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Chapter 21

Jill didn’t care to explain herself to Norma and Nikki. Norma was obviously pissed off but she wasn’t Jill’s mother. Jill was 20 anyhow. Jill was strong enough to ward off Norma’s controlling personality. But Jill knew that somehow she kept Norma’s wheels turning. Norma knew something either about Darnell or about something else that was happening that she was keeping from Jill and Nikki. That much Jill could tell clearly. What Norma was keeping secret would have to wait to be revealed. Jill didn’t really care. She only knew that when it would come to light it would probably be seriously amusing. Nobody kept the kind of energy at bay that Norma was keeping at bay unless it had great importance to them. Grandma called that kind of feeling the hailstorm. Jill thought of it more appropriately in her mind as the shit storm.

To keep Norma from blowing her cool right then and there Jill gave her the potted plant that Darnell had given her. Norma’s other passion besides negativity was plants. She lavished amounts of love and attention on plants that she steadfastly refused to utilize with people.

“Darnell said to keep it really moist, Norma”

“Fuck Darnell! I know how to keep plants. I’m going to transplant it. It’s only some kind of weed.”

“No, Norma, if you’re gonna transplant it, I’ll take it with me. It has to stay the way Sp…, er, Darnell gave it to me. Please?”

“Whatever, dear. I’ll put it out on the deck. Get your stuff together. We’re going into town for dinner in a little bit. OK, sweetie?”

Chapter 22

Sparky the dog was inconsolable after Leesa was gone. Darnell spent almost three weeks with him and all Sparky did was whimper and sleep. Darnell tried kicking him out of the house. He let him outdoors. He’d tell him to go hunt rabbits and pheasants and groundhogs. Sparky hung his head and went around the side of the shed.

Sparky and Leesa had a special relationship. Leesa considered Sparky her advisor and guide. When she was home with Sparky she constantly appealed to him for help about every decision or task that needed attention.

“Hey, Sparks,” she would ask “do you think that I should twist my hair up this morning?”

“What do ya think, Sparks, bra or no bra today?”

“Sparks, doggie, do you think Darnell would like some mustard on his cheese sandwich?”

And on and on it would go between them. Sparky would send telepathic answers to Leesa and she would laugh at his wry comments and immense dry sense of humor.

If he were really adamant about his comments he would bark from deep inside his belly. When he did that Leesa would laugh uncontrollably and mock him mercilessly.

“I don’t pay you to sass me” she would say. “You need to learn your place. You sound like Henry Kissinger. The last thing this country needs is a canine Henry Kissinger.”

When Sparky finally passed away from heartbreak (out aside of the shed) Darnell buried his body on the crest of the dirt pile and planted a wild sunflower over top of him. That took years of course because Sparky was a tough dog.

Chapter 23

Donald was truly amazed at the amount of Native artifacts strewn across Darnell’s dirt pile. When confronted with situations like that Darnell usually had unusual reactions. Donald knew that there were artifacts like that everywhere especially if you dug for them but he had a streak in him that felt better satisfied if they remained there undisturbed.

No one except a small minority of the general public had any interest in the artifacts or placed any value on them. Donald put Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps album on the turntable that night and thought about everything like he always did.

They killed us in our tipis
And they cut our women down
They might have left some babies
Lying on the ground
But the fire sticks
And the wagons come
And the night falls
On the settin’ sun…

He thought that the artifacts were those babies and that made him feel mean. He wished the artifacts were Ray Harryhausen skeletons that would rise up out of the earth to slay the intruders.

He needed a woman bad.

…And my little box
At the top of the stairs
With my Indian rug
And a pipe to share

I wish I was trapper
I would give a thousand pelts
To sleep with Pocahontas
And find out how she felt

In the morning
On the fields of green
In the homeland
We never seen…

He would tell Darnell about the jasper points and flakes and the tools and religious objects. He would tell more stuff that he had been meaning to tell him. But first he would go out.

For a change he took a good shower and put on freshly laundered jeans and t-shirt. He unleashed the fury of the old Biscayne and headed to town. He was gonna buy himself a fancy meal and see what the evening would bring. Maybe he’d run into Marlon Brando and Pocahontas. They could have a drink together. Maybe Linda Ronstadt would show up and he could ask her for a date. Something had to break. That was the way he was lookin at it.

Chapter 25

Darnell made up eleven pots of wild plants with the sifted dirt from the dirt pile. He put them on the porch and tended them religiously.

He had fixed the gullies of the dirt pile very nicely. All the rocks and stones went to the bottom and then he packed dirt back on top. He had to admit that he didn’t know what he was doing. He thought he had found a few arrowheads in the stones and kept them aside to show Donald. The only thing he could tell himself about the process was that it made him feel like he belonged to the land while he shoveled and sifted.

The feeling of belonging to the land had been with him he realized for as long as he could remember. The shoveling and sifting brought that feeling out of him more strongly. Darnell was feeling stronger in all ways.

He thought that the strongest thing he ever saw to compare to how he felt now had to do with Sparky. Sparky was a pointer. When Sparky found a rabbit he barked once deep in his belly and then just like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon he would tighten up, lift his right front paw, and frozenly point in the direction of the rabbit. Sparky stayed that way. A nuclear bomb could have detonated next to him and he would have maintained the point as his hide melted from his bones. Leesa had trained Sparky to release the point without hurting the animals. She would come up close and whisper “Kissinger.”

Darnell never understood why Leesa said Kissinger. He always pictured Sparky in those thick black rimmed glasses and cracked up. That was enough of an explanation for Darnell. The strength of Sparky’s point said a lot to Darnell. He felt like that now.

He kept sifting the dirt pile. He separated the rocks and stones and worked them around the banks of the pile. As was in his plan he made sure that the sifted soil was put mostly on the top of the pile for the plants he wanted to maintain there. He enjoyed this dirt pile immensely.

All the while in his heart was the question of Jill. He was never more certain of his feelings. The question raging was one of whether she meant what she said. He wondered about it for a while then he figured that it didn’t matter what he thought. Jill said she’d be home soon-whatever that meant to her. If she was a person as good as her word would be seen eventually. When he saw Jill in his mind she was the morning by the sea.

Colors of the sun
Flashing on the water top
Echo on the land
Digging for a coin
Many other tiny worlds
Slipping past my hand

Awake to understand
You are not dreaming
It is not seeming
Just to be this way…

It was the new day that he had walked into. Instantly when he arrived Jill met him. In her he could see the road ahead. He could not contain the happiness that overtook him. He felt an eruption inside. Besides Jackson Browne’s words, words of his own came to him from that eruption.

Darnell ran inside. Many years ago Leesa bought Darnell a journal. He hadn’t written anything inside except the date. May 5, 1977. Just over eight years ago. She said when she gave it to him “There gotta be a lot of things you could write down. I got you this so that maybe you would try. OK?” Leesa was wonderful like that. Darnell was a bit embarrassed. It reminded him that he had dropped out of college as an English major. He was humbled by great literature even though he loved it. His feelings of inferiority got the best of him. Today, though, that inferiority was gone. Words of his own (or the Spirit’s) arrived. He opened the journal after he sat down at the kitchen table.

In pen he carefully printed these words:

WHEN I LOOK AT HER
ALL THOUGHTS TURN LIQUID.

Chapter 25

Donald didn’t go to The Rail. He went uptown to The Taverne. He requested a table by the window. He was seated by the hostess next to a family of four having dinner. It didn’t register that he was seated next to his boss and his family, the Grubers, until he looked up to receive his beer from the waitress. Donald immediately got up and walked over to Harry to say hello. Donald could be a turd but he knew the correct socialities.

“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Gruber, good to see you.”

“Hello Donald” Harry replied “You know Norma. And this our niece, Nikki, and her friend, Jill. This is Donald, Donald DuBois.”

“Nice to meet you” Donald nodded slightly.

He stopped then. He had to look down. He not only thought he saw the ghost of Leesa Pines but he also thought she was sitting next to Linda Ronstadt. He managed to look once into Nikki’s eyes. He was shocked. She smiled at him and her eyes had the kind of light that a guy only gets to see on stars in the movies. He was instantly confused and sat down.

“Enjoy your dinner, folks. See ya later. Nice to meet you, all of you.”

Donald ordered the salmon steak. He felt a little freaked.

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Continue: view chapters 26 thru 30