Hoping Against Hope

   I’m not superstitious, but I’m smart enough to connect the dots and see a pattern. I don’t know if I’d call it magic, but there’s something in Auntie Au’s sleeping porch. A power for both good and evil. And I got a hold of it. The tricky part - how do you know if there is a good and evil?

    Although it’s not a trick question, I want to ask some bar fly who’s hoisting beers next to me: “do you know how hard it is to take money from a guy who is living in your old house with your old wife?” I can picture this guy I’m sitting next to giving me a long serious look on his face, like this, and shake his head.

    To lead him further down the path of sympathy, I’ll add this: “It’s like they dragged me out and threw me on the curb. Like a soiled mattress.”

    “That sucks.” He’ll say and continue shaking his head.

    Then I’ll burst out laughing. “It ain’t hard. In fact, it’s easy as hell. It might be hard for him to give me money, but I take it every time. If somebody gives you money, my advice is, take it.”

      I bring up this little vignette because I know what I’m gonna do. I’m super confident it’ll work. It’s the right thing to do, at least for someone standing in my shoes.  

    I’m surprised though because I’m sitting in Aunt Au’s sleeping porch, with a queasiness around my stomach. I’m thinking of Robin, my ex-wife’s lover. Man, that’s a mouth full, telling you who Robin is. And a flash of worry waves over me – am I feeling sorry for Robin? If anything, I should feel sorry for a guy being called Robin. I don’t have anything against him, and don’t plan to do anything against him. Not yet. He wasn’t sleeping with Terri, my ex, when I was married. That’s another guy, who I do have a problem with. This Robin, he’s living in my old house, which isn’t good. Yeah, I should be able to pay my own way, and if this works, I will. Me needing a big break isn’t so much about me being bad, more about my bad luck. Let me explain how things will turn around real soon.

    For those who can’t imagine life before AC, a sleeping porch was like a three-season porch on the second floor. Except no steps down to the street. And it’s always in the rear of the house. When this one was built, it’s where you went when the nights were hot and stuffy, and you couldn’t sleep inside because the sheets clung to your sweaty body. It’s also a good place for when your spouse was getting on your nerves. You know, a place to cool down before things get crazy. I could’ve used one of those for both reasons when I was married.

    As a kid I slept up here with my sister. I remember the coolness of the night sneaking through the balusters below the handrail, a dog barking in the distance, as we slept in sleeping bags on the floor. Like lying in a lean-to, except we were ten feet off the ground. I didn’t notice anything special, no powers about the room, until I began staying in Aunt Au’s house this summer. She passed away in April, age ninety-three and still living at home. My sister said she couldn’t do the stairs anymore. She was found in the downstairs bedroom, although she never properly moved into it.

    As my Mom’s baby sister, Aunt Au was the last one left of my parent’s generation. As a spinster, she left her house to my Mom, or in this case, her sister’s descendants.  Built in the 1880s, it was painted white with green trim and shutters, and had a scary cellar for a kid. Lots of spider webs and dark spaces around the rickety shelving, ladened with slimy things like dill pickles or jarred squash.

    Back then, the sleeping porch meant fresh air and daylight. Aunt Au kept her house in good nick and had an ancient gardener who kept it thick with perennials. The blue hydrangeas and pink rose of Sharon are still going strong.  Today, the gardener is dead. The yard looks a bit shaggy.

    The best thing about the sleeping porch used to be you seeing the lake. See, if you looked between the back ends of the white clapboard houses of the Smiths and the Duncans, and across the street, you’d see that flat blue. When I was little, looking through the afternoon sun, the water shone as blue as those pictures of the Caribbean. The water doesn’t shine as bright these days, but it’s still my preferred way to relax, looking at the lake, drink in hand. 

    I loved that room as a kid. Once Au saw how much Sis and me liked it up there, she bought two single beds, one on each of the side walls. I slept in the one on the left. Still do. I love waking up, looking at the powder blue ceilings. I’ve been told they painted their porch ceilings that color blue to keep the spirits away. It didn’t work in this room.

    The décor up here is cool too. Above my bed is a painting of a brown bear lumbering into the darkness on the edge of a woods. On the other wall is a red fox running out of a barn with something in its mouth. My guess it’s a chicken. Besides the paintings and the beds, Au had a card table and a vintage 70s office chair. The chair is a gem: avocado polyester cloth over the bottom and back cushions, and the damn thing doesn’t break – not like the office crap you buy today. It’s a piece of magic. I still roll around in the chair now, you know, get some momentum sliding towards the door when I have to leave. Puts a spring in my step. However, like the beds, I haven’t moved the desk. I’m not moving anything because I’m onto something. 

    When I moved out of the rental and came here May 28, I dropped my laptop on the stairs, so I started using Aunt Au’s laptop. She left it right on the card table, plugged in for the battery, with a note stating all the important information, like passwords and wifi. Makes me think Au wanted me in her house. She never did like Terri. Plus, Au’s laptop has some cool family photos on it. With our blond hair, Sis and I were cute kids. Sadly, neither of us are blond anymore. After I got a new laptop, thanks Robin, I still use Au’s for journaling and emails. You can’t beat the view and the memories. 

    The between girl, that’s what I call the woman I dated after my ex and what’s next. She recommended I journal. That made sense as I’m starting a new life, and need to leave somethings behind. By keeping a journal, I can see how I’m doing, moving between what I had and what I want. Being able to see the difference has given me a new perspective.

    I didn’t notice it at first, just doing emails or journaling, but reading over the passages, it’s pretty clear. For instance, I sent a note to my ex-wife, Terri. Our speaking terms were like the two sides in low intensity guerilla war - we don’t want to kill each other per se, just make the other so miserable that they move out. At least for me. Terri is staying where I used to live, and I can’t afford the mortgage, but her beau can. I think they’re paying me in checks, so they can prove what they’ve giving me. I have this sneaky suspicion in two years, when they come down hard to get me to sign over the house, they can say to the court: we’ve paid him the value of the mortgage while paying off the mortgage ourselves. 

    Those two say I’m avoiding divorce because I don’t want to give up the house. Maybe they’re right. I’m not making much right now, working for a landscaping company. I don’t mind it now, as I get to be outside while the grass is green, and collect unemployment after the first flurries fly. Things will get better for me. Real soon.

    Anyway, our youngest child, Beth, a marketer by training, interviewed for a job way above her experience level. While keeping cool in the sleeping porch, I emailed Terri on Au’s laptop, writing, I hope against hope Beth gets the job. But I’m not getting my hopes up. She’s consistently underemployed.

    Terri responded, I wonder where she gets that from. The bitch is talking about me, and my employment history. Anyway, two days later Beth is offered the job, with higher salary, good bennies. We’re all happy.  I couldn’t help sending to Terri, I guess Beth does take after me. Maybe you should keep your mouth shut. I know, a tad aggressive, but I’m annoyed at her constant ragging while she’s living with a bald guy named Robin, who is an accountant. I mean, come on, what’s exciting about the guy.

    Another piece to the puzzle has been Frank, a dead-beat slob, who somehow moved into the house next to Au. I don’t know how he got inside unless he has relatives paying his way. His lawn hasn’t been mowed in a month. I’ve never seen a lawnmower on his property. And there’s old plastic lawn chairs and folding tables and boxes stacked up on the porch like he’s a caterer who went out of business. 

    Like I said, I’m not superstitious, but I liked hope against hope, and I like this spot on the porch, and the laptop, so I emailed my sister, I hope against hope that Bill, who cuts Au’s lawn, will cut Frank’s lawn.

    Truth be told, Frank has been a bit of thorn in my side for a while. See, he parks his car in front of my place, or Au’s house, and he’s wearing away the grass between the road and the slate side walk. Oh, another thing about Frank. Being a bit older than me, he likes walking around the block, which is cool, but he takes a walking stick with him. Yeah, no big whoop, except the ground end of the stick has a two-inch metal prong, looks like a big nail poking out. Odd, right? Like, what’s he gonna do, stab rattlers? They don’t even live in these parts? Plus, the damn stick makes this kind of cement-scratching, clopping sound. Anyway, I heard the scuff thump as Frank galumphs down the sidewalk, so I run out.

    “Hey Frank.”

    He turns around with little steps, like he can’t turn his neck, and looks at me.

    “What with this?” I wave at his car and the lawn.

    “What do you mean,” he says in his dumb voice.

    “I mean, you’re ruining the grass in front of my place. Park it in front of your place.”

    It took him a minute to respond, and finally he squeezes out, “It’s a free country, and it’s free parking street.” Then he walked away from me and went inside his house. When he did, I wanted to do a backwards horse kick with my steel re-enforced work boots into his silly Dodge Charger. I mean, what kind of 70-year-old drives an old orange charger? I kept my cool, and went to my journal. 

    I felt something special about the journal or the sleeping porch, but I still didn’t want to believe. I had to test it, so I journaled, I hope against hope Frank wraps the stupid Dodge Charger around a telephone pole after a night out. I’m pretty sure Frank is a boozer. He looks the part with flabby, sallow skin and his eyes don’t focus well. It’d be a just ending.

    I forgot to mention, last week, I almost twisted my ankle when I walked by Frank’s place. He had pulled out a piece of broken slate from the sidewalk. After I stumbled but didn’t fall, I looked around for Frank. Instead of him, I  saw the rock triangle leaning against the third and fourth step to Frank’s front door. He painted a pink peace sign on it.

    When I made it up to my sleeping porch, I wrote in my personal pages, I’m hoping against hope that someone Frank knows breaks their ankle in the sinkhole. 

    Here’s the topper: Later the same day, I hear a baby bawling and someone moaning. When I went outside, I see a young woman, sprawled in Frank’s driveway, next to a stroller. Bill, the good neighbor is helping her. I decided to keep my distance, so I went back inside, closing the door gently. Anyway, I’ve had it with Frank. It’s when I started to see the pattern. Sure, I’m sad someone innocent got hurt, but I’m glad it happened. I hope she sues the shit of out Frank. 

   Yesterday, late morning, I hear the hum of Bill’s electric lawn-mower across the street. Sure enough, I look out, and Bill’s using it to hack some paths through Frank’s weed jungle.

    Meanwhile, while I’m drinking my coffee at the card table, I get a text from Robin, you know, my wife’s boy toy, and he writes: Terri had a weird mishap, out on a sailboat this morning, on a team building exercise. A freak wind swung the boom around and smacked Terri in the jaw. She’s out of surgery and has her mouth wired shut. I thought you’d want to know, please offer thoughts and prayers.

    In the privacy of the sleeping porch, looking over the freshly cut grass along our side of the street, then to the lake where Terri must have been sailing. I’m thinking whose thoughts and prayers are you talking about. I have to admit I smiled, then giggled, before saying to air around me in a perky voice, “thank you.”

    Switching to emails, I went to Sent to read the end of my last text to Terri. Maybe you should shut your mouth. I mean, I had the right to say it: “or somebody will shut it for you.”

    At Au’s laptop, I close it with a slow follow through, like I just finished writing a novel. The peace is ruined when I hear a scraping sound, and Frank must be out again. I remember what I wrote to my sister about his car. It hasn’t worked – at least not yet. An accident would be the fourth tire to go flat. 

    However, I see Bill with one of those stupid lawn implements that supposedly cuts the sod, which grows over your sidewalk. Like they never work. Anyway, Bill’s nice to me, mows my lawn, so I walk out to see what he knows.

    Bill shakes his head when he sees me. “Frank had a bad accident last night. Wrapped it around a pole. He’s in intensive care. He has some internal injuries and a wicked concussion, but they expect him to pull through. That’s why I’m fixing his lawn.”

    Bill must have seen my face because he said to me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you knew him. It’s a shame when anybody gets severely injured.”

    I pursed my lips to crush the smile, keeping my mouths firmly closed. I didn’t want to speak as a smile might sneak out. I shook my head.

    “I’ll call if I hear anything,” Bill said as I climbed my steps.

    The accident happened, kind of like I specified, but not enough. I have to be more precise when I write what will happen to Terri once she’s out of the hospital. Or maybe while she’s there. The car accident worked well, however, I have to be more specific. Take your time, I tell myself.

   I’ll type it out in my journal on Au’s laptop in the sleeping room. I’m using hoping against hope. Maybe throw in a fatal brain aneurysm. I mean, why mess with what’s working?  Afterall, maybe it’s Au’s laptop. Or the hope against hope. Or a combination.

    Not that I hate her – she’s the mother of my two daughters. I do, a little, but I want my house back. No, not because I want to live there. I’m not leaving Au’s place – I’ll even pay my sister rent. I want to sell the house I used to live in. I need the money. And I’d love to see Robin moving his shit out – by himself. 

    Where is this sense of vengeance coming from? I know it’s a human emotion, but I’ve got it in spades. And I like it. Sure, maybe it’s the power talking, giving some cover so the pettiness to slip out.

   I sit down at Au’s laptop. Like a I’m writing an acceptance speech, I rub my hands together, then blow on my fingers for good luck. If I get this one, there’s no such thing as good or evil.