Home is Where

I hope I'm safe. Hope nobody notices that I'm here. I had to risk coming, though. It's been a long time, but I had to come. We all have debts that, sooner or later, must be paid. It has taken twenty years, two whole decades, for me to do it, but better late than never, as they say. As my conscience says. I wish it didn't.

These are my streets, or they were once. They were my world, the center of my universe. Once I knew every crack in the sidewalks, every metal plaque, every shop window framed in peeling paint. I knew the little sign indicating the house that had once formed part of the Underground Railroad where escapees from the South sought refuge. As a little girl, I always wanted to go into the house, to see what I imagined must be the tunnel, subterranean, connected to it, where people came groping their way toward a new life. Now, of course, I wonder if that tunnel was just a metaphor, but I really don't want to know for sure at this point. Just let me believe.

I recall another plaque set on a post to commemorate the residence of a Admiral William Sampson, commander in the Spanish-American War. I didn't know much about that war, but like most of the ones I've learned about since, it wasn't really one to be proud of. Back then, it sounded pretty impressive that someone born in my little town had been involved in such a big event. Not that I knew where the war had taken place nor what the Spanish part meant. (I only studied Spanish years later. Cuba I would also visit years later. The plaque must have been a premonition.)

There's a tall metal structure in town called the Republican pole and it stands about 150 feet high. It was made of wood in 1868, but the steel version is from 1892. I guess I was proud that my father was asked or volunteered to go up it to attach a flag. He used his spikes, which were made for climbing trees, so he was crazy to do that on a metal structure. That flag is no longer there and my father is also long gone, but it still was a crazy thing to do, even if he thought he was doing it out of patriotism. Guess I don't understand risking one's life for a flag.

I once knew places that seem to have disappeared or been transformed into something much less valuable to town life. Or to me, at least. Since I am pretty close to posthumous now, it is possible that there are no longer any residents of P... who recall or spent time in the Lunch-In, for example. I hated the dull green formica counter top and booths, but loved the cherry cokes that cost ten cents. (Don't laugh. Coke came from a tap back then, and across Main Street a quart of milk or a loaf of white bread in the deli cost a quarter. I would work one summer in that deli. It was my very first job and I got it because the owner was my boyfriend's grandfather was the owner. I learned some good skills there.)

The owner of the Lunch-In preferred to lose business for a month in the summer when the Mormons came to town for their pageant. He must have been a feminist because spoke out harshly about the practice of having many wives and refused to serve the pageant actors. During the month of July I missed the cherry cokes and had to go instead to The Newstand. In this place I bought many comics, mostly the Archie and Jughead series, and when I had a quarter or thirty cents to spend, a Mexican sundae with whipped cream.. I always wondered where the Mexican part came from.) I've never had another Mexican sundae, never wanted one, although I have studied Spanish and been to Mexico. Who knew?

My streets no longer have two shoe stores, a dry goods store, a five and dime, the insurance company belonging to my best friend's father, a florist shop, a sporting goods store, two women's clothing stores, or any of the other places that made the downtown area that extended a scant three blocks into a shopping place so complete nobody ever thought they needed to go into the city or a mall. I don't think any of the places you could buy things belonged to retail chains. They all bore the names of people who lived in town or were owned by a local family. There was a Strand Theater, though, where a scowling man with a heavy Greek accent and an equally scowling wife with dyed black hair would sell tickets behind a scruffy window for a dime or a quarter. I saw many movies there, but the one that still is fresh in my memory is Custer's Last Stand because I felt so sorry for all the horses that died in the battle.

The Rock Shop (useless to me) is still here, probably because it was a purveyor of objects that simply added to messy collections in some people's homes. There's a pizza shop that changes names every so often, but what they sell is nowhere near as good as what you could get at the edge of P... in The Diner. Maybe Evy's Hot Dog Stand is still around, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Evy was quirky and famous for it. I don't smoke, but somehow I've ended up with an ashtray from there. Such memories. But I'm getting off track...

Here I am, hoping nobody notices I'm back. I 've thought a lot about how t o carry out my task and come out alive. Do not think I'm exaggerating. It's not a funny matter.

My first idea was to wear a wig with long gray hair that I could tie back tightly, and maybe even walk with a cane, simulating a limp. (I don't have that condition, I don't limp, just FYI.) That wasn't a bad idea, but it didn't sit well with me after I thought about it some more. The things, or rather, the people I fear might see through that disguise since I am, after all, a mature woman. Not old, just mature. However, I don't like wigs at all and prefer not to fakee a bad hip or knee.

In the end, I opted to cut my hair even shorter than I normally wear it and should note that although it hasn't turned really gray, I did touch up the color a bit. Because I'm short and am lacking in curves, plus I prefer to wear skirts like some old ladies do, it was fairly easy to dress as a boy. That, I'm thinking, should help keep people from figuring out my identity. I am wearing a knitted or a baseball cap (Yankees, of course), switching one for the other as required to keep people from seeing me in the same outfit as I walk. After adding faded jeans with holes and an old T-shirt, I am feeling ready to brave the elements - human ones, that is - in P... I do have work to do.

I have left my car parked on Canandaigua Street, on the other side of my old grade school, which is still in the same place albeit looking a bit worse for the wear. From there, I've walked in the direction I need to go. It was only a block to Main Street where my mother was once a volunteer crossing guard, and there I turned right. I am walking toward the edge of P..., in the direction of Newark (a really ugly town; I was always glad I didn't live there even if I had a boyfriend from there for a little while). It should only take me about fifteen minutes walking quickly to reach my goal. I know I can do this.

I am fairly calm, even knowing that if I am discovered, it could mean the death of me. My disguise is quite good, if I do say so myself. From a distance, with a cap pulled down close to my eyes, I look like a young boy. (I forgot to say I'm also wearing a high school jacket I managed to get online before this visit.) I've got my eyes peeled for any tall men - men sounds funny, but they long since grew up, got countless tattoos, and joined the drug circuit - who might be staring at me. There are none. So far.

I am also watching the street to see if anybody goes by on a Harley Davidson or a loud car and slows down to check me out. This all reminds me of Stephen King's The Green Mile, although the distance I need to cover might not be that long. So far, everything looks like it's working and I'll make it safely to where I need to go. Maybe I'll cross Main Street again, just to change things up. I do wish Colacino's Grocery were still around, but that was replaced by a Breen's or a Bell's a long time ago. That family was from the next town over and I knew the brothers.

I see now that the pawn shop is still in business and can imagine that it still takes in items stolen from homes in town. Certainly the people I'm trying to avoid having identify did that with things from my mother's house. They stole and stole until there was nothing of value left to steal. The pawnbroker had to be a real rat, because he knew the tall young men coming in with that furniture hadn't come by the pieces honestly. It's too late to go in to see if I recognize anything on the shop floor. No way to take things that large with me, either. Plus, it might give me away and I can't risk that. I need to finish what I've started and leave.

I see a very inked-up man walking toward me and feel all my muscles go stiff. It was probably stupid to try to pass as a young man. I might have the body shape, but my face might give me away. I need to stay calm, look down at the sidewalk, not hesitate. It occurs to me now that I underestimated how many minutes it will take to get where I'm going. Not fifteen minutes; closer to thirty. I'm allowing myself to get distracted.

The tattooed fellow passes and never even notices me, and I only have two more blocks that could be perilous for an encounter with one of the people who would as soon kill me as look at me. Again, do not think I exaggerate; they've already threatened me years ago and their anger has certainly grown over time. They're not very smart and they have warped imaginations. Mostly they're angry because they didn't get to occupy my mother's house (which was where I grew up). I inherited it and sold it, although not for a penny of profit. They wanted to run their drug business out of it and I vowed to stop them. Yes, they really do wish me harm.

I can see the house now and have to force myself to keep walking, not stop to look at it, or succumb to the temptation to go ring the doorbell that may or may not work. That would definitely give me away. Still, I sense that I'm slowing down, aching everywhere, trying to gather in the view of the house from the sidewalk, wishing I could get a photo. Yes! I've got my cell and as I pretend to be texting somebody, I turn it briefly to get a shot of the front porch. The old brownstone porch that was so ugly but at the same time so elegant. It's all I'll ever have of it now.

A few more steps and I've passed where the old Sellen Hotel used to be until it burned down. The place where I used to wait for the high school bus. The place where I went to have a blind robin at the bar with my father (not to drink, I wasn't old enough and not interested; the blind robin was what he took me to try). I cross Main Street for the last time, and am nearing the Sampson house, which still has its plaque because its owner had been a famous admiral after all.

Finally I'm on Vienna Street, which now makes me think of the city in Europe but didn't back when I was a girl and never thought I'd go to Europe a lot. It's a quiet street with lots of big trees, but it's too close to the cemetery for my liking. That's ironic, because it's the cemetery I need to visit. The problem is, I need to go back in my memory two decades to recall where I need to go once inside. The metal arch with letters on it, set on two brick posts, greets me. I feel like bowing my head as I pass beneath it.

Intuition tells me to head off to the right, in the second part of the cemetery. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I have no Plan B, so I must concentrate. I can only hope. I can only try to locate what I seek by relying on that thing with feathers, as Emily Dickinson called it.

And I am here at last. The plot for four people, with three of the places now occupied. One is still empty. I needed to come in order to see if I could manage to do so unseen. Otherwise I know I would be reliving, in death, that film I should never have watched - the one that had a cult following and revived - more irony - the original version. I Spit on Your Grave, 2010, but based on one from 1978. Revenge horror. I know it well, in my mind, know it is possible. The last time I was here, I had to ignore the obscene gestures made toward me and did. Now I don't feel as able to manage the stoic attitude.

I truly don't want anybody to spit on my grave, don't want anybody to know if I end up here. Since I have made it here without being seen, it seems this is possible.

I think I'll sit down on the soft, very green grass, and think about my options, maybe get some advice from my mother. That is, if she's not angry with me for not returning for twenty years. She never knew, poor thing, how much the rest of the family hated me because of what I'd done with her house, never knew what I saved it from becoming. I know they'd spit, all of them, and I'd hate for any of that to get on her grave.

Mom, what should I do? And do you recognize me in my disguise? Am I home?