Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 3

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 3

“Every now and then,” Uncle Ernest said, caressing his drink as he continued his tale, “as we walked along the dirt road beside the river towards town, a horse and buggy would thunder by, causing us to veer off the road into the briers and cover our faces because of the suffocating dust cloud. After a few miles of trudging along, we looked over into the river and saw several people standing in the water up to their waists. Then, without a second’s hesitation, José waded on out into the water towards them, beckoning for us to follow. I never thought, Moose, that I’d ever wade out into the water fully clothed, but I did.

“As we approached I could see three or four adults who must have been swimming with their clothes on, because they were drenched. They sure were funny-looking, with their shawls plastered against their faces and their long hair and beards matted and dripping water. Two kids were playing water tag, diving and doggie-paddling around with glee. One of the men was bigger than the others; he had wild, fluffy hair and a slightly graying beard, so long that it grazed the surface of the water.

“What happened next shook me up, because when we waded up to the big guy, he grabbed José and tried to drown him by dunking and holding him under water. I really flipped out; I yanked José to the surface—who was gagging and spouting water—cussed the guy out, tackled him, and took him under. We wrestled under water for a while until José and the others pulled us up and separated us. Both of us were choking, flailing and gurgling to beat the band. José grabbed me by the shoulders firmly and said, ‘Brother Ern, control yourself. This is our good friend and brother, Jonny the Dunker; he was cleansing me with water. He’s going to cleanse us all.’

“Well, Moose, I’ll tell you, I was flabbergasted. You can understand why I was quick to defend José. Not only was he a great new friend, but I knew that he couldn’t swim, otherwise why did he take the time to train that turtle to float him across the water like that? At any rate, I apologized and then Jonny dunked the rest of us, except for me (whom he figured he’d already cleansed), and we all waded ashore to dry off.”

“As the five of us strode off down that dusty road towards a line of mountains in the distance, a herd of about 200 sheep came towards us, forcing us off the road. Brushing the dust off of our heads and bodies (I knew then why they wore those shawls), we watched a guy riding bareback on a donkey, waving a long stick and yelling some unintelligible commands at the noisy flock.

“We strolled on down the road and in another half hour or so Andy yelled out: ‘There it is. I saw it first.’ When I squinted towards the horizon I saw it too: an enormous stone wall between two mountains, just barely visible on the horizon. ‘For heaven’s sakes,’ I asked, ‘what’s that thing?’

“ ‘Our city, Brother Ern!’ José answered, and Jim cried out, ‘Yes, it’s the walled city of Daveston, and we’ll be inside in about an hour.’  Moose, I thought we’d never get there, and when we finally did trudge through those high gates of the walled city, we were all tired, hungry, and awfully thirsty. We walked through the town following José and checking things out until we came up on a totem or temple of some sort. Next to an open area near the temple was a large group of people celebrating a wedding that had just taken place.

“When we walked on over, the bride’s father came up to José, took his hand, and invited us to join the wedding reception. I tooled around the place checking things out and when I wandered on back to see what José was up to, I saw an amazing thing. Sitting on a step with his eyes closed and hands palms-up on his thighs was José. And, without a doubt, kneeling down in front of him was the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen in my life.

“She had a thin, voluptuous body, a lovely, expressive face (void of any makeup that women think they need these days), and dark-red, long, full-bodied hair that flowed seductively to her waist. And her eyes, Moose, her eyes: they were startling—the kind of feminine eyes that when they flash your way you feel a chill start at your belly and spread up to your neck and cause you to give a little shiver and make you think, ‘My God, I’ve been touched by some special force in the universe that makes me feel grateful to exist … to be alive and a man.’ ”

“That’s a bunch of crap, Unk. Settle down, will ya? What the heck was she doing kneeling in front of José anyway?”

“Well, when I walked up alongside of José she sort of rolled her head and that bulk of flowing hair swung to one side as she looked up at me. I smiled and winked at her and, I swear, her face lit up with a smile that made my legs weaken and my body quiver all over. ‘Hello there, stranger; my name’s Maggie; what’s yours?’ she said as she rubbed and kneaded José’s feet without looking down. All the while José was just sitting there relaxed, with his eyes closed. ‘Ernie,’ I said, and I felt stupid standing three with my mouth open at the sight.

“I didn’t know what to say, Moose, and you know that’s unusual for me. ‘Uh, uh … hope I can talk to you later,’ I managed to get out as I moved over towards Jack, who was leaning against the wall. ‘Sure, anytime,’ she called after me in such a way that I knew she meant it. I asked Jack why Maggie was messing with José’s feet, and he said that she admired José a lot and liked to take care of him. Jack told me that Maggie used to practice one of the world’s oldest professions, so I reasoned that she probably worked for a while as an apprentice beautician but had to quit because she couldn’t complete beauty school for some reason.”

“Makes sense to me, Unk,” I said, “but José sure was mighty lucky to have a knockout like Maggie as a girl friend.”

“Not so, not at all, because when I brought that up with Jack he told me that José wasn’t interested in girls, and when I looked at him funny he said, ‘Oh no, Ernie, he’s not interested in boys either. It’s just that because of his higher mission any kind of romance is out.’ Boy, was I relieved at that, because I really wanted to get to know Maggie better, and I sure didn’t want to court any girl that belonged to José.” [To be continued Tuesday, 9/25/2012]