think your doing making a sound like that?” I wasn’t going to let anything go this time. One has to make boundaries in this household or you’re run into the ground in no time. I’d thought I’d spied the elusive lizard, nano seconds before Charl’s rude interruption. Therefore I needed to take control of the room’s outbursts.

           Simon pitched his cutter to the carpet and assumed his Jeet Kune Do

stance? Perhaps one day Simon will be a stud that can flip, toss or deflate any challenger. I seriously doubt it, as Simon has still to reach my height. We are all waiting for his growth spurt. But then, I guess in the martial arts genre, you don’t have to be the big guy on the block, only crafty

           At the exact same moment as Simon let go of his knife, Ruby let out a huge fart. We all pinched our noses. Boy oh boy, for such a tiny cute thing she sure can stink up a room fast.

           Charl, hands on her hips, “You wanna repeat that Lolly?” I backed closer into the verdant branches of the Bali-wood tree. Charl took three steps closer to my corner, the hem of her counterfeit Madonna costume caught on the jagged lip of the biscuit colored Saint Bart’s loveseat.

           Charl went down like Humpty Dumpty. A note on the sofa – The Dog had its way with the biscuit lounger years ago. Currently, it sagged mid-room – a reminder not to piss off The Dog.

           I crab-walked over to Charl, offering my left arm as a lifting aide. I would have extended my right one, but Miss Tarantula, in total fright, had leapt to my right ear and then decided to dangle her-self from my Caribbean parrot hoop earring. I was determined not to upset the apple cart, further. Charl could take the offer or leave it.

           Exhibiting the grace of a disposed despot Charl, clawed my bough of peace and rose, while gurgling, “ You are in big trouble, every one of you! Wait and see what the Wall has in store for you tonight.”

           Silence cried out, and I knew we had to ameliorate the situation. We’d be paying twice the dues later if we didn’t rectify it ASAP.

           “Charl chill. Take a seat.” I motioned to her favorite yellow beanbag chair; actually it was our favorite roosting place, being the most comfortable and least decrepit piece in the study. So far none of us, not even The Dog wanted to tackle that one. Perhaps because the thing wasn’t really yellow, but rather the color of too much over-buttered popcorn puke. It looked repulsive but was comfy.

           I’d moved up the leader ladder, I barked out a command, “The Black Cat Bone, hoochie choochie remedy, we gotta get working the mojo NOW!”

           I peeked over at Annie Doonie and Doonie Annie. They were with Thom inspecting the scenery. Simultaneously, each gave me an encouraging thumb up. Emboldened by their support, I shouted out my best imitation of a drill sergeant,

“ Troops to the ready. About face!”

           I intended to yank this Black Cat Bone project right out from under Charl’s flat feet. A note here on Charl’s feet: They were exceptionally wide, mimicking the appearance of duck feet and stank like a sewer pond.

           Charl languished on her of chicken-skinned colored plastic ball, raised one leg towards the bamboo ceiling, twirled her ankle ballerina style, and using her best Zendaya aka K.C. Undercover voice ordered, “Stay put, Simon and Ruby.”         Sending me a general’s piercing stare Charl belted out “Lolly, attention!” I shrugged my shoulders, got into formation. Charl snapped her palms together in a mock army cadence. “Mark time. ...half step…column right, march…half step…column left, march…to the rear march…change step…right step…left step…mark time!” Whew I got dizzy trying to keep up, my legs felt like jelly bellies.

           I glanced over at Simon and Ruby, willing them to join my ranks, but those two sat like “hear no evil” and “see no evil “ monkeys.

           “Eyes right! Eyes left.” Charl was in full command now. “Lolly, on hearing “Halt”, take one more step and then bring your trailing foot alongside your leading foot, resuming the position of attention.”

           My ears turned into old style hearing trumpets. I listened for the relief word, HALT. Instead, I fell forward into the arms of my savior Thom Piddow. He gently lowered me to the pineapple embossed rug while Annie Doonie and Doonie Annie covered me with my favorite quilt. I was out for the count.