The End of Everythihg

 The fire didn’t realize the strength of water

until she killed him.

The water didn’t realize

the strength of radiation before she evaporated

like a magician’s rabbit (without the wiggle), and began to complain about the sky’s all-powerful portal

— which, as everyone knows —

will kill us all.

By Elodie Pritchartt, August 18,2023

The Chipmunk who Smiled at Me

 I woke early that morning and wandered downstairs.  I was six years old.  As I walked outside I saw Bitsy, our beloved mackerel-striped tabby, walking about the yard with a little furry creature in its mouth.  Horrified, I ran down the back stairs and caught Bitsy and gently pulled the poor critter from its certain doom.

It was very cute, and as I walked back upstairs noticed him smiling at me for saving him.  He was brown with a tail sort of like a squirrel, only smaller.  And it had a pair of beautiful stripes on its back. I smiled back.

"It's all right," I said.  "I'll take good care of you."

"Gosh, six-year-old I, thought.  It's actually smiling at me."

"Yes, you're safe now," I told it.  "See? Everything's all right."

I brought it inside with the intention of showing my prize and act of kindness when it bit the shit out of my finger.  What I'd thought was a smile was a warning:  "Don't mess with me."

I screamed and dropped it.  It ran off to wherever wild animals run off to when they're inside a house.

I ran up to my parents' bedroom.  I shook Mother's shoulder and said, "Mother, wake up.  It bit me."

I'd never seen her sit up so fast from a deep sleep in my life.  "What bit you? Where?"

"I don't know," I bawled.  It was kind of like a squirrel.  Bitsy had it in his mouth and I saved him, but he bit me."

Panic rising in her voice, she asked, "Where?  Where did it bite you?"

I held out my bloody finger for her to see.  "But it was smiling at me.  I save him from Bitsy."

"Oh, God, she said.  "Howard.  Wake up.  Something bit Elodie.

I thought I'd get some Bactine and a band-aid and that would be it.  But no.  It was imperative we find this creature.  Mother told our maid, Augustine, what had happened, and told her if she found anything dead in the house to save it.  "Whatever you do, don't throw it away.  It might have rabies.  

I'd never heard of rabies before.  She made an appointment with Dr. Calhoun to come in and start a series of rabies shots.  At that time, the shots were given in the stomach or abdomen area.

We entered Dr. Calhoun's office to the familiar alcohol-infused air that always smelled like spotless, clean pain.

"Baby," said Mother, "We've got to give you a shot or you might get really sick.

I was a skinny child without an ounce of fat on me.  It took three nurses and my mother to hold me down as I screamed while I was injected with a huge needle right in the abdomen, in which every muscle was tightened.  I'd never felt such pain in my short little life.  It was unimaginable pain.

Then Mother informed me that I'd have to have 13 more shots in the stomach every day until it was finished.  I could catch rabies and that could kill me.  Maybe dying would be better.

Mother sent me off to school the next morning, but all I could think about was that next shot.  It was akin to torture.  By the time school let out, I was trembling with fear.  I got into the car.

"I've got good news," said Mother.  "I asked Augustine today if she'd found anything strange in the house while cleaning.

"Found something.  It looked like a roach, so I threw it away," she replied.  It had hidden behind the drapes in one of the rooms of the house and died.  

Mother rushed out of the back door and down to the alley where the trash was kept.  Luckily the trash hadn't been collected, and there, lying amid old coffee grounds, egg shells and garbage, lay a dead chipmunk.

"They sent the head off to Jackson to be tested for rabies, and it came back negative.  That means you don't have to get any more shots."

Relief washed over me like water. I felt like a German being freed from a concentration camp.  Then I got mad.

Why had she let me sit there all day at school when she could've called the school to let them and me know.  Honestly?  I still don't understand it.  She HAD to know the dread and fear I'd experienced the whole day, imagining another of those horrible shots in the stomach.

This was before I finally realized that my mother was self-centered; it wouldn't have even dawned on her to let me know earlier.  She let me sit there all day awaiting torments that rivaled the Spanish inquisition.

I had learned a valuable lesson that day.  Don't take a chipmunk's smile at face value.  Those little bastards can be mean.  

Eventually, Bitsy moved down the alley to my great aunt's house, who was more attentive to the needs of pets than we were.  In fact, a lot of our pets moved to Annet's.  She was the magical lady in the Disney story of The Three Lives of Thomasina, the cat.  Animals just knew a better place to be.

Bitsy on the sidewalk in front of Annet's house.  He was 20 years old.  The last time my aunt saw him, he was being carried down the street by a pack of dogs.  Sad story all around.  Photo by Neil Varnell

Side Trips on the Blues Highway -- The Mississippi Delta

 

After the mandatory six-month waiting period, the date my divorce was to be finalized was fast approaching. I'd been fielding calls from the ex who'd suddenly decided he didn't want a divorce and wanted to "talk." His calls were so frantic, I decided to disappear until after the divorce was final. 

So I got into my car and drove, wandering through parts of the country by myself that I've always wanted to see, stopping along the way to take photos and see places I remembered from my youth. I found this one street off a cotton field with a couple of old storefronts, all crumbling and abandoned. One had the remnants of a bar with broken pottery still sitting on the counter top. The other was just the shell of a building, open to the sky with trees and vines growing up the floor and walls. 

I stepped inside the door to get a better shot when it sounded like the building was falling down on top of me. I ducked as a huge owl swooped down out of the rafters over my head and into the tree behind the building. 

When I checked into the B&B, the fellow who checked me in said, "I understand no one is to know you're here. Don't worry; your secret's safe with me." 

I thanked him profusely and checked into a charming little room in a garage behind a big old house once owned by a man who owned a 20,000-acre plantation and killed almost every bear in the state. It's a beautiful house, reminiscent of an English country cottage, right in the middle of town. They've got 12 acres surrounded by Days Inn, Burger King and other tacky establishments. A little piece of heaven in the middle of town. There were three other couples staying at the house. Very nice folks from Kentucky, off on a road trip of their own. They had the whole main house to themselves, while I took the room in the garage. 

That night I went to a liquor store to buy some wine. The security was so tight, I had to pass the money through a slot in the wall, and they passed the wine through a bigger slot. 

"Are you here for the Blues thing?" the lady behind the bulletproof glass asked me. 

"I don't know anything about it," I replied. "What's going on?" 

 "There's a big blues singer -- a woman -- in town. Women from all over the country are here to hear her. Figured you were here for the show."

"Thanks. I think I'll check it out." 

That evening I went to dinner in town. I saw the other couples from the B&B there, and went over and introduced myself. 

"What are you doing in town?" one of the husbands asked me. 

 "Oh, I'm just here for a little quiet time," I said. "I want to do some writing and take some pictures." 

They were very cordial and invited me for breakfast next morning. 

Then I went to see the Blues lady. Definitely a hit with the menopausal crowd, of which I realize I'm a member. It was so odd, being in this Blues dive with a bunch of old yuppies with lines around their eyes, wearing their dainty PTA clothes and grinding to the lyrics: "Baby, you got somethin' in your toolbox that I aine' got in mine, Maybe you could use it to show me a good time." 

While I was there, the other couples came in. They'd driven all the way from Kentucky just to hear this woman sing. I was standing at the bar when one of the women came up to get a drink. I smiled and said hello. 

"So, I hear you're getting a divorce," she said. 

 I had to laugh. I remembered Pal (the guy who checked me in)telling me, "We don't care what you've done. We just want to talk about it." 

 I felt kind of sheepish after my suave dodge of the husband's question earlier. I had a couple of margaritas and watched the crowd, and went home early (around 11 p.m.) The other couples staying at the B&B stayed out 'til about 1 a.m., and looked a little raggedy this morning. But they were nice folks, asking me about my book business and getting all excited when I showed them the book I found at Goodwill by Captain Kangaroo that was signed. 

"Oh, my God! I LOVED him!" 

I did, too. Was it so very long ago? Well, I guess maybe it was. 

That day, I moved over to another B&B that is a little bigger and has more atmosphere. I woke up the next morning to the mournful sound of a train whistle on the tracks. I love that sound, even while it makes me kind of sad. It makes me feel like a child again, all tucked safely into bed and hearing that whistle, feeling secure in the bosom of my home and wondering about the lonely souls out there riding on the rails. 

Later that morning I was talking to Dave, the fellow who keeps everything neat and tidy at the B&B. 

"I heard the train this morning," I said, explaining how it makes me feel. 

 "Trains don't run on these tracks anymore," he replied. 

 "But I heard it! I swear I did." 

 "Oh, that was just (can't remember the name). He likes trains. He's got some money, so he bought himself an engine. He drives it about a mile down the tracks and back every day, blowing the whistle." 

God, I love small towns. 

That morning I walked across the parking lot to have breakfast at this little dive that serves the best scrambled eggs, grits, bacon and toast in town. While I was there, I saw a wizened old Black man with loaded dice play tricks on a couple of tourists, and brag about all the places he's been. 

While I ate my food a cat jumped up on the counter and started eying my plate. "You better watch him real close," said the waiter behind the bar. "He sneaky."  

I wondered if the health department knew about Catty Can (his name). Pretty soon, Catty Can tried to make a move and I swatted at him, saying, "Nope! Not today, partner." He gave me a wicked, disgusted look and lay down on the counter, waiting for another opportunity until the waiter snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him on the floor. 

The days passed. I drove all over the state, enjoying my solitude and my newfound sense of freedom, feeling powerful and introspective. I think every woman should take a road trip by herself at least once in her lifetime. It's a trip.

To Doo, or not to Doo. That is the question.

My poor little doggie. She's always had urinary incontinence, which makes housekeeping a regular pain in the rear. She rarely has a #2 accident, though. The last couple of nights, I've asked her to go out and go potty.

She gets out on the porch and suddenly realizes she's got to do #2. But she can't quite hold it in. It starts prairie dogging -- you know, peeking its little head out of her rear end and then going back in.

In the meantime, she's trying as fast as her 15-year-old puggle legs will carry her down, down, down, the many stairs to get to the yard. Without fail, she manages to leave a land mine or two on the steps. But who on earth can fuss at her for that?

This is the dog that made the LA Times Book Review for the stinkiest farts on the planet. Of course, to me, they smell like flowers. She is my heart.

Even her poops are cute.

All For Naught

 

I've decided it's true.

No good deed goes unpunished.

But that it's punished without question

says more about the accuser than the accused.

And the older I get the more unkind I realize people are.

Choose whatever you want to believe.

But remember. It is the belief that defines you, not the

actions of an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The world will go on, spinning into eternity, and it will all amount to nothing.

Put one foot in front of the other and live your life as if you still believe in humanity.

A hundred years from now, we will be nothing more than stones with dates set in the dirt for the few who will remember.

After that, let the archaeologists dig us up and wonder who we were and what marks we left.

With any luck at all, there won't be a mark to be found.

~ April 2, 2022

Gone with the Wind

 Waiting for Ida to hit.  It's supposed to be the strongest hurricane to hit New Orleans in centuries.  And it's on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  This is what happened at my house last year during Hurricane Laura, which wasn't nearly as bad.

Well over $100 thousand dollars worth of damage and six months living at the B&B.  Here's the tree that fell and, unfortunately, there's an even larger one right next to it.  Both in my neighbor's yard.

Hold on to your hats, folks.  It's gonna be a bumpy ride.