Myine went to see Juliet often. They spoke on all kinds of subjects. Myine was glad to have a good friend to talk to. Juliet was still interested in almost everything going on in the world.
One day Juliet asked Myine, “Listen, here, am I looking old? Ami too fat?”
“No, where did you get that from? Not Cloud, I know.”
Juliet laughed a little, “No, it's all these magazines coming out for the last five or six years! With all the ‘beautiful people.’ Showing all their beautiful asses. I don't blive it! Somebody is doin something wrong to their body. That ain't no natural look!”
Myine laughed. “I heard someone say that when you go to bed with somebody these days, you don't know whether to get in the drawer, after they take everything off, or to get in bed with em. All the good stuff was removable!”
“That's right, Myine! My beautician said wigs sell, even here in Wideland, like hotcakes!”
“Well, we have our own hair, Juliet. We should thank God for that, because some people really need a wig; I'm glad there are wigs for them.”
“Well, I'm just glad beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Cause I wouldn't make all these plastic surgery changes even if I had the money. People don't know what may happen to them later on in their life. If God gave it to me, I'm glad to keep it!”
“Some people use plastic surgery, Juliet, for medical reasons. It does more than just make them look better, sometimes it makes them functional, or able to live without being stared at.”
“Well, I wasn't being mean, Myine. I'm just telling you what I think. If I could get my legs to work, I would. You know, Cloud has me so I can stand up straight? I can't walk, but I can stand up on my feet!”
“What is he doing to you that you have to stand up?” Myine laughed as she asked.
“He just likes to try to make me exercise, keep my bones strong, and moving! I'm the one kissin and huggin him.”
They laughed, and were happy for each other's joys. But Juliet was concerned that there was no one to love Myine like Cloud loved her.
When Herman stopped by to holler through the door at Juliet, Juliet called him in. “What chu doing tonight, Herman? Have you seen that new picture at the movies? Everybody says it is good! You need to take Myine to see it. She likes things like that. All she does is stay at home.”
“Well, did you ask her if she wanted to go?”
“No, I hadn't seen you yet, and she already been by here.”
Herman didn't want to tell Juliet to use her telephone to call Myine and ask her; that should be his job. But something didn't feel right for him. He didn't want to ask her because he didn't want to hear Myine say no. After all the years he was still hesitant to ask Myine personal, just-the-two-of-us things.
He laughed and said, “What are you today? A matchmaker? Make your man take you!”
“We already saw it. That's why I know you all would like it.” Herman didn't ask Myine. He just passed her front door on the way to his truck, looked at her house as he locked the gate, then got in his truck and went home to put on some more of his lonely life music.
After the day he had helped Myine work in the garden, Herman began to stop by almost every day trying to catch Myine in the yard again. The days he didn't come by he was worried that he was becoming a nuisance. He was the only one who thought that; they were all glad to have his help, and Myine was just glad he was there. They shared the harvest with him, and it even had become a yearly thing.
Herman was, now, going on fifty-eight years old, and didn't look it. He looked worn, but not tired. When he looked old it was because he had been lonely so long. Loneliness can eat away at your body, your nerves. He had been in love with Myine a long time, but thought he was too old to step up to anyone, much more so with Myine, with his heart in his hands.
Myine loved Herman, but felt she was too old and ugly to be thinking about “love.” Thinking, “a dried-up old woman should stay in her place. I don't want to be frisking around with anybody. I'd look like a fool trying to court at my age.”
They were caught in a quandary in life, and didn't have sense enough to see they were both in the same place. Life don't wait for nobody-, it was passing, as usual, swiftly, at that age.
But Myine was beautiful to Herman. He loved her new, short, stylish, greying hair and the glow of the golden earrings she wore. He liked that her body was kept supple, slim, and healthy from all the work she did on her land, in her garden. He liked her starched, cotton, wide-skirted dresses with a belt at her waist, in this age of short-shorts and belly-rings and asses hanging out all over the place. You don't have to wonder or dream about what a woman has anymore, they put it all out there for you to see.
Myine didn't have varicose veins on her legs either. “Probably,” he thought, “because she never had any children. But they can take those things right out now-a-days. Nobody has to have them. She is forty-eight now, and I am almost fifty-eight. What can I do about this woman? Time is flying right on by us, fast as this world is turning.
“I don't blive she is seeing anyone else; hell, I'm around there practically every day, and I don't ever see anyone except her regular friends. I wonder does he come late at night?” He shook his head. “No, Cloud or Juliet would know that. So, what's wrong with her?”
He continued on his train of thought. “I wanted a family, but I'll be happy with just a wife. I can't raise no hell in bed, but she does not seem to be doing anything in bed at all.
“I think I've loved Myine ever since she was a little girl, and I asked her to wait for me. She is always sweet. And so bright and pretty. She reminds me of her mother, Rose. And she reminds me of my mother in her ways. Oh, God, I don't want to be a fool; especially not an old fool!”
He laughed at himself. “I don't know why I'm even thinking about it. She isn't thinking about me. But, I haven't been there in a few days, so I'm going by there today anyway. I have to see Cloud about something.”
When Herman hadn't shown up for a few days, Myine missed him. She didn't ask Cloud about him, or mention him to Juliet. “She, of all people, does not need to know I'm thinking of him. I don't want her laughing at me. Nobody wants an old lady crying on their shoulders in these days.”
This was the planting season so she was working in the garden some part of every day, thinking of things in general as she worked. After awhile, thoughts of Herman came into her mind. “Herman still looks really good for his age. These women I know out here would love to get a man like Herman. He is a good man. Not a lot of fooling around that I know of, and Cloud never would tell me even if he knew. Those old biddies at the church would tell it though.
“People say forty-eight is not old, but I feel old. I don't feel … like a woman should. But, Lord, I don't want no more men like the two I almost married. I don't want any more of that mess! I don't usually curse, Lord, but shit on that kind of love. I still don't know what all the fuss is about people making love. I have never felt it. Never! And I want to know!
“And it looks like I'm going to leave this world not knowing. Lord, making love, or sex, can't be the most important thing in life. But, Lord, I want a man. And they are all taken … or dead.” She struck at a weed with her hoe, but hit a radish plant instead. After she repaired the damage, she began hoeing again.
“You haven't made me live a real hard life though, Lord, I thank you for that. But I did have some hard times. If I hadn't always answered the call of someone's needs I might have had time to do more courting, and I'd have someone today. And when Juliet tells me how good Cloud makes her feel, down there, I'd know what she was talking about!”
She stopped to wipe her brow with the handkerchief she carried in her pocket, and looked up at the afternoon sun. “Lord, it's getting hot out here. Or maybe it's just me and this menopause I'm having.” She turned back to her work, still thinking.
“Herman,” she thought a minute. “He used to be too old for me, but … not now. When I saw him take his shirt off in this garden the other
day … Well, he didn't look like any young Adonis, but he wasn't supposed to. What would an Adonis want with me? An old grey-haired lady? And I am not going to dye my hair. I like the grey; it sparkles with the light. It's mine. I just thank God that I have some hair on my head, grey or not.
“And my hair is soft, and smells good, healthy. Some ladies have put so many chemicals and dyes on their head, so that now, they don't hardly have any left; and what they have left is stiff and hard.
“Same way they do their faces. I do give my own self a facial every month or so, and I never did wear all that makeup mess these people on the television say you need to look ‘right’ or to feel good. Crap! They make money, and you make bad skin.
“You can't believe those models on that TV who probably have never put the product on their smooth, fresh skin! Or they play camera tricks. You can't ever tell. Everybody lies so much in this world today. Everybody! The people in this world are speeding to a miserable end. No one seems to be happy anymore; and other people are getting rich off of it.”
Myine stood, and leaned on the hoe handle, thoughtfully. “But when I saw Herman's stomach and his chest … Well, his stomach is smooth and you could see the muscles in it, and his chest. All that work he has done all his life, I guess.”
She bent over the hoe to work again. “He may not look like a young man, but young men don't look all that good either, now-a-days. Some of them do, in the magazines maybe, but you can never tell; they can be empty, blank, nada inside their heads, beneath all that store-bought beauty. They may even desire other men, and not like you for their self at all.
“Herman has smooth, warm skin on his body, you can tell just by looking at it. And he has just a little pot-belly; gas. He doesn't eat right, I bet. He never talks about his women. I bet he has two or three of these used young women messing around him. Everybody wants ‘young.’ Young.
“Well, let them. I don't envy the young anything but their health, and the time to make some choices I didn't make when I was able. And, I am healthy, except for all these little aches and pains that come out of nowhere.”
She stood up straight, and placed one hand on her back. “Like my back. I used to do things like this gardening all day every day when I was feeding those children, Lola and Poem. Had to do it. I never got pains like this, but maybe that is why I have them now. Well, what's the hell? As my papa used to say.”
She bent over to work again, still thinking. “I love Herman's eyes. Eyes like my daddy's, prettier than mine. They look tired though, a little blurry around the edge of his pupils. I think I better take more vitamins than I do already. Go get a massage and a facial, or something. Not going to get any new clothes, though; I'm not going anywhere but to that new church. They don't call it a church, they call it a Hall. I like what they say though. They're saying something! Things I never heard before. I can honestly say it sounds just like the truth to me.”
When Herman just happened to come by that very day, Cloud had lain Juliet down on the grassy lawn around their house. She had prepared a nice lunch to have a picnic. She could do all kinds of things in her kitchen, while in her wheelchair.
Cloud had added on to and fixed the house so it was very convenient for her to do anything she might want. Wings Val had his own room, and they had added enough space to their bedroom to put in a queen-size bed. The window spaces were larger, wider, facing away from the big house, into the woods. Juliet loved watching the trees and animal life from her bed.
Juliet's doctor had given her birth control pills because her monthly periods had never stopped, and she took them. They knew they did not need another child. Cloud had told Juliet, “We are blessed to have the one we have, Wings; us, mixed together.”
They often made love outside when they knew no one would be coming around their house. He would stretch her out, flat on her back. Juliet loved his patience and understanding. He'd spread her legs enough, then lay his body between them.
They kissed and teased awhile, laughing, together. When she was ready, and trying to pull her knees up, he raised his body and helped her. He smiled down at her as he placed her knees at his sides. She could squeeze his hips with them. Then he lowered himself, slowly, until he entered her warm and waiting body. He loved making love to his woman.
They lived, they loved, and her being crippled did not bother them. Their faith in their God, and the adventure of their life, made them ready when love had come. Their love, and passions, made them indestructible, so far, in the life they had chosen to live. Together.
Herman was on his way to see Cloud, so he happened to see them making love so slow and lazily that day. He didn't mean to watch them, but he did for a moment. It was everything; not just seeing two people make love. It was the blue of the sky, the fluffy white clouds, the light, caressing breeze and the sun shining warmly down on them through the patterns of leaves on the gently swaying trees. Leaves, that made patterns on the gently moving, naked body of Cloud.
All these things made Herman's chest fill up with desire and envy … and pain. He turned, leaving before they saw him in his own naked longing.
He had to cross the wide breadth of Myine's land. His throat tightened as he passed the little, old schoolroom so near the main house: Memories. As he reached Myine's house, he stared at her front door, wanting to enter it, speak to her, tell her what he felt; but he didn't.
Still walking on, and thinking, his feelings overwhelmed him. A sob started, deep down in his heart where he was feeling sorry for himself. The sob tried to come out; he fought the sob, fought his feelings.
Finally … he was in his car, driving, away. The sob, just one, broke through. He cried out, aloud, “Oh, God! I want a life! I want my woman! You know she's mine! Give her to me, give her to me. Please, Jehovah! She says that is your name; she even showed it to me, right in my own Bible! She says you like to be called by your name because your son said, ‘Hallowed be thy name.’ So, Jehovah God, please, give me that woman, my woman, please, God, please! Let Myine love me. There is no sense in both of us being alone! I know she must want somebody. Please, God, give her to me, let me take care of her. Please.”
Herman drove home, took a shower, had a drink, and sat down to think. He didn't shave again, but he put on fresh clothes, a white shirt and a pair of khaki pants. He got back in his truck, and drove back to Myine's house. His heart had calmed down, but the memory of Cloud and Juliet, and his own love throbbing in his breast, made him go back.
Myine was sitting in the swing on her porch. She looked up as he parked his truck. Her heart beat a little faster even as she thought, “I know it's just Herman, but Herman is a man I like.” She did not let herself think of it as romantic. She did not want to look like a fool, and be hurt again.
Herman was smiling as he reached the bottom of her steps. “How're you doing, Mz. Myine?”
“Just fine, Mr. Herman. How are you doing on this beautiful day?”
“I could say fine, myself.”
After a moment's hesitation, she said, “Come on in.”
He started up the steps. His confidence faded as he said, “I'm just stopping by to holler at Cloud.”
She smiled, looking directly into his eyes, “I believe they are having a picnic over there. They usually come out on these kind of days.”
Herman sat in the swing beside her as he asked, “Aren't you going to the picnic?”
“It's not that kind of picnic. I may go visit her, later, but I always give them a few hours to relax alone, before I butt in.”
The thought passed swiftly through his mind, “She has already seen what I saw! She must be made of steel.” He said aloud, “Do you think I'd be butting in?”
Myine, nervous, smiled, pushing the swing with her foot, but it did not move because he was too heavy. He noticed, and pushed the swing gently for her, as she answered. “Oh, maybe not, he is always happy to see you. I'm always here with them; they can see me anytime. But you could stay and visit with me a little, first.”
“Herman, stop talking silly. You know you are always welcome. I'd love someone to talk to.”
Herman leaned back, smiling, giving the swing a solid push. “There is always me, Myine. It's a beautiful day to sit out on a porch with a lovely lady!”
“Oh, Herman! You can sit here with me as long as you don't talk to me like I am crazy. I know you could be a lot of places with someone on a day like this, instead of sitting here with me.”
Herman stopped smiling, and looked directly into Myine's eyes. “There is no other place I would rather be, Ms. Myine.”
Myine laughed lightly. “Oh, Lord. Now you're going proper on me.”
Still looking directly in her eyes, Herman answered, “I'd love to do anything on you. I mean, with you, around you, by you, whatever you let me do.”
He saw the blush come into Myine's face, and thought he had overstepped by telling her his truth. He quickly said, “Say, I remember you telling me you would like to have a place to sunbathe some day. Why don't you let me build you a little private space, next to your house?
“I could build it for you from the inside of your basement coming out. Then you'd have two new rooms. I could build it so you can remove a wall, when you want to, and it would be open to your whole yard. Just when you want to be naked in the sun, the walls would be there. For your privacy.”
Myine laughed, happily, and Herman became more comfortable. He couldn't understand why he was nervous; he was used to Myine; he had known her all her life. He made his body move into a more relaxed condition.
He continued speaking, “We can plant flowers; flowers you like. And I'll put in a small Japanese fountain, and a slender, beautiful tree. I can build a platform for a mattress just the size you want it … for you.”
Life is Short But Wide Page 19