I live with
a man. Okay, now that you’ve all recovered, picked your jaws up off the floor,
told the cat, and went “well! I never!” I have to say this: I love this man
whole-heartedly, completely, without reason and would die for him, Truthfully.
He has had a terrible life. JC is from west Texas and has a wonderful drawl and
a colorful way of speech. He’s not the type to go out of his way to tell
knee-slappers, or shaggy-dog stories, but in a non-calculated way, he places
his comments perfectly, leaving me breathless with laughter. He can tell a
story so prosaically, that has the depths of tragedy. I mourn for hours at
times.
He never
finished grade school; according to him, he can barely read. He learned to read
by reading the Bible, which he know Chapter and Verse. He is almost Old
Testament in the depth and breadth of his knowledge. He is righteous and
steadfast. He is good and wants to help people who hurt and really need it and
he is protective, but prudent. He has moral limits he will not cross. He thinks
he is not “smart, but has common sense which he does, but because he doesn’t read well, he feels not smart .” He is
one of the smartest men I have ever met.
I am
liberal. I am so liberal, I am an anarchist. I read and understood at a
post-Graduate English level at the age of 15. I am righteous and mercurial. I
want to help. He and I work so well together and watch the folks here and
decide who might need a hand up. Plus, we have a bunch of fun.
This day started
as many others do, with the hopes, speculations and trepidations of a Bus Ride for JC.
Ah yes, First, the inevitable 1 minute equals 7 years. This means that JC must
leave the house around August 9, 1872. I hope he set the alarm early enough.
So, off he goes. I sleep on and miss Garfield’s assassination and the turn of
the Century, the 20th, I mean.
JC comes home from his appoitnment around 10:30 on August 9, on 2012; he must have taken the wormhole home, and
plops down. I’m doing something different. Pounding madly on the keyboard as if
possessed, typing drivel or doing my latest form of side-splitting cyber
vandalism; it’s all pretty much the same thing.
“What do
you make of this?” JC asks… and he proceeds to tell me about the ride home. Some cat got on the bus had pointed at JC’s shoes. And mumbled "Shoes," JC wor just plain, blakc lace-ups, kind of
like running shoes, only black. The dude mentioned “shoes” and looked at JC. JC
looked around the bus; the riders looked at him. JC looked at the dude. The dude looked back at
the shoes and mumbled “shoes” again. JC shrugged and said, “Okay.” The guy
proceeded to get down on the floor and pick each one up and one, by one, rub
his face all over the bottoms. “What in the hell? Do I have shit on them?” JC asked
no one who answered. Guy gets up and sits down.
Of course,
JC can’t wait to get home and tell me about this squirrel. We sort of have a
running competition about who runs into the biggest loon on the bus. So far. JC’s
got me on points No one’s asked to smell my purse or underarms yet. If someone asks
to smell my panties, it’ll be the last thing that person ever asks in
existence. Ever.
We proceed
to go sit on the front porch and watch the stupid world of Nebraska Avenue go
by. Here comes Jo-Jo (either “Jo-Jo, the Ho” or “Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Girl, if I’m
feeling particularly ugly that day.) She is being led by one of the newer
denizens of the homeless shelter. The homeless shelter is an amalgam or payors,
felons and people sent there from the state. Jo-Ho gets an SSDI check. She had
a stroke, most likely due to her excessive drinking which has not abated since.
Anyway, she is being “led” by a newbie, a woman. Usually it’s a man. Jo-Jo has
all the grace and charm of a 58-year old cheerleader who pissed herself 58 years
ago after being dragged face-down through a gravel-pit. She has the voice, face
and outfit to prove it. I have never seen this woman sober, not even ever. She was at one time a registered nurse and her kids will no longer see her. Your tax dollars at work and this makes me MAH.
“Look,
Jo-Jo has a new “helper”” JD says to me nonchalantly. I kind of glance over
that way. I get a dim impression, my eyes being kind enough to allow for such a
marvelous visage.
JC
continues on, “You know for someone so feeble and ill, there is certainly
nothing wrong with the hinge in her elbow…” This is all said placidly, with the
nonchalance of “nice day out. Do you want someeggs?”
I laugh,
then I start to wheeze. The reason I wheeze is because of JC's “demonstration.”
I look over to see the frantic motion of right elbow going up and down 90
degrees from chair arm to mouth. The motion says it all. “Nothing wrong with
her smoking elbow either.” Motion repeated on left side. I fall out of chair.
How many ways do I love this man? This is just one of them.
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