Woody Cat and Harry the Hat

In the early '80s I found myself living in Menominee,

Michigan. Menominee is a Native American name--

Objibwe, I think--which means rice. There was a lot of

wild rice growing along the shores of Lake Superior in

those parts. I never ate any, but I hear it's pretty good. I'm

not a big eater of rice, unless it's chicken and yellow rice--

a recipe I picked up while living in the Florida Keys,

flavored with saffron. I believe it's a Cuban specialty and

where I was living at the time was about ninety miles from Cuba.

How I ended up in Menominee, Michigan years later is

beyond me. But there I was, right next door to Harry the

Hat. Technically, there was a house between him and me,

but it belonged to Harry. Harry's real name was Harold,

but he was known far and wide as Harry the Hat because

he always wore an elegant, Stetson-like straw hat with the

brim on the left side pinned up with a military-looking tie

tack. He liked to joke that the tie tack was a purple heart,

but he was always saying things like that to make people

wonder. Most folks weren't exactly sure what to make of

Harry.

Harry was a collector of sorts. You name it, he collected

it. He had bought the house next door to me simply so he'd

have someplace to store all his junk. The house he lived in

with his wife, Jennie was a stately, white Corinthian

structure with wooden curly-qs supporting the eaves--and

it was literally filled with stuff he had been hoarding for

years, much to Jennie's dismay. Jennie hated all that junk

and she never missed an opportunity to say what she

thought about it (she was a might peeved, you could say.)

"It's a fire trap, I tell you!" she'd rasp in her squeaky

voice. "Both of them! One o' these days, this whole

block's gonna go up in smoke! Wait 'n see!"

When Jennie was in one of her tirades, Harry would

grin sheepishly and quickly find something to do

elsewhere. He could generally be found putzing about his

yard. He loved to grow flowers and the yard was an

explosion of colors--geraniums, pansies, gardenias, tulips,

daffodils, and all along the gray, wooden fence between

my yard and his were the biggest sunflowers I've ever

seen. He said he planted them for the birds. The birds

loved them! There were even little, yellow finches that

regularly visited those sunflowers. The first robins of

spring were always seen in Harry's backyard, which was

festooned with bizarre driftwood fences, made of driftwood

Harry himself brought up from Arrowhead Point.

Scattered here and there were also huge stones he had

somehow managed to drag home.

2.

Harry's backyard was the Twilight Zone of the

neighborhood. I used to sit in my backyard playing my

guitar and watching Harry working joyfully in his yard.

He was always planting something, or digging something

up, or arranging obscure pieces of junk into dubious works

of art, or scanning the skies--for what, I didn't know at the

time. My wife, Dee had her own garden between the

building we lived in and Harry's storage house next door.

She was nuts about Harry. He'd come over whenever Dee

was out, and comment on how fine her rhubarb was

coming along, and helped her build a small fence of sticks

and branches he provided, to help keep the rabbits out of

the carrot patch. Harry was a good neighbor, but he also

knew Dee was famous for her rhubarb pies, and, too, he

liked carrots fresh from the garden. Dee always made

certain he had a steady supply of both. "Now don't you go

collecting my pie tins," she'd tell him. "Else I won't be

able to bake you no more." Harry would assure her he'd

return the tin when he finished the pie, which never took

long for him to do.

One afternoon when he was over, he applauded me

when I finished playing a new song I'd made up.

"That was terrific, son! Do you take requests?"

"Not unless it's something I wrote," I told him. "I don't

really know anyone else's stuff."

"Is that a fact?" Harry asked, his brow wrinkling a little.

"Well I sure like them instrumentals you play. You kinda

put me in mind of Chet Atkins sometimes, the way you

fingerpick."

"Well. thank you kindly, Harry."

"GO ON!" Harry shouted, waving his arms. "GET

OUTA HERE YOU MANGY RAT!"

I was startled out of my wits! My jaw dropped and I

stuttered something curious, then realized he wasn't

yelling at me, he was yelling at a squirrel on the fence,

worrying one of the sunflowers.

"Damned squirrels!" he muttered, then caught himself

and tipped his hat to Dee. "Sorry, mam. Blasted varmints

tick me off no end! Nothing but rodents is all they are.

Always bothering my birdfeeders, and now my

sunflowers!"

Dee shrugged it off and brandished a rake Harry had

given to her, taking a step toward the fence. The squirrel

sat there, balanced precariously on the fence, making

squirrel noises and scrunching its nose at us.

"Look at 'im!" Harry said loudly. "Bold as brass, ain't

he?" He took the rake from Dee and swung it at the

squirrel, which vanished as though it had only been in our

imaginations. "Consarned animals!" Harry wheezed. "It's

kinda warm out here, huh?" He said the latter as if it had

just occurred to him. "What say we go over to my place

for some refreshment?"


"You two go on without me." said Dee amiably. "I've

got to check on supper."

"You sure?" said Harry, clearly disappointed. I scowled

in Dee's direction. Now I was going to have to deal with

this weirdo on my own! Dee tossed her auburn hair back

and disappeared into the Battleaxe. That's what I called

our building, because on the side was painted an old

advertisement for Battleaxe Chewing Tobacco--probably

back in 1920, from the look of it. All three of these

buildings had been around for some time. Dee had found a

buffalo nickel and a Libertyhead dime in the garden after

it rained one day. I think the dime was 1912. The nickel

was 1940-something, but that was still quite a while ago.

Harry leaned the rake against the fence. "Well, come on

then, chingo. I've got a treat for you."

Chingo? What was I getting myself into anyway? I

followed him obediently across his backyard, racking my

brain for some excuse not to go. "Hey, I'd better put my

guitar away..."


"No. no, please, bring it along. I'd like to hear that last

song you played again. Bet Jennie'd like that one."

I'm not one to refuse a fan. Looking back across the

years from 2008, I'd have to say that was the moment Harry became one of the best friends I've ever had. Not

because he liked my song, but hey, that didn't hurt either.

If I were a puppy at that moment, I probably would have

been wagging my tail.


3.

Nothing could have prepared me for the interior of

Harry's house. The living room looked normal enough, but

it deceived one about the rest of the house. I only glimpsed

other rooms briefly through their doorways, rooms

literally jammed with stacks of old, yellowing magazines,

with narrow passages winding haphazardly out of sight. It

made me think what it might be like to be trapped in a

brick of Swiss cheese. Piles of magazines everywhere!

And bottles!

Bottles of every size and color!

Harry led me into the kitchen, which was hardly more

than a pantry, there was so much junk everywhere. Harry

cleared a few things out of the way and found a couple of

chairs for us to sit on beside a counter covered with dishes.

The dishes weren't dirty, but it seemed strange to see so

many dishes setting there, instead of being stored in a

cupboard. Harry's place smelled of old magazines (I later

learned they were mostly National Geographics--Harry

was obsessed with the idea of exploring foreign countries

in search of ancient mysteries and lost civilizations.)

"With my luck," Jennie once declared vehemently,

"He'd find them and bring 'em all home to fill up the rest

of this house. There's still some room in the attic, you

know."

Harry cleared a space on the counter and set out some

little glasses and a plate of something meaty, but it was

suspicious-looking. Turned out to be smoked trout. Not

bad actually, but the saltines he laid out tasted like they

had been stored in the couch for six months. A taste like

the smell of old magazines and dusty upholstery. I didn't

eat any crackers, but I gobbled the trout. Harry brought out

a glass pitcher full of a yellowish liquid and poured us

both a generous amount. I looked at it with hesitancy. I

once read an article about a crazy old man who drank his

own urine because of something he claimed he read in the

Bible. I wondered if Harry ever read the Bible?

Oh, that was ridiculous! I mean about the urine. But

hey, I didn't know. I'd never had much experience with old

people. That sounds ludicrous, now that I'm an old man

myself. But that was back in my early thirties, and Harry

was a good forty years my senior. He was a pleasant

looking man, but he was still old. Old people didn't seem

like real people to me at that age. Shoot, I never thought

I'd live to be as old as I am now.

"Go on," said Harry encouragingly. "Take a sip and tell

me what you think."

"I'm thinking, what is it?" I said bravely.

"It's dandelion wine. Made it myself," he told me

proudly.

Dandelion wine? That sounded almost as bad as urine!

"You made it out of dandelions?" I asked. "Really?"

"Sure thing. Right out of my own back yard."

I remembered seeing him yanking dandelions like there

was no tomorrow. I lifted my glass and tentatively sniffed

its contents
.
"'T'aint really no bouquet." Harry said. "It's mostly

sugar--"

He stopped in surprise as I drained my glass. It was

delicious!

"Easy, boy. That stuff'll make you fuzzy, the way

dandelions get toward the end of summer, and you'll blow

away in the wind."

I looked longingly at the pitcher, which was just out of

reach. Harry grinned and poured some more into my glass.

I sipped it slowly under his watchful gaze.

"It's good!" I said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.

"Want some more crackers?"

"NO!" I nearly shouted.

"All right, all right, " said Harry. "Calm down."

I looked out the window at the stairs in back of the

house next door and saw a strange thing. A tall, thin

squirrel on the landing, weaving side to side like the

Tinman in the "Wizard of Oz". It was the skinniest squirrel

I'd ever seen. As I observed it, it suddenly fell flat on the

landing beside a fat squirrel lying there. I squinted my

eyes and leaned forward for a better look. I nearly fell out

of my chair!

"What proof is this stuff anyway?" I asked Harry. "I'm

seeing skinny squirrels." I pointed out to the landing.

Harry glanced outside and chuckled. "'S'not squirrels."

he said.

"Huh?"

"'At'sa cat."

"A cat?"

"Woody," said Harry.

"Would he what?" I had no idea.

"No, his name! His name'is Woody. Woody the cat!"

"Oh," I said. "Guess it is. A cat. I saw his tail and

thought it was a squirrel."

"'At's enough dandelion juice for you, boy."

"I'm drot nunk!" I protested anxiously. Harry stared at

me over his wirerims and we both burst out laughing.


4.

"I didn't know you had a cat. " I said to Harry.

"I don't. He comes 'n goes as he pleases."

"Oh. But you named him? Why Woody?"

"He's the color of woodsmoke coming outa achimney

in the fall. Woody for short. Whoever heard of a cat

named Woodsmoke?"

"Woody. That's apt."

"You use words that don't even sound like real words. Is

that the way musicians talk?"

"Sorry. I read a lot and build my vocabulary."

"Don't apologize, son. 'At's great, how you say it like

that. I'll get me a pocket dictionary to carry around so's I

can interpret your speech."

I chuckled and picked up my guitar and checked the

tuning.

"Say, yeah! Play me that song you wrote! Hey, Jennie!

C'mere for a second! Nick's gonna play us a song what he

wrote."

"I can hear it from in here, old man," came Jennie's

voice from the next room.

"Thank you. ladies and gentlemen,"I said, and tuned my

E string.

"The corners of your mouth go down when you tune

down," said Harry. "Does that help you get the pitch?"

"My hands play the guitar," I told him. "My face just

watches." I didn't say it sarcastically. It's just that I say

stupid things when I'm nervous, and I'm always nervous

when I play in front of people. I could've been a famous

rock star but I thought being a donut fryer at Video Dough

would be more fun. Video Dough was a video game

arcade that was also a donut shop. I'd worked there for two

years at the time. I wasn't crazy about making donuts, but

on my breaks I got to play Tron and Ms Pacman. Plus,

there's nothing quite as good as a fresh raised donut fresh

out of the glazer. Job benefits, I called it. Incentive to go to

work even when I hadn't gotten enough sleep that day. (I

worked all night.)

Harry laughed. "My face is watching your face!"

I smiled graciously and launched into my song,

"Dunes." I knew Harry liked the way I bend the strings in

the final riffs.

"'At's the one!" Harry cackled. "Looky them fingers go!

Jennie!"

"I can hear, I can hear," Jennie called from the living

room.

"No. I mean c'mere 'n look at this kid!"

"Holy cow," said Jennie, who had appeared in the

kitchen doorway. "Look at the mess you guys made!"

"What?" Harry asked, looking about the room. "It

always looks this way, woman."

"There's a cracker on the floor. Under the table. With

the corner bitten off."

I finished my song and stood to leave. "Dee's probably

got supper ready by now. Thanks for the trout and the

wine, Harry. And the crackers." I hurried out the backdoor.

"'At's for the mice!" Harry was saying loudly to Jennie.

"Better not be no mice in here!" Jennie said

threateningly. "Or, I'll tell you what, mister!"

I couldn't make out what she said after that because by

then I was heading up stairs to my apartment.


5
.
This story is taking longer to tell than I had anticipated,

so the fifth segment has been canceled. Instead, let's just

skip ahead to part six--


6.

--in which I enter the apartment to find Dee holding the

Woody cat. After which part six ends abruptly.



7.

"Honey! He followed me home!" Dee exclaimed

excitedly in chapter seven. "Can we keep him?"

"Followed you home? I thought you were up here

making supper."

"I went back out to call you home."

"I didn't hear you."

"That's because this cat chased me up the stairs."

"Really?"

"Well. he didn't want to come at first," Dee admitted.

"But I enticed him with a piece of ham."

"Ham? Cats don't like ham. I don't think. Unless they're

starving."

"He threw up a mouse. It was gross!"

"Yeah, he's starving. Cats don't eat mice.Unless they're

starving."

"He must be starving then, because there was a mouse

in his stomach, but he threw it up after he ate the ham."

"You sure it wasn't the ham?"

"It had a tail! Ew!"

"His name is Woody."

"Woody?"

"The cat, not the mouse. That's what Harry says."

"Woody it is then," Dee said, looking the cat in the eye.

I opened the door to shut off the hall light.

"Yow!" Dee shouted.

Woody was a gray blur going out the door.

"Aaaahhh!"Dee wailed. "Woody!" She looked

imploringly at me. "Honey, go get him. Please?"

"He can't get out. How's he going to open the

downstairs door?"

Now Dee was a blur going out the door. I listened to her

bounding down the stairs. About halfway down she started

whining, "Woody, it's okay. Come here, kittty, kitty. I'm

not going to hurt you. Want some more ham?"

I swear I heard the cat retch. Immediately afterward I

heard a crash and the downstairs door slammed shut.

"Dee? Are you all right?"

"Nick!" Dee screamed. "He got out! He's getting away!"

"Let him go then," I said as softly as I could. "He's too

wild. He wants out."

I heard the door slam again, and now Dee was shouting

HELP out in the driveway.

There was a knocking in the floorboards beneath my

feet. That would be our downstairs neighbor, Joy, who

used the end of a broom to rap on the ceiling whenever

Dee and I were too loud--once she did it because she

claimed me tapping my foot while I played guitar was

making her hanging lamp swing back and forth. She was a

sour prune of an old woman with a stupid yippy, yappy

chiwauwa with the unlikely name, Precious.

"HELP!" Dee screeched in the driveway outside.

Rap, rap, rap! went Joy's broom on the ceiling

downstairs.

Yip. yap, yap! went Precious.

"Woody!" Dee called.

Rap, rap, rap! went Joy's broom.

Yip, yap, yap, yip! went Precious.

I sighed wearily and went out the door and down the

stairs, wondering how to get that cat back in the house--a

cat that clearly didn't want to be in the house.


8.


I still can't believe the evemts that transpired that night,

with me like a crazy man trying to get that silly cat back in

the house, and Dee running around like a chicken with its

head cut off. When I got outside, Dee was half under the

porch going, "Kitty, kitty, kitty." I hunkered down beside

her and peered into the darkness until finally I discerned a

cat-shaped mass huddled against a basement window. I

started to crawl under there and fetch the stupid cat, when

suddenly he emitted an eerie, almost unearthly, visceral

growl. I hurriedly backed out.

"Forget that!" I muttered.
"What?" Dee asked, looking quizzically at me.

"Didn't you hear that? When you hear sirens, babe, you

get out of the way!"

"Sirens? I didn't hear no sirens! That was the cat!"

"Exactly! And he's going to eat us alive, if we don't

watch out!"

"Cats don't eat people--unless they're starving."

"Good one, dear. Well, you go in and get him then. He's

not even our cat, for crying out loud!"

"Yes, he is! We own him now!"

"No one owns cats! Cats own us!"

"Oh, honey, we've got to help him. The poor thing

doesn't want to stay out here in the dark!"

"He lives out here, you bleeding heart! He likes it out

here!"

"He's cold and hungry," Dee insisted. "He's defenseless

out here! What if a bear gets him?"

"Have you ever seen a bear around here?"

"No, but that's because they hide good."

She giggled and announced, "Another good one! Bear

with me. Ha!"

Woody growled again, from deep inside his throat. It

sounded like a feline pneumatic drill and sent shivers

down my spine. Just then, like a furlined rocket, Woody

shot out from under the porch and around back of the

house. I took a wary step back and knocked over one of

our garbage cans. The noise startled Dee so much she

screamed. From inside Joy's apartment, we heard a faint

Rap, rap, rap! And Precious was going berserk, YIP, YIP,

YIP!

"Dee, would you try to hold it down? Joy's going to put a

hole through the ceiling with that broom!And that dog's

really starting to get on my nerves!"

"Sorry," said Dee, pushing her bottom lip out. "I want

my kitty!"

"Shh!" I cautioned her. "Let's go see if we can find

where he went."

9.

We walked stealthily into the back yard, keeping a

sharp eye out for that little wildcat. We searched

everywhere, but to no avail. Woody was gone like a bad

memory. I almost felt relieved. Dee suddenly grabbed my

arm and I nearly jumped out of my shoes!


"What?" I hissed incoherently at her. I was shaking like

a leaf.

"He's on the porch! Harry's porch!"


He was, too. I could hear that lynx-like growl of his,

only now he was yowling. Great. I'd never hear the end of

it if I didn't go in and get him. I told Dee, "You stay here,

I'll see what I can do."

"Don't hurt him, dear. He's just a baby."

An especially frightening yowl came from the area of

the porch. I told Dee, "If I'm not back in five minutes, call

the police."

She snorted derisively as I stumbled onto the darkened

porch. It was an enclosed porch, and fortunately, there was

a door. I closed it quietly lest I set Joy's broom off again.As

soon as the door shut, I heard demonic growls not four feet

from me and I thought twice about having closed that

door
.
I squinted about in the darkness. Nothing but junk

everywhere I looked, from fishing supplies to cardboard

boxes overflowing with dolls and old, ratty blankets, to

big, rubber tubs like giant Tupperware, and stacks and

stacks of old magazines. The work of Harry the Hat. I

turned a bit to look out the window to see what Dee was

doing.

Woody made a sound like air escaping from a monster

balloon that made the hairs on my neck rise up. Woody

arched his back and hissed like a tire deflating. He yowled

then and took a swipe at me with claws that seemed like

fish hooks. I gulped and wondered, now what? I had

painted myself into a corner, so to speak. I reached

carefully behind me to see if I could get the door open

again. Something slid sideways and hit my shoulder. I had

no idea what it was.

When I was in the fourth grade, I read the complete

works of Edgar Allen Poe. Mom says I had nightmares for

a month. I imagine they must have been similar to what

was happening to me now. The sliding thing behind me

turned out to be a fishing net, the aluminum handled kind

used to scoop fish out of the water after they're reeled to

the side of the boat. Woody hissed again, but this time it

was directed toward the fishing net. For all he knew it was

something else trying to deprive him of his freedom. An

idea coalesced in the nether regions of my brain. A

brilliant idea!

I quickly turned and seized the net by the handle and in

one swift motion, I set the net end of it over Woody! He

exploded in a fury of claws, hissing like you wouldn't

believe! I put the handle of the net on the floor and calmly

stood on it, imprisoning the poor cat. Poor cat nothing!

Given half a chance he'd have gladly scratched my eyes

out!I talked soothingly to him, trying to reassure him

everything was going to be okay. I reached out to pet him,

and nearly drew back a nub! My forearm was ripped open

and blood was gushing out! I thought for a moment I'd

faint, it was that bad. I did check to see if I still had any

fingers on that hand. I did, but there was blood

everywhere.

"Okay, little buddy!" I cried. "No more Mister Nice

Guy!" I grabbed one of the giant Tupperware things and

backed out the door till it was resting on the top step. I

tilted it forward somewhat, making sure Woody was

unquestionably held captive by the fishing net. He was,

but he wasn't enjoying it. I had come across the word,

caterwauling in stories before, but now I knew precisely

what that word meant! It was horrible! But no way was I

letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak, until I was able

to put some distance between him and me.

I tilted the Tupperware some more and pulled the

fishing net toward me until the net passed over the lip of

the Tupperware and Woody dropped into the tub--blump! I

snatched a lid from behind a box and quickly jammed it

onto the Tupperware. It worked! Woody was now trapped

and scrambling inside the Tupperware. Whew! I motioned

Dee over
.
"Help me get this into the house, will you?"

"Should we take the lid off?"

"No!" I bellowed. I held my bloody forearm out for her

to see.

"Oh, honey!" Dee squealed with concern. "Is that

blood?"

"No, it's ketchup!"

"Harry really should clean all this up sometime," Dee

commented.

"Do you think?" I rolled my eyes.


9.

We gently carried the Tupperware containing Woody up

the stairs to our apartment. Once inside with the door

firmly shut. I pulled the Tupperware lid off and Dee and I

became statues of ourselves, ready to flee if

necessary.Woody sat there looking about as though

wondering what new nonsense was this? Then he

gracefully, with the aplomb of an acrobat, leaped lightly

out of the box and stood there looking forlorn and dejected.

Like a limp dishrag, I remember thinking. Woody looked

at the door, then padded softly into the living room and

jumped up on the sofa. He looked for all the world as if

we'd killed his spirit. I felt so badly for him. till I realized I

was dripping blood on the carpet. "Well, now you know

who the boss is, kitty," I said softly. "And don't you forget

it!"

Woody mewed like a kitten and Dee flew to him,

murmuring sweet nothings for his sake.



10.

Woody lived with us for three years and he and I

became such good friends, all I had to do was sit down

somewhere and--poof!--he was in my lap. When I wasn't

around, he'd sleep on top of the space heater, even in

winter, when it was so hot Dee and I couldn't even touch it.

Sitting in the kitchen window was his other favorite place

to be. I think he liked watching Harry out in the yard

. Harry would always catch sight of him and call up, "Hey,

Woody!" Woody's ears would perk up and he'd go tense as

if someone was pulling his tail.

He got sick one year and the vet said it was a kind of

leukemia cats get. We finally had to put him down and I

cried like a baby for almost a day. I still get misty-eyed

thinking about it.

Harry and I spent many afternoons together, talking

about this and that, and sipping dandelion wine. He taught

me how to recognize a kind of cloud in the sky that looked

like, "mackarel scales." "Fish scales," I later explained to

Dee. "Means rain in about 24 hours. And those long, wispy

ones that look like horse tails, he calls mares' tails-- mean

the same thing." Harry was a good weatherman that way.

He also taught me when the leaves of trees turn thir

bottom sides up in the wind, that's a sure sign of rain, too
.
He told me ghost stories about a building downtown

that had been a bar--and a whorehouse--back in the ear

part of the century. Some bloody shootout that involved

several people, who of course were now ghosts, restless

spirits wandering the streets of Menominee in search of

dandelion wine--

"Ha ha!" Harry laughed. "Had you going there for a

minute, didn't I?"

Harry encouraged me to start my own collection of

bottles by giving me one of his prize possessions--a

pumpkin seed whiskey flask. It's a little bigger than my

hand and almost as flat, with tiny air bubbles in the glass--

and no seams because it was blown by hand, not put

together in a factory somewhere. He told me he had dug it

up in his backyard. I must have looked skeptical and he

revealed to me that in the old days folks would throw their

garbage down their outhouse holes. The outhouses were

always situated along the borders of their property, so if

one were to dig in those areas, there was no telling what

one might find. I only tried it once, but I found a Planters

Peanuts jar shaped like a man's head, presumably Mr.

Peanut himself. I still have it. The flask, too.


Then one day I went over to visit Harry, and Jennie

greeted me at the door, tears in her eyes, with the news

that Harry had been taken to the hospital the night before
.
"Why?" I asked, stunned that this had happened.

"They think it's leukemia,"Jennie replied.

Leukemia! Now ain't that a kick in the butt? as Harry

would say.

Harry died three weeks later, sometime around three in

the morning. I was greatly sorrowful at his passing, but it

wasn't until almost two years later that I broke down and

wept for him--standing in my backyard looking over the

fence at Harry's sunflowrers. It just suddenly hit me Harry

was gone and I felt so lonely for my friend.


11.

That night I dreamed Dee and I were out in the garden,

and Harry came out of the house next door carrying a

cardboard box filled with all sorts of his belongings.

Woody was padding along at his feet!


"Harry!" we said in surprise, practically in unison.

"What are you doing?"

Harry grinned sheepishly and told us, "Just thought I'd

move some of my junk to another place."

"Need any help?" I asked.

"Thanks, but no. Woody's keeping me company.

But,You can play me a song till I'm out of sight, if you

will."Dunes", that's my favorite one." He remembered the

name of my song! I sure miss that old man!

I played "Dunes", but I played it slower than I usually

play it. Harry and Woody walked up the street till they

were pinpricks in the distance. The sun was going down

behind the horizon, a fire cracker red, the sky a glorious

mass of mackeral scales and mares' tails.

"Going to rain soon," said Dee, wiping a tear away.

I shaded my eyes against the sun's rays so I could see

the two figures in the distance. Woody Cat and Harry the

Hat.

Talk is Cheap

morning was warm and sunny with the promise of spring, and the street bustled with the activity of happy prople free of the shackles of winter. It was so warm, I considered leaving my jacket at home. But the main reason I even wear a jacket these days is because of the extra pockets in it. With my pants pockets and my shirt pocket, I have five main pockets, but I usually have those pockets full with one thing or another, so my jacket provides a wealth of places to put things, and I hate to go anywhere without it.
Some of my friends call me Pockets, which is better than being called Bag, which is what they call Martha, the little , old lady who used to manage my building back in the days when it was a hotel--because she lugs around a large, black bag that is practically bigger than she is. No one really knows what she carries in it, but I once saw her take a flask out of it and surreptitiously take a slug from it in the parking lot of Pizza Hut. Martha sometimes walks into street lamps, and I have a fairly good idea it's not because her bifocals need to be cleaned.
I put my hands in my jacket pockets and headed down the street toward Starbuck's. Not that I can afford Starbuck's, but the aroma of Starbuck's coffee is enough to give me a pleasant, caffeine buzz for a better part of the day. I stepped into Coney Island to see if any of the gang was there--we generally all gather on the flowerbeds out front, but it still isn't as warm out as it looks, so sometimes some of us fill a booth or sit at the counter in Coney Island, hungrily sniffing the delicious smell of gyros and Coney Island chili. I didn't see any of the regulars, so I checked myself and pushed back out through the door to the street.
Whump! I looked to see someone staggering backward on the sidewalk with a look of befuddlement on their face. It was Martha. She had walked into the door. I hurried outside to make sure she was all right. "Martha!" I cried, "I'm so sorry! I wasn't paying any attention! Are you okay?"
"That's a lousy place to put a door!" Martha said in annoyance. She hoisted her bag up and peered anxiously inside it. "Oh, Good. Everything's all right. I'm fine--" Her eyes widened and she clapped a pale, bony hand over her mouth. I frowned, puzzled, and she reached into her bag and extracted a fistful of pennies, which she extended toward me. Then I understood what she was doing.
"It's all right, Martha. My fault, don't worry about it."
She smiled that crooked smile of hers, a thin crease of bright red lipstick, and proffered one penney."No, no," she said plaintively. "At least a penny for your thoughts, you silly man!" I sighed and took the penney, thanking her. We both glanced about to see if there were any officers nearby who might have witnessed our exchange. One was coming out of the European Bakery, but he was absorbed with the contents of a white sack he was carrying. Martha smiled and waved, careful not to say anything, and the officer nearly dropped a powdered donut he had extracted from the sack. He held it in his mouth long enough to wave back, then turned on his heel and strode down the street toward Pizza Hut.
I nodded at Martha and started away toward Starbuck's again. I don't care for the monetary restrictions imposed by the government,
but the police are not derelict in their duties and Martha and I were lucky no other officers had been patrolling in that area just then. I still don't know how these absurd financial laws were legislated in the first place, whether it was a religious thing, or political, or whatever, but you can't fight city hall, as they used to say.
When I was a kid, people could say hi and talk about the weather or anything they wanted, without worrying about whether they were wasting anyone's time. I no sooner had that thought when my eye caught that big sign up by the Y.M.C.A., the one that reads, TIME IS MONEY. A sign just across the street from that one said, SILENCE IS GOLDEN. They had us coming or going. I frowned and sat down on the bench on the corner by Holiday Inn downtown. A man huddled on the other end of the bench was smoking a cigarette and the smoke wafted my way and made my mouth water. I sized him up, caught his eye and asked if he could spare a smoke. He scowled and withdrew a battered package of Pall Malls from his shirt pocket and shook one out and handed it to me.
"Thanks."I said,"You got a light?"
He handed me a grubby looking book of matches and said,"If you're going to keep talking to me, it's going to cost you a nickel."
"Sorry," I mumbled, lighting my cigarette and handing the matches back to him. He waved his hand as if he were shooing a fly.Just then I saw Valerie standing at the bus stop just up the street. A pretty girl, with shoulder length, blond hair, she looked terrific in a brown-and-yellow blouse and skirt outfit. Not for the first time, I noticed what great legs she had. I jumped up and hurried over to her, fishing in my pocket for spare change. "Hi, Valerie!"I said, handing her a dime I found. She almost snatched it from me,then shook her hair back and smiled, "Hello, Todd."
A pretty girl like Valerie, with my name on her lips, was worth a dime, I thought. "Say, Valerie,I was wondering if I could have your phone number?"
She looked startled, and then giggled. "I'm worth $500 on the open market, you D.a.d.!"
D.a.d. meant 'dime-a-dozen' on the street. This was not going well.
"Come on, Val. It's not like I'm proposing or anything!. I just thought we could chat on the phone sometime."
"You couldn't afford it," Val said matter-of-factly.
"I've got a dollar," I protested. "They haven't raised the phone rates again, have they?"
"No," she laughed. "I meant my phone number. It's going for twenty bucks this week."
I was speechless. "Heck," I replied sourly, "I can talk to that guy on the bench back there for a nickel!"
"All right," she pouted. She reached into her purse and rummaged about for a minute, found what she wanted, and put it in my hand.
I opened my hand to see what it was, because it didn't feel like a scrap of paper with a phone number on it. It was a nickel!
"Go talk to that guy," she smiled coyly. "Here's my bus."
The bus pulled over to the curb and the doors wheezed open. Valerie bounded onto the bus, her skirt swirling about her pretty knees.
"Yeah, right," I muttered. "And we're going to talk about how stuck-up women are these days!" Valerie ignored me and the bus lurched away with a hiss of air and the whine of the motor. I threw the nickel after it.
Poor slob like me doesn't stand a chance with a girl like her.

Forever Yours

just when I thought I'd never find love,
suddenly I found you;
you turned all my tears into a rainbow,
and made all my dreams come true.
you're beautiful and lovely,
and I'm so in love with you--
you are my heart's desire,
my reason, and my rhyme
and honey, I'll be yours
until the end of time;
I'll be forever yours;
Honey, I'll be forever yours...

for so many years I've been so lonely,
lost in a world of dreams;
no songs in the night to comfort my soul,
a heart full of silent screams.
I never thought that life could be
any more than what it seems;
but you took my darkest fears,
and chased them all away--
and honey, I'll be yours
forever and a day;
homey, I'll be forever yours;
I'll be forever yours...

travelogue

I went there,
I came back,
now I am here.
:)

okay

if you tell someone you love them,
and they turn and run away,
what can you do?



nothing.




without so much as a goodbye,
she deleted me as her friend--




fine.

This Space For Rent

LoL

I divulged my secret passion for her,
and found LoL in my inbox.
she may as well have laughed in my face,
and I guess she did;
that's what LoL means,
Laugh out Loud.
all these people running around Facebook
and Myspace, flirting and poking each other
like a kennel of dogs in heat;
all in good fun
that's the theory.
Playgirls all over the world--
Denmark, Sweden,Africa, Spain--
are freaking with me and sending me kisses,
it's flattering,
and I shouldn't complain;
at least they're interested.

I guess I'm naive,
dreaming of soul mates and true love,
hoping to find a kindred spirit--
what chance does a Popular Friend have
surrounded by Nymphos and Flirt Worthies?
I don't care to share my dreamsickle
with everyone on the street.
they've--each of them--
got dozens of their own.
meh, Ricky does not play well
with the other children.
LoL.
there it is again.
better than
LMAO,
I suppose--
stupid text.
love upside down spells 3^o7.
the internet's infested!

Nature of the Beast

there's a fine line
between love and sexual desire,
but the boundary is blurred,
and at times indistinct.

when love is mine,
it's as though my body's on fire;
it's extraordinary and absurd,
silly animal instinct.

Frisbee Remembers

her name was Doreen;
New Jersey, back in the sixties,
when I was so cock-sure of myself;
I was only sixteen,
and thought I was Hercules.

strange, I can't remember
if it was me who liked her,
or if she was hot for me;
but I remember her--
no, wait, she was crazy about me.
I was just crazy;
but not about her.
she and my buddy
were in cahoots
together,
to make me her lover.
but the point is,
I wanted nothing to do with her,
but she liked me anyhow.
go figure.
she thought I was cool;
me,
with my long hair,
and loud, flowered shirt;
patches all over my jeans,
my shiny, black Beatle boots;
she thought I was cooler
than John Lennon, cooler
maybe.
I recall she used to stare at me.
I still have the glasses,
but they're bifocals now.

still, I see her,
all those years ago;
even the juke joint where we met--
do they still call them juke joints?
I wonder?

Doreen, I owe you an apology;
I was just a kid then. now
I am an old man.
if I could go back,
and do it all over,
you'd be here beside me,
and not just in my memory.
I'm sorry.

I Was Thinking It

whether you know it or not,
you are beautiful.
you do not realize
the effect you have on these eyes.
you are lovely, my dear,
my heart pounds wildly--can you hear?
you are truly wonderful--
and you thought I'd say 'hot'.