Within Close Range: Megan's 1959 Split-level Ranch

In her bedroom, half a flight up the 1959 Split-level Ranch with pink brick and putty colored paint, I’d fidget with Megan’s funky, multi-colored fiber optic lamp, while she played records and introduced me to jazz - Sydney Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, Preservation Hall, and her very favorite, The Samuel Dent Memorial Jazz Band. 

She had a thing for the coronet player.

And there we’d wait until it was time for her parents to go out and best friends to descend upon the many leveled house, like chubby ants to a picnic.

We’d relish this time, void of family law, to nurture our own hand-picked clan, filled with constantly morphing personalities, birthed from overactive glands and imaginations - and recently recognized skills - whether poet, actor, musician, Pig Out Queen, Homecoming Queen, Make Out Queen, or Dancing Queen.

Never enough crowns.

Never enough room on the dance floor.

Though clumsy and shy, my pelvic-thrusting friends showed great determination in making me try; in making me jump and jive, shake my groove thing, and Hustle across nearly every inch of the wall to wall carpet in the green and gold metallic wallpapered, ground level living room of Megan’s 1959 Split-level Ranch.

Sweating and spinning and dipping. 

Smoking and joking and choking with laughter.

Air Band greats ever in the making.

Using voices and faces to find inner traces of people we know and meet; and songs (mostly carols) to share a new knowledge of the male anatomy; writing lyrics using every dirty word puerile minds could muster to fluster, shock and repulse.

And in between dancing and smoking and singing, years of piano lessons colored the scene, mixing Joplin, Pachelbel and Winston into the frenetic hours of being girls, and teens.

Ceasing only long enough to replenish.

Which is why a half floor lower was, to us, a fairytale kingdom of tightly sealed snacks of caramels and pretzels, Chex mix and cookies - wafer, fudge stripe, shortbread, sugar. 

Tupperware and tins of sweet and salty things that were there for the taking.

Yet it wasn’t the sweets I liked most to eat at the putty-colored home. My favorite treat could not be found in the underground realm of infinite munchies and After School Specials, but in the kitchen pantry above. Something I’d never had before entering Megan’s house, and to this day, still have absolutely no willpower to pass up…SpaghettiOs.

Yes, that’s right. SpaghettiOs. 

However, Mom wouldn’t buy it, so I had to sneak it. Which I did, at Megan’s 1959 Split-level Ranch; where friends and friendships were allowed to be a lot like that can of SpaghettiOs: 

Deliciously saucy, indulgent, effortless, full of crap, and distinctly gratifying.

One Square Mile

We'd been in Prescott several months before I felt brave enough to wander the state trust land near our new home on a hill overlooking, well… almost everything surrounding us - valleys, canyons, mountains.

Being raised in the Midwest, the landscape of Arizona’s Central Highlands was like another world - harsh, seemingly barren, with strange creatures I’d been warned of: giant spiders, poisonous snakes, big cats, long-toothed peccary. 

I expected an unwelcome encounter around every scrub, rock and corner,
but soon found none.

Instead, I discovered in this small, square mile, an odd, new world of high dessert ways where life and death are on display with every cow for slaughter resting in the shade of a low, broad pine, every blade of blood red grass pushing through the dry, rocky earth. 

In the great, bright white blossoms of the moon vine which shun the mid-day sun all summer long, closing their blossoms to everyone. Then as the earth begins to cool, the shrivelled blossoms slowly unfold and reach out to the gentler night.

In every piece of a recent kill, picked nearly clean from above and below, until nothing remains but full bellies and scattered bones to bleach and decay in the strong, abiding Arizona sun.

Each time we wandered its rolling terrain, it begged more questions and felt more sane.

Because every new path helps me see; helps me become part of the marvelous whole which co-exists so beautifully on the highland square beside my home. 

One still, cool, autumn day the dogs and I went walking, making a dubious circle inside this small square of land. About half-way round, we climbed a small ridge near the northern fenceline, alongside a jarring stretch of a dirt road that leads to Chino Valley. 

There, on the other side of a wide, shallow wash, some 15 yards away, we encountered a herd of pronghorn - two dozen, or so - grazing. Though every creatures lifted its head from meals, naps, and play, they didn’t seem bothered enough to take leave.

To take flight.

Even as the dogs whined and pulled hard at their leashes. 

It was a remarkable sight. Small groups of juveniles, females and males, spread out, but close at hoof, with earthy colors of wheat, white and black blending with the vast desert grasslands where they like to roam. 

I once found one of their dark, slender, knobby horns on one of our walks, having just been shed. 

Still pungent and warm.

Feeling the aching resolve of the dogs' interest in my arms, I soon turned away, toward the west and home. Happy to have been able to get so close to such remarkable creatures - the fastest land mammal our hemisphere. (The cheetah might be fast, my friend, but the pronghorn has the speed and endurance.)

The dogs and I had gotten no further than the nearest patch of pint-sized junipers, when I heard a loud sound from behind and turned just in time to see the herd of pronghorn we’d left behind, charging toward us.

The dogs were frantic and frightened and nearly pulled me off my feet. 

All I could do was dig my heels into the dry, hard earth and with nowhere else to look, stare straight into the eyes of the leader, who seemed somehow surprised by our meeting. With the herd at her heels, and us just ahead, it was up to the lead as to how this would end.

So glad she decided, at the very last moment, to dart to our right. 

The spray of dirt from her hooves shot into my wide open mouth, as we watched the leader take her swift-hooved family around the other side of a short, fat scrub, just a few yards away.

I held tight and dug my heels deeper, as the dogs turned with the pronghorn, and me with the dogs. Yet instead of continuing forward and away, the leader suddenly turned the panicked herd and circled back to where all of this began. 

Instantly surrounding us on all sides. Lifting the dust high above our heads.

The dogs, now howling, kept yanking and yanking, but I kept them anchored,  all the while bemoaning the unreachable phone in my back pocket because no one was going to believe that we were at the very center of a neighborhood stampede.

When the bright white backside of the final pronghorn disappeared into the dust, I finally looked down from my tired, trembling arms to see that the dogs were not in the least bit tired, but trembling too. 

“Holy shit,” I laughed, repeating the sentiment a few more times, as my sore, quaking, anxious fingers fumbled for the phone in my pocket to call Kurt.

I found my breathe again on the slow, wobbly, happy journey home.

Winged Chatter

I try to find a new way to wander across the rolling hills of scrub and pine and stretches of grass, each time the dogs and I go walking; and so every day, I get to see familiar things in a different sort of way. 

Sometimes this leads to new treasures like old, sun-bleached bones for my growing bone collection, a newly dug den with earth so freshly excavated it’s still moist and brown; or an ancient juniper at the top of a ridge, rounded like a giant, perfect mushroom cap, where generations of cattle resting and rubbing in its shade, helped give it its flat-bottomed, fairyland shape.

But mostly, it’s not knowing where the dogs and I are going, except out. 

To explore this small patch of hilly land near our home where Mingus Mountain rises behind Chino Valley to the east, Table Top Mesa and Granite Mountain command the views to the south and scattered homes along long, dirt roads in the near distance remind us we’re never alone.

As does the jackrabbit springing from shrub to shrub, with its skyscraper ears that quickly disappear; or a flock of quails lifting noisily from an impenetrable cluster of apache plume in near perpetual bloom at the side of the wash.

Which, like my path, is always changing. 

Crumbling.

Reshaping.

Exposing many tunnels dug feet below the surface (which look like sunken eyes, sunk deep in deep, dark sockets); and hardened roots of Pinyon pines clutch eroding walls, refusing to fall, to succumb to the changes. Clinging green on so few of its branches.

Yet clinging.

And fruiting and feeding the creatures who live here. Here in the washes and brushes and hollowed out trees. In the boulders and burrows and fields, where me and the dogs keep wandering, because every day it keeps changing.

Each bloom, each moon, each orbital click.

While the dogs keep on sniffing and sniffing and sniffing, and finding their own unique way, which these days is through a grassy stretch of fleeting monsoon green that tickles my knees and their noses. 

Past Prickly Pears with their thorny pads, crowned with green, pink and purple fruit, growing darker and bigger and bolder and sweeter. Across the patch where the air is fair and the land is electric with tiny, winged voices that buzz here and there. Humming strange, chatty words in my ear. While modest patches of yellow, white, orange and purple wildflowers barely boast that they’re there. 

But they are. 

Bringing color and grace to a rough, rugged place, where mettle must rule every moment. Where you need to be swift like the pronghorn and strong like the mule deer - built wide and low - whose tracks I’ve tracked across a still-damp wash to the bottom of a vertical embankment, where I looked up the 10 ft. wall and saw a single hoof print - half-way up.

And wondered whether danger prompted such a vault, or was it simple daring because it could be simply done? Like the rattlesnake, who with a shake, might let you know they’re near. But then again, it all depends on whether you’re his next meal.

We surprised a small, skinny coyote looking for hers the other day, when we appeared from the wash and the scrub about thirty feet from where she was rising from a small ravine. She saw us first and was trying to make a quiet retreat into the Pinyon and Juniper up ahead, when I spotted her out of the corner of my eye. 

Holding tight to the leashes, I stopped and turned and greeted the startled creature who, instead of fleeing, paused as well. As the dogs strained their leads, I smiled at the brazen thing who just stood there staring, Then, suggesting it best the four of us part company, turned from our chance meeting. 

The scraggly coyote followed, moving in a similar direction, stopping one final time between a gap in the growth, to stare at our constrained trio before her shabby, honey-colored hide slunk over the next ridge and disappeared.

And the dogs and I, ignoring my instinct to go home, turned left instead.

The Light of Day

The following short story was inspired by the hauntingly beautiful winter scene pictured. I found this small, 4 x 6, unsigned, pen and ink on paper at a barn sale in Wisconsin many years ago. It remains one of my very favorite pieces. To see more treasures and more fiction, visit my blog:  beautyofthrift.com

Katie keeps the meager fire burning in the small cottage at the edge of the woods, watching her mother twist and turn. Hearing her quietly moan.

Looking around the cabin, she’s desperate for something to do - some way to be useful. But all’s been done in the last two days since the contractions began. So all there is to do is be there when her mother calls, and wait.

Motionless at the kitchen window, she watches the rising sun slowly define the intricate silhouettes of the barren trees behind the barn. 

What will the new light bring?

But she’s exhausted and the light is dim.

Wiping away the frost and the fog with the apron she’s been wringing in her small hands, Katie watches her father through the kitchen window as he prepares the wagon to fetch the midwife from town. 

Hitching the horses in the pale light of the lantern, she marvels at his ease and compassion. Patting each on theirs rumps and their necks, and rubbing their broad, long noses, he gently rouses his team to their unexpected task.

Clouds of breath rise from their nostrils and disappear into the cold and still of the mid-winter’s morning, as he moves swiftly around the massive beasts, laying the harness as he has hunderds of times before. With bridles slung over each shoulder, he warms both metal bits beneath his thick coat before putting it in their mouths; and for his daily thoughtfulness, each horse lowers his high, heavy head toward him when he holds out their bridle.

Katie smiles.

Until another moan comes from behind and she’s at the side of the bed before the contraction ends and her mom can see again. Gently wiping her brow with the apron, she squeezes tight when her mother grabs hold of her hand and clutches it to her chest.

Smiling again when her mother turns toward her.

Opening her eyes to her daughter, no pain can blur the struggle she sees in her young heart and old hands. She wants to hold her, to hug her tight and tell her everything will be well, but another bolt of pain seizes her thoughts and intents, and she releases her daughter’s hand, clutching the bedsheets instead.

Twice the dawn has come and gone and still the little one is all turned around and stubborn to leave. But I’m stubborn too, she repeats as she squeezes. And the midwife will be here soon.

Pacing the room, Katie hears a horse whiny and looks through the glass and the ice to see the foggy figure of her father climb to his seat, lift his collar against the cold, and call to his team. Running out the door, to the edge of the yard, she watches her father disappear into the expanding light. 

The horses’ hooves and wagon wheels crush the thin, icy layer that’s formed on top of yesterday’s heavy, wet snowfall, and the sounds of the departing wagon cut through the silence, the winter and the morning, like a tear in the universe.

His universe.

His happy home.

“Click-click,” he urges his horses, while urging himself to peace; to steady his breathing and steady their pace. 

All will be fine. She’s a strong woman. Far stronger than me.

“And what would she say of this mood beyond hope?” he calls to his team, resting his eyes on the road up ahead, as the dim and grey of the dawning, winter day becomes brighter and whiter with the strengthening light.

Open Gates

A southwestern landscape, by Elsie Croson, inspired the following story. For more of my fiction and cool finds, visit: beautyofthrift.com.

I told him to check the gate before he left the paddock.

But, as usual, the damn fool couldn't listen and walk at the same time and now I'm the one running through the damn desert looking for two, damn horses, with about half an hour of daylight left.

"GOD DAMN IT!"

Doesn't help they both have full bellies and were restless. I'm surprised, though, they usually don't wander much further than the nearest bunch of grass or hay bale... 

Can't say I blame them. This is my favorite time to be out here, with the sun dipping, the temperature cooling, and the Sonoran dusk painting everything in soft, warm colors of remarkable depth and variety. Turning the wicked and prickly and choked landscape of the mid-day sun, into something not longer intimidating but inspiring in its dimension and pacifying in its complexion. I love the desert. 

Just not when I'm chasing after fucking horses.

Can't see a damn thing from down here, I have to go higher - climb the rocks on the other side of the wash. Damn it, I hope they haven't gotten themselves into trouble. Horses have a nose for that shit. They can tear themselves up good hightailing it through these parts. Hell, they can rip themselves open just messing around in the corral. Stupid beasts.

I don't know who to be more mad at - them, HIM... or me. 

I knew this would never work, but I kept insisting - PROMISING - that it was going to be a new start for everybody - even though I was full of shit each time I said it. Now, every day I see the resentment grow darker in his eyes - those beautiful eyes that used to offer such strength and comfort. 

He can hardly look at me anymore. And when he does, all I see in them is that he's long gone. 

Far away.

Like the touch of his hand.

His smile.

I hoped it would be different, that he'd grow to love it here, away from the things that made him unhappy. But the fact is... I seem to be the thing that's making him the unhappiest. I know it. He knows it. We just can't seem to admit it to each other... I don't know why... maybe because it means being alone? 

Again.

But I've never felt more lonely. The winds offer more solace than his troubled presence. So why am I so desperate to hold onto something - to someone - who desperately needs me to let go? To let go. 

The problem is, who goes first?

"There you are, you little devils! Yeah, YOU! I'm talking to you two! Enjoying the little outing, are we?! Please, PLEASE stay put you big, hairy beasts, 'til I reach you."

If only I could reach him. Help him. Make him happy. But all I can do is love him. And that's simply not enough. At least, not anymore. I know that now. 

He's restless - like the horses - and I just need to open the gate and let him go. No chasing after him like a damn fool. 

"Look what I have boys... treats! That's right, buddy, a big, yummy treat. Just let me slip this around your neck, and - gotcha, my little runaway... And one for you. Atta boy! That's it, fellas. Follow me. Time to go home."

Time to go home. 

Time to close one gate and open another.

Within Close Range: The 2nd Floor Girls' Bathroom

I think I spent more time in the second floor girls’ bathroom at Lake Forest High School than I did in any one of my junior or senior classes.

We were there - my best friends and I - every lunch and chance we could to steal away and smoke our Marlboro Lights; one after another, until the bell rang for class and we emerged from the swinging bathroom door, in a huge, smelly puff of smoke.

Our tobacco-less friends - and true friends they were - tolerated sitting on a cold, dirty bathroom floor, in between old, green stalls with toilets that sounded like tornados when flushed through the old pipes of the old school; and would emerge from the toxic fog looking pale and sickly.

They put up with this dark, plumbed clubhouse day in and day out because we also spent a lot of time in the second floor girls’ bathroom laughing.

And Gossiping.

And singing, and crying and dancing.

And growing.

And being silly in a way none other than teens girls can.

Forming friendships through smoke rings and stall doors.

The teachers who classrooms where nearest the second floor girls’ bathroom, surely knew of our lung-blackening infractions, but chose to turn a blind eye - or in this case, nose to it for two years.

I remember only one occasion when a teacher entered, surprising the group of us who had been chattering and laughing so loudly, we were disrupting her classroom next door. Which is exactly why we heard nothing as she cut her way through the Marlboro haze and surprised us.

Teen girls scattered in every direction, dousing butts in the nearest basin, uselessly waving arms and spritzing “Charlie”, so that the teacher now standing in the middle of the still-smoldering mayhem would certainly be none the wiser of the goings-on in the second floor girls’ bathroom.

She simply stood in the center of the two rows of stalls, as a fog of cigarette smoke still hung heavy on the high ceiling, and said loudly, and very firmly, “OUTSIDE!”, which resounded and boomed against the porcelain-filled room.

Our departure was quick and very quiet.

And our return to the 2nd floor girls’ bathroom the very next day, guaranteed.

Within Close Range: The Elevator

From the time the youngest of us was moving independently of a parent, Gina, Mary, Mia and I were seen as a small, drifting quartet of cousins at family gatherings. Two distinct gene pools, one common goal: to discover new spaces and unknown places where no eyes and “No!”s could block our intentions - not to sit and behave, but explore the dark closets and dusty cabinets of quiet rooms far from grown-ups. 

Though never far from mischievous brothers.

The adult world was confining and so much needed exploring. So, Gina would rouse us to seek out new corners, ever-expanding our adult-free borders. She’d open the door and wave us through and when things didn’t kill us, she’d boldly step past us and reassume command.

And we’d follow.

Just as we did as she led us out the door and down the hallway of Nonnie and Papa’s apartment building. The long, hum drum hall of dubious hues and thick, padded carpet that silenced our patent leather footsteps and our voices, until sparked by static electricity and funny faces, we giggled and squealed and ran down the hall.

Without any grip from my new, leather soles, I slipped and I slipped and it looked as if the end of the hall would stretch out forever with its dark, numbered doors both ahead and behind; where tvs and voices murmured and mumbled and lives went on living, while our little flock focused on the big, brown, metal door at the end of the building.

IT would lead us to unexplored worlds and unsupervised floors; to a quiet, pristine lobby where unsat-on furniture needed that changed, where plants were dusted - not watered - and the floor was so highly polished that beneath the light of the overly ornate lobby chandelier, it glittered and gleamed like a magical lake that I wished I could skate in my stockinged feet.

Mary being tallest was the one who pressed the button with the arrow pointing downward. The elevator hummed and clicked and began to move. We watched the numbers (newly learned) over the elevator door blink in very slow, succession. Then the metal door slid open.

We looked to each other and back down the hallway, where no one came looking and in our reluctance, the door glided shut. 

In unspoken allegiance, Mary re-pressed the button and almost immediately the door slid back open. Gina pushed our little gaggle inside the small, box with dark wood panelling and reached for the lowest of buttons; then the sliding door closed and down we went to the unexplored land of the lobby.

The journey was brief, but remarkable, for I’d never been this far before without at least an older sibling. As soon as the elevator opened its doors, I could see the lobby floor shimmer and shine and without hesitation, I stepped from the safety of my flock.

Gina followed.

Mary followed.

Mia didn’t.

And suddenly, the door slid shut and I watched Mia’s tiny body disappear behind it. Mary and Gina’s big, brown, Italian eyes went suddenly wide and I felt something unfamiliar - panic - suddenly rise, for the elevator started moving and the numbers started lighting, in very slow succession, upward.

Mia was off on her own new adventure, without Captain or crew, or even a clue, as to where she might be going. The three of us, at a loss for what to do, just stared at the door of the moving contraption which slowly ascended to the top floor and stopped.

Would she get off there and try to find her way back to Nonnie and Papa’s? 

Did she even know what floor they lived on? 

Did we? 

We didn’t.

The once strong lure of shiny floors and velvety chairs was now replaced with powerful thoughts of Mia and Mom and home; of familiar places and faces, full plates of pasta and filled candy dishes.

And facing consequences.

Worried and wordless, we heard the elevator again click into motion and anxiously watched the numbers very slowly descend as the small moving room - which might or might not have Mia imprisoned in it - came closer.

Mary, Gina and I inched toward the elevator, hoping we would not see a grown-up, but our quartet reunited when the door opened. And much to our relief, there Mia stood, in the exact same spot in center of the elevator where she had been deserted, looking slightly startled, but still happy to see us. 

Before losing her again, we leapt into the elevator and watched the still elusive lobby disappear behind the sliding door. Now all we needed to figure out was what floor. 

Gina pressed all of them.

When the elevator next stopped and opened its door, we hoped to see something or someone who looked familiar, but nothing and no one was there as a beacon. The next floor offered no more than an exact replica of the last and I felt the fear and the tears bubling just below the surface.

The elevator halted on the third floor and as the door slowly slid open, it revealed a sight I thought I’d never be happy to see, Jim and John, sent out to search for their sisters and cousins.

“WE FOUND ‘EM!”, Jim hollered, as the boys raced back to the front door of the apartment where Nonnie stood shushing and waiting, with oven mitt and apron, and a look of consternation.

A scolding was at hand.

Gina smiled at each of us, then turned toward Nonnie.

And we followed.

Within Close Range: Anita

Anita was one of those agile, young gymnasts whose limber and daring were a constant source of admiration and envy.

She seemed to be able to do it all:  front flips, back flips, backbends, splits.

I couldn’t even cartwheel.

I did a relatively competent forward AND backward somersault, but this garnered little admiration or support from my peers. So, I spent a good deal of time laying back on lawns.

Observing. 

Awed, in particular, by Anita’s long, lanky, bendy body twisting, turning and taking flight. Wondering why and how she could do the things she did, when those skills so skillfully eluded me. 

Or was it the passion to try? 

But Anita’s dexterity defied the norms of stretchability because Anita was (and still is, I’ll venture to guess) double-jointed.

Be it slumber party or playground, upon request, she would good-naturedly demonstrate this unusual trait by pulling the tips of all four fingers back until the tops of her nails touched her forearm; mis-shaping her long, slender, freckled hand and wrist, as if made of moist clay. 

She could also invert her knees and shoulders until her bowed silhoutette looked as if it had been blown inside out, reminding me of an upturned umbrella on a rainy, windy day in The Windy City.

Almost cartoonish.

Illogical and ludicrous.

Her semi-regular recess demonstrations gathered curious, new kids to circle around and gasp at her unearthly elasticity - almost as much as when our classmate, Amy, popped out her false eye.

With a delicate balance of respect and horror, her bendable ways made me think of my Barbie, whose own bendy parts had long ago broken from time after time of forcing bendy poses. There were times I attempted to be like Barbie and my friend, but my body resisted and instead of smiling through it (like Barbie) and pushing through it (like Anita), I felt impossibly cramped and uncomfortable.

Disjointed. Disfigured. Dysfunctional.

Graphic images of parts breaking - snap!, like a twig - were stubborn to leave my imagination. So I quit trying.

Preferring to watch from the shade of a tree, where rubbing my knuckles and elblows and knees with their imaginary aches and graphically imagined breaks,  I marvelled at my double-jointed friend, who could bend and bend and bend.