The Trouble Way

by James Seloover

  I knew how dogs got pregnant. However, not to get too far astray of the subject, I did not understand how they got stuck butt-to-butt. I saw plenty of them that way; I just never witnessed the sequence of the mechanics on how they ended up that way.

  I had inside knowledge Janis had a good case to convince someone she could be pregnant. I just didn’t know all the intricacies involved in how and when a girl went from not pregnant to pregnant. It was the very early 60s ... people were stupid back then. Maybe ignorant is a better description. Secretive, even better. She should have worked the midway in a circus. She was that good. I didn’t even question her much at the time. She intimidated me. So, off we went, on a journey that would last a horrific ten months and then an additional, marginally less horrific, thirty-two months until I extracted myself from that happy-crappy predicament.

  After I experienced seeing a little girl, Bella, grow from zero years to four, I am getting a fairly good idea of just how early women learn manipulation. I know they are not even aware of the things they are learning. At least, Bella couldn’t put it into words what she knows. Since she can’t articulate it, I have to assume she is getting it from older women around her. I’m not sure if it is from grown-ups or from the other kids her age who are passing on their wealth of information, those with more experience than she has.

  It may have been earlier, in fact, it surely must have been earlier, but when I actually realized her manipulative behavior, Bella was three. She had a pretty good grasp on how to get what she wanted without ever saying the exact thing.

  Often times, what she wanted was to not go to bed or to take a nap. She didn’t realize it, but she was actually ready to take a nap or go to sleep for the night. She would get really hyped up and would start flopping around and stumbling when she walked. But, I couldn’t convince her to take a nap. I know, I’m bigger and stronger, but a person wants to convince another by logic. Well, she wasn’t buying what I was selling because she invariably had something else in mind that she’d rather do.

  Bella learned early on, maybe when she was one, she couldn’t just come out and say she didn’t want to do something, she couldn’t talk. She would cry or fuss but that works for a short time only to the point when she learned how to talk. She no longer had a need to get her point across by screaming and crying. Then it was time for me to watch out.

  “Papa, will you read me two stories?” she would say.

  Simple enough. Who the hell can argue against that? Everyone says to read to kids and when they actually want to be read to, you’re sure as heck aren’t going to turn them down are you? Not me. No nap till two stories are read. She never asked to read stories when it wasn’t bedtime. That was “doll time.” Bedtime was “read me two stories” time.

  It used to be, “Papa, can you read me a story?” That lasted precisely as long as she realized that reading one story for three-year-olds does not take long.

  One time I was reading a “princess” story to her and she said, “Pause it.” She needed to go potty. She’d watched enough “Dora,” to know what the pause button was on the remote. What astounded me was her ability to transfer that pause concept to reading a book. So I stopped reading and waited for her to go potty.

  Sometimes, it would be, “Papa, can we go into the kitchen for two minutes?” Three-year-olds don’t know how long two minutes are until they hear the timer ding and it is not nearly as long as they envisioned two minutes to be. Right, “Papa, can we go to the kitchen for five minutes?”

  “Papa, can I have a half a bottle of milk?”

  Obviously you’re not going to starve a baby. Like I’ve said, stuff like that is not rocket salad.

  After that half bottle is finished off, it’s, “Can I have a tiny bit more milk?”

  I know how much a tiny bit more means. It will be gone in seconds. Who’s going to deny a little girl a “tiny bit more milk?”

  “Of course, sweetie, you sure can have as much as you like.”

  Also, that tiny bit more milk is just enough to trigger, “Papa, I have to go potty,” the minute the covers are tucked around her sweet little cheeks in her cozy little crib.

  See what I’m getting at? Women manipulate and I’d bet you a quarter they can’t pinpoint where or when they learned it. I can pinpoint when. It is when they are about one and a half. They get really good at it around three years and after that, they keep getting trickier and trickier.

  I’m sure Janis was a grand mistress of trickiness by the time she blew out sixteen candles.

  By the time I was seventeen and ran into her, I had two chances of successfully surviving that encounter and they were both zero. The best I can say about the outcome of my relationship with Janis is that I unsuccessfully survived the encounter. That may even be an optimistic assessment of the entire fiasco.

  Events build on things that happened before. So, the only good thing about Janis is if it hadn’t been for her and my youthful stupidity, I’d never have met Bella. For Bella, I’d endure it all again.

  I hadn’t a clue what I was in for when Janis ripped me by the roots out of my innocence. Janis was an A-student in high school so I know what she had planned for me just didn’t develop mysteriously out of the humid Oregon air. She had been working on her technique since she was one and a half. I know that now, forty plus years later. It finally dawned on me after I’d met Bella. Weird, I know.

  Hell, I was well into my third score of years before I even knew how truly ignorant I was back there in my late teens. It was Bella who taught me I should have paid a lot more attention when I was two and three. I should have learned a whole lot more than I did those many years ago. Even at that, I probably would not have known enough to avoid the lure of that lunatic, Janis. I wasn’t anywhere near smart enough. Not nearly as smart as Bella and certainly not anywhere near as intelligent as Janis. I’ll admit that freely. When it came to my relationship with Janis, it was like I was an eight-pound Road Island Red cock emerging exhausted from the henhouse and getting caught off guard strutting between a two-hundred fifty pound wild boar sow, Janis, in an aggravated frame of mind, and her ten overweight, newborn piglets after a grueling five-hour birthing session. Janis was that mean and I was that overmatched, I shit you not.

  Had Bella been around forty years ago, I might have had a better chance, but even if that were the case, I probably would have been nothing more fierce than a one-legged duck and would have suffered the same gruesome fate as that Road Island Red rooster bumbling into that boar sow.

  Another thought just came to mind about Bella convincing me that she shouldn’t go to bed. It’s original. Reminds me of my ol’ buddy Roy from high school; he was original as hell.

  She said, “Papa, it’s only a little dark, but it’s not really dark.”

  Everyone with any sense knows you go to bed when it is dark outside. Roy would have appreciated her logic. That one worked pretty well for her until we got into the spring and daylight savings time began. By that time, she had other ruses she could pull out of her little Britney Spears look-a-like cap. I fell for them all. She was only three. I wasn’t about to stifle her creativity, for cripe sake. You know, make her color inside the lines. Her preschool teachers will take care of that before she hits six.

  I’ve only had one pet in my life, a little brown mutt with a white chest and three white paws and a short tail. He was the only male brown pup in a litter of six. All the others were black and white with long tails. My sister gave him to me just after our dad died; it was to make me feel better. I was twelve at the time and Lonesome lived until I was discharged from the Air Force when I was twenty-two.

  When Lonesome was a few years old, he killed a neighbor’s duck and the neighbor shot him. His aim was off and he hit him in the left hind leg. The vet had to take the leg off at the knee. The disability didn’t slow Lonesome down much.

  The only trick of many he couldn’t do that he could before was sit up. He could do it for a few seconds until he collapsed to his lef
t, long enough to get a treat. It was funny to watch him try. I had him try just for the laughs. I guess I was mean-teasing him. I’m sorry I did that now that I think back on it. Lonesome refused to do any tricks unless he knew you had a treat for him. He had to see it; he didn’t fall for the old ruse of holding a fake treat un-seen in your fist. He’d just sit and look off to the side until you could prove to him you had a treat.

  When I left for the military, Lonesome adopted my grandfather. Lonesome was with him when he died on the couch in his living room five years later.

  I’d told Bella about Lonesome and she gave me a little plush dog for my birthday.

  “His name is Lonesome,” Bella said after I tore the wrapping off. “I picked him out all by myself.”

  Lonesome sits on the floor behind my computer desk in my home office. He reminds me of my sister, my grandfather, and of my sweetie, Bella. I can’t think of a present I like better.

  When Bella had a sleepover, we put Lonesome the head of the cot beside her pillow. She loves Lonesome as much as I do. Sometimes she would hug that little stuffed dog until she fell asleep.

  “Would you sit and watch me while I go to sleep, Papa,” Bella said to me each night she had a sleepover at our house. “I’m just a yiddo scared of the dark.”

  “I’ll sit here until you fall asleep, sweetie,” I said. “Lonesome and I will make sure you are safe, now go to sleep, sweetie. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

  Chapter 21 Bella Nelsen and Gracie Gracie’s in the water, help me! I want my Papa. Are we going to … the hosta-piddle? I got my gimpy leg courtesy of LBJ, a long time ago.

  Present

  Clouds covered the sky and it became darker by the minute on the path by the river. Bella made her way slowly and stepped carefully on the rocky path. She was next to the river when she heard someone yell her name.

  “BELLA ... BELLA ... BELLA ... “

  “I said I was okay,” Bella hollered back up the hill to Don. She saw that Don was walking along the footpath under the bridge when she realized it was not him who called. She could see he was near the cameras.

  “BELLA ... BELLA .... HELP! The voice bellowed again, louder this time. It was not from the direction of the hill but from upriver.

  “Oh my God,” Bella said and she saw the horror she never wanted to see again in her life. “Gracie! Oh my God, Gracie!” Gracie was in the water up to her neck. She was splashing and screaming and she was upstream about fifty yards away.

  She looked quickly in the direction of the path where Don was walking and hollered. “Don ... Don ... Gracie’s in the water. Help me! Call for help!” She saw him under the light post; he turned and began struggling up the hill toward the emergency phone.

  “Bella ... Bella ... Bella.” She could hear the panicked voice again calling her name and she stumbled over the rocks and saw Gracie floating closer. She was not going to make it, Gracie was too far out. She could see a man struggling to get within reach of Gracie ... he was nearly to her.

  Bella put the walking stick into the water and stepped one foot in, feeling for the drop off she feared would be there. Her foot slipped, then hit solid ground and she edged the walking stick out a few inches further and inched her foot to the stick.

  They were approaching fast and she took two horrifying steps further without the use of the stick. The water now reached her waist. She took a final look back at the bank to assure herself it was still there and raised the walking stick out to the two in the water. The man had grabbed for Gracie’s arm and pulled her close to him. He saw Bella and the walking stick and grabbed for it. He nearly pulled Bella off her feet and she began to scream. She managed to keep her balance. Gracie was closer and Bella reached out her free hand and grabbed the little girl’s sleeve and let loose of her hold on the walking stick. The man let loose of Gracie, who was gripping a stuffed animal. He floated quickly away from Bella and bobbed along with the current next to Bella’s walking stick.

  Three men ran at a fast clip down the slope. Don, breathing hard, was humping it far behind.

  “I have Gracie. The man is still in the water,” she hollered to the men. “Hurry.”

  “Bring that load lock over here. Make it snappy, we’re going to lose him,” a man from the freight company hollered to another who had the presence of mind to grab the pole used to hold freight in place in a trailer.

  The man with the load lock changed direction and headed toward the hollering man. The two men picked up their speed and disappeared in the darkness and out of Bella’s sight.

  Bella unbuttoned her pea coat and snuggled crying Gracie and her water-soaked, stuffed puppy inside her wet wool pea coat and trudged up the hill toward the sound of the sirens.

  “I want my Papa,” the little girl cried.

  “Everything is ok, honey. I’ve got you Gracie. Papa will be ok.”

  Sirens were wailing louder as they approached and stopped entirely when they ambulance halted on the trail above where the man was in the river.

  Truckers had turned several of the tractors toward the river and turned on their headlights.

  “Over here, over here,” someone yelled. “We got him.”

  When the emergency vehicle had maneuvered its way down the bike trail, the three truckers had pulled Jake up the bank and onto the grass next to the trail.

  “He’s not conscious,” someone said. “He’s breathing but he’s out. He’s got a big cut on his head, anyone got a rag.”

  “I think I clobbered him with the load lock trying to hook him,” one of the truckers said.

  “It’s better than drowning, don’t worry about it. Looks like he’s got more troubles than a cut on the head,” another said. “Here’s the ambulance people. They’ll get him patched up.”

  “I have the little girl,” Bella said approaching the rescuers in a slow walk with the girl, still huddled inside her pea coat. Don caught up with Bella steadying her as she walked.

  “The man is Jake, the little girl’s papa,” Bella said to one of the medics. “I don’t know his last name. She seems to be okay except for being drenched and scared. She’s been calling for Papa.”

  “Where is my Papa?” the little girl said.

  “He’s alive but he’s not going to be talking for a bit,” a rescuer said. “Tell the little girl he will be okay. Let’s get her into the ambulance. We’ll take her to get looked over at the hospital.”

  “You are going to be just fine, Honey,” Bella said. “Your Papa is going to be fine too.” She finally came to realize it was not her baby sister Gracie snuggled in her pea coat but little Bella, the sweet girl she had given the cookie to near the library with her Papa.

  “Papa,” little Bella said. “I want my Papa.”

  “Honey, he’s right here,” She opened her jacket wrapped around Bella and let her see Jake laying on the gurney.

  “It looks like you might need to be looked at too,” the emergency tech looked at Bella in her water-drenched coat. “Hop in the back with the girl. She seems to have taken to you.”

  “Your Papa is right here. Don’t worry honey, we are going to take both of you to the hospital,” Bella said.

  Soon the men got Jake, who was strapped to the stretcher, wheeled into the back of the ambulance. Bella held the shivering little girl close and got into the back of the ambulance. They sat on the side bench and the attendant helped belt them in.

  Little Bella looked up from her snug place nestled in the heavy wool coat. “Are we going to see my mommy at the hosta-piddle?”

  “Yes, Honey, we are going to see your mommy.”

  “You did real good, Don,” Bella said.

  “That was quick thinking there buddy,” the attendant said to Don. “If you hadn’t acted so quick and called us, old timer, things could certainly have been a lot worse.” Say, do you need that leg looked at?”

  “No. I got my gimpy leg courtesy of LBJ a lifetime time ago.” Don smiled at the driver and gave a wave to Bella and limped away from th
e vehicle.

  The driver slammed the door securely closed. The siren wailed to life and Bella watched as lights flashed blue and red, reflecting off of Don’s sweaty face, and she cradled the wet little girl in her arms as the ambulance sped off toward the city lights across the river.

  Chapter 22 Old Jake Forest The sound of a billion ants … screaming their bloody heads off. Roy was one smooth talking sonofabitch. If anybody needed guidance in avoiding sin, it was me. The buff guy with piercing black eyes in the smoldering red suit inserted it for shits and grins. LOL.

  Present

  Things were not quite right when I woke up. I was having a hell-of-a time shaking off sleep. The fog refused to entirely lift, like when you’re wearing sunglasses on a humid day and get into the car with the air-conditioner on; they fog up around the edges. I could see clearly if I concentrated, but the edges were just a bit out of focus. I looked around; it was obvious I was not in our bed, the sheets felt crinkly, a bit like paper. Priscilla never puts white sheets on the bed and they never have starch. When I moved my arm, it hit something very cold. I turned my head and focused my eyes on the chrome railing; I was in one of those skinny, antiseptic hospital beds. Right beside the pillow was the fuzzy, little, stuffed puppy, Lonesome, staring at me.

  My mind was apparently firing on only a few of the available cylinders; I don’t know for how long. I saw things that weren’t right ... people ... both people I knew, which was quite all right, and several that I knew when they were alive. Now that was a might spooky. Everyone I saw appeared alive. I saw my mom who has been dead for about twenty years and my dad, who’s been dead for half a century. Maybe my mind was just funnin’ with me, like ol’ Roy used to say.

  I heard a whole butt-spank of noises. There was beeps coming from someplace behind my head and the sound of a compressor that would kick in every so often, like one of those rigs that you put a couple of quarters in at a 7-11 to put air in your bike tires. When I heard that, a contraption on my arm tightened making my arm straighten out and, after a minute or so, it relaxed its grip.