“Mithuth Kwamah, I thaw Marthellath’z theat.”
Mrs. Kramer thought it was just the cutest thing when she told the story to the neighbors and Margaret’s mother. It was always good for a hearty laugh, but, it didn’t help Maggie’s disposition—the two women took her part in the role play dead serious . . . her being the eldest.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. They thought he was so cute. I had to listen to them tell that tale over and over.” thought the older little girl who was frequently permitted to sit in on the ladies’ coffee klatches.
“Blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Later that day, Margaret gave her little brother the what-for . . . and, then, he gave it back to her—going at fisti-cuffs ’round the ole oak tree.
{“It was an even match.” Mr. Bill explained. “She was older but he was male.
{“Contrary to generally accepted mythology, nowhere is it written in stone that girls mature earlier than boys. Probably the only way girls out-shine their male counterparts is in memorization skills and an ability to concentrate—a significant crowd-pleaser amongst the teachers—and, maybe, some fine motor skills. While girls are sitting, doing their ‘yes, ma’am’ thing, boys are flitting around like bees—if not physically, certainly in their minds—gathering insights, information, concepts, experiences from an ever-expanding universe which they, eventually, mesh into an interlocking network around about eleventh grade and hurl toward specific goals. But, nowhere is it written in stone that boys have a corner on those kinds of thought processes.
{“Proof being . . . Margaret could usually hold her own with her older brother.”}
*
“Yes, Clarence tendered me quite a bit. Marrying
him . . . the right thing at the right time.”
*
{“Marcella’s house was air conditioned. Windows were closed tight, well-draped; drapes were drawn shut and Marcella’s room was a cellular hollow unto itself. On the other hand . . .” Mr. Bill began.}
“On the other hand, my parents’ house was not conducive to playing Doctor. Doors were rarely closed due to the attic fan and the necessity for good circulation. Unless it was raining or cold, windows remained open and light exposed every corner.”
{“Maggie’s mother would never have allowed it, anyway, and older brother was just as likely to walk through as not . . . one room opened into another.”}
“Poverty . . .
{“. . . or in the case of Maggie’s parents, the necessity for frugality . . .”}
“. . . can be a saving grace. We rarely had soft drinks or chips. Sweets . . . except for an occasional box of vanilla wafers . . . were baked, not bought and severely rationed. If Momma had to bake them, she’d make sure they stayed around.”
{“Margaret’s mother,” Mr. Bill amends, “served only bakery cookies at her Sunday School luncheons. Maggie knew just how many she could rifle before her mother suspected someone had infiltrated the bakery bag. And, if Mother realized she didn’t have the full three
dozen on the platter, the culpable off-spring was a no-brainer.”}
“Well, they were so fancy . . . chocolate dollops here, powdered sugar there, round ones, long ones . . . and she was so stingy!” the child justified defensively.
{“And, she never called you on it, did she?”}
“Nope. She never did call me on it . . . not till I started gaining weight.” the little daughter confesses. “It was that darn tonsillectomy. Friends at school tol’ me it’d happen. I saw it for myself when Raynie got hers . . . swelled up like a toad.”
“Meals out,” the woman continues, “were for Sundays and rare, special occasions, such as when Mother was in the hospital. Daddy was in no mood to cook up his ‘Campfire Special’ and felt his kids needed a little break from reality.”
{“Margaret, her brothers and dad bellied up to the bar at The Circle* drive-in—she on her daddy’s right, the boys on his left—and ordered their favorites. The little girl thrilled in the brown, buttery crunch of grilled cheese sandwiches, sour pickles, chips and chocolate malts. They were her ‘faves’ for many, many years.”}
*The Circle is addressed further in a future novel.
“Daddy made certain, though, that we had good meat. Mother’s rump roasts and gravy were to die for. And, he insisted on steak with his beans.”
{“Bacon in the beans; steak on the side . . .”}
“Lagniappe!”
*
“I peed in the tub.”
“What?!”
Margaret’s right eye began to twitch. The corner of her mouth crept to her nose and her brows knitted toward center. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard what Marcella said. No, indeed . . . she heard every, single word . . . just that it was taking a while to wrap her brain around the event.
“I peed in the tub.” the little girl repeated matter-of-factly.
Margaret’s oculars climbed the wall dancing a feisty tarantella from corner to corner to corner as she tried to remember whether she’d inhaled.
“You breathed it, didn’t ya?”
“I did not!” Margaret answered definitively trying to sound convincing. How dare the miscreant think she’d do such a stupid, mindless thing.
Marcella turned and skipped away, stopped, looked back at Maggie as though to say,
“Gotcha!”
This was the first real clue Maggie assimilated into her psyche that life may not be all she had it cracked up
to be and it hit her most rudely like a thunderbolt to the chest. There she was miles and miles, hours and hours . . .
“. . . and hours!” insisted the little girl affirmatively.
{“Ok . . . ‘and hours . . .’” Mr. Bill acquiesced.}
. . . hours and hours and hours away from mommy and daddy. She’d managed to get the curds and whey down against her true wishes, lived through a strange man’s perusal in spite of her entreaties and his common sense, drunk warm, tap water while Marcella had a fine water bottle cooling in the frig, listened through Mr. Kramer’s tirade to his wife over her own father’s alleged mishandling of the palomino pony when he helped Marcella’s dad get the contrary animal into the trailer . . . and, now, she learns she sucked up the miscreant’s pee.
Margaret was quite homesick come bedtime. Maybe a tear or two hit the pillow, but miscreant would never know . . . she was sound asleep.
“If ya hadn’ been havin’ trouble, my daddy wouldn’ve walked three houses down ta help.” Maggie mentally countered as she listened from the back seat.
“I’m sure he’d much rather’ve been home with Mommy tendin’ her broom. Sometimes, he and Mommy sweep house for ah hour . . . even more!”
{“Maggie knew her mother to be an excellent housekeeper . . .”}
“If you wake up from your nap and our door is closed, we’ll be sweeping house. You just get out your office stuff and play. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
3
Maggie’s most precious time of the year came finally, once again—first, Halloween followed quickly by Thanksgiving and the pièce de résistance, the crowning holiday of all . . . Christmas. Maggie’s school had great programs. The children loved them since they got to miss class and be entertained. Once a year ladies from the community theater acted out well-known stories: “Jack and the Beanstalk”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Hansel and Gretel”. They were fantastic in their storybook costumes. Each tale had its own delightful scenery.
Margaret’s favorite was the old hag’s cottage . . . at the end of a graham cracker trail, resting back among moss-draped oaks—which one must suspect was spun angel hair in the guise of cotton candy sprayed slime green—an occasional fir tree here and there . . . made of tea cake dough cut into requisite shapes and baked rather than the traditional gingerbread, studded with licorice and cand
ied corn and animal crackers and Juju Beans and Circus Peanuts and sweet icing lacing the roof. A wood stack leaning against the cabin’s side and smoking chimney promised warmth within but belied the malevolent fairy’s true intentions. A child would do well to look closer so as to spy the ax leaning idle against the picket fence which bordered a luscious garden of
bloomers and verdant ivies and freshly turned earth.
Way back in the back a kiln made of worn bricks and mud sat partially hidden behind a large briar bush. The heavy rusted iron door hung on one hinge, aloof and slightly ajar and a wooden-handled, metal paddle . . . for sticking into the flames and retrieving who-knew-what . . . lay on the ground nearby as though cast aside abruptly. Dried pine needles winked red-hot where the paddle had fallen sending tiny plumes of smoke into the air. Now and then a leaf caught the spark and ignited.
Farther back and off to the right lay a small stretch of murky, boggy bayou with a rough-hewn pirogue tied off to a cypress tree knee and a line of twine stretching from limb to limb holding scaly things that possessed no likeness whatsoever to fish but had whiskers and large, bulging eyes and tattered, torn feathers here and there and long, skinny tails that ended in small, bony fans covered with green algae and red soldier lichens . . . scaly things that appeared dead until the wind blew and when the wind blew, small appendages—looking ever so much like tiny a-holes on stems—covering their entire bodies protruded and flailed about catching any tidbits that came their way.
And, off to the left past the back corner of the hut stood a mighty sycamore tree with brown bark sloughing off its white trunk and a quite large bird cage made of twigs and brier branches, dangling from a lower bower—empty, door solidly secured. And, what could one make of the beautiful, bisque porcelain hovering at a distance behind the bauer—no shaded retreat for lost and wandering children—standing in rank-file as if an army
had been mustered, standing four and three feet tall, sometimes even two . . . of flesh color and lovely pink cheeks and ruby-red lips and black and blonde and red and brown, curly and straight . . . sparkling in the afternoon sunlight that drifted and filtered through the mighty sycamore’s leaves?
And, now and then, a peculiarly nasty smell, noisome and unpleasantly odoriferous, bloused out from the witch’s cottage bullying its way through tantalizing aromas of cookie and candy, nastiness like the odious smell when red flour beetles’ bodies are skuzzed around between the fingers or palm.
Then, the community player, the hag, emerged from inside the hovel dressed in long, black swags of muslin mended with lesser and greater black swatches of cloth, black shoes that turned up at the toes to accommodate those of the owner, a black hat like a man’s chapeaux. And, everywhere she walked and the tail of her skirt brushed the ground, sparks flew and dry grass blew up into a pyrotechnic billow and her cackle sent shivers up the spine.
*
“Are you aware,” Clarence began informing his wife out of a studied understanding of mythological witcheries, “that witches have no wealth of their own? Sure, they can conjure impressive trinkets, but these are fleeting and transitory and can vanish without warning . . . and there they sit with only their besoms by their sides
since besoms are all they’re allowed to possess . . . and the clothes on their backs. And, they wear black because they are hugely filthy and vile and black does not show dirt. And, there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ witch since no good fairy would dare call herself by that name or even slightly affiliate herself with those beings. And, besides, it’d mean having transitory stuff . . . and who wants that?!
“Calling a witch ‘good’ is an oxymoron . . . like Christ practicing thaumaturgy and working on behalf of Abaddon—god of this age, he who was once the seal of perfection, who once walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones, the anointed covering cherub—casting out demons in the name of Lucifer the deceiver as He was accused of doing by the Pharisees. Calling a witch ‘good’ settles well on the young psyche—to think that, for every evil force, there’s an equal or ameliorated power to overcome and set the balance aright.
“To call that latter force a ‘good fairy’ brings to mind characteristics of kindness and joy and altruism . . . hardly powerful enough to save a young one from those who wear the black, who have no conscience, no remorse . . . those who can cause a family dog to quiver and shake, hover and lose its control by, simply, turning its way.”
{“. . . what Clarence refers to as a ‘presumed presence of harm’.” Mr. Bill explains.}
“One reason why the Pharisees could not recognize Christ as Messiah . . . He, simply, was not powerful enough in their sight to overcome the Romans and all their other enemies and dilemmas. And, actually, their attitudes were most practical. After all, they were a highly intelligent and schooled people.
“How many ‘good’ leaders did it take to bring Adolf Hitler down?” Clarence paused giving Meggie time to ponder.
{“Sometimes, she’ll sit on her thumb forever.”}
When she didn’t answer, he continued, “Three.”
“How many?” Margaret questioned incredulously.
“That’s right: U.S. President Franklyn D. Roosevelt, General Douglas McArthur and Prime Minister Winston Churchill . . . three . . . cousins, all three. And, an entire host of mighty men and women of valor. Something awesome to grasp . . . that Jehovah-God raised up three mighty men simultaneously to counteract one evil dictator.
“And, Hitler was into the occult. You understand why God adamantly tells his humans to leave sorcery, fortune-telling, ouija boards, Tarot cards strictly alone?” This time, Clarence didn’t wait on his wife. “Because they work. Oh, sure. They work, alright.
“You remember when Apostles Paul and Silas walked the via through Philippi. Paul became so agitated with a young slave girl, a skilled fortune-teller possessed with a spirit of divination, who followed them around for days declaring loudly who they were and the nature of their presence.
“It would be like you and Virgie going to the mall for a fun, relaxed day and someone followed every step you made, calling out your names, even telling what you intended to do and buy while you were there.
“Finally, the girl wearied Paul so that he divested her of her skills. Spoke to the spirit and required it to remove itself which it did do, much to the chagrin of her employers who had been making a nice bundle off her abilities.”
{“The girl knew much about the two men but, either didn’t realize their true authority or overestimated her own spirit’s power. I believe that’s called ‘shooting yourself in the foot’.”}
“And, there’s an even scarier example in the Old Testament and books on ancient history when King Saul, an awesome personage in his own right . . . God’s man of the hour . . . looked upon the fierce Philistine armies that had come together, encamped to make battle against him. Saul was greatly fearful of the outcome and his heart trembled.
When the Lord did not respond to his entreaties, he went to a woman in the night and asked her to conduct a séance for him . . . even though he had, previously, cast out all occult practitioners . . . to bring forth Samuel, God’s own prophet and priest. And, to her great consternation, she succeeded. She saw an old man, what she referred to as a spirit, rising out of the earth, cloaked in a mantle.
“And, this dear gentleman was not happy and asked Saul why he had disturbed him. Samuel proceeded to inform Saul that God had washed His hands of him and his sons because of his disobedience.”
{“You can be grateful the Lord Jehovah-God does not attend to His human-kind today as He did in days of old. ‘Why is that?’ one may ask.”}
“Because,” Clarence picks up the explanation, “we’re living in His age of grace—His age of the Gentiles
—what Jesus Christ put into play when He willingly, blamelessly went to the cross. God is, for His own reasons, biding His time . . . waiting . . . wait
ing . . . waiting. Is He waiting for you to open the door to His Son? Is He waiting for you? Are all Christ’s saints waiting on you?
“Why would God not want people to have every advantage possible in this challenging world? For the same reason He denied Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil). He knows the world He created. He knows how it works—physically, chemically, socially, psychologically and every other way. He created it all . . . every poopie thing in it. He, also, knows about the old dragon . . . the most beautiful of all His created beings . . . who challenged Him face to face and was, consequently, cast to earth to roam and reap his havoc . . . and to know his time on earth is limited.
“Satan was absolutely correct when he told the pair God just didn’t want them to have that intelligence, that He wanted it all for Himself. Jehovah-God tried to spare them the knowledge of what was out there . . . out and about where that fallen angel dwelled. He was protecting them, but that protection required their
obedience in one simple matter . . . ‘Don’t eat of the Tree of Knowledge’. Seems like a simple order. Adam and Eve had the entire garden from which to benefit, but greed stepped in. They wanted it all.
“One might well wonder where that greed seed lay within the pair’s breast—all the while lurking, waiting for Satan’s timely proposition—in God’s perfect garden. One might wonder how the serpent got into the garden in the first place. Was it a test . . . like the arrangement Satan made involving Job?”
Camp Matigua: The Lost And Forgotten Page 2