1956? 1966? 1976? ….Ok I remember . Possibly.
“What are they doing now?” “Shut up, you want to get us in trouble?!” We gazed as the drunken man lifted the skirt of the drunken woman ….
Our house was small but not as small now as the wino shack next door since Dad added a bathroom and enclosed the back stoop for sister to have her own room. Now that I say that, I wonder if our little house ever had an indoor bathroom before. Strange but I always recall the little built on room. Even in its varying stages of “becoming” it seems that it was always there.
The floors in our home leaned. Depending on which room you were in, you naturally lent your vote to the declination of that atmosphere. Our room, meaning the boys room, leaned from heavenly east to hell bound west. The forgone conclusion is that you slept with your feet closer to the devil. Plus the fact that not only was the boogeyman, the next door neighbor on a drunk and all dark spots, at the foot of the bed but by pulling ones feet closer to God by assuming the fetal position, you kept them intact for the next day’s bravados. Ordinarily most folks would consider the setup good for the blood work but believe me when I say that never on any occasion did health enter our minds when bedtime and darkness approached. Well other than our health in not slipping toward the hell end of the bed. I sang to my brothers. Perhaps I sang to the entire family. Sometime perhaps I will ask my mother and sister if my songs had the same lullaby effect on them as it did on my bed partners. I am now unsure whether my singing was for them or for myself.
Our Sunday worship consisted of a sermon by a genteel man by the name of Brother Priest if you can believe that. He was the kindest soul I have ever met and his congregation loved him. Up until his lifelong partner passed and Brother Priest changed identities. This was of course not done by the preacher himself but by the adult congregation. You see Brother Priest met and fell in love with a young Latino girl whom it was his mission to save. Save her he did as many years later they were still together and had raised two fine sons even though Mr. Priest, as he became to known after a decline in congregation led to the ultimate closing of the church, felt the full wrath of “young, Latin boredom”.
I met her through a friend. Well I say that but she told me she had met me through a trip in her mind during a Woodward Park summer night sabbatical. It was a mescaline trip I believe she said. She was a practicing witch. Not like Oz witches but more like the druids of pagan times I would say.
“What are they doing now?” “Shut up, you want to get us in trouble?!” We gazed as the drunken man lifted the skirt of the drunken woman ….
Our house was small but not as small now as the wino shack next door since Dad added a bathroom and enclosed the back stoop for sister to have her own room. Now that I say that, I wonder if our little house ever had an indoor bathroom before. Strange but I always recall the little built on room. Even in its varying stages of “becoming” it seems that it was always there.
The floors in our home leaned. Depending on which room you were in, you naturally lent your vote to the declination of that atmosphere. Our room, meaning the boys room, leaned from heavenly east to hell bound west. The forgone conclusion is that you slept with your feet closer to the devil. Plus the fact that not only was the boogeyman, the next door neighbor on a drunk and all dark spots, at the foot of the bed but by pulling ones feet closer to God by assuming the fetal position, you kept them intact for the next day’s bravados. Ordinarily most folks would consider the setup good for the blood work but believe me when I say that never on any occasion did health enter our minds when bedtime and darkness approached. Well other than our health in not slipping toward the hell end of the bed. I sang to my brothers. Perhaps I sang to the entire family. Sometime perhaps I will ask my mother and sister if my songs had the same lullaby effect on them as it did on my bed partners. I am now unsure whether my singing was for them or for myself.
Our Sunday worship consisted of a sermon by a genteel man by the name of Brother Priest if you can believe that. He was the kindest soul I have ever met and his congregation loved him. Up until his lifelong partner passed and Brother Priest changed identities. This was of course not done by the preacher himself but by the adult congregation. You see Brother Priest met and fell in love with a young Latino girl whom it was his mission to save. Save her he did as many years later they were still together and had raised two fine sons even though Mr. Priest, as he became to known after a decline in congregation led to the ultimate closing of the church, felt the full wrath of “young, Latin boredom”.
I met her through a friend. Well I say that but she told me she had met me through a trip in her mind during a Woodward Park summer night sabbatical. It was a mescaline trip I believe she said. She was a practicing witch. Not like Oz witches but more like the druids of pagan times I would say.