Meeting the mafia

 1979  Boston

I wanted to take Kristen to Vermont to show her where I’d gone to boarding school. I was entirely comfortable with hitchhiking and mentioned my plans to Keyo, but he became concerned. Keyo, I said, I’ve always hitchhiked and enjoyed it. I’ve met some incredibly good people that way.  I’m a good judge of character. I know who to trust and how to talk my way out of trouble.

He knew he wasn’t going to change my mind so he pulled me gently over to his pack. Karen, I want you to carry my knife. If anyone gives you trouble, you’ll have it to protect yourself. You won’t have to use it, but wear it on your belt and when people see it, they’ll know you mean business. I laughed, Yes, and when they ask me what I do for a living, I’ll say, I’m a spiritual teacher and here is my switch blade knife. He insisted. I took the knife to make him feel better and headed out the next day.

The knife was big and deadly, like nothing I’d ever seen. I pushed a button and a long sharp blade sprang into action. The metal shone of polished silver and frightened even me. I fastened it to my belt, like Keyo had recommended and prepared for our trip.

It began the next morning when a small pick-up pulled over to give us a ride and a policeman materialized from nowhere. He peered in the driver’s window and delivered a lecture about delivering us safely to our destination. No foul play, he warned. The driver was  put out. Man, I stop to do somebody a favor and the next thing you know, I’m being pulled over and treated like a criminal. I apologized and we went safely on our way. We had two more short rides and then climbed into a car driven by two young men, who talked about the Mafia like it was the Boys Club.

We talked easily, laughed and seemed to have a lot in common. They lived near by and offered an evening meal, shelter for the night and a swim in the pool. It sounded good, so we agreed. The car left the highway and threaded along a tall cornfield,  loose gravel pounding the window. Dust blocked my vision. When we reached the house, Kristen and I climbed down from the cab. The boy’s mother came out, asking who we were and where we had come from. When they explained that we were hitchhikers, an already heated conversation exploded. It was in Italian, so I don’t know what was said, but certainly got the drift. It was something like, these people are scum, get them out of here.

One of the men broke away and said, I apologize for my mother. She is very old fashioned, but it’s ok for you to be here.  His mother was heavy set, with thick black hair pulled away from her face, and a mind that measured the world in threats and dangers. This may not be a good idea, I said. No, no! He insisted. It’s late, we’ll swim and then you can stay in the guest house above the garage. You’ll be fine here, don’t mind my mother. I minded his mother a lot and so did he.

None-the-less, we changed into our suits and cooled off in the pool. It was a nice contrast to standing in the hot sun and being bathed in car exhaust. One of the boys went into the field and picked fresh corn. We tore back golden husks and ate it sweet and raw, while lingering in the pool. The sun was going down when we climbed out. I made my way to the changing house, put my hand on the door knob and turned it hard, but it didn’t open. I pushed again. That’s odd, I thought, I must have locked it by mistake. I turned around to ask for help and discovered that the boys had been sent into the house on an errand - their mother was standing in back of me.

She grabbed my arm and led me to a bench, I have locked the door, she told me. You can not enter. You must leave my house at once. Do not harm my boys. You are a mother, you know what I mean. She pointed to my clothes, which she’d piled on the ground outside, then lifted the knife from its holder. You are a dangerous woman and must leave my house at once.

I was speechless. I’d never been seen as a dangerous person and the idea that I might over power her sons with a knife was incredible. Her sons emerged from the house once again, and Italian words flew hot and fast. They stood nose to nose, each pleading their case in shouts and bursts of emotion, without anyone being heard.

One of the boys broke away, grabbed my clothes and showed us to the guest house. It will be all right, he assured us. It’s too late to leave. Rest well and go in the morning. Kristen and I looked at each other in bewilderment, as we hung our wet suits on the shower and talked about the events of the day. We were settling in for bed, when a car came screeching to a halt outside the window. Doors sprang open in unison. Six large Italian men got out, all of them carrying guns. The boy who had shown us to the guest house flew up the stairs.

I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave now, he said gasping for breath. You’ll be all right, Momma has sent some friends to make sure you go back to the highway. We didn’t even retrieve our suits from the shower wall, just grabbed our belongings as we were hurried out the door.

Kristen and I sat in the dark along the road, glad to be gone. I thought about throwing the knife away, but knew it was expensive and that Keyo would want it back. We cuddled together on my suitcase and sang songs, while we waited for some sign of life in the traffic lane.

We were picked up moments later by a man who was on his way home to his four children. He was generous and kind, invited us to stay the night and we accepted. We climbed the stairs to a guest bedroom, pulled back covers on a queen size bed and quickly fell asleep. Only I didn’t stay asleep. I tossed and turned and dreamed violent dreams of people being stabbed by knives. I was so angry with myself for agreeing to carry a weapon, because it was doing the opposite of what it was intended to do; it was endangering us.

In the morning, over a breakfast of orange juice and muffins, I learned that our host was vacationing with his children, because his wife had been brutally murdered only one month before. I offered my sympathies and asked how she’d died. Someone broke into our home while I was away, he said with tears welling in his eyes, and stabbed her to death. I listened to his sorrow and realized that my dreams had not been produced by anxiety, but were images resulting from very real terror.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We were delivered safely to Vermont, walked around the school grounds, looked up acquaintances and got a ride back to Boston with an old friend, who had career-shuttled from musician to CPA. Upon returning I looked up Keyo and delivered his knife, glad to be free of it! I had learned an important lesson about the energy objects hold and attract, and that my personal safety had more to do with my outlook and essence, than it had to do with carrying weapons.

The Leaving Time

I have that ache I get in my heart when the leaving time comes. The hugs, unspoken sadness and the drop off at the airport, all pull at me in the core of my belly. I was not designed for modern life. I need friends and family at my fingertips, not scattered in far flung locations around the globe. 

My son’s wife, Khrystyne is in Los Angeles. She has the flu today, a raw throat, fever and headaches. I want to walk over with chicken soup, tea and flowers for the table, bend down, kiss her forehead and tell her not to worry. 

I want to walk an ocean beach, share lunch and talk about writing and poetry with Dicksie. I want to see her paintings take shape and listen to the dreams she dreamed, but she is in Arizona. 

I long to sit at the large wooden table in my sister Kristen’s kitchen, soak in stories about the children in her life,  and watch as she rides her bike to school and back. I want to feel our 60 years of history and know the open place in her heart that remembers ‘us’ and expands to embrace me whenever I appear. 

My empty house will fill in quickly with work assignments, clients, phone calls and challenges.  I’ll welcome them, as I blend again inside my days, the fullness of friends, family and routine. But there will be that raw place first, that invisible surge that pushes against an old aloneness I work to live above. It will hit me like cold water as I open the door.  

The mother hen in me wants to gather the people I love around me, enfolding them in my wings. I send emails instead. 

The clouds form a solid cover outside the window in shades of iridescent pearl. They perch above an expanse of blue mountains and rust covered earth. It’s seven o’clock in the morning. The blast furnace that is Phoenix sits unfelt inside the cool cabin of the plane. Another lift off.  Another coming.  Another going.  Another touching down.

The right to survive

I’m sitting by the pool trying to think of a blog piece. I have time to write, I have energy, but nothing springs to mind.

A dove flies from white desert rocks over the water and into a flowering shrub. The birds are busy this morning and noisy. Hanging ferns cascade near my chair in perfect abundant health. Peppers sprout in the garden, next to perfumed rosemary, and a grapefruit tree that shelters fruit the size of basketballs. How can anything grow here? I’m confused. This is a brown place where houses have rocks instead of lawns – yet life springs forth in radiant colors and profuse blossoms.

When I wrote my sister Kristen about visiting Arizona, she said, it’s a different world with its vivid colors and dry, strange landscape. I never felt it was a gentle place but one that challenges your right to survive.

She’s right. The temperatures have averaged 109, which have been ten degrees lower than Phoenix. The result is like being under house arrest because nobody in their right mind would go anywhere to do anything for any reason – with the possible exception of my host, Joe.

Joe has the desert in his soul, its essence shines from his eyes. He grew up here and slept under the sky most of his childhood. Joe heads out the door like a lizard ready for a sunbath.  No problem. He and his brother Steve used to spend their day catching snakes when they were kids, snakes bigger than they were. They collected them in pillow cases and thought nothing of picking up a rattlesnake until one bit his brother and nearly killed him. Joe and a passing motorist cut open his brother’s finger and took turns sucking the poison from his young body.

Lucky the snake had a belly full of rabbits, Joe says, or Steve wouldn’t have made it.

A few months ago Joe was making sweet talk to a king snake. Come here baby. Come on pretty girl. He found it in the front yard and moved it to the back, where it could eat rodents and other rattlers. I think of myself as a nature girl but stories like those reflect the core of my inner wimp.

I am soaking in the light and beauty of this place today. I will need to remember it when the dark months come. Winter in Oregon is like having a fat lady in black pants sit down on your head, plus it goes on forever! I will long for this place in winter, and be willing to save grocery money to re-experience it. Just don’t tell me any more stories about snakes. I don’t like having reality interfering with my ideas about life.

Brave New World

Isn’t it amazing how you can step on an airplane and when it sets down, walk out into a completely different reality? I love that! I dislike the airport security-tin can-claustrophobic plane part, but thrive on the adventure of being someplace new. 

I left Oregon in a jacket, cotton top and long skirt. When I stepped into the state-wide sauna that is Arizona, I wanted to run into the ladies room and strip down to my underwear, but I don’t wear underwear, so I couldn’t do it. Thankfully my friend Dicksie ushered me quickly into her air conditioned car and then into the radiant hues of her life.

Dicksie is married to Joe, an award winning architectural landscape designer. Look him up on line and envy me my get-away, his talent is amazing: www.archland1.com.

Dicksie and Joe make a charming couple who fit easily and smoothly together, the way a cup fits a saucer. They have fashioned a place of such gracious beauty, it rivals the best resort. The walls are splashed with bold Arizona colors which serve as backdrops for the paintings they have done in shades of purple, greens, reds and rust.  My forest home whispers in pale blues and restful greens as it sits quietly among cedars and pines, while their house is bright, unashamed and blends with the splendor of a southwest sunset.

 I spent the morning floating in the backyard pool while feasting on the visual delights that met my glance at every turn. We swam without our tops, talked like girls at a pajama party and sank into a sweet connection that continues to deepen and expand.  Did I mention she’s a fabulous cook?  How does it get better than this?

I packed for summer in Oregon, which means a shopping trip is in order, because half my suitcase holds an array of sweaters, long pants and warm shirts. Inexperience and disbelief informed my selections. A day which is 109 degrees is as foreign to me as finding a camel in my bathtub, but I am learning.

Today I saw oranges spilled over a city sidewalk. That would only happen in Portland if someone dropped a grocery bag. Apples on walkways are common, as are figs and walnuts, but never oranges. The simplest things astound me, like the beauty of mesquite trees, lavender colored bushes that balloon like the top of dandelion puffs, and birds of paradise that burst fully open in shades of on-fire red.

Tomorrow we will join their friends and go to the mountain. I always hike in flip flops because I like to be as close to barefoot as possible. This is causing great distress to those who climb in regulation boots and do things according to the rules. I am told I will hear about it from their friends - or maybe snakes will bite my toes - or rocks will reach out to snag me, but I don’t care, because in the end, I have to walk the earth, the way I walk the earth.

New York City

 

Every few years my parents treated us to a cultural week-end in NYC.  We drove four hours through vineyards and rolling acres of farmland to the heart of a cosmopolitan environment that was as different from our barefoot childhood as I could imagine. 

We stayed at the Hotel Astor, which in 1955 was the finest hotel in the city. The Astor embodied old world elegance, sat in the heart of the theater district and towered over Time Square. The Brooklyn Dodgers had just won their first world series and the city was alive with excitement. Cab Calloway and Fats Waller were hot stuff and the Cotton Club was birthing a new musical sound. But it was the Broadway shows that interested my folks.

Evenings found us in our finest clothes with fresh gardenias from a street vendor pinned to our coats. The smell of that delicate white flower can still bring back vivid memories of Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, sinking into red velvet theater seats, watching chandeliers dim against a ceiling of gold and holding our breath as plush curtains whooshed back to reveal a magical world of song and dance. We sat spellbound by every theatrical gesture and perfected vocal score. Those performances began my admiration and love for the theater, and also spoiled me for anything less professional. 

I was ten years old when I watched long rows of women called the Rockettes, high kick in unison at Radio City Music Hall. They were wholesome family entertainment, while a trip to the Latin Quarter opened our eyes to the exotic. Women on flower-covered trapezes, descended from the ceiling wearing high heeled shoes, seamed stockings and little else. The undeniable points of attention were their breasts, where long tassels adhered to each nipple, leaving their fullness bare and exposed. The tassels were smaller versions of the fabric ends that held back the drapes in our living room. I was stunned! I could not take my young eyes off them – grown women who amused themselves by swinging naked from the ceiling of a darkened theater. Was that really okay? Was that what women did when they got older? Apparently it was not only approved of but applause worthy.  I began to wonder about stringing ropes in the hayloft and doing some undercover surgery on my mother’s drapes.

When the performance finished, my sister Kristen and I had to use the bathroom, but the lines were too long, so mother encouraged us to wait. We’ll be home soon, she promised. We hopped in a taxi, which vigorously whisked us through busy streets and hairpin corners. When we screeched to a halt, my father’s angry face matched the burgundy coat worn by the doorman. He was complaining about the driver as my sister and I pushed through revolving glass doors, past walls of glossy walnut, expensive paintings and potted palms. We jumped up and down in the elevator in our urgent need, reaching our fourth floor room before the white gloves of the elevator man disappeared behind us. Doors were never bolted at home, so we were stunned to find we’d been locked out.

I’m peeing my pants, Kristen told me. What should we do?

I had pushed my winter coat aside and was dancing up and down in a desperate attempt to wait.

We can’t pee right here, I said, it will make wet puddles right outside our door. We’ll surely get caught and get in big trouble. I have an idea. You run that way, and pee as you go. Run all the way to the window drapes. I’ll run to the marble statue. We’ll spread it out in long lines, that way nobody will be able to figure out what we did.

And so, on that eventful Saturday night, in one of the cities grand hotels, two little girls were pushing aside their fancy lace dresses to leave a bit of themselves in the lavish carpet at the Hotel Astor.

Sanctuary

 

I have always loved the Catholic Church, not the religion, the philosophy, or the services, but the shelter of the sanctuary.

My level of sensitivity is extra-ordinary. A loud voice or shrill laugh can be physically painful, groups of people are over-stimulating. I can’t lay my head on a hotel pillow without knowing the character of the person who was there before me.

While other kids clamored from their desks for recess, I couldn’t wait to slip across the street into the quiet shelter of the Catholic Church, the only building that kept its doors unlocked, and welcomed all people at all hours.

Once inside I was transported into gentle stillness, a world I longed to live in and never leave. Light filtered through colored glass, frankincense and holy water filled my lungs, and banks of candles flickered in neat little rows near statues of Mary. The only sound was the occasional creak of golden oak yielding under the weight of a bent knee.

There were never loud voices in the church or groups pushing, shoving or competing. The people who came and went were few, and always internal and reverent. The Catholic Church was my oasis and sanity. It was a place I could breathe and rest until the school bell rang and I was summoned back inside to endure.

Last weekend I went to a baby shower. When it was time to return home, something in me recoiled. I pointed the car in the opposite direction and kept on driving until I reached Mt Angel Abbey, which sits high on a mountain with a panoramic view of pastures and forest.

Being away from civilization, computers and conversation was just the medicine I needed. I had not realized my exhaustion until I sat near the bell tower and looked out into the serene fields of the Williamette valley. The quiet was tangible; I could reach out and touch it. A few Benedictine monks walked by in silence like black shadows, humble and privately engaged, while the sun rested on my shoulder like a friend’s hand reminding me to unwind and let go.

That was all I needed. I picked up my cell phone and called my husband. I won’t be home tonight, I told him. I’m at the Abbey and it’s too lovely to leave.

Father Vincent was in the garden among a symphony of goldfinch. He was filling the birdbath as they darted over stalks of yellow and white iris, and on to the budding branches of mimosa trees. Father Vincent has been at the abbey for forty-seven years. He tells me he’ll arrange a room, so I go back to my car for my checkbook and hair brush, the only luggage I have. When I return he is gone. The woman at the gift shop hands me my room key. I ask how much I owe and she says she doesn’t know. It’s Saturday. Someone should be around on Monday. Call when you get home and find out. You can mail us a check then. I’ve gone to the Abbey for the past twenty years. It’s the way they do business.

The room is simple, a bed with white sheets and spread, cream colored walls and windows that look into a sky dotted with tiny cotton clouds. There is a desk and gold lamp. I look out and watch a red-necked hummingbird feed on small blue flowers nested in rambling ground cover.

 I unpack by placing my hair brush on the bathroom shelf and walk to the church for vespers. The monks chant five times a day. When I sit down, the sound of it travels through the pores of my skin and settles at my core.

I stand looking up at the domed ceilings, the pink front wall of the sanctuary and the aqua and purple colors that grace the side walls above arched chanting stalls. The room is full of white linen and candles above a foundation of marble and oak. The organ is one of the finest in the world.

Being there is filling me up, it’s filling an empty space I didn’t know I had. How strange to be so at home in a place I have no business being in at all.

Are you coming?

We weren’t supposed to be there. The house was condemned but I could not resist. My best friend, Roberta lived in that house. We snuggled together in her bed, played on the floor near french doors and stood at the double sink resenting each dish her mother told us to wash. The place was a palatial estate in a depressed Appalachian way. It sat up high on acres of land next to an equally large barn supported by thin layers of slate. The land was bordered by rutted fields and deep woods. I told my husband I wanted to visit but it was more a dare than expectation. I was surprised when he pulled our rental car up the dirt driveway and opened my door.

I stepped out into tall wet grass feeling brave and criminal. There was no evidence of a path as we moved through weeds growing in tangles around our knees. We climbed rotting stairs near plywood covered windows, listening to sounds of the wind fluttering autumn leaves near the large yellow poster that hung on the door. Stay Out, No Trespassing, Violators will be prosecuted ~ the usual threats. The house was weather-beaten grey and pulled me so powerfully into the past that I expected to see myself there. The door hung crooked on rusted hinges and would not close. My husband was immediately uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but I was entranced. If anyone comes, I told him, wedging myself through the door, I will simply explain that I was Roberta’s friend, and they will give me news of her. Of course, I had not seen or heard from her in 50 years, but in such a small town someone would know.

Inside we found hundreds of boxes covering the floors in various stages of decay, looking as if someone had prepared to move, thought better of it, and simply walked away. The frame of the double sink pulled my attention to the kitchen. I remembered cleaning eggs from blue metal dishes speckled with white, and eating bowls piled high with sweet frozen cream from the ice box. The double sinks stood alone and erect in an otherwise gutted room. I continued to walk into what used to be the parlor, where I found the piano we once gathered around to sing. I walked over more rotting boxes and pressed against keys that resisted touch. The tone that whispered back was distant and sleeping, as if it were trying to remember its voice after a half century of silence. A sadness filled me at its loss. It stood in its splendid German casing holding firm to its place in the corner.

The french doors opened between the living room and the parlor, each rectangular glass still whole and intact, except for one near the floor which was completely missing. I remembered that cracked pane because I played next to it as a child, watching sunlight dance in its disfigured face. Those days stretched and grew into endless hours. Now all that remained was covered in dirt, with musty smells clouding water stained walls.

How amazing, I thought, to visit a house from my childhood. How astounding to find it standing with many of its contents unmoved, while real estate in my world was unaffordable and scarce.  This would have been torn down decades ago in the west, with dozens of houses erected on the land. My life in Oregon seemed a dream away. Here I expected to see Roberta’s father dressed in dark trousers and boots, and hear the sound of his ax striking logs for the fire, as he piled his arms high, the smell of fresh cut birch in his path.

On the other side of the archway stood the family’s china cabinet, the wooden doors askew, the drawers toppled and crooked, the wood still rich with studied craftsmanship and quality, like a war-torn ship that washed ashore from another century.

My husband followed in my footsteps eager to bolt. Let’s go Karen, he pleaded. There’s nothing here but decay and junk. Let’s leave. But I could not pull myself away. I was following a thread from my youth like a determined detective.

Yes, dear, go, I answered. I’ll be right behind you. But I lied because I could not stop. As he turned to leave, I pulled a fallen door from my path and climbed up uncertain stairs until I had a view of the second floor. My eyes drifted across the room, and up to a glimpse of pale sky. The structure was all brick and lath, exposed beams and foundation lumbers. No boxes up here, just decades of neglect and a past taken down to the bones. I recognized the hallway and could see into the empty spaces that use to house beds, handsewn quilts, wash basins, and chamber pots. For a moment I saw the girl I used to be in her flannel pajamas, bare feet and dirty face, her blonde hair springing free from the tight french braids her mother labored over each morning.

Are you coming?  my husband asked again. Where are you Karen? This is so unsafe. Don’t go up there.  And so I listened, turned and left, thinking as I walked away, that the house was forever changed and at the same time unchanged, just like myself.

written September 30, 2008