At Home

Tuesday night and a storm passed through earlier. The trees are dripping water onto the top of my aluminum condominium. Listening and then writing about the dripping on the roof brought back the memory of my grandfather going outside on Christmas Eve and making noises on the tin roof over the room where we, the children, were sleeping. Of course we were not asleep and, until we were older, we did believe the reindeer had made the noise my grandfather made and, as we got older, we never told him we knew. 

Sounds on a tin roof have brought me excitement, as in thinking the reindeer were on the roof, and they have brought me terror as I, in my vivid imagination, heard trees scratching against the roof and imagined them to be all manner of terrible and heinous creatures. As a child I was frightened in the dark and frightened when standing at the edge of a forest by myself. I imagined each sound to be the last I would hear or each shadow to be an evil character. Thinking back now I realize that my imagination often assigned the exaggerations of a vaudevillian actor playing the part of a villain in an old black and white movie. Those bad guys performed roles with the gusto of the stage. Their eyes were wide and their movements quick and furtive. The shadows hid them well until an unsuspecting and helpless maiden came along and the villain would jump in front of her, eyes wide, mustache twirled with a maniacal grin on his face. Who knew I would assign those attributes to the tall, lazy sunflowers in my grandmother's back yard. They were taller than I and the wind pushed them down towards me at times. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were after me. My grandmother never knew why I balked when she asked me to hang clothes on the line. She thought I was stubborn and lazy. I knew the tall, monster flowers were waiting for me.

 I would earn the label of "crazy" by my father as the years passed and I woke up screaming or began screaming on the way to the bathroom. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror of my bedroom sent me into a terror. The moonlight was streaming through the porch windows. I was wearing a long nightgown and had long hair. As I crept toward the door of the room I turned and caught a glimpse of a woman, bathed in moonlight, wearing a long gown with her long hair falling over her shoulders. She was creeping along and looking at me. I lost it. My father lost it. Writing it now I want to laugh at the description. At the time it was real to me and I let out a frightened howl. When I heard my father's feet hit the floor I knew I was in trouble. After I got back in my bed I heard my father telling my mother that something was wrong with me and I might need counseling. This was incredible as my father did not have faith in counselors, therapists or in confessing. I am certain his comment was birthed out of the adrenaline rush he maintained as he returned to bed.
 

Happy Harry the Hippy Man

Happy Harry the hippy man made a hasty decision to extend his stay at the Hula Hotel for the Faint of Heart. He felt the fear of old age and the ache of his bones as he moved across the worn carpet of the cheapest room he could get at the Hula Hotel. His hair hung damp and limp from the humidity of a mid-day heat. He drew a  secret smug delight in leaving his hair long and often pulled back into a ponytail. Happy Harry the hippy man yearned for hair thick enough to braid and wondered why someone such as himself was destined to thinning hair as he grew older. This explained, though he might not relate it to his thinning hair, the tongue stud and a tattoo of a praying mantis dressed in a zoot suit with a top hat perched at a tilt on his head and a saxophone swung around his neck. As if that were not enough the front of the body of the praying mantis faced one way while his head, turned one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction, setting the stage for his diabolical grin. Small notes of music floated up from the saxophone. The tattoo was exquisite in detail. The praying mantis had a deep, rich green body He wore an outrageously purple satin zoot suit over a rich buttery, sunset yellow silk shirt, a blood red top hat and black, custom-made leather shoes sporting spats and a high gleam shine. The golden color of his saxophone appeared to catch an unseen light source producing the unsettling illusion of movement. The music notes floating up from the saxophone were sharply defined and etched in black. The entire ensemble set the stage for the crowning victory of the face of the praying mantis. Sat precariously at the top of his fragile body and turned in the opposite direction of the front of his body the artist had chosen to first draw and then color in the maestro's eyes in the deepest emerald green. Half closed by an exaggerated fold of the eyelid a glint sparkled from one eye The artist captured the glint as an exquisite minuscule diamond.The praying mantis had thin lips drawn back in a smile so perverse that friends of Happy Harry were shocked and confused. What possessed a man like Happy Harry the Hippy Man, they conjectured over dinner and a few drinks, to wander so far afield in his choice of tattoos. Inevitably, one of them would remind the others that Happy Harry had always drifted a tad left of the center line. Everyone would nod and take a sip of their drinks.

Happy Harry believed himself to be the last of a dying breed. He carried himself with an air of barely concealed disdain, except in the presence of the occasional hedonists to cross his path. His ego forgot his superiority in the presence of people he believed crossed the lines of decency without a hint of guilt. Though such characters rarely crossed his path Happy Harry was incapable of responding in anything other than an embarrassing and most unattractive form of hero worship. This trait also puzzled anyone who knew Happy Harry on a daily basis. The old, hip, slightly haughty man they knew disappeared into a fawning, sniveling pawn in the hands of these strangers. He catered to their every whim until the day they left. Afterwards Happy Harry confined himself to his room until he could emerge with what he believed was an air of mystery and secrets. The kindness of his friends saved him from well deserved snickers and snide comments. He was a most frustrating man and yet engaging in the way that oddity often presents itself. In truth no one who knew him would have him any other way. So they shared drinks with him until the mystique wore off, the haughty swagger returned and, some would swear, the praying mantis winked an intensely wicked wink.