Deliverance

Deliverance

It was 1 a.m. and Della had gotten nowhere. If these walls could speak and tell me what to do….….the professional handyman was coming tomorrow at 9 and she had to decide what to do with this old kitchen floor, with its cracked tiles that had probably been dove-grey. At least it wasn’t linoleum. Her daughter Pia, who ate only organic except when she ate out, had discussed certain rugs and furniture with dangerous chemicals, what were they called? that were toxic for humans and then polluted the environment once they reached the dump. Forever chemicals?  Have to check it out.

Apparently you were supposed to put a floor on top of a floor, which probably had been laid on top of another floor and this would avoid releasing asbestos, if it had been used in the tiles or glue – one of the old miracle substances like fiberglass and DDT, banished after long years of service to mankind.

She had seen layered work before. Della was almost seven when the family moved to The Old House. The kitchen had vinyl wallpaper with boats. She’d begun excavating, scraping away about two square inches on a piece of wall that was hidden by a door that they never closed. Beneath the boats on vinyl was another vinyl layer with flowers in loud yellows and oranges, and below that was beige paper with tiny pink and blue flowers. Under some plaster she’d found yet another layer (deep red) but couldn’t find a motif. The family moved out before she turned 8, which put an end to archaeological exploration.

Della stared at the floor: tried to picture a whitewashed parquet that was waterproof (really?) Or perhaps light oak – toned ‘parquet’ that wasn’t real parquet – something that clicked together and was guaranteed for five years. What was five years for a kitchen floor? It sounded cheap. Maybe there were those chemicals in the finish. Then there was the ‘new’ vinyl, printed with Moroccan or Portuguese tiles, that gave your room a Mediterranean feel, something far away from northern Westchester, where they’d moved to escape Covid in the city and kick off retirement.

This damn environment. In her day it wasn’t about environment, it was about opposing the Vietnam war. She’d marched on Washington, demonstrated in New York City, sent angry letters and picketed draft centers, Dennis did jail time as a conscientious objector, and eight guys who’d graduated with her left for Canada. You dropped acid or you wore the same clothes for three weeks and quacked like a duck when you went in for the Army physical. The beauty of a 4F: out of commission, out of the war. You did anything to get out of being drafted and being shipped off to fight Communism in a place where they had recently finished fending off the French. She forgot what happened before the French and reminded herself to check Wikipedia.

Like wallpaper: scraping away one story there was always another. Some Lebanese were Syrian, some Jordanians were Palestinian, some Israelis were Druse, some Iranians were…Shia, some Iraqis were Sunni (or was it the other way round?) And apparently most Palestinians were descended from Jews (where did she read that?) What lay beneath the red layer? How many fashions, movements, rages, wars, deaths over one hundred and fifty years? 

If these walls could speak they’d curse. She was confused and angry. And the gathering storm outside didn’t help. Della wished she were already in bed asleep, with ear blockers and the white noise machine so she could ignore the flashes and shifting booms and sleep through it. 

The house she and Dennis had just purchased was built in the nineteen-fifties, a sort of Smart Colonial, a bit larger than a planned neighborhood house where post-war husbands in hats walked up identical paths to identical houses after work, the economy blossomed and women stayed home. Everything a Boomer was up against: the conformity, the rabid anti-Communism, social anxiety and the growing heat of consumerism. From the stiff pink clip-on curlers you wore to bed, the primitive sanitary pads, confining girdles, stockings that ran, there was always a female accident waiting to happen. The minutiae and pettiness of the times, the layers, all those layers. Oh shit. It was after 2 a.m. Where was she with the parquet? perhaps tiles?  Back to brick? The sixties, dark wood and orange weavings?

But then if she had a new floor put in they’d have to consider new appliances, in addition to the essential paint-job to cover up the baby-blue walls. She’d already pulled down the small flounce curtains…. Curtains?  shades? And the walls again: what color? With brick you probably needed something neutral: calming beige? Or pale rust, warm and glowy, like being stoned in 1967. She’d seen on the net there was a new kind of paint that reflected light and changed intensity depending on the time of day or where you were standing. New cabinets, for sure. Would there be a gas stove? Or induction with a smooth glass surface? 

The move to the countryside (she didn’t say suburbs) was her new life, full of intention--- to live everything that wasn’t City, away from the subways and dogshit. Retire.  Retirement….Retire meant…..

But come to think of it why was she even bothering with this shit? She hated cooking and Dennis was not really conscious of his surroundings. He’d gone along with her desire to move, but had returned to the city for a lecture on post-modern existentialism.  Della had wanted be out walking in the woods, identifying trees, recognizing birds; acknowledging nature. That’s what they’d moved here for. She sighed and ambled over to the coffee pot that was heating that morning’s coffee on the hot plastic ring. Had to drink it before the ominous popping sound of drying dregs. Shit, in the city you’d just go around the corner, who needed a coffee-maker? There was always instant coffee for guests and emergencies.

Here she was! Back in the fifties, come full circle, keeping house, decorating, feathering somebody else’s dirty old nest, rethinking someone else’s idea of a home, trying to repurpose her life at seventy. Why had they chosen this house? As a matter of fact why had they moved at all? Her phone said 2:28 am., how had  it gotten so late? The old clock on the wall with black numbers showed at 8:42 – indifferently a.m. or p.m.  

She saw brilliant flashes through the now curtainless windows, followed immediately by shattering cracks of thunder. It should clear the air like deliverance. 

_ _ _ _

‘Like a flash of panic across a landscape of fear’ the nurse recalled her saying  when Della woke up at the hospital. 

She had extensive burns, mostly second degree, but the house had been badly hit. The Fire Department declared the whole property a disaster zone.