from
mosaic (4) by freda karpf
What she wanted to
weave into existence she couldn’t. What
was it Barry wanted? A sweet life free
from alimony and the gaping necessity of sweat equity that earned little in the
bank and nothing to ride on when the work stopped. The snow coming down the mountain and the
peace of mind to enjoy it. ‘I really
don’t know what he wanted when all is said and done,’ she thought. ‘And he’s
done. But when we met at Georgie’s his
flights of fancies were about ways to mess with an equipment dealer he knew,
Carbuncle. He wanted to buy the land out
from under his nose; find a rare species of something and give it to her.’ He
said that Mrs. Scattergood didn’t count as a rarity. But if the plan worked, ‘don’t sell the land
no matter what.’
~
Parcels, the narrow stretch of land that
you can imagine all the deer have left, that’s what Mrs. Scattergood got thanks
to this plot. She sighed. How in the world did she come to be a
landowner? She wondered about the notion
of returning to the land, the final return. The Friday nights of chicken soup
finally imbedded in her soul through the agency of the dill. But where is
Barry? Some cultures envision the
departed whole and entire in another world. She liked to think Barry was there
with those he loved and will be also with those coming after him. But there are
days when that feeds a certain kind of loneliness; as if she were an alien
stranded on planet earth by the death of her friends and family.
~
Some cultures believe that our bodies
return to the land. But that must be cultures where they lived on the land.
Some people believe that all are one.
She felt that at times too. Felt
it in knowing with what necessity she regularly needed to inhale dill. But what
about the particulars? Does your body belong
to the land where you live? How much
maneuvering can a body’s spirit do? Is
it the earthworms churning the land and everything through their flesh running
that negotiate the soulful turnstile? Is
there a strict accounting of all of this?
She just didn’t know.
~
Damned if she wouldn’t find a way to screw
Carbuncle though. Wasn’t that proof, she
caught herself thinking. That right
there was proof. The scary wisdom of revenge had to mean that Barry found a way
to return. If ever there was a
trickster. The man could set a Hobart
mixer to bust at a designated time. He was the kind of person with the kind of
wicked that you thought, and Mrs. Scattergood did, ‘lucky he was a
friend.’
~
He was her friend; and more, he was her
backup. They had an agreement. The
agreement was that if they were both 80 and alone, they'd hook up. Didn’t matter if she loved women. She loved him too. He used to say he had the pickle and she had
the jar, “Too bad you don’t like pickles,” he’d add.
~
That’s not entirely true. She grew up in
Newark and learned life lessons from Tabatchnick’s early on. One being that a pickle a day keeps the
doctor away. Who knew Barry had a shared
sense of well-being? Barry’d come from
wherever to whenever Mrs. Scattergood was stuck, to help her. One time he came
out on the coldest night of the year to rescue her and her partner. Late Sunday night, ass kicking cold, over an
hour away. That’s a friend. How many
people like that does a person get to have in their life? Thoughts like these would just grab her by
the chest and Mrs. Scattergood would have to take a breath. She knew that soul is not only a phoneme for
sole but sometimes at the bottom of everything. With that she stopped thinking
about everything to stare into the great wide wonder of it all.
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