Before stepping into the ruins, I stuck my head in, smelled the damp. It brought to mind a winter in Minnesota--perhaps my third. I was dragging my blankie out of the damp basement--always the hunger. Up the steps I felt my skin crack--always the dry hands. In the kitchen I'd have another fight--always my sister. I prepared by clenching my fists, my teeth, my face--always the headache. I sat down on the cold linoleum of the pantry, pulled my blue blankie over my head, waited for the peace to fill in around my face, waited for my mind's eye, bathed in blue blankie light, to build a better world--I didn't like to fight.
But enough with the child's play, I had these all too adult ruins to get behind me. My game plan: Enter this side of the ruins, say, "Ruins, get thee behind me." Then exit the other side.
I was raising my John Wayne leg, when I had the ruins say, "Why suffer so?"
Posing with leg raised, I said, "My lot as human, I guess."
"Yes, human; what a low lot, that. See, we ruins have attained a state of equilibrium; we know no ups or downs, only the golden mean."
Mean got me to thinking, so I put my John Wayne leg down, said, "We humans start out golden mean enough. But then the mean doctor pulls us out, smacks us on the backside. Then our loving parents haul us home and, under the guise of raising a child, lock us into the very root cellar their loving parents locked them into. So we spend our adulthood piling potatoes. Come the dawn of our middle age, we're ready to come clean. We raise a sleeve, wipe the dirt and cobs off that narrow ground level window. Noses to the pain, we see some promise out there. But before we can get some, we find ourselves bound up in a womb again, fists in our mouths, waiting for the bell to ring so we can come out and make another pile."
The stone ruins tried to say something here, but I wasn't done.
"Take me, Ruins: My dad hated his job, so he took it out on my face; the face that ate up all he earned. And my mom, well, she hated her marriage, so took it out on my face, the face that looked like the man she no longer loved. Then the grandma comes to town, and talk about the walking Blues; why the only time she stopped walking was when she told you tales of yesteryear."
The ruins, here, having been there, tried to take me to school on yesteryear. But I wouldn't have it.
"No, Ruins, no one's been more schooled in yesteryear than me. Well, Grandma Vik's yesteryear, anyhow. See, Grandma V had this condition whereby she could remember everything about yesteryear, but couldn't remember she'd told you everything about yesteryear yesterday, ha, ha."
Of course, one couldn't recall one of Grandma's yesteryears without craving something sweet. "But first, Ruins, let me touch on my first love."
So vivid was my memory of my first love, I quick-drew my pad and pen--had a lead on a line that might launch a guy's autobiography: "There were a lot things I hated about grandma V, but those ribbons of hard candy she kept in her dark pocket; they were my first love."
I looked up, settled my eyes on a patch of gray between the firs that I might better relive how it was with grandma V.
"Young man," grandma Vik would say, opening her hand, "bear witness." She'd close her eyes then, move a cane in the air like a paintbrush. "There it is; the old gristmill. See it, son, down by the river there. Stone, rising up."
"Grandma," suck, suck, "there's no gristmills no more. It's 1961. Jeez."
"No gristmill?" Grandma would open her eyes. "You're right, son; tweren't no mill; twas a castle Elsa and I would ride to. Of course, I used a saddle. But not that Elsa--a real berserker, that one. Oh, you should a seen it; stone, rising up. No, I'm sure it's come down now. Everything with a story to it's come down now. Well, exceptin' out west. Say, young man, what you say we bust out of this one-church town, catch us a train west?"
"Grandma," suck, suck, "the train don't come through town no more. Jeez."
"No train? Huh, not surprising. That oaf of a father of yours, moving to a town with no . . . And you, all sickly all the time. No wonder, with no warmth to come home to, no hearth. When I was a kid, we took to looking into a fire of an evening. It's in fires you see stuff. That's why you're sickly, son; you got no fire to look into. No, I wouldn't blame you one bit if you went out to the barn about now, put that rope in the mow to good use."
"Grandma," suck, suck, "we don't got no barn. Jeez."
"No, tweren't no barn; twas a castle, stone rising up. Must-a dug the stone up yonder. Up to where the sun goes down. Up from where a man comes riding down once. 'What's he got in there?' I says to Elsa on account of the man's stickin' his big finger in his mouth cause he can't speak no Norwegian. Well, thirst is what Elsa says the big man's got. So I took to pumping him a pail. 'Elsa,' I says, as he's riding off, 'I'm going to get hitched to that man.' Of course, Elsa didn't understand, seeing how she'd gotten it in her head she was a man. But no man matters to girls who got horses to get out, castles to get to, stories to get in. Of course, kids these days wouldn't know from story. Oh, for the day when everything had a story in it."
"Grandma," suck, suck, "we got things with stories in it; it's called TV."
That's the day grandma V took a turn for the worse--took to smacking the TV with her cane.
I had stopped writing because I had felt the need to look into these ruins. These ruins that I had felt looking into me.
"No, Ruins," I said, placing a warm hand on the stone door jam, "I've not forgotten you. I'll step into you shortly, but first I must get down a word or two about my dad--my dad who was always mad at me, mad at my mom. No, my dad never took to hitting my mom, but neither did he take to having grandma V living with us."
I took my hand off my poor ruins, got back to my autobiography.
"Darling," my dad would call my mom, "the next time that Loony Tune relative of yours takes to breaking the TV, the TV's goona stay broke. And then you'll find out what it's really like raisin' kids."
"No, Ruins," I said, placing a warm hand on the stone door jam, "I've not forgotten you. I'll step into you shortly, but first I must get down a word or two about my dad--my dad who was always mad at me, mad at my mom. No, my dad never took to hitting my mom, but neither did he take to having grandma V living with us."
I took my hand off my poor ruins, got back to my autobiography.
"Darling," my dad would call my mom, "the next time that Loony Tune relative of yours takes to breaking the TV, the TV's goona stay broke. And then you'll find out what it's really like raisin' kids."
Well, I may have been all of nine, but threatening my mom like that was enough to make a man of me. So I took to defending what I loved; hugging the TV with my ass.
No, Grandma never took to hitting me when she threatened the TV with her cane; she punished me by taking me to school.
"Kids these days," Grandma would say, "getting their stories out of TV. In my day kids got their stories out of doors. Out of doors was where the wonder was--weather, woods, and all things alive. You'd be weeding the cornfields, say, and you'd see a bug. So, you'd forget weedin' and away would go your day, down on all sixes, gettin' dirt enough behind your ears ma could grow potatoes. And there's the lesson for you, young man; no story's worth gettin' into if you don't get dirty by it."
"Kids these days," Grandma would say, "getting their stories out of TV. In my day kids got their stories out of doors. Out of doors was where the wonder was--weather, woods, and all things alive. You'd be weeding the cornfields, say, and you'd see a bug. So, you'd forget weedin' and away would go your day, down on all sixes, gettin' dirt enough behind your ears ma could grow potatoes. And there's the lesson for you, young man; no story's worth gettin' into if you don't get dirty by it."
"Grandma," crunch, crunch, "it's winter out. Snow don't get you dirty. Jeez."
"Kids these days, scared of a little winter. In my day, we had snow up to the eves. Then Lord help us if the thaw came early; gully washers gutting the fields, rivers up over the bridge. 'No,' I says to Elsa. 'I ain't crossin' that bridge.' But Elsa starts up with how we was in a story, and no story's worth being in if the characters aren't scared a little. So we rode on over and there it was--the old grist mill the boys warned us never to get near. So we got nearer still, clean inside, which was scarier still, cause we was up to our knees in river. So we looked up to pray to God cause our legs was freezing off. But the roof was all caved in, and that's when we saw it. Ya, right up there in the rafters. Oh, I wish I could tell you exactly what we saw--wait. I never told ya exactly what we saw, I hope?"
"You only never told me a million times. Hey, grandma," I stuck a finger in my mouth, "my candy's all sucked out."
"No way, mister; no candy's going to get me to talk. And since Elsa's long dead, nothin' sweet will work on her, neither. But I'll tell you this: That story me and Elsa got ourselves into was something--the last word in stories as far as we was concerned." Grandma pulled out a ribbon of hard candy, examined it as if it were the last word.
And, boy, that hard ribbon sure looked like the last word to me; undulating veins of rubies, emeralds, and pearls. I lunged for the ribbon, for I wanted to get that last word in my mouth. But grandma closed her spotted hand, put the last word back in her black pocket.
"And that's why I tell it to you, Anton Sogn Celadon; the day Elsa and I went out and got something. Some say that's why poor Elsa died. But it didn't happen that way. But who cares what some say. The story Elsa and I got was all there was to get. And that's what you need to go out and get; a story of your own. Cause if you don't got no story to get into, you're dead."
****
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