Ellie's Crows

by MaryAnn Myers

  Ellie let the chocolate melt in her mouth. “How do you find these places?”

  “Slow nights,” Diablo said, and Ellie laughed. That was his answer for just about everything. They’d had such a nice ride. It was a little after midnight. They’d be heading home now; his place probably, and hadn’t had one fight or even a glimmer of an argument. Ellie was liking this Harley more and more. It was almost impossible to argue on a motorcycle.

  “Diablo, why do you think we fight anyway?” she would like to ask, just once when he was in a good mood. But then that would almost certainly put him in a bad mood. She could see him throwing his cone in the trash, see him starting the motorcycle with sparks flying out of his feet, see him….

  “You’re melting,” he said, and nudged her hand closer to her mouth.

  Ellie licked around the sides and top and reached for one of the napkins tucked in his shirt pocket.

  “You know why I love you, Diablo?”

  “No, why?”

  Ellie hesitated. A split-second ago, she knew. Now she had no idea, aside from the fact that everyone told her she shouldn’t, that he was bad news and that she should steer clear of him. Don’t give him the time of day. He’s trouble. “Lots of reasons.”

  “Name one,” Diablo said. “And don’t say it’s because I’m a good lover, because that I already know.”

  Ellie laughed. He was referring to the time they’d made love under the apple tree, her suggestion one night because of the full moon, and how she froze her butt off, teeth chattering, and…. “Well, that was rather good,” she’d said afterwards, both scrambling to get back into their clothes.

  “And don’t say it’s because I remind you of Damian either.”

  Ellie smiled. He did, dark hair, strong neck and back, well-defined muscles...same spirit, same kindness in their eyes at times, same deadliness at others. “It’s because you’re honest.”

  Diablo leaned close and kissed her. “About being a good lover?”

  “Yes,” Ellie nodded, touching him. “And about who you are.”

  “Which is…?”

  “A man standing on his own two feet.”

  Diablo glanced away and shrugged. “Is there any other way?”

  “For you? No.” Ellie watched him pick up a stone and toss it in the air. There were bats overhead. One flew down to investigate and took to the sky again. “And because you are a good lover.”

  Diablo looked at her with a promise in his smile. The two finished their ice cream in silence as the bats soared above.

  ~ 8 ~

  Ellie’s day job was at the Whitright Desktop Publishing Firm where she worked as a typesetter. And it was just that, a job. Ellie admittedly was not a career person. She worked strictly for the paycheck, and didn’t care about the challenge, or the glory. Even when her boss praised her for “a job well done,” something the woman did often, it meant very little. Ellie would smile and thank her for the compliment, and that’s as much thought as it elicited. Ellie liked her boss; they got along well. She might even be a friend, had Ellie met her elsewhere. But as it was, all the woman ever talked about was work, and so….

  Ellie glanced at the clock. She’d promised to bring Grandma Betty her old patchwork-quilt on the way to the laundromat, but wanted to swing by the barn first.

  “I’m thinking I should have it here when I die,” Grandma Betty had said, “so you can make sure it goes with me. Okay?”

  Ellie nodded. “Did you make the quilt, Grandma?”

  “No, not that I recall. I think I bought it at a garage sale or something.”

  Ellie smiled. “How long have you had it?”

  Grandma Betty couldn’t recall that either. “Oh…a long time, I think.”

  Ellie stopped by her apartment and picked up the quilt. It had been months now since Grandma Betty sent it home with her. “Wash it and just keep it there till winter,” she’d said. “I’m tired of getting pee all over it.” About that time she’d developed a bladder infection and had become incontinent. Initially, there was the hope that this was a temporary condition. It wasn’t.

  Ellie had two letters waiting for her at home. One was from a feminist organization soliciting funds for a facility to house “Women in Transition.” And the other, a disconnection notice on her phone. She got one every month, and always paid it within the allotted time, but could never seem to get ahead. She tossed them both on the table, and headed for the barn. It was a quick stop, nothing amiss in the stall, and Damian’s hip seemed to be all but healed.

  Grandma Betty was happy to see her earlier than expected. “You won’t believe what just happened,” she said.

  Ellie sat down next to her.

  “I had a dream.”

  Ellie smiled. “In the daytime?”

  “Yep. As God is my witness.”

  Ellie laughed. Grandma Betty didn’t believe in God. Not in the traditional sense at least. Ellie adjusted Grandma Betty’s pillow. She looked so tiny, so frail. “What kind of dream?”

  “One of the sand ones.”

  “With the hour glass?”

  “Yes. Only the sand was all different colors, like the sculptures, and you should’ve seen how everything turned out. It was awful! Blue where it shouldn’t have been. A whole bunch of white in one spot. And the red, I couldn’t even see the red anymore. How can a color just disappear?”

  “I don’t know.” They’d had these kinds of discussions before.

  “Do you think I should get my hair done?”

  Ellie stared for a moment, then caught on. It had been months since Grandma Betty had her hair colored, maybe it was time.

  “I didn’t think it mattered, what with my dying soon and all. But maybe it does. And you know what else? They’re threatening to kick old man Smith out. Said he won’t stop playing with his louie.”

  Ellie laughed, but even so, blushed.

  “I say let the old man be. Hang a do-not-disturb sign on his door and let him go to town!”

  Ellie laughed again. “Do you want me to go see if the beautician has time tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. How faded am I?”

  Grandma Betty loved the color red! Red cars, red lipstick, red fingernails, red hair.

  “I think you’re due.”

  “How much do they charge again?”

  “Not that much. Don’t worry about it.”

  * * *

  Ellie phoned her father and was promptly put on hold. She hated asking him for money, but what else could she do? “It’s for Grandma’s hair,” she said, and was on hold again before she got a reply. She glanced at the clock on the stove in her kitchen. Abby was due any minute.

  “How much did you say?”

  “Forty dollars.”

  “Okay, I’ll get it in the mail. How you doin’?”

  “Good.” She heard Abby outside the door. “I’ll talk to you later. Give Mom my love, I gotta go.”

  Ellie’s mom was actually her stepmother. She never really knew her birth mother; she’d died in a one-car automobile accident when Ellie was only ten months old and still nursing. Fortunately Ellie couldn’t remember that time in her life, or the colic and dysentery she suffered for weeks following her mother’s death. She did, however, remember her father marrying Jewel, even though it was just a little over a year later and Ellie still a toddler. She even remembered what Jewel was wearing that day. Seafoam green. From head to toe. Seafoam green. It was the first time she’d ever heard the word seafoam, and heard it over and over that whole day.

  Abby was all excited. She and Ellie were going to a summer solstice celebration, her first one, and she could hardly wait. “Do you think we’ll howl at the moon or something?”

  Ellie laughed. “You can howl if you like.” Diablo had pulled another graveyard shift for the night, so Ellie wasn’t feeling guilty for a change, and said she just might howl herself. At first he’d told her he wasn’t working and pretended to sulk, then finally that he was, and Ellie asked why the pretense.
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  “To keep you on your toes,” he’d said.

  “I don’t need to be kept on my toes,” Ellie responded, pushing him away.

  “Oh but you do,” he insisted

  Abby had bought them both Native American beaded headbands, which she declared essential to wear, along with tied-dyed T-shirts and faded jeans, and had made crystal medallions that hung on chains for around their necks. Ellie joked that they were overdressed, but they weren’t. Not unless you counted the fact that they were the only ones wearing shoes.

  Lolita was nowhere to be seen. Ellie hadn’t seen her for hours, let alone the flock, but thought nothing of it. This time of year, it was not unusual for them to disappear for hours, sometimes days on end.

  “Oh, look,” Abby said. Across the way sat the flower-child woman, who gazed up from her knitting and smiled. Abby waved. “Wonder what she’s doing here?”

  Ellie shrugged.

  Most of the women assembled, they knew. All were on the same path of sorts and always bumping into one another here and there at these retreats. Some had their daughters and little nieces with them. It was a small group. Abby counted twenty-two attendees, including the children. One little girl had medieval-looking braces on her legs.

  The ceremony began with a series of readings.

  Brush Fire.

  Fallen timbers, the grass smolders.

  Bronze leaves, now charcoal gray.

  An eerie silence, a smoky stench.

  Clouds now come, much too late.

  Abby looked at Ellie. “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellie whispered.

  “It sounds defeatist.”

  Ellie smiled. That, or realistic.

  Creativity has no place in contentment. Awareness is the vaccine that eradicates the terminal disease.

  Abby stared. Ellie stared. The flower-child woman stared. “A light refreshment will now be served.”

  “Thank goodness,” Abby said. “I was starting to get depressed.”

  Clouds, in the shapes of elephants and gazelles soared overheard as a tall thin woman sat down next to them at a table, dressed from head to toe in “all things natural and handmade.”

  “See, look here. Even my bra,” she said, turning around and raising her shirt for them to see the label. “Hand picked, hand woven, 100% cotton.”

  “Wow,” Abby said, noting the size. “Must have been one hell of a plant.”

  “No insecticides, no dyes, nothing,” the woman said proudly. “It’s all organic. I am in complete harmony with nature.”

  “Cool.”

  “Even my shoes, natural cowhide.”

  “As opposed to…?” Ellie said.

  Abby gave her a look; this as the woman fished out a pair of shoes from her hemp bag for them to inspect up close. “Guess how much I paid for them. Go ahead, guess.”

  Abby examined them carefully. “$59.95.”

  The woman’s mouth dropped. “Not hardly, they’re genuine moccasins. Guess again.”

  It was Ellie’s turn. “Uh…. How did they get them red?”

  “Oh, I’m so glad you asked. They soak them in beet juice. Isn’t that awesome?”

  “Yep.” Both Ellie and Abby agreed it was awesome, and next came an all natural “water bladder.”

  “Natural how?” Abby asked, tucking her arms to her sides. The woman handed it to Ellie.

  “It holds a full liter and guaranteed to stay cold for six hours.”

  Ellie handed it back. “That’s nice. Why’s it empty?”

  “I forgot to fill it,” the woman said, without missing a beat. “And last but not least….” She dug down and produced a tiny drawstring satchel from deep inside her bag. “Freeze-dried Peyote.”

  “Oh shit,” Ellie said, and started to laugh.

  * * *

  Nightfall brought an air of seriousness. A somberness. And another reading.

  The lady I love is where I live.

  She now has nothing more to give.

  Then a dance, a sacred dance; the reason for the flower-child woman’s presence. A dance that with every move, every expression, exhibited joy and evoked heartbreak. A celebration, a mourning. Laughter and tears. Conception and birth. And in the end, as she raised her eyes and beseeched the moon, a collective pause.

  Ellie glanced away.

  “As we look to the North, to the South, to the East, and to the West, we celebrate the body of the earth. The feminine, the yin. Fertility, sovereignty, and sustenance. We beseech life. We beseech death.”

  Death indeed. Here came the mosquitoes, which posed a dilemma. To spray, or not to spray? Kill or repel? Annihilate or ignore. For a moment, it seemed a helpless situation, all the women swatting themselves and feeling guilty. But the situation was promptly remedied. The organizers announced they had everything under control, and had just simply forgotten to put out their arsenal of citronella candles, which were passed around then and quickly lighted. Abby thought it added to the atmosphere, particularly since the citronella didn’t necessarily work its best at first and so everyone drew closer to the campfire as they devised an impenetrable stand of candles around them.

  Ellie and Abby were hunkered down between a mother and a daughter, who were by all appearances, “on the outs.” Abby introduced them. “This is Olivia and this is Erica. Erica’s in seventh grade, wants a nose-ring, and got two “F’s” on her last report card.”

  Ellie glanced from one to the other, and shook her head in wonder. Abby was a marvel.

  “Olivia is a psychologist.”

  Ellie smiled supportively at little Erica.

  Trays carrying frosted wine glasses brimming with a frothy strawberry beverage were circulated that proved sweet, yet tart, with an aftertaste of lemon to symbolize fertility and ultimate labor.

  Thanks was given to the birth of the season, to all seasons, to the everlasting sun and the infinite moon. And to the night, this very night, “When light reaches the limit of its power over darkness. We give thanks to the goddess above. To the goddess within. And to the circle of life. The energy of life. Life itself.”

  “This is awesome,” Abby whispered.

  Ellie nodded, unsure if she meant the juice, or the night. Or both.

  “As the spear is to the male, so the cauldron is to the female.” The flower-child woman threw something into the fire that hissed. “For you, Earth Mother. Blessed be.”

  ~ 9 ~

  Grandma Betty talked of having no regrets, but did have some. She stared at the ceiling, counting them to herself. There was the time she jumped out of a moving car and then lied about it and said she was pushed. And there was that day….

  “Betty?”

  “Yes?” Grandma Betty turned, startled somewhat, and looked at the aide standing next to her bed.

  “What do you need?”

  “Who me? I don’t know,” she said. “A new body, I guess.” She laughed at her own joke.

  The aide laughed, too. “Is that what you rang for?”

  Grandma Betty puzzled and glanced at her hand. Apparently she’d pressed the light button. It was right at her fingertips. “Well, I’ll be damned. How’s come when I don’t happen to need anything, you come right away?”

  The aide laughed again, then adjusted Grandma Betty’s blanket and fluffed her pretty red hair. “What’re you all dolled up for, Betty?”

  “Nothing,” Grandma Betty said. “Absolutely nothing.” The way she figured it, she had days before she’d get around to dying. And she wasn’t expecting any company until tomorrow, unless you counted the church lady who came every Thursday. “What’s her name?”

  “Who?”

  Grandma Betty frowned. “That woman from the church. The one that comes and prays all the time.”

  “Oh, her. I think her name’s Deborah.”

  “Deborah? Really. Now that’s a nice name.” She’d gone to school with a Deborah. Deborah Watson, a plain girl with a big forehead, if she recalled correctly.

  “Can
I get you something, Betty? Something out of your fridge?”

  “Oh….” Grandma Betty thought for a minute. Starving herself was getting harder and harder. At times it was tempting to eat. “See if I have any of them puddings left.”

  The aide checked her refrigerator and turned. “Vanilla or chocolate?”

  Grandma Betty hesitated. “Never mind. You go ahead and have one. Take whichever you like.”

  The woman took a chocolate one, thanked her and left, and Grandma Betty found herself staring at the ceiling again. Now where was I? Oh yes, regrets. She folded her arms across her chest. I shouldn’t have lied about being pushed out of that car. It got a lot of people in trouble. And I was to blame for that potato salad spoiling that one day, too. I honestly thought it would be okay, but so many people got the runs later. She looked around. “I wonder if I should be writing this stuff down.”

  * * *

  Ellie and Abby peered into the Teepee set up for the occasion, and backed out quickly. “All natural lady” was inside, showing off her moccasins and she’d already cornered them twice tonight. “God, what is it with that woman and those friggin’ shoes?” Abby said. “If she shows them to me one more time, I swear I’m gonna smack her upside the head with them!”

  Ellie chuckled. It was still “mingling time,” time set aside to get to know one another. “To open and to share, and to allow others into your space and touch your soul before the ultimate hour of silence and solitude.”

  “Quick! Here she comes!” Abby whispered. They made their way across the lawn and close to the campfire, which had become more and more of a bonfire. Several women danced around its perimeter, one humming while the other swayed and bowed, and chanted in what sounded like a Native American tongue.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Abby said, when they found a place to sit. “People at the barn are talking about you.”

  “Me?” Ellie looked at her. “Why?”

  Abby shrugged. “I don’t know. Because of Victor, I guess.”