GINNY BATES: THE STANDING STONES

All right, fans, here's another segment of my novel-in-progress, Ginny Bates. This occurs after my last post two days ago. If you are already a familiar reader, begin below. If you need background, check the links in the sidebar on the right, fifth item down, to get caught up.

Also, I just realized I've dated the last several entries wrong. This trip takes place during the summer of 2010, not 2009. I've gone back and corrected it, but wanted to let ya'll know.


Mid July 2010

The next morning, Myra was extremely apologetic to her children and Frances. They went to a small restaurant across the street to have breakfast, Myra holding Ginny's hand under the table. She seemed particularly concerned about Gillam, which he tried to shrug off.

"It's not the first time you've gone bonkers over me getting wasted" he said, making a joke which fell flat.

"Ginny tells me she gave you her version of my childhood" said Myra. "If you have any questions, now or later, you can ask them."


Margie was occupied with sorting through her fruit salad for the plump raisins she loved here. It wasn't until they returned to America that they found out these were commonly soaked in gin. Gillam cleared his throat and said "I got one."

"Spill it" said Myra.

"What's your older brother's name? Our uncle, I guess..." Gillam looked suddenly wretched, as if he had majorly transgressed.

Myra pulled her new Moleskine notebook from her back pocket and pushed it to Ginny. Ginny found a broad-nibbed drawing pen in her pack and, turning to a blank page, she wrote the name in her bold hand. Unable to leave it at that, she began adding shadows, highlighting, and a nearby scene with what was going to be a windmill before Myra reached out and stopped her.

"Thanks" said Gillam hoarsely.

Myra retrieved her notebook and gazed at it, torn. She wanted to rip out the page, but it had Ginny's work on it. Eventually, she folded it closed and returned it to her pocket. Ginny began drawing on her paper napkin with the nib, playing with how the ink soaked into the fiber.

Myra said "One more thing about yesterday...Ginny, you were going to start painting before left Paris. That was over a week ago, and still you haven't broken out a tube of color. That hatch of yours must be so crammed full, I'm worried about an explosion when we finally do loosen the cover."

Gillam and Margie went still. Frances watched with interest.

Ginny sighed and capped her pen. "You're right." Frances felt Margie relax beside her. "It's showing, isn't it, Myra?"

"Rawther."

"Well, let's plan, or re-plan, the rest of our trip" said Ginny.

"There's the Anne Frank tour this afternoon" began Myra.

"Are you up for that?" asked Gillam, worried.

"Yes" said Myra firmly. "I'm calling Nancy as soon as we're done here, but even without that, I'm not missing Anne Frank. Tomorrow we're due at Stonehenge -- "

"I'm okay with missing that" said Margie. "If we stick around here while Mom paints, me and Frances want to go to the beaches and a few other places."

"I don't want to miss Stonehenge!" protested Gillam. "I've wanted to see it ever since Mama read us T.H. White when we were little."

Myra rolled with the disappointment she felt with Margie and the rescue of Gillam. "I don't want to miss it, either. But if Ginny would rather paint, she could stay here a few days while Gillam and I go to England for a hop, if, IF, Margie, you promise to keep Ginny in good shape while she goes into Painterland."

"Hang around all day, you mean?" said Margie in disbelief.

"No" interrupted Ginny. "Just come back at night and bring me dinner, that'll be enough."

"Also breakfast" said Myra. "Less than you'd have to do for Narnia." Her tone was sarcastic enough to push Margie, and Margie said "Yeah, whatever."

"How are we getting to England?" said Gillam, his face excited.

"We were going to rent a car and drive south, take the Chunnel, but Ginny's been doing the driving..." said Myra.

"You could hop a ferry" said Frances. "Overnight it's 12 hours or less from here to English ports. If you can get a sleeper, that is."

Ginny pulled out her guide and cell, handing them to Myra while she finished her meal. Myra negotiated for a few minutes, then covered the receiver to say "Only tickets that'll work are for tonight, leaving about 8:00, is that okay with everyone?" After nods all around, she made the reservation and returned to her eggs, now cold. With her mouth full, she said to Ginny "That'll give you two-and-a-half-days start before I get back. What then? You won't be done, sometimes you go five days on a canvas."

Margie had leaned back, her plate clean, and said "Uh, well, me and Frances have been talking about going to Italy. Milan and Rome, for sure, she's got cousins in both places."

Myra looked dismayed. "Another 20 hour train trip back through some of where we've already been? I mean, I want to see Italy, it's not that -- "

"Transavia flies there" said Margie. "Budget seats, no first class and no amenities, but it takes two hours and it's half the cost of the train."

"Flying cattle cars, you mean" said Myra.

"The thing is, we'd just as soon go ourselves" said Margie, triumphant at having played Myra well. "We could take our time, and be back to Seattle by your birthday."

Ginny's hand found Myra's under the table again. This was it, then. The family trip was all but over.

"All right" said Myra evenly. "We've had a grand time, and I can understand you two wanting Frances's homeland as a romantic getaway." Ginny's grip was on the edge of being painful.

Frances looked abashed, but Margie did not. "I'll get us tickets for the day after you and Gillam get back from England" said Margie happily.

Back at the hotel, Myra went into Gillam's room to call Nancy because Ginny and Gillam were spreading a drop cloth and setting up her easel in front of the largest window in her and Ginny's room. She didn't know where Margie and Frances were. Nancy answered and give Myra twenty minutes of across-the-miles oogie boogie, which made such a difference Myra could hardly believe it. I may be the biggest sucker who ever walked the earth she thought after she hung up.

Everyone cried after leaving the Anne Frank house, including Frances which Myra found interesting to watch. They sat in a park, comforted each other, but suddenly had to rush so Myra and Gillam could pack for their jaunt and catch a train to Hook where the ferry left. Ginny was stretching a canvas when Myra walked out the door with Gillam.

Making the ferry, they stashed their bags in their two-berth cabin and sat with crossed legs, slouched backward because of little head room, on the lower bunk to eat the cheese, bread and salad dinner they'd bought on the way to the dock. Myra decided to take an extra Dramamine once the ferry was underway, and Gillam swallowed the tablet she held out to him as well.

They went to the top deck and made an entire circuit, lingering for a long time by the stern because the wake was interesting. At the bow, enough people had gone indoors to leave them room at the railing. Myra remembered all the times she'd stood slightly behind little boy Gillam at a railing, doing the Ginny back-you-up maneuver. Now he did it for her, not having her bulk but enough height to make him, at least in his mind, the one who should be protective. It touched her deeply.

The moon was waning, and would be dark next week during the Solstice. It was overcast as well, so the ocean was black and relieved only by the occasional lights of other ships. Myra shoved her hands in her pockets and wished she had a cap against the chill. Gillam's cheeks, when she turned to look at him, were carmine.

He said "When I take a ferry, I think about Louis and Lena on a ship leaving Europe forever. Did Jews from that era have a sense of the Diaspora, or did they consider themselves eternally European, I wonder?"

"Well, they had to know about David and Moses" said Myra. "And education being a Jewish value, I imagine they had enough grasp of geography to know where one continent began and another ended. Still, it's an almost unimaginable step off into the unknown."

"Do you think the immigrant on your side, Captain Davis, thought he'd stay in Virginia or was he just going to make his fortune, then return to England?" asked Gillam.

"Likely the latter. But he's not who I think about. He's the anomaly. The vast majority of my people were poor Scots" said Myra. "Beginning with that original Gillam Ritchie."

Gillam grinned proudly. "Where was he from, exactly?"

"Dumfriesshire" said Myra, pointing to her right. "Southwest Scotland, on the Solway Firth. For five hundred years sacked, plundered and occupied by the English. Proud of being home to Robbie Burns and James Barrie."

"Why aren't we going there?" asked Gillam.

Myra grinned. "Ginny knew once I start doing family history, I'm vanished. Genealogyland rivals Painterland. And we wanted to share part of this holiday with you kids. So, we agreed to come back to do my ancestral research, and hers, too, in the Pale. Maybe next year."

"I wanna be part of that" protested Gillam. "Tell me more about the Ritchies."

"I can only speak in generalities so far. The Scots who gave up on their homeland to move to the sweltering, mosquito-ridden, still-controlled-by-the-fucking-English South brought with them hatred of government, clannishness, an ability to make a living from crappy upland soil, and the means to turn grain into liquor. Music, and pride, and, sometimes, a surprising openness to other cultures. Sometimes not. The Ritchies were of the open sort. They intermarried with Choctaw and probably Cherokee in the Carolinas. I've always believed my gift for language came from them. And my hunger for rabble-rousing."

"The 'Come and Take It' folks?" asked Gillam, surprising Myra.

"Unfortunately, yes. Also 'Don't Tread On Me' and the slaughter of Redcoats after their surrender at Kings Mountain" said Myra. Gillam's answering grin was venal in a way she usually only saw from Margie. "Won the Revolution for us, didn't they?" he said shortly.

"Aye, laddie, that they did" she replied.

"So, then, do we have any direct connection to the people around Stonehenge?" he asked.

"Yes, at least one line, the Marshalls. When you get far enough back, the only people who will appear in records are gentry, so it's the owning class from a later era, not necessarily the folks who might have hauled the stones and stood by as Merlin magicked them into place" she said, the latter part just to make him giggle.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, the cold starting to sink into her core. She wondered what Gillam was thinking about, and as if to answer her, he said "In the New World, we're all immigrants, aren't we?"

"Even Chris's people, in the beginning" she agreed. "Though how and why we got there makes a serious difference."

After another silence, he said "I'm getting blue, can we turn in?"

"Read my mind."

Gillam returned from the bathroom in sweats and clambered into the upper berth. Myra was already reminding herself she was not, in fact, claustrophobic as she lay in the lower berth. Gillam leaned over the edge and said "Will my reading light bother you?"

"Nope. What've you got?"

"I began Sarum two nights ago, in preparation, I'm almost done" he said.

"Oh, excellent, you can be my background guide tomorrow" she said. She had a new Martha Grimes mystery, which was in its own way also perfect material, but she decided to try closing her eyes first, to see if the ship motion was going to keep her awake. She listened to Gillam's open-mouthed breathing and occasional page-turning, which drew her attention more than the thrum of engines beneath her, and managed to drop off quickly.

In the morning she was queasy. She ate some saved cheese, drank a bottle of water and took a Dramamine before standing in line at the bathroom. When she returned, Gillam had them packed.

"We have time to grab something at the galley" he said. The pickings were doubtful. They settled on muesli, which was all right, and tea, which was watery. Gillam returned to the counter and returned with a dried sausage roll, packets of crackers, and several pints of orange juice. It filled them up, though they were teeth-clicking cold by the time their motorcoach pulled up to the dock to drive them the few hours to Wiltshire. The driver was chatty and immune to the brisk morning. After half an hour, Myra leaned against the side window and retreated into a fake nap, to get away from it all. She kept one eye open, though, because the passing scenery was too compelling. Gillam leaned forward and pelted the driver with questions, which made her feel guilty about her own avoidance. She really didn't deal well with being cold, however.

Their lodgings in Salisbury were right in the middle of the city, an upgraded inn with a double room reserved for them instead of the two rooms Myra had requested. Gillam said "It's fine, Mama" and offered her the bed closer to the shared bath. The radiators were on and Myra was glad to find they could be turned up. She stood over one until her blood felt liquid again.

"It is sunny out there" said Gillam, filling the small window.

"Let's finish warming up by walking around to find a place for lunch" said Myra. "Our tour leaves at what, 3:00?"

"Yes" he said excitedly. "Old Sarum, the Durrington Walls, and then after dusk -- La Henge!"

She was suddenly thrilled it was just him and her, not missing Ginny a whit. They filled Gillam's pack with all their essentials, turned the radiator back down, and left the room in anticipation.

It was more like full dark than dusk by the time the motorcoach, now one of three full of people who had paid extra for this access, pulled into the parking area distressingly close to Stonehenge. Gillam had loaded night film into his Leica and began taking pictures right away, while the tourguides herded everyone else into an orderly group.

They passed beyond the outer ring, marked by pits and a few hummocks. Myra was being very careful where she stepped, because the ground was often uneven. As they left the roadway behind them, silence created pockets here and there. Twice she heard odd echoes. Once they were inside the standing stones, the tourguide began talking. At the same moment, she heard a faint singing of voices in unison, in a language that she didn't know. She thought with dismay, Oh, please, don't let them have wired this place for sound from some cheesy PA system!

"Why do they call them bluestones?" whispered Gillam. "I mean, do they look blue to you?"

"Not that I can tell" answered Myra. "But I don't have Ginny's eye." After another half minute of listening to the guide, who was telling her nothing new, and becoming increasingly irritated by the attempted manipulation of the background music, she whispered again to Gillam "Even Deep Forest does a better job of conveying ambiance."

"Deep Forest?" he said.

"Yeah, they do those ethnomusic albums from around the world? This rendition is simply unintelligible, though."

He looked at her blankly. She whispered "The chanting or singing or whatever it is."

He stood stock still. A few seconds later, he said "I don't hear any singing. Where is it coming from?"

"All around us" said Myra, swinging her hand in an arc. Gillam turned around in place, and when he looked at her again, his face was solemn. "Honestly, Mama...nothing."

She felt a frisson of fear. She leaned toward him to whisper close in his ear and said "Do you smell the woodsmoke? Kinda peaty?"

He drew back to look her in the eyes, then lifting her nose, already half a foot higher than hers, to take a long sniff, followed by two more. He shook his head.

She closed her eyes and put out her hand to lean on his arm. The instant they made contact, the singing stopped. She choked off a gasp and pulled back from him. The chorus resumed. She looked down at her feet, then leaned her head all the way back to stare up into the cloudy sky.

Gillam leaned into her again, his shoulder touching hers. Silence returned. He said "You're not having me on?"

"No. I wish I was."

"What are they singing?"

"I don't know. It's not like anything I've ever heard." She kept her Patagonia pressed against his, and he responded, thinking she wanted comfort. He was only half wrong.

She whispered "Something like this happened when you were a baby...when I went to Hopiland with Chris. I really, really, really don't want to see anyone appear from the dark."

"Mama, they're waiting on us."

Terror seized all her muscles. "Who?"

"The tour. We need to walk on."

She sagged against him in relief. He put his arm around her and helped her along. Once they were on the other side, free of the inner circle, she stepped away from him for a second. Silence. The smoke smell lingered a few seconds, then dissipated as well. She slid her arm back through his, not needing his ground any more but welcoming his presence for its own sake.

They were silent all the way back to the coach and into town. They made polite goodbuys and walked through the central district for a block. Gillam said "Let's get some tea." He pointed to a pub, and Myra nodded.

It had a small front room which was not quite as foul with cigarette pong as the rest of it, and a settee was free. They sat down side by side, then Gillam stood again to go order. He returned with a pot of tea for Myra and a pint of Guinness for himself.

"They didn't card me" he said.

"I'm not surprised" answered Myra, glad for the business of squeezing lemon, spooning in sugar and milk. Her hands had stopped trembling. She took a long sip, nearly burning her mouth, and sat back with her hands wrapped around her mug.

"I'd like to hear what you can tell me" he said softly. There was a blare of TV from the main room, and a couple in this room with them sitting morosely uncommunicative. Myra pitched her voice to the same level as Gillam's and thought it would not carry more than a foot away. She told him the sequence of events. Then she told him about Hopiland.

He looked more interested than disturbed. She thought, He's still young enough to believe in his own invincibility. Or mine, perhaps.

He asked "Is this why you didn't go touch the Western Wall?"

She was startled. "Maybe. I had some sense of -- avoidance."

"Do you believe time is linear or, like some folks, that it all occurs simultaneously?" His brown eyes were incredibly intelligent.

"I can't quite comprehend the simultaneous theory, but it's what makes the most sense to my gut" she said. "Are you suggesting I tripped over some threshold?"

"You might have that ability, in sacred locations" he said. He was impressed with her, she finally registered. Or it could be that I'm prone to hallucination because I have lots of untouched damage, she thought.

"Were you scared?" he asked.

"Once I realized you didn't hear or smell anything, fuck yes" she said.

"But before that -- did you feel any threat? Was there any sense of familiarity to -- them, it was a group of people singing, right?"

She closed her eyes and sorted through the memory. "No threat. And I didn't recognize the language, but it...it seemed friendly."

"I wish I'd heard them, too" he said.

She looked at him, the tea having a warming effort on her insides. "I'm actually surprised you didn't."

"You know, Mom, I feel as connected to this half of my heritage as the Jewish side. I mean, not just culturally, but like I'm a genetic descendant of these islands" he said earnestly. "I always have."

"Then you are" she said softly. "The human spirit and ability to connect trumps mere chromosomes."

They sat grinning at each other. His glass was nearly drained. She said "I've never tasted Guinness, can I try a sip?"

He handed it over gladly. "Wow. I could get to like that" she said, wiping her lips.

"We didn't have a real dinner, and there's a Chinese place across from our hotel, could we eat?" he asked.

"My wavelength exactly" she said, letting him help her to her feet.

By the time they got back to Amsterdam on the third day, Myra was done with water travel for a while and short on sleep. She didn't think Gillam had rested well, either; she'd seen him go to the bathroom twice and wondered if his stomach was wonky. She felt very ready to see Ginny.

When she unlocked the door to their hotel room, a familiar smell of linseed oil and the faint perfume of Ginny's sweat met her. Ginny turned around from the window and her face erupted in gladness, her smile comically extended by a thin streak of poppy paint upward across her cheek. She put down her palette and brush to hug them both repeatedly.

"Where's Margie and Frances?" asked Myra.

"Umm -- out, can't remember" said Ginny, waving toward the table. A note there indicated they were biking to a nearby tulip farm and would be back for dinner.

"Did they feed you breakfast?" asked Myra.

"Yes. And there's lunch in the cooler" said Ginny, pointing to the corner. "Tell me all about it."

Myra lay down and Ginny crawled in beside her, getting under the coverlet for modesty as she pulled Gillam to her other side. They took turns relating their adventure. It was rather a ripping good yarn, Myra thought, and they did it justice. She was glad they'd have a chance to repeat it to Margie and Frances later.

Ginny's eyes began looking droopy by the end. Myra asked "Did you sleep last night?"

"Not really" Ginny murmured. "It's going fabulously."

Myra pulled Ginny's head onto her shoulder and said "Go ahead and take a break now, then. I'll get you up in a couple of hours, I promise." Ginny rolled over, pushing her bottom toward Myra, and said "Do you have to go roam around, boychik, or do you want to nap, too?"

Gillam looked at Myra, then said "I'd love to stay here." They all settled back, in the wide warm sunny room, and slept until lunchtime.


© 2008 Maggie Jochild.

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MARY JO ATKINS BARNETT, 1927-1984

(December 1973)

Mama died at 4:04 in the afternoon on April 24, 1984. Lots of fours in that stop.

My first year of college, I was living entirely on my academic scholarship which was inadequate. My food budget was $8 a week, which meant I didn't eat two days a week. Still, somehow, I saved $25 to buy a photography package deal: I wanted my family to have an official photograph of us all.

In the back of my mind was the fear that it might be the last chance we had. Mama's mortality hung over me like an unreliable cantilever.

It meant driving to Wichita Falls, which pissed off my father. It meant being stuck in the car with all of us, which meant my little brother acted out. And Mama had only one dress which sorta fit her, no money for a hair salon, which shamed her.

But I hectored and harangued, and we went. The photographer was mediocre and rude. Still, here's the photo. The outfit I have on was my Christmas present from my lover then. It was called heather green, with a dark green turtleneck. My little brother and I had no idea, until the photo came back, how similar our hairstyles were.

After the fold are Mama poems which I've not posted here before. Time to light a candle. I guess I'll never stop needing her.



CHUCK-WILL'S-WIDOW

Driving home past a small woods
holding its own against the subdivisions
I heard a chuck-will's-widow
dopplering in my window
Fireflies are out tonight
and the moon is a smaller orb
resting on bright pagan horns

At home, a rib-showing tabby,
clearly in heat, flopped
herself down on my sidewalk
then flipped to the other side
like a beached bass. She looked
at me without hope, got up
and trotted into the dark

The studies say people who
live alone are likely to die
decades earlier. Mama stuck it out
with my father, your guess is
as good as mine. He is eighty
and I owe him a call. Mama
rides the moon, lights a tiny
thorax, squats in the waiting
eggs of a cat looking for
something she does not want
but needs


© Maggie Jochild, 29 April 2006, 10:01 p.m.


I MAY BE SOME TIME

That day before Thanksgiving, Mama took
me to the new mall, with energy in her
I had not seen since I was twelve
We drank Orange Julius and I told her
about Annie Dillard's writing, what
it meant to me. After emptying
our cups, we strolled over to B. Dalton
Bought Teaching A Stone To Talk
On the bench outside, my arm next to hers
I read aloud the quote by Captain Oates
Then burst into tears

Six months earlier, she had
four emergency bypasses
Cracked open before I could
even get to the airport
I came down the ramp
looking for my brother's face
The face that would tell me
if she still lived
How do we walk ahead
at times like these
air frozen and white
sound gone
alone


© Maggie Jochild, 9 February 2006, 10:00 p.m. (her birthday)


CONTAGION

The well-dressed teacher from New York who laughed out loud
at how we talked asked me to hand back spelling tests.
She picked me I would guess because I never acted up
I always knew the answer when I was called on
and I was new, too. She was a fill-in. Nobody
liked either of us. When she made me walk up and down
the woodfloor aisles, me trying hard to remember names
but not to look at the red letter grades, I kept my
skinny skinny arms pressed tight against my ribs
My dress was short-sleeved, it was May, and at my
solitary lunch I had seen a rash, fine and red
creeping up the inside of each forearm. I knew
it would not be good news, but maybe I could keep it
secret. Until I got to the row where
Peggy with the pointy glasses sat, Peggy who got
big laughs from from mocking me, and of course she saw
the rash. She said out loud and clear I know
what that is, that's measles. I called her a liar
which shut her up with shock, I'd never spoken to her
not once, but the teacher heard and I was led
down the green-tiled hall to the nurse's office

Mama picked me up and sat me in the back seat with my
four-year-old brother, said she might as well get it
over with, he was going to come down with it anyhow
She said she couldn't tell if it was red measles or German
On the way home she stopped and bought calamine lotion
I was put in a dark room, no books allowed, and by
that time the fever was coming on. Right before
I blinked out, I murmured about how I would not get to play
with the dachsund puppy of the downstairs neighbor lady
The downstairs neighbor lady -- Mama put her hands over her mouth
and said She's eight months pregnant. She left me alone, then,
with my little brother. I heard her run down the stairs
and pound on the door, then women's voices full of fear
and Mama saying over and over My god I am so sorry
I had no way of knowing


© Maggie Jochild, 30 November 2005, 6:57 a.m.


MAMA CARRIES THE CONVERSATIONAL BALL AT DINNER

Bonnie was a Gilmore before she married Sherrill
Not the ones out east of here, but trash
from down near Alvord. She has always looked at least
ten years older than him. You know that place
on the way to Queen's Peak where somebody's painted everything
the house, the barn, the metal fence
the mailbox and the driveway rocks
a shade of doctor office green? That's the house
where Bonnie's sister lives. I don't know how
Sherrill met her, I was out of here by then
They never did have kids. Sherrill was shot up, you know
while he was in the Philippines
Held his entrails in his hands as they jeeped him
to an army field hospital. That's why he drinks
Bonnie didn't drink at first, they say, but now
she's worse than him. The only job he's ever had
is at the school. The boys in Ag
do all his janitor work for him. He does drive bus
Thank God it's just dirt roads and he can creep along --
That tea is sweet enough -- And Bonnie
got her teacher's aid position because she is
his wife, though she can barely write her name
Don't you be telling anyone that Sherrill is my cousin
He isn't really, just the nephew of my aunt by marriage
But you be nice to him, he's had it hard
And don't imagine you will leave this table without
eating something besides meat and bread


© Maggie Jochild, 28 October 2005, 7:44 a.m.


SPACE CADETS

One day when Mama took a nap
we turned a corner of the porch
into a spaceship. Hammered nails
to push as levers on the rail
Painted dials and colored buttons
with leftover Testor enamel
and lettered labels: Radar
Oxagin and Retro Rockets
We had to make two Retro Rockets
because it was our favorite one
and we could not agree who was in
command. We dragged over metal
lawnchairs and between two slats
we jammed a broken baseball bat
to be our joystick. Countdown, then
we flew to Saturn. With warp speed
it only took a minute, dodging the
Van Allen belt and asteroids

Turns out, the rings are solid, smooth
You can slid around the rings
on your bottom. Jupiter's giant spot
is a sea of red root beer
and the polar caps on Mars
are ice cream. We came back
to earth after Mama woke
and shrieked this was a rent house
Who was going to fix this damage
Cracker kids do not grow up
to become astronauts, you know


© Maggie Jochild, 6 September 2005, 7:15 p.m.



BEULAH LAND

When Mama was this age I am, I went
as West as I could go
She waved me down the road; she knew
I would not make it back in time

Travelers to the west seldom return
We miss them most at funerals
Sometimes they come through in April bringing flowers
And stand at graves alone

The dead will not forgive us in their own words
We conjure it ourselves in dreams
After long enough, you can forget
how your own mother's voice sounded


© Maggie Jochild, 30 July 2005, 6:37 p.m.

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GINNY BATES: THE LAND OF DIKES

All right, fans, here's another segment of my novel-in-progress, Ginny Bates. This occurs after my last post yesterday. If you are already a familiar reader, begin below. If you need background, check the links in the sidebar on the right, fifth item down, to get caught up.

July 2010

At nearly 5:00, Myra was sitting in her hotel room, chatting with Margie and Frances, when they heard Gillam's voice clearly in the hall outside going "Shhhhh!" in an exaggerated way. Margie got up and opened Myra's door just as Gillam got his key into his door. He and Ginny swung around guiltily, then burst into giggles and dashed into his room. Margie managed to get her foot in the door right before they slammed it shut. She pushed her way in. Frances and Myra were not far behind.

"What are you to up to?" said Margie, smiling. "Are you trying to play a trick on us?"


Gillam fell back on his bed, laughing crazily. Ginny sat down on the other bed, facing Gillam, saying "Now, straighten up!" and then also starting to laugh crazily.

"What is so damned funny?" said Myra. Gillam sat up partway, leaning on his elbow, and said in a stage whisper to Ginny, "Hey, should we tell her our poem?"

"Yes. Poetry for the poet" giggled Ginny.

"We wrote a poem" said Gillam, sitting all the way up. "Here it is:

They all ride bikes
In the land of dikes
But never in tandem ---"

By the time he got to bikes, he was giggling. On the word "dikes" Ginny had screamed and collapsed in laughter on her bed. The third line was only minimally intelligible, and the last line was completely erased by guffaws from Gillam. After a minute, he tried again, and Ginny began reciting it with him. But despite several tries, they could never get past the third line without going into hysterics.

Frances had a look of recognition on her face. She asked, "Are you two high?"

Ginny and Gillam looked at each other conspiratorially and clapped their hands over their mouths, trying to hold back the laughter.

"You're drunk?" said Myra in horror.

"No, no, no!" said Ginny gaily. "We went to a coffeeshop!"

Now Margie understood too. Myra was still confused.

"You two smoked a joint, huh" Margie said. She turned to Myra "Remember, it's legal here. You can do it in places called coffeeshops." Myra was frozen.

Gillam was miming taking puffs on a little doobie. He passed it to Ginny, who took a hit and rolled her head around crazily. Then she caught a glimpse of Myra's face. Grinning defiantly, she said "It does not automatically lead to hard drugs, despite what they told you in Bible Camp. And we took a tram home."

"That's when we wrote the poem!" yelled Gillam, and he tried to recite it again, but lost control by the second line.

Myra turned to Margie. Her face was absolutely expressionless, and her voice was low. "Please keep them in this room, no matter what, until this wears off. Don't let them go on the balcony. Don't let them order from room service without supervision. I'm counting on you." She turned around and left swiftly.

Ginny stuck out her tongue at Myra's back.

"I guess she doesn't like our poem" said Gillam, falling back on his bed laughing again.

"Where's she going?" said Frances.

"I have no idea" said Margie.

The fun wore off very quickly, even for Gillam. Margie pulled a chair up to the door and sat there like a matron. Frances got a bucket of ice and made a pitcher of ice water, urging Gillam and Ginny to drink. Ginny got mad at Myra's departure and kept bringing it up. Finally she lay down on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow, and within a minute they heard snores coming from her.

Gillam said "I'm hungry."

"Oh, hell" said Margie. Frances grabbed the room service menu and said "What are you most in the mood for, Gillam? One thing."

He said "Pizza." She looked at the menu. "Close enough" she said and reached for the phone.

"And strawberry ice cream" he added.

She looked at Margie, who shrugged. "I'd like something, too, since it's unlikely we'll go out tonight" she said. She and Frances conferred over the menu while Gillam turned on TV, clicking through the selections relentlessly. "There's this great porn channel, you gotta see it" he said cheerfully.

Frances placed the order and sat down to wait with Margie. Gillam settled on an Italian-looking Western dubbed into Dutch, still sitting at the edge of his bed zeroed in on the TV. When the food arrived, Frances put one slice of pizza on a plate and handed it to Gillam. He wolfed it down, barely chewing, and got up to get another.

"Just one" said Margie. He grabbed one in his hands, abandoning his plate on the table, and sat back down on the edge of his bed, again virtually inhaling his food. After a few seconds, he began making a gagging sound.

"Oh, fuck, he's choking" said Margie, leaping toward him. But Frances had grabbed the trashcan and her interpretation turned out to be more accurate. She just got it in front of him before he threw up violently, big chunks of intact-looking pizza plus the remains of lunch. Some of the vomit landed on the floor; one thread went down his chin.

The smell was awful. Frances walked over to the balcony door and slid it open, then stood there inhaling the wet night air. Gillam looked around for something to wipe his chin on, finally picking up his pillow and using that.

Margie gave up all hope of returning to her dinner. Gillam walked over to the table and grabbed the strawberry ice cream. He walked back to his bed, watching TV again and eating ice cream. Margie put the puke-filled trashcan against the wall next to the balcony; it was too wet to put it outside, it would overflow onto the balcony below. She wanted to stand with Frances at the source of fresh air, but went back to her guard post at the door.

After an hour, Gillam blessedly went to sleep. Margie turned off the TV and pulled her chair over to the balcony door with Frances. They talked sporadically, increasingly feeling more like prisoners than guards. After another half hour, Ginny woke up with a snort. She sat up, looked around blearily, and said "What is that smell?"

"Gillam threw up" said Margie. Then, a bit maliciously, she added "There's pizza if you want it."

"Is he okay?" said Ginny.

"Yeah, just stoned out of his fucking mind" said Margie.

"I haven't had any since college" said Ginny, rubbing her head. "I didn't remember it being that strong."

"Drink some water" said Frances.

Ginny started to get off the bed, then looked around again and said "Where's Myra?"

"Haven't seen her since she left" said Margie.

"Has she called?"

"Nope."

"It's dark out there." Ginny was starting to look concerned. "Is she in our room?"

"Haven't checked."

Ginny stood up and had to reach out a hand to correct her balance. Margie got up to walk with her. Ginny opened the door and walked across the hall to her door. She knocked on the door. "Myra? It's me, will you open up?"

When there was no reply, she went back into Gillam's room and got her bag, and after a fuzzy search, located her room key. When she tried to open the door to her room, however, the key would not respond.

"It's got the security lock on from the inside" Margie finally told her. By this time Frances had joined them.

"She's locked herself in?" said Ginny. She began banging on the door, yelling loudly "Myra! This is an emergency! Open this door right now!"

The racket woke up Gillam, who stumbled into the hall with them. Ginny looked at Margie in a full panic now. "Let's trying the connecting door through your room" she said.

Margie pulled out her key and unlocked the door to her room. Ginny pushed past her and ran to the connecting door. When it opened into her and Myra's room, she said "Thank god!" The young people followed Ginny into a dark room where they could hear her saying "Myra! Myra! Wake up, my god, Myra, it's Ginny!" Frances found the light switch and they saw Myra lying, fully clothed, on top of her bed with a ghostly pale face and completely unresponsive expression. Margie rushed over to take her pulse as Ginny kept shaking Myra and trying to make her see something. The pulse was thready and Myra's skin was icy cold.

"Is -- is she dead?" said Gillam. He was leaning against the wall.

"No, but it's like she's unconscious, but her eyes are open" said Margie. "Is it a seizure? Why is she so cold, it is heart failure?"

"She didn't take anything, did she?" asked Frances.

"No!" said Gillam and Margie in one breath.

"Oh, god, I know what this is" said Ginny suddenly. "She's left her body; she's here in the room but she's not in her body."

It was as if she had begun speaking gibberiish. Margie reached for the phone.

"NO!" said Ginny. "No police. I know what to do about this, she told me." She began tearing off her clothes. "Margie, take off her shirt. I'm not crazy, do what I'm telling you. Gillam, get me that blanket from the other bed."

Margie helped Ginny get Myra's pants off her as well. Then Ginny lay down on top of Myra and pulled the blanket over them both. "Myra, Myra -- come back, come out of it. I'm here, it's Ginny. Come back." She kept rubbing Myra's cheeks and neck.

All of a sudden, Myra's body convulsed. She took in a huge gasp of air and gave a horrible cry. She looked at Ginny, then. Her eyes managed to focus. She began saying "Oh god, it hurts. My hands and feet hurt so bad."

"Rub them" commanded Ginny. "Somebody rub her feet, get the circulation back in them."

"I'm so cold, Ginny, I'm freezing" moaned Myra. Then she said "Move, move, I have to go" and she pushed Ginny off her. She stood up and urine poured out of her, onto the floor beside the bed. At that point, she began crying thinly.

Ginny stood up and grabbed her, saying "It's okay, it's all right, you couldn't help it. Come on, we're going to get you into a hot bath, get you warm all over and clean. It's okay." She led Myra to the bathroom, saying over her shoulder "Margie, I hate to do this to you, but could you get some towels and mop that up?"

They heard water running in the tub. Ginny said "Gillam?" He went to the door of the bathroom. "We're going to need warm jammy-like clothes to put on after the bath, can you go through the drawers and get some for both of us?" Myra was already sitting in the tub, leaned back and looking less pale.

"I don't understand" said Gillam. "How could she leave her body? Is this a supernatural thing?"

"No" said Ginny. "It's psychological, mostly. I'll explain it after the bath, okay? She's fine now, she's going to be fine."

He got the clothes and took them back into the bathroom. Ginny had crawled into the tub behind Myra and was pouring water over her from a washcloth. "Thanks, honey" she said. "We'll be out as soon as she gets warm again. Will you or the girls call down and order some hot tea, with honey, and some kind of toast or pastry?"

Margie had gotten towels from her bathroom and cleaned up the carpet beside the bed. Frances called room service. Soon after it arrived, Myra and Ginny came out of the bathroom, wearing sweatpants and long-sleeved shirts. Ginny pulled back the covers and invited Myra to sit in bed. She began coaxing tea into her, along with bites of toast, cheese, and apple that Frances had added to the order. Frances knew a little bit about shock.

Myra was hungry and trying to eat, but she was so exhausted she was having trouble chewing. Finally she said "I have to sleep, Ginny. Will you keep me warm?"

"I won't leave your side. Not until you wake up on your own again. One more sip, and you can lie down. You're fine, everything is okay."

Myra lay down on her side, facing Ginny. Ginny pulled Myra onto her shoulder and kissed her on the lips lightly. Myra closed her eyes and was asleep instantly. Ginny pulled the covers up over them both and continued kissing Myra's cheeks and forehead.

Margie was standing at the foot of the bed, her face urgent. "Mama -- I'm freaked. I need to know what just happened here."

Ginny kept running one hand through Myra's hair, kissing her forehead. Myra's weight was full on her shoulder, one hand clutching Ginny's shirt hem by her hip. Ginny said to Myra quietly "Sweetheart? I know you're sound asleep, but I also know you can hear me. The children need to know about your growing up years, honey. They need the whole story, and it's time to tell them. It's okay, they're old enough. So I'm going to do that. You just sleep and let me do it all. I'll be with you, I'm not going away."

After another forehead kiss, Ginny shifted slightly so she could face the rest of the room more. Myra moved fractionally to stay with her, but never showed a sign of waking.

"Are you sure she's okay? Maybe she's unconscious again" said Gillam. His voice was a bordering on panic.

"Feel her hands, they're completely warm. Listen to her breathe -- deep and full. She's just worn out, Gillam. I can tell when she's asleep. I've slept with this woman almost every night for 25 years, I know when she's there and when she can hear me."

Gillam looked marginally reassured.

"Sit down, all of you. Sit on the bed with us if you want." Ginny took a couple of deep breaths and kissed Myra again.

"You know she grew up poor. I don't think you know, really, what it looked like. One of the ways Myra got hurt as a child was by witnessing her mother's despair and hearing unfiltered stories of how she, Jo, grew up poor. It was too much for Myra to have to hear, no matter how much she wanted to share her mother's heart -- children are not able to handle all of adult reality. So Myra worked hard at not burdening you with it. She slipped every now and then, but mostly -- well, you're about to find out how well she did.

"Her father stayed in a job not meant to support a family on, because he had found a niche and, I think, because he secretly resented having a family. Like most men of his generation, he got married and had kids because that was what you were supposed to do. He had only a high school education, he got washed out of the Air Force, he had little to no skills, and the myth of upward mobility really doesn't come true for most men like that. So, as the family got older, the money got scarcer. Her father was gone most of the time, only home maybe a couple of weekends a month, and when he was home, everything had to be happy and harmonious so he'd want to come back. Which mean Jo did all the parenting, all the work of keeping the family going.

"She was never completely well, but when Myra was eight Jo was diagnosed with a heart condition. From then on, it was a race against time. Myra had terrible asthma, the kind that often kills children. What little money there was would go toward her medical bills -- there was no subsidized health care, not in American rural areas at that time. Myra didn't always get taken to the doctor when she needed to, but if anybody went, it was Myra. Which mean Jo tended to not get her own medications refilled. Heart medications which would have extended her life, maybe saved her. The truth is, if you're poor, money can buy happiness. It can buy survival, and family, and peace.

"They had no community to lean on because Myra's father moved them every few months with the promise that if they just lived in this next new place, he'd be able to make it home at night. All Myra had was Jo; all Jo had was Myra."

"What about Gil?" asked Gillam.

"Myra had Gil to love, but he was also her responsibility. He was too little to help her, though god knows he must have tried...I don't know how to tell this in any kind of order. I'll just say it as it comes to me.

"Myra missed one day out of five from school. She was so unbelievably smart, it never affected her grades, even being jerked from school to school. When a school had the chance to test her, they'd always call Jo in for a consultation, wanting to move Myra up at least one grade, often more. Jo said no, thank god -- she'd been moved ahead in school herself two grades, knew the social consequences. If Myra had been in classes with kids two years older, it would have been even worse for her. But as it was, she had no friends. She was the freakishly smart kid, she was ghastly skinny and wheezed all the time, her clothes were old and shabby, and she was the newcomer. Think back on your own time in elementary school ---you can imagine how the other kids treated her.

"Still, school was better than home. Her teachers adored her and worried about her -- clearly something was wrong -- but this was before special ed or school counselors. No chance for intervention. Myra also went to church, hoping that Jesus would help her. But those proper Baptist ladies who looked on Myra and her family as charity cases used every chance they got to tell Myra she was a sinner, she had born into original sin, and if Jesus wasn't helping her, it was because she hadn't accepted him the right way yet."

Margie sucked her breath in between her teeth.

"At home, Myra was being hunted. By her older brother, who is by all definitions a monster."

"Mom -- what's his name? How come she's never told us his name?" asked Gillam.

Ginny paused for a long time. "I do know his name, but we don't use it when we talk. Myra believes that naming is an act of power, and she wants all of his power removed because he will only abuse with it. I can't go against that without talking to her first about it. I'll bring it up and we can all discuss it later, okay?"

Margie and Gillam nodded. Frances was very somber, sitting a little protectively behind Margie.

"So...her brother tortured her. Spent his time watching her so he could see her frailties and tender spots. If she showed interest in something, he ridiculed it relentlessly. If she cared about something, he would try to destroy it. He mocked the way she looked and walked; he imitated her every time she opened her mouth; he demanded she wait on him hand and foot. And he always laughed about it, saying she was thin-skinned and couldn't take a joke, didn't know the difference between affectionate teasing and -- well, what it really was. Her mother was too overwhelmed to take it in. At least, that's what Myra believes."

There was another long pause. Ginny decided not to say more about that.

"He would hock up a lugie and wipe it on her cheek as he walked by her. He pinched her savagely under her arms because the bruises didn't show there. If she was taking a bath, he'd insist he had to use the bathroom, couldn't wait, and then would take a huge dump in the toilet so the room reeked. He would hold her -- and Gil -- down and dangle threads of spit out of his mouth until it would almost touch their faces, gleeful at their screams, until he got them to throw up. And he'd threaten to do much worse if they told on him."

"Was the worse -- was it sexual?" whispered Gillam. His face looked awful.

"Eventually. But this was a slow build. The way Myra put it, at first he just threatened to kill her. When that stopped being a useful threat -- when she didn't care if she lived or died any more -- he threatened to kill Gil. When she numbed out about even that -- and by this time, he was molesting her -- he told her that everybody already knew and they hated her, they knew it was her fault. You remember her talking about her first cat, the one she loved so much?"

"Midnight" said Margie and Gillam together.

"Her brother shot Midnight, that's how she died. That was earlier, before the molestation began. So, his threats were convincing." Another long pause. Ginny kissed Myra again, pulled her a little closer. "I am so sorry, angel. I am so sorry I wasn't there yet" she whispered.

She looked back at her children. "Once he began using sex as a weapon, he would have to wait until her mother was out of the house. He did it when Jo went grocery shopping or some other errand. They lived in trailer parks outside of town or isolated rent houses that nobody else wanted, places without heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer. One summer they lived in a place that had no running water, just a windmill. Lots of times they went without electricity for days or weeks because the bill hadn't been paid. And there was never enough food. Jo would cook what she could grow or beg or afford and get a meal on the table for the children; then she'd stay in the kitchen, so she could call it a family meal, but stand at the stove and pick at the remnants in the pot. Myra was so sick she never wanted to eat -- at least, that's her explanation for her anorexia -- but she'd hide what she could in her lap because her brother stole food from Gil's plate. Myra would give Gil her share later.

"Sometimes there wasn't even enough for a partial meal. Then her brother would leave for a few days to stay at a friend's, and her mother would hole up in her bedroom, too depressed to talk to the children. So Myra would keep Gil from crying all the time about how hungry he was by inventing games. One time they went to a nearby orchard, in South Texas, and hooked -- that's the word Myra used for stealing, somehow hooking is not theft -- came home with a box of oranges, and that's all they had to eat for three days. Myra would peel them or cut them into slices and make up stories about what the segments were -- fairy bread, or pieces of sun dropped to the earth from god -- to keep Gil eating them when he was sick of orange. They only did that once, because they both got terrible diarrhea. Most of the time, though --"

Ginny looked at her children. She was about to hurt them in a new way, she thought.

"You remember Jake the Gunslinger?"

"From the Long Branch!" said Margie, smiling for the first time.

"Well, he was from that period. Myra would scrub out a couple of milk bottles and fill them with water, then set up the saloon. She'd use the game to get Gil so full of water, his belly wouldn't hurt."

Gillam buried his face in his hands.

"I didn't know that, the first time she played that game with us all. She made it such a blast, I had no idea." She looked at Margie, then pointed her head at Gillam. Margie moved over and put her arm around Gillam's heaving shoulders. She began crying with him.

"If you would rather not hear the rest, that's all right, you know. Really all right" said Ginny.

"No!" choked out Gillam. "I want to know -- if it happened to her, I want to know. I just can't stand it that this is true, but I have to know it if it's true."

"That's the way I feel" said Ginny. She let them cry a while, until they stopped to blow noses.

"So...she's trapped, doing her best to keep herself alive but also having to keep Gil intact. And then the molestation starts. And -- the violation is complete. She has no release from it, not even death, and yet the one thing that's worse is if she has to know he's doing it to Gil. So she keeps him from going after Gil by putting herself in Gil's place. Which is part of how he convinces her that she wants what he is doing, that she is asking for it. She was only 10 and 11 years old."

"It's too much. She can't humanly bear it. So when Jo leaves the house and he tells Myra to follow him -- he liked to take her into Jo's bed, he didn't miss a single chance to make it worse -- she lies down and she leaves her body. She detaches and becomes something floating up in the far corner, near the ceiling. She's afraid to float outside, because she has to keep an eye on Gil, so she stays in the room, but she doesn't watch what he's doing to her -- not after the first time -- and she can't hear anything. And after a while, he's done and he leaves, and little Gil creeps in and pats her face, curls up with her crying, and brings her back into her body."

"I am sure that's what happened today. It's never occurred since I've been with her, but she told me about it happening with other -- women, other circumstances. At least one of those fuckers never even noticed she had departed her body." Ginny's voice was livid. "I swore I'd never let her reach that point with me -- it's about having to face something she doesn't know how to bear, and feeling like there is no help anywhere for her. She must have hit that point today. She must have thought I'd left her. She came in here to think, lay down, and it hit her. She doesn't go voluntarily into this dissociation, it just overtakes her. It wasn't a seizure, it wasn't a suicide attempt. It was a self-defensive collapse." She turned and kissed Myra again. "I am so sorry, angel. I am so sorry. I won't leave you again."

Returning to her children, she said "If I had thought for a even moment, I would have guessed that this might be a major trigger. Gil -- you know his death was related to drugs, right? Well, he was so high that he was in a stupor, lying on his couch, and he vomited and couldn't move, so it went down his windpipe. And he was choking, probably would have choked to death anyhow, but in his violent struggle to breathe, his heart, whose condition was weakened by drug use or years of abuse, take your pick -- the pericardial lining around his heart burst open and he bled out into his chest. It's called tamponade, and it's just as painful as it sounds. So he died alone, in agony, and she's never stopped blaming herself, not really. And seeing me do something that appeared to put you at risk, Gillam, here in a country where she's a stranger, and I'm abandoning my role as a responsible adult -- she lost her footing."

"Oh, god, I feel so bad" said Gillam.

"Now, see, that's just not right. You have to not take this on. You are not Gil, you were with me and I knew it was going to be okay, and it's not your fault. I am to blame for not having discussed it with her first -- if I had, this would have all been avoided because one look at her face would have told me maybe I shouldn't go there -- but I'm not sorry we had our adventure. The reason why she lost it is because she was savagely abused as a child and she's still got a trigger we didn't know about, haven't had a chance to clean up. That's not your responsibility -- you're the child, not the parent. Got it?" Ginny was adamant. Gillam was not completely convinced, but she thought maybe he'd be able to talk himself into her point of view in time. And when Myra heard about it, she'd tell him the same thing.

Ginny turned against to face Myra, putting one knee up over Myra's. "Love you, Myra my own. Everything is okay. I'll be here with you until you wake up, and ever after." There was absolutely no sign that Myra was anything except deeply asleep, and yet Margie was suddenly as convinced as Ginny that Myra was hearing each word.

"I love you too, Mama" she said, reaching out a hand and putting it on Myra's foot under the blanket. Gillam joined her. He said to Ginny "I can't believe this really happened to her. I mean, of course I do believe it, but -- it doesn't show, Mama. She's never been anything but kind and funny with us -- well, I mean, she's been strict and all that when we needed it, but not mean." Margie gave him a glance, then, which he didn't notice as he went on. "I don't get how she could grow up that way and not be -- seriously fucked up."

"Therapy" said Ginny. "The money to buy help; 12-step programs which she found a way to use; lesbian-feminism, with its class analysis and the hope of 'biology is not destiny'; and the fact, mostly this, that she's stronger than anybody I've ever met. She kept on finding a way to love herself. The year before we got together, she said, she spent that year learning how it was that she survived the unsurvivable. She had to know that before she could find somebody like me, have a family like you."

"I always thought it was you who made the difference in her life" said Margie. "She says that, I know I've heard her say that."

"I'm her reward for herself getting out from under" said Ginny. "She can be romantic sometimes, but if you ask her direct, she'll admit, the woman in her life is her."

Ginny checked out her children's faces. They were drawn and fatigued, but not in shock. Frances looked passable, too. Welcome to the family thought Ginny.

"We need a good night's sleep" said Ginny. "Everything will be much, much better in the morning. Gillam, I don't like the idea of you sleeping alone in your room tonight. Will you please come in here with us and take the second bed? You can do anything you need, read, watch TV, pace -- you definitely won't wake her up and I'll put in earplugs so you won't bother me."

He looked resistant. At that moment, a long sonorous fart escaped from Myra. They could actually hear the flutter of her buttocks. She made a tiny sigh of relief but slept on.

The younger people in the room collapsed in laughter. Ginny grinned and said "She does that every night, once she's completely asleep."

"Oh, my god" said Margie. "I never knew that!"

"I haven't told anybody" said Ginny. "Not even her."

"But she's teased you, often, about how gassy you were when you were pregnant with us" said Gillam.

"Well, that's funny, it really is. And this is not funny to me, it's just her letting go. Besides which, it doesn't smell bad."

Gillam was waving his hand in front of his face. "You must be upwind of it, is all I can say."

"No, I smell it" argued Ginny. "But it's kinda earthy, like the garden. Not bad at all."

Gillam and Margie grinned at each other and shook their heads. Then Margie looked at Frances, a little embarrassed. Frances said "Just wait 'til you meet my Uncle Pietro."

Ginny said "So, Gillam -- her fart is now over and done with, and in any event it doesn't smell like I'm sure your room does. And it would help me if I had you here close at hand, in case we need you."

She played this card deliberately. She was determined to not leave him alone with some of the thoughts that might come up tonight.

He said instantly "Of course. Of course I'll bunk up with you. I'll go over and get some things."

He left the door open, and they heard his cry of disgust as he went into his own room. When he returned, he said "I need a shower. I must have residue from that."

Margie stood up "We're going to bed, then. Call us -- " she pointed to Ginny -- "for anything. Okay?"

"You got it. Come back over when you get up and we'll order in breakfast, see how everybody is feeling and make plans accordingly."

"Yeah, we were supposed to go the Anne Frank museum tomorrow" said Frances. They all laughed again.

"We'll figure it out in the blessed light of day" said Ginny. "I apologize to each and every one of you for my part in the drama of today. I may be old but I can still be really, really stupid."

"You're also really fun to get high with" said Gillam.

Ginny grinned at him. "That's my boy" she said.

By the time he got out of the shower, she was sleeping, curled in front of Myra. He read for a while, drank two more glasses of water, and, surprising himself, went to sleep easily.

In their room, Margie pulled Frances into her arms and they kissed for a long time. Then they both started to speak at the same instant. After saying "Go ahead" -- "No, you go" -- finally Frances said "I am so lucky to have this trip with you and your family. Being around your mothers is indescribable. Like a movie."

Margie was laughing. "I was going to thank you for being here, with all this mishigas. I know it can be maddening."

"Not maddening. But certainly exciting."

"Did you see how they sleep together, all fit together like a puzzle? After 25 years, still sleeping like that? They wake up together like that."

"That's my plan for us, Margie Rose." They kissed some more.

"Do you think she took Gillam to smoke dope to bond with him, reward him, because he's the one who's going to breed? Is this a sign of things to come?" Margie sounded resigned.

"I don't know. My impression is that she was really upset after dinner last night, still upset this morning at breakfast."

Margie looked quizzical.

"What about?"

"Damned if I know. And it wasn't upset in a way that was overt. I don't think Myra picked up on it. But I think she needed to blow off some kind of steam, and she knew Gillam would go for it."

"That's interesting" said Margie. "Something to think about."

"Your mom -- Myra, I mean -- is amazing. I will never look at her the same way. And I can see so much of her in you."

Margie kissed her passionately for a bit. "Myra thinks I'm just like Mom. Ginny, I mean."

"Well, you got the best of both, is what's really true."

"No, the best thing I ever got is you, Francesca." She slid her hand under Frances' nightgown.


© 2008 Maggie Jochild.

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STILL DEAD

Really, really dead.

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GINNY BATES: HERRING AND VAN GOGH

(Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890 -- for your own chance to view it up close, go here at the Van Gogh Museum and click on enlarge)

All right, fans, here's another smallish nugget of my novel-in-progress, Ginny Bates. This occurs after my last post yesterday. If you are already a familiar reader, begin below. If you need background, check the links in the sidebar on the right, fifth item down, to get caught up.

July 2010

It was a relief to get off the train. Its unceasing rhythm had reduced Myra to speaking in meter, no matter how hard she tried not to. Amsterdam felt immediately like home to her, the mid-afternoon light almost something she could scoop into her hands. Ginny looked enraptured.

They checked in, and on the way up in the elevator, Gillam said "I'm hitting the pool soon as I can, I have to stretch out my long muscles."


"Oh, honey, I'm sorry -- this hotel doesn't have a pool. But they have an excellent variety of weight machines, and a sauna" said Myra. "Plus, we're in the Central District, we could rent bicycles for the week, I thought."

"Not me. I don't ride bikes" said Ginny.

"Why on earth not?"

Ginny waited until they were in the corridor, away from other people in the elevator, before answering "With this ass? No way."

Myra stared at her. "Ginny, you go to yoga classes where all of you are sticking your butts up in the air, you won't wear panties, and, honestly, you'd walk around naked on the streets if you wouldn't get arrested or attacked. Plus, my ass is bigger than yours."

"It looks different on a bicycle" Ginny insisted. Her cheeks were flaming. Myra thought We each of us deal with fat oppression in our way, I guess, and she gave up on her fantasy of riding two-wheelers along the canals with Ginny.

Gillam said "I'm hungry, too. I think I want to walk around, find something healthy to eat, come back and work out, then maybe that sauna."

"I'll go with you" said Ginny. All of them agreed. After stashing their luggage, and Myra doing a quick check for emergency e-mails, they strolled out onto brick avenues where no cars bothered them. Ginny immediately found a herring stand. Not only could Myra not abide the taste of it, she had a hard time watching Ginny swallowing the big chunks of fish, her head tilted back in gustatory delight. She and Gillam walked on and bought a giant cone of frites, which she was thrilled to discover came with mayonnaise instead of ketchup.

When they hooked back up with Margie, Frances and Ginny, the three of them still gobbling fishy treats, Ginny said "That's not a healthy meal, it's only fries."

"I know, but lookit how much there is of it" said Myra.

"There's a Moaz up ahead" said Frances, "They have salads and Asian foods. There should also be a spring roll stand around here soon."

They ate on the move, soaking in the clean air and subtle sound of nearby water. When they found the Puccini chocolate store, Myra's happiness was complete. She bought a stock to take back to the hotel, opting to forego eating any more until after she had worked out with Gillam.

After a steam and a nap, Myra felt better than she had since leaving Brazil. They walked to an open-air concert in a park, stopped for a late night fruit pancake, and went to sleep in luxurious beds.

The next morning, on the way to the Van Gogh Museum, they ducked into a shop to buy a Moleskin guide to Amsterdam. Myra discovered Moleskin also made small narrow reporter's notebooks with the same soft covers, and these immediately supplanted her Brazilian notebooks as her new favorites.

At the museum, Ginny insisted they not sign up for the audio or guided tour. "I can do as well as them" she said with unconscious arrogance, "and we need to set our own pace." For once, Myra took as long standing before a painting as Ginny did. Van Gogh was her favorite, next to Ginny, of course. Moving from one canvas to the next, she murmured to Gillam "His middle name was Willem, you know."

"I didn't" said Gillam. "One of the things I've enjoyed most about Europe is how my name seems normal here, what with Gillaume and the English recognition of it right away. No idiot fratboys calling me Gollem here."

She squeezed his arm in commiseration.

At the end of one wall, near the main hall, was a massive landscape of green wheat fields under blue thunderclouds. Ginny slowly moved in closer and closer, mesmerized by the thick licks of paint laid down in layers to create the impression of motion among the grasses and air. Within seconds, a burly man in a navy suit coat with the museum's insignia over the pocket had deftly inserted himself between her and the painting. He said something in Dutch which was clearly "Don't touch the work, ma'am."

Ginny's German was rusty. She said in English "I wasn't going to actually make contact with it, and I was holding my breath." The guard switched to English and said "Maintain diztants, pliz."

Myra could tell from the set of Ginny's back that she wanted to argue. The guard apparently could read it on her face as well, because he put up a flat hand, not touching her but persuading her back another step.

Another guard from the other end of the room began heading their way. Oh, shit, this is where we wind up in a Turkish prison, thought Myra. She said sharply "Ginny! Get back here."

Two more men in museum blazers converged from the main hallway. One of them, older but with hair still a yellow gleam despite heavy use of hair oil to keep each strand of it in place, said something in a low tone to the guard in front of the painting. The guard replied as Myra stepped forward and actually grabbed Ginny's arm.

Ginny held her ground and said to the second man, whose jacket was of silk, not gabardine, "I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I forgot myself. I'm a painter, and I just wanted to try to figure out how on earth he did that."

The older man looked at her keenly and said "You paint for a hobby?"

Margie laughed loudly, which drew all the guards' attention for a split second. Ginny, smiling, said "No, I paint for a living, I guess you'd say." She stuck out her hand and said "Ginny Josong-Bates, from Seattle, Washington."

Recognition turned the older man's brown eyes into pools of warmth. He took her hand and said "My god, of course, I know your work! I recognize you now from the article in Art Museum Network."

"You do?" pealed Ginny. Myra thought it was genuine. The older man flicked glances to either side, and the guards moved away quietly. The older man held onto Ginny's hand and said his name was Bas Korteweg, he was the museum director, could he be of some service?

Ginny pulled him to her side and linked her arm through his. She said "I don't know why this one stands out in terms of technique, can you tell me why the strokes are so compelling?" Myra could tell he was Ginny's, now. His smile was brilliant.

He turned and called across the hall to an assistant of some sort, issuing a string of sentences that sent the assistant into a scramble. When he faced Ginny again, he said "We have a look."

As they waited, Ginny introduced her family. He was polite, but his attention was on Ginny. He said "You are here in the Netherlands to paint, maybe?"

"I hope so" she said. "This is our first day."

Myra heard a rumble behind them. Two men in coveralls were pushing a rolling metal platform with steps and padded rails, which would lift anyone on it two feet off the ground. A pair of cartons were on the floor of the platform. Bas directed them to position it, with exquisite finesse, against the wall so it straddled the painting. He opened the cartons to reveal plastic hoods of the sort surgeons wore on television for splattery kinds of operations. He put one on his head and held the other out to Ginny. When she donned it, her mouth promptly fogged the plastic before it and Bas said to her "You must still breathe carefully."

From the bottom of each carton he pulled out two enormous metal-rimmed magnifying glasses, of a quality that Myra lusted after. "We use these to study" he said. Whether he meant it as a present-tense offer or an explanation of activities that went on in the museum after hours was not clear. Bas extended a hand to Ginny, to escort her up the steps onto the platform. She forgot her family existed.

They spent half an hour with their faces an inch away from every square millimeter of that painting, talking in voices too low for anyone else to hear. One of the assistants stood guard, waving other tourists on. Eventually, Myra said "My feet hurt from being in one place, let's go look at the second floor", and they left without saying anything to Ginny. She wouldn't have heard them.

When they returned after an hour, Ginny was still facing the canvas but the thrall was beginning to lessen. She had stepped back and lifted her visor, as had Bas, and they were talking earnestly. Gillam called out "Hey, Mom" and Ginny swung around with an unfocused gaze for a second, locating them. "Oh, hi" she said happily.

After another ten minutes of conversation, she finally pulled one of her cards from her pack and gave it to Bas, saying "This afternoon will manifest itself in my work from now on, you'll be able to see it." He almost wiggled in delight. Gillam stepped forward to help Ginny down from the platform. Ginny looked at them and sighed deeply. "I need to tell you what I saw in there" she said. She scanned them quickly and zeroed in on Margie, putting her arm through Margie's as she had with Bas and starting them on an amble toward the entrance.

The rest of them gaped after her, denied entrance to the exalted realms of art. After half a minute, where neither Ginny nor Margie looked back, Myra turned to Gillam and said "You there, urchin, fetch them trunks up to the castle, you 'ear?"

They all burst into laughter, even Bas. Myra thanked him effusively and the three of them trailed after Ginny and Margie. Because of Myra's teasing about the incident, after they got back to Seattle, Ginny painted an 8 x 12 oil of her and Bas hunched over the Van Gogh, not quite comical. She mailed it to him with a very nice letter. Myra said "He'll bore everyone to death with telling that story and showing them your painting, framed in a place of honor in his office."

"He was a mensch" said Ginny. "He took me around a bend in the river, and I won't forget that."

The next day they spent at the Rijksmuseum. When they got back to the hotel late that afternoon, Gillam checked his e-mail and then asked Myra "Can I borrow your cell again? Carly needs to have a talk with me."

"Sure. Say hi for me."

When Gillam returned, the rest of the family was waiting on him to go to dinner. Myra insisted they try an Indonesian restaurant instead of going back to a herring stand as Ginny wanted. Once they'd ordered, Myra said "Is he okay?"

"Carly? Yeah." Gillam paused, then said "Pat's driving him kinda nuts."

"How so?"

"Well, you know that woman she cheated on Patty with dumped her within a year. And she's had a string of affairs since then, none of 'em lasting long. She's -- not really the catch she thought she was. That's Carly's phrase, not mine. Anyhow...she's started drinking. A lot, Carly says."

"Oh, hell, that's terrible news" said Myra.

"She even called Patty at one point and asked to get back together" said Carly.

"How did Patty react?" said Ginny. She had gone very still.

"She said no. But Pat still calls Patty at odd hours of the night, at least once a week, drunk and crying. She's been doing that with Carly, too, that's what he needed to vent about. He said she's in this confessional mode, wants to talk about all the ways she's screwed up and get his forgiveness."

"Worse and worse" said Myra. "Has he suggested she get help?"

"Once. Mostly, now, he just unplugs his phone at night. He wanted to let me know, in case I tried to call. She's leaving messages on the machine, though. He thinks maybe she's in trouble at her job, which is really all she has left on earth" said Gillam.

"What about Truitt?" asked Myra. Ginny was still frozen, her face completely ashen. Drunks bring up that childhood horror, thought Myra. She reached over and took Ginny's hand, which was cold to the touch. Ginny wrapped her fingers around Myra's.

"Truitt either never answers the phone or, at least once, he's actually gone out to bars with her" said Gillam, disgust in his voice. "I mean, he's not Mr. Process, not Truitt."

"You know, my first semester at college, he made a pass at me" said Margie conversationally.

"He what?" said Myra.

"Yep. The moron. There were several times when we were teenagers when I think he thought about it. But one night, after pizza and a couple of beers, he finally made a move. And it was when Gary was there, had just gone to the bathroom for a minute. An utter moron" said Margie with a feral smile.

Myra didn't feel the need to ask how Margie had dealt with it.

"Pat's paying for Truitt's MBA program" continued Gillam, "So he's staying on good terms with her, but not in a helpful way."

"Do you think Carly would like to talk with me about it?" asked Myra. "I've been close to sloppy alkies, you know."

Margie looked shocked when she realized Myra was talking about Allie. Gillam said "Maybe. You could try."

Myra let go of Ginny's hand, which had still not warmed up, to resume eating. "Thanks for letting us know. Sheesh, makes me grateful for good choices I never knew were that good at the time."

Frances said to Margie, "He's dating Ashley Owens you know."

"Who, Truitt? She's a total candybrain" said Margie.

"She thinks she's going to be Mrs. Marchand. She rattles on about how blonde their children would be" said Frances scornfully.

"As if hers didn't come out of a bottle" responded Margie.

"Which reminds me, I love your hair color" Myra said to Frances. "Do you call it black or dark brown?"

"It's dark brown" Ginny answered for her, finding her voice again. "If we could blend your genes with Margie's when you two have children, they'd be gorgeous beyond words."

Margie stared at Ginny. "Children? Who said anything about us having kids?"

"Well, okay, I know I'm pushing things" said Ginny, a little rueful. "Mother's prerogative. I meant eventually."

"Nuh-uh" said Margie. "We're not having kids."

"Not ever?" Ginny's voice rose.

Margie's face looked mutinous. Myra didn't want her to lash out at Ginny, not with Ginny still pale as death. She said "Have you two talked it over, then?"

Margie leaned fractionally toward Frances, who looked uncomfortable but not contradictory. "Yes. We covered that early on. I don't want that particular set of responsibility, and neither does Franny. Her career will take up all our slack."

Myra was afraid to look in Ginny's direction. Her own stomach was turning over. She hadn't realized until this moment how much she'd counted on the Bates line continuing.

Gillam said softly "Well, I do want that particular responsibility, as you refer to it. I can't imagine being happy without it. I plan to have several children, whatever it takes to make that happen. Family will be my career as much as anything else."

Margie's face went dark with anger. She said venomously "And you have the nerve to cast judgment on Truitt being a suck-up, when you are the most two-faced whatever-Mama-wants --- "

Before Myra could stop her, Frances said "Arresti!" Her hand went around the back of Margie's neck and she shook her, extremely gently, but it was enough to turn Margie toward her. Frances said softly "Nothing to do with us." They stared into each other's eyes.

Gillam's face was as red as Ginny's was drained. At that moment, of course, the waiter appeared to ask if they needed anything else. Myra said "I'd like a Coke, please, a large one. And a refill of hot tea for the pot. Thanks."

The rest of the meal was quiet. Nobody felt like mending fences. When they were done, Gillam said he was going for a walk. Margie and Frances strode off in the opposite direction. Myra and Ginny went back to their room, where they took turns crying about the babies Margie would never have.

"She would loathe seeing us like this" said Myra at one point.

"Those eggs inside her, they were formed when she was still inside my womb, did you know what? I have a direct physical connection to those eggs" sobbed Ginny.

"Hers to flush away" said Myra, and Ginny wailed "I know, dammit."

They felt better afterward. Ginny leafed through their travel guide, making notes, while Myra washed out underwear and listened for the sound of Gillam returning. She relaxed when he poked his head in to say goodnight. She hugged him and whispered "I'm glad you spoke up."

"She's not the only Bates" he said succinctly.

When they all walked down for breakfast, they discovered it was pouring rain. The forecast said it would likely continue all day. After they ordered, Myra said "I think what I'd like to do, then, is take one of the canal tours. Maybe the architecture tour. They have covered glass canopies over the boats so you can stay dry and still see things. I'd like to learn more about how the city is put together."

"Or we could go back to the Rijksmuseum and look at the Rembrandts. We spent almost all our time there yesterday on Vermeer" said Ginny.

"Well, Vermeer was worth it. Ginny, I may scandalize you, but I'm not that wild about Rembrandt." Gillam and Margie both looked up, as if expecting gunfire.

Ginny thought about arguing, they could tell. But finally she just sighed and said "Whatever. If you'd rather take a Disneyland ride than see one of the most significant painters in the history of Europe, be my guest. Anybody else want to do the museum?"

Myra was stung, it was obvious. Gillam chose not to look her way as he said to Ginny "I would. I want to see the Hals too."

Frances was not about to open her mouth. But Margie knew Frances had been itching to get on the canal boats, so she said "We want to do the waterway route at least once here. We'll go with you, Mom."

They ate a while in tense silence, until Ginny offered Myra the last of her stroopwafel.

"You sure?" asked Myra.

"You'll need the extra carbs, doing all that difficult boat riding" grinned Ginny. She leaned over and kissed Myra, getting syrup on the front of her shirt. Myra had fun helping her wipe it off. When breakfast was over, everybody parted politely and agreed to meet back at the hotel before dinner.



© 2008 Maggie Jochild.

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LOLCATS ROUND-UP, 22 APRIL 2008

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.

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