Todays Big Smiley book 6, 12th. skit. Good morning, everybody, yesterday was a rather nice day. Jakes medical tests showed hes still holding his own. He finally got back on his electric wood splitter and stacked up the wood box on the porch all ready for the next three days rain storm, according to the weatherman. While we were gathering cat stuff from the thrift shops for the Gisela abandoned cats, Jake found the best old cowboy poetry put to music that weve ever heard to play in my car stereo. And while the sun is shining Friends of Feral Cats are installing new and better shelters for the cats in Gisela. Every little bit helps. Those cats are so friendly. Chapter 12 While Sonny and Murna were admiring Clare’s art collection and Luigi St.’s cat, Leora, Isabelle was introducing Mary Lee around the school. When Andrew came on the scene, wearing a Siena vest with matching trousers, his black derby was hung on the hat rack, just above his dark curly head. It was easy to tell the two went together. The grieving widow did a double-take she definitely had a thing for unusual men, now if he was only a few inches taller and forty years older. She was pretty cute herself, with a cast of bluish highlights in her neatly clipped hair, styling fashionable black slacks with a white blouse and the softest ever knit stole. As Andrew released her practiced handshake, he couldn’t help but notice that Natnat was ready for anything that came her way. “I’ve heard everybody else’s opinion about Obama winning the election has set the plot for a White House overthrow. What do you suspect?” His above and beyond appraisal showed that he might be reading her mind, “Just our luck, huh?” he grinned. “In more ways than one….” Oh, what a ball the two of us would have, she thought, if I could just take him on the road. Then again, he complimented, “You’re a regular little circus all by yourself, aren’t you?” Andrew wasn’t actually adlibbing more than was rather obvious. Behind the shadows, he had enjoyed Mary’s invitation, at the Treadaway house, where the singing sisters were staying, to watch an amazing after hours’ rehearsal. And furthermore her assessment of the highly regarded dwarf was only equal to his assessment of her slightly whimsical charms. Isabelle served tea while he called upstairs to Josephine, his computer fund raiser. “Hi there, it’s me. You met little Jasmine. I’ve got her great grandmother right here in the office. I thought you’d like to meet her.” Speaking slowly in an exaggerated tone, Josephine replied, “Oh, goody, give me about thirty minutes I’m bathing the baby.” Then she leaped into action, pulling the pajamas off all three of her little kids, while running bathwater. Dipped them in a hit and miss, grabbed a towel, slung it over them in a flash and somehow managed to stuff them into their own clothes. She jerked the covers off the unmade beds and shook them in the air back on all four beds and fluffed the pillows, filled the sink full of unwashed dishes and splashed them through soapy water and a quick rinse, drying with a flying dish towel. She flipped them into the cupboard like stacking a deck of cards. The kids, even the baby, frantically tossed their scattered books, puzzles, dolls, rabbits and bears into the toy box. With several minutes to spare she wiped a couple smudges and pushed the vacuum cleaner all over the carpet. Slamming on the brakes in mid-flight, she took a deep breath to slow her pounding heart and brushed the snarls out of her hair. Shortly after she had bathed her children and spring cleaned the house, the neighborhood visitors tapped on her door. Josephine answered, “What a nice surprise… won’t you come in….” It was lunch time before Mary Lee got to meet Bookers Books favorite teacher. All of the children loved Freddy St. John the little girls weren’t the only ones who grabbed hold of his hands. “They don’t call him Mr. St. John,” said Andrew by way of introduction, they call him Uncle Freddy. Attracted by the same charisma that endeared him to his class, she smiled, “Freddy, you can call me Natnat,” and she clung to his hand. He invited her up to his attic to have a microwave pot pie and to see his etchings. Freddy had a scrapbook full of signed crayon colored drawings. His awesome bachelor quarters fascinated her, especially the nearby view of patched rooftops. He pointed, “Note that small farm, see the red barn? That place belongs to Judge Elmer Fitch Gerald who was elected to take over the Superior Court when ol’ Treadaway,” he frowned, “Andrew’s father bit the dust.” “You didn’t like him?” “Well… after he was through disturbin’ the peace… he didn’t leave you much to like.” “That reminds me of ‘ol Fisahopoulos, my daughter’s second, a real Neanderthal, not the girls’ father,” she stated with strong emphasis. “Fisa-ho-poulos,” he repeated, “don’t believe I’ve ever heard that name before.” “More than likely, he was before your time.” “That old, huh? And Murna married him?” “You know what they say, opposites attract.” “What happened to him?” “Shouldn’t you be getting’ back to class.” “Right, where are you off to next?” “To meet my granddaughter’s friends, the Keis doll clothes seamstresses and the cat lady at the Old Garrett Place apartments.” “Lady Natnat, are you in for a treat.” Big Smiley had to be the leading stud on this strut his stuff, to escort Grandma Natnat who was clutching the Great Dane’s leash, all by herself, walking close to Marsha and the baby’s stroller, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. He was fond of all the cats, and Mulusa, too, but was especially fond of Brandy Eden’s housecats that watched over the monumental ashes to ashes pet cemetery. While the trio was setting out peanut butter cookies, fresh from the oven and happily preparing their warm welcome for the guest of honor, they were smarting dichotomously at that obnoxious Speaker Boehner’s accusing remarks he played to the tea party neocons. The very idea that the respectable, unselfish, compassionate Obama Democrats were annihilating those villainous Republicans was absolutely preposterous. “Why won’t they take their own advice and stop being the stupid party?” snapped Yavonne. “I just hope they keep on crushing each other,” argued Nancy, “with their foolishness, before they take down the whole country at the expense of the most vulnerable.” “Now, don’t you be givin’ me that look,” laughed the crippled one, circling around in her wheelchair, with her soothing fingers caught in a tuff of soft cat fur and shaking the tip of its tail, scolding the other complainers, “when you’re feelin’ sorry for the poor. Me and my cats take care of ourselves just like regular people.” No one knew it yet, but they would soon be celebrating a spiritual wake fit for a saint. Even before the tea was poured into the party cups, Mary Lee was led out onto the patio to pay her respects to the dearly departed. She held her peace through a lengthy allegory of each ceramic piece, which led to the oldest urn that contained the ashes of Andrew’s mother. Then the extenuating conditions all about how her unworthy husband was quite frankly disqualified, with a dishonorable discharge and much-adieu, carried out by his sole survivor. The tyrannical magistrate’s casket had been dumped in a hole at the graveyard. “Please! Please, I know your stories are so wonderful, but that’s it!” she cried. “That’s it! Next to Jesus and me, Woody Beagle’s third love was Cats!” The slow moving visitors who never heard anything, or the private eulogy, about the war torn Vietnam vet, faceless evangelist and cat lover, or for that matter, the patio pet cemetery, either, started decorating a nearby pomegranate shrub with flowers, rosaries and stuff toys. The rumor spread like wild fire and got sorta mixed up when the Lee was dropped off Mary Lee’s name. Someone claimed the Blessed Virgin, Mary Mother of God had made an appearance, wearing a pale blue shawl over her head and shoulders and a cross stitched, pale yellow embroidered gown with a yellow clutch basket that matched her yellow slippers. While the mounting display observed during the day by the white rabbit and a swarm of curious cats grew out of bounds, late one night, Murna woke her sleeping mate, “Momma, Momma?” “Girl, will you leave it alone.” Early the following morning, the older McDougal ladies managed to move into the apartment above the cat lady, right behind the movers that vacated the place. Most of their settling in was spent shopping at Walmart. They had no more got their beds made and the new dishes washed and the table set than the smell of crackers and beef vegetable soup boiling on the stove brought two cats out of the woodwork. Mary Lee called Brandy and Brandy sent Nancy upstairs to check on the situation, but their neighbors already knew what was wrong. There was no disputing it, marble eyed Fuzzy and Wuzzy had been abandoned. However, it still wasn’t too late for another trip to the store to pick up a bag of Meow Mix, a litter box, a few cat toys and join the club. Everything turned out pretty cozy. The whole family woke up to the beginning of a three day rain storm. The cats climbed up in the window. Since all the unnecessary gifts at the pomegranate bush were soggy wet and there had been no more sightings of a spiritual nature, an ambitious crew of volunteers, wearing plastic bags, hauled away the scatterings. It was really nice to watch Gogo Dicky’s kids, Essence and Cloie and the three little boys, reverently picking the rosaries off the dripping branches. The care takers of the Treadaway resort, Hurshal and Dawnte gathered their charges, and young Julio, the errand boy, with Kimberly’s baby, Fallon Ray, in his arms, and a big brotherly hand on Tristan’s shoulder, ushered the first load of converts out of the steady rainfall, into the Dodge van for the ten minute coast downhill to St. Jude’s Sunday morning mass. All together it took about half an hour or so to deliver the whole bunch of recovering abused women and children into the worship hall. Bowing on his knee, before Gene took a seat, beside Sonny, still living above their means, with what should have been his mate and her little Jasmine, Murna’s admirer was forced to admit to himself that she was already spoken for. Gantry had escaped the ruckus of a large family and the cyclone winds of the mid-west prairie, after his mother had worked away her forty-three years and gave up the ghost to her incapacitated man and her restless brood. Ten years a single decade of living his days off work away from such remembered noise in the rustic barn loft as a peace officer, above Attorney Fitch Gerald’s mule, Ebony Eyes’ stall, it seemed to be time to loose himself from his worst fears. Among the tougher than shoe leather, once burned twice leery, available females who failed to trust his tall, dark good looks and why’s he still single, left some scrappy pickin’s; and, he sure didn’t trust a woman who packed heat. With a sinking feeling, no longer in the mood to pray, he got up and headed outside. Instead, he got stuck at the entrance, mingling in the Treadaway safe house crowd. Karen stopped at the bubbling holy water fountain. Breezy’s cute little head peered out of her big bag purse. She splashed him with a few drops blessing before she sprinkled the sign of the cross on herself. Up close, enough to breathe the lingering scent of Downey fabric softener from the scarf on her hair, which was below his chin, and behind her, she reached for his hand and left a note. Father Thomas, as an old priest, had long ago learned to accept the wounded imperfect souls that rose out of a sin ravished world just the way they were drawn into the faith of the Crucified Lord Jesus’ forgiving grace. Across the aisle, Sonny was not the first to notice Gene lending his affections to Karen’s feisty, little Yorkshire who seemed to be playing matchmaker. He had eagerly accepted the written invitation to the lady’s afternoon, featuring the McDougals Chattanooga band, Beckron versus Beckron divorce finalists’ blowout bash. He could hardly wait for her to ask him to dance. Perhaps, after the frightening abuse of a split-personality ex-preacher, Karen needed a cop for protection.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 12:34:14 +0000
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