Hexes And Religious Allegories 4.12.98
"Who are all these new children on Dumaine," I asked Mandy.
"I know some of them," she said, "they're from two blocks up Dumaine that way."
She's pointing up Dumaine away from Broad, Dorgenois is the first block and Rocheblave is the second. Rocheblave--that's Miss Liddy's corner, I'm thinking. I used to stop by her store on the way home from work when I was renovating the house over two years ago. Her "store" is just one room of a
big old house and her stock is limited to chips and candy on a couple of shelves, pickled pig parts in a couple of jars, and a refrigerator with a case and a half of beer, usually Bud and Coors. At that time, one of her teenage daughters had recently committed suicide, strung out on bad life and bad
drugs. She left a daughter behind whom Miss Liddy takes care of along with countless other children who seem to belong to her.
"You have children?" she ask me once.
"I most certainly do not, Miss Liddy."
"If a vine is growing but producing no fruit, what good is it? The Lord say cut that vine down."
She was charging 85 cents for a can of beer back then, sometimes having change and sometimes not. I had gotten into the habit of just leaving her a dollar for each can purchased. On this day I gave her two dollars and walked out.
There was a hex on me now, I knew that.
It was about three months later when I found out that for the previous two months Mandy had been sneaking those young boys from the neighborhood into the house while I was at work. It was summertime and those boys would be lounging
on the front porch when I came home. I did not know there names yet and they pretended they did not know mine. And then there came full disclosure and the floodgates broke and for awhile kids and adults streamed through this house at
will. Drug dealers had to stay outside though, on the porch. I will not lie. I never really liked the idea and sometimes still don't, but our efforts to shoo these children away has been in vain.
"Come the school year ya'll won't be hangin' around here drawing pictures and playing games. You will do school work or you won't come in at all." Speaking the words of a full grown adult was the surest way to repel children, I thought. But come the school year I was proven wrong, again.
And then I might have made the mistake of taking the boys to the park to play football one weekend and they began to expect it every weekend. And when they started whining I would lose my temper and yell at them: "You want something
you gotta earn it, (another adult impersonation) by cleaning this street or something." I was really certain that particular mandate would free up my weekends. Wrong again. Wrong every Sunday for over a year now.
I'm hoping Miss Liddy understands that while we're not into production here at 2646, we are looking after the harvest and trying to make a little wine from the fallen fruit. Unhex me now.
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"Who are all these new children on Dumaine," I asked Mandy.
"I know some of them," she said, "they're from two blocks up Dumaine that way."
She's pointing up Dumaine away from Broad, Dorgenois is the first block and Rocheblave is the second. Rocheblave--that's Miss Liddy's corner, I'm thinking. I used to stop by her store on the way home from work when I was renovating the house over two years ago. Her "store" is just one room of a
big old house and her stock is limited to chips and candy on a couple of shelves, pickled pig parts in a couple of jars, and a refrigerator with a case and a half of beer, usually Bud and Coors. At that time, one of her teenage daughters had recently committed suicide, strung out on bad life and bad
drugs. She left a daughter behind whom Miss Liddy takes care of along with countless other children who seem to belong to her.
"You have children?" she ask me once.
"I most certainly do not, Miss Liddy."
"If a vine is growing but producing no fruit, what good is it? The Lord say cut that vine down."
She was charging 85 cents for a can of beer back then, sometimes having change and sometimes not. I had gotten into the habit of just leaving her a dollar for each can purchased. On this day I gave her two dollars and walked out.
There was a hex on me now, I knew that.
It was about three months later when I found out that for the previous two months Mandy had been sneaking those young boys from the neighborhood into the house while I was at work. It was summertime and those boys would be lounging
on the front porch when I came home. I did not know there names yet and they pretended they did not know mine. And then there came full disclosure and the floodgates broke and for awhile kids and adults streamed through this house at
will. Drug dealers had to stay outside though, on the porch. I will not lie. I never really liked the idea and sometimes still don't, but our efforts to shoo these children away has been in vain.
"Come the school year ya'll won't be hangin' around here drawing pictures and playing games. You will do school work or you won't come in at all." Speaking the words of a full grown adult was the surest way to repel children, I thought. But come the school year I was proven wrong, again.
And then I might have made the mistake of taking the boys to the park to play football one weekend and they began to expect it every weekend. And when they started whining I would lose my temper and yell at them: "You want something
you gotta earn it, (another adult impersonation) by cleaning this street or something." I was really certain that particular mandate would free up my weekends. Wrong again. Wrong every Sunday for over a year now.
I'm hoping Miss Liddy understands that while we're not into production here at 2646, we are looking after the harvest and trying to make a little wine from the fallen fruit. Unhex me now.
- jimlouis 9-06-2002 11:29 pm