Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 5

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 5

With a far-away, misty look in his eyes, Uncle Ernest continued his romantic adventure. “Maggie then tugged at my hand and whispered, ‘Come on; let’s get some fresh air.’ Following her, in tow, I watched the ripple of her hair as it bounced and fluttered with her gait. Outside it was drizzling, which surprised Maggie, for she said that in that country rain was rare; its freshness delighted her. ‘Wait, Maggie, wait!’ I said in mock excitement; ‘Let’s go back in. I don’t want you to melt out here.’ Now, Moose, you wouldn’t believe Maggie’s response. I don’t think she’d ever heard that commonplace expression before. Take it from me, Moose; never be afraid to pay a compliment—even a hokey one like that—if you’re alone with a girl you like. With others around, forget it, but alone, well, it’s magical.”

“I could care less about that baloney, Unk. What’s the point? What did she do, anyway, when you said that?”

“Someday you’ll care; take it from me, but, anyhow, Maggie was quiet for a minute, letting it sink in, and then her face brightened and she put her arms around me, pulled me close, and said softly and seriously, ‘I knew the second I saw you that we would be alone together like this. Whatever it is, Ernie, it’s powerful, a charming force that’s as natural as these rain drops spattering my cheeks, uniting with my tears.’

“Geez, Moose,” Uncle Ernest said, with a little tremor in his voice, “It sure was one of the great moments in my life, standing there stroking her damp hair that dropped below her waist, seeing her lips pout the kind of expression that comes only from a woman in love, and watching as the fluid gathered in her eyes, until, filled and glistening, they overflowed their barriers and formed large drops that migrated one after another, slowly at first, down her cheek until they plopped from her chin and moistened my hand.

“I whispered in her ear, ‘Maggie, you’re my beauty, my Maggie.’ After placing my finger on her cheek, letting one of the teardrops flow onto it, I then placed the finger on my own cheek. Well, that caused Maggie to sigh and moan a little just before she pulled me close for a nice, long kiss.”

“Unk, for crap sake, knock it off! Will ya? I thought she was going to show you around and get some air. You sure can’t get much air smooching with each other like that.”

“That’s true enough, Moose, but there are times when the importance of air is overrated; that was one of those times, and from that time on Maggie and I were girlfriend and boyfriend, practically inseparable. We spent all night exploring that old fashioned town, that walled city of Daveston.

“It sure was uncivilized though: no radio, no telephone, no electricity, no plumbing, no airplanes, no cars, no trains, no nothing. When I told Maggie that where I came from you could turn a button on a box in your living room and hear music that was playing 2,000 miles away, she put her hand over my mouth and said, ‘Hush! That’s nonsense—devil’s talk.’

“After that I didn’t mention it anymore, but that reminds me. Some guy in yesterday’s paper wrote that someday we’ll be able to turn on a box with a screen in it and actually see ball games, people acting, and all kinds of stuff. He said that they’ll be able to send moving pictures through the air just as they do sound.”

“Now that is nonsense, Unk—science fiction garbage, imagination only. It’s just common sense that pictures would never go through the air like that. Where do people get such farfetched baloney?”

“Beats me, but I’m not imagining that old city and my beautiful Maggie. Later that night we finally fell asleep, cuddled together on a cushion in a corner alcove next to a white, marble statue of a naked guy with a beard. We awoke the next morning when José joggled our heads and said fondly, ‘Arise brother and sister and follow me; we have things to do and people to see.’ ”

[To be continued Tuesday, 10/02/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 4

This time, when Uncle Ernest left me to get another drink, I started feeling sorry for myself; tears welled in my eyes but I managed not to cry. That February, the day after my birthday, Mom and I were walking Mary Boyko home. Mary had just finished helping Mom with the dishes—drying while Mom washed—while I played with my truck on the kitchen floor. Mary was one beautiful girl and, believe it or not, I loved her. Even at five the allure was strong, unexplainable … mystical even. My memory is vivid, of looking up at the fullness of her legs, then up at her arms as they moved with rapid swipes of the dishtowel, and then up at her pretty, smiling face and gorgeous blonde hair. She told Mom that she was moving to Oakland, California to marry some guy she knew. I was upset, and sure enough, in a couple of days she was gone, never to return.

But, anyway, that night we were walking her home, down our long lane and up the road a bit. We were going to go into her house so Mom could shoot the breeze with Mary’s mother, Annie. A few days earlier we had had a snow storm, so the road was dappled with snow and ice. As we turned left at the end of our lane and walked a few paces, I looked ahead at a pure-white blotch of snow in the middle of the road. When I ran up to it to give it a kick, I saw that it was Snowball, my kitten, dead as a mackerel.

I picked her up and started bawling my head off. I was so upset that Mom had to take me home, as I held the dead kitten in my arms and screamed like mad. The next day Pop tried to bury it in the back yard, but the ground was frozen solid. We laid Snowball under the shed, next to the rain barrel, and the next day she was gone. In one evening, Nina, I lost two things I cared a lot for, Mary and Snowball.

I had my head down when Uncle Ernest returned. He could tell something was wrong, so he ruffled my hair and said, “Cheer up, Moose-the Goose; wait till I tell you the crazy thing that Maggie did to José. Now, when I looked over at José and Maggie I saw an odd thing. Still kneeling, Maggie pushed the basin aside and started drying José’s feet with her hair. The idea of that gorgeous red hair running through José’s stinky toe jams really shook me up, so I rushed over and offered her my big red handkerchief. ‘No thanks, Ernie,’ she smiled, just finishing the other foot. ‘I need to do it this way.’

“Then José rose, kissed Maggie on the forehead, said ‘Thank you, Sister. Peace be with you,’ and walked softly over towards a crowd of merrymakers. Maggie then stood up (a sumptuous five foot eight or so), and when she smiled at me my heart started thumping so loudly that I was afraid, Moose, that she might hear it or maybe see my shirt protrude and recede from the force. Then, grabbing my hand and squeezing it, she smiled and said, ‘Come on, Ernie; let’s take a walk. I’ll show you around the city.’

“As we started to leave, though, we noticed a bit of a commotion over by José and the party, and when we walked over we found out that they were upset because the wine was all gone. You won’t believe this, but José was standing up against a large wine vat into which a guy was pouring about five gallons of water. José then closed his eyes, put his hands together in front of his face, and started mumbling. Moose, I was embarrassed for him; he was trying to turn all of that water into wine … and after about ten minutes it was still just water. Everybody walked away and I heard a couple of guys snicker, but José kept at it. Then I realized what I had to do.

“I had a couple fifths of Ole Granddad in my fatigue pants, so I emptied all of one into the vat. Well, it diffused into the water, changed the color, and rendered it pretty potent. Just as I slid the empty bottle into my pocket, José opened his eyes and saw that it was good. He called the bride’s father over and had him taste it. When he did, his eyes lit up and he yelled, ‘Ummm … Wow! Hey, everybody, we have plenty more wine—compliments of José.’ Everybody gathered around and patted José on the shoulder, and I heard one of the guys who had snickered say, ‘Amazing, José is really something special.’ ” [To be continued Friday, 9/28/2012]

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]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 2

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 2

As Uncle Ernest disappeared into the house, letting the screen door slam behind him as usual, I swung our porch swing a little harder and thought about how much I loved to fish. Only a few years in the future, Nina, would find me hooking school to fish all day off one of the barges that moored in the canal Basin.

My Pal Junior tied his small rowboat at Borger’s wharf, and I would borrow it to paddle out, tie her off, and climb aboard the broad, rust-covered deck of the barge. I’d laugh under my breath at the poor saps—my schoolmates—sitting in class on such a beautiful day. And yet, I was always a little afraid of being caught by old man Barnes, the dreaded truant officer.

Every year I would rush the season, starting on the first warm day in March. Later in the spring I would catch some nice pan-sized yellow neds, sunnies, and catfish, but in the cold waters of early March I usually caught shiners or eels. The shiners would nibble ever so gently, and when I managed to hook one and reel him in, I enjoyed it as much as if he had been a two-foot rock. Pulling one in was magical, Nina, because he would flash out of the water, silver in the sun, and I would reel him to my hand and close my fingers on a three-inch living creature, vigorously flipping, spinning, and fluttering, showing just how much he wanted to live and return to his familiar life below. Carefully extracting the hook from the fragile, gasping mouth, I noticed that I could see right through his body as his gills opened and closed, seeking oxygen. Darting out of my hand to freedom, and flitting back and forth almost subliminally before diving to dark comfort below, he left part of himself with me—a few silver scales and the (not unpleasant) ripe odor of fish.

The eels, though, were something else—disgusting, slimy tanglers of lines that left my hands so encrusted with slime that water and rags wouldn’t ever remove. Angrily, I would swing those eels overhead several times, smashing them on the steel deck, sometimes losing my hook and sinker in the process.

But fishing and crabbing was a Godsend for me during those unbearably slow-moving days of summer. A certain morning, when I was eleven or twelve, stands out clearly in my mind. My buddy, Joey Hotra, and I rode our bikes down Chestnut Spring Road to an area he knew about along a wider section of Back Creek.

We rode through a fairly extensive wooded area, navigated around the stumps and fallen branches, laid our bikes in the grass at the edge of the woods, and stood looking out across the long shore at the shimmering, motionless river. A small, rickety wharf stood high in the distance, a ghostly silhouette in the eerie silence. Except for low, jagged stumps punctuating the shore at low tide (I'll show them to you sometime, Nina), the wharf has long since disintegrated. But in my mind it's still erected there, a black outline against the hushed morning river.

It was very early, just at dawn, and as we walked through the murky sand and sloshed up to the wharf, I felt as if I had just entered an enchanted land. Everything was dead-still all around. The dim gleam of daybreak, a gentle nightlight, was on the water, so unlike the light bulb that soon would glare. I looked back at the shore where we had been; it seemed a long way off. I looked again across the water to the other side of the river—not the slightest current. It was dead-low tide.

I reached over and felt the piling where it met the water and part of it crumbled wet in my hand. I reached down and washed it off but its odor of decaying, saturated wood lingered. A muted echo sounded from across the water … and then again, silence. But soon, standing motionless, I heard the murmurings of tiny shore creatures, uttering evidence of their existence in the new day. Strange, that the scene—that moment of glory before sunrise—is still mysteriously powerful, just as it was when it stunned a skinny boy in 1947.

The water around the wharf was only a foot deep, but we threw in our crabbing lines and waded out waist-deep to cast out our fishing lines. Later, when the sun came out and the tide started coming in, the spell was broken, but we fished, crabbed, and swam till suppertime just the same.

Nina, can you remember certain events crystal-clear like that? What makes our minds seize certain seemingly unimportant happenings and implant them into prominent areas of our brains, allowing us to re-experience those events as though they had just occurred? But such thoughts never entered my mind, swinging alone there so many years ago. Then Uncle Ernest plopped down beside me and continued his strange tale.

[To be continued Friday, 9/21/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 1

A few evenings later, after Uncle Ernest told me about losing Lizzie, as I sat on our pump trough watching the hens scratch up and roll around in the dust in our lane, I wondered when Uncle Ernest would be able to continue his story.

And when I ran on over and, as usual, started riding our porch swing sideways like an airplane, Uncle Ernest strolled out the door, grabbed the chain, and said, “Move it over, Moose the Goose.” As he reclined with a grunt and took a long draw on his freshened glass, I swung the wooden swing gently by nudging the porch post with my bare toes. “What did you do next, Unk, in that flying balloon?”

“Now, Moose,” he smiled, reaching over with his free hand to rough up my hair, “you’re not going to believe what happened after that.” I could tell, Nina, that Uncle Ernest was eager to tell his story that summer evening because of the excitement in his voice.

“You know,” he said, setting his drink between his legs and leaning back with both arms spread and dangling from the back of the barely moving swing, “when Lizzie left me so suddenly like that I was feeling really lousy, so I found the grove of hazels where I had hidden my hot air balloon, rigged it up again, climbed into the basket, and cut the rope that held it. The magic did its work, because it soared high into the evening sky, sailed east with the force of a fighter plane. I was stressed out, so do you know what I did next?”

“Yep. You took a nap.”

“Yes indeed. I lay back in that cozy basket, took a good swig from one of my jugs of Ole Granddad, and slept like a baby. I must have slept for a couple of days, because when I woke up I felt as if I had been drugged. I could feel the basket descending and when it landed with a soft bump I climbed out and gazed at a strange, ancient land. It was mighty hot that morning, Moose, but the humidity was low so I was pretty comfortable.

“ Not far from where I had landed was a river, and as I walked along a narrow dirt road, after hiding the balloon in some bulrushes, I saw a group of men in a long, broad rowboat. They were shaking their heads after pulling in a large empty net. There was not even one fish in that net, and they sat there dejected with their heads lowered.

“ ‘Hey guys!’ I yelled out. ‘Can I come out and give you a hand?’

“ ‘All right,’ the leader said. ‘You can’t make things any worse.’ So I waded on out up to my chest or so, grabbed the gunwales, pulled myself up, and rolled into the boat like a jigged salmon. They were professional fishermen, and seemed to be pretty good guys, even though they didn’t know how to shake hands. When I extended mine and said, ‘Howdy, I’m Ernie, glad to meet you,’ instead of shaking hands each one of them came up to me and hugged me twice, once to the right and once to the left.

“ ‘Peace, brother; I’m Pete,’ the leader said. Then the other three—Andy, Jim, and Jack—came up to me and did the same, and I’ll tell you, when they were done my ribs were sore from all that hugging. After Andy sculled the boat out to about seventy-five feet into deeper water, all set to toss that net out again, we all saw the weirdest, screwiest sight imaginable. Walking across the water, from the east out of the sun, a guy stepped straight toward us. When the others saw him they thought he was a wizard and fell down moaning in the bottom of the boat.

“Now, Moose, I once saw Houdini perform some unbelievable tricks, so I just watched this guy closely as he walked to the side of the boat and stepped right in with us. I mean to tell you, he was a great illusionist and animal trainer, because I saw that he was walking in place on the back of a giant sea turtle, which was swimming swiftly just below the water’s surface.

“As the guy stepped into the boat the turtle dived deeper to avoid a collision and probably swam back underwater to wherever his training area was. But this guy was amazing. He was able to settle us all down with his calm, smooth, fatherly voice.

       “As he hugged each of us, he addressed us by names—every one—saying to me, ‘Peace be with you Brother Ernie.’ All of us fell under his spell, even me. He had shoulder-length hair, a beard and mustache, and was dressed in a long white robe that just barely covered his leather sandals. He said his name was José and that he was on an important mission—a mission for the gods.

“He then asked Pete what they had been up to, so Pete told him that they were fisherman and that they had not been able to catch any fish all day. José then asked Pete which side of the boat they had thrown the net from, and when Pete said, ‘The starboard, of course,’ José told him to try the net again but this time toss it over the port side.

“When they did as José suggested, in about five minutes the net started to jerk and twitch violently, and when they hauled it in it was filled with about a hundred large halibut. Moose, the weight was so great that we almost swamped the boat before we got it to shore. Then we all thanked José and patted him on the back for what he had done. I, too, was completely devoted to José, even though I had figured out—after some thought—how he got those fish in the net. You see, that giant turtle had rounded up the fish and drove them to the port side into the net.

“As we stood on the shore, staring at José with awe, he looked at us with a powerful, mesmerizing gaze and spoke in that wonderful voice that I’ll never forget: ‘Follow me, brothers, and I will make you netters of men,” whatever the heck that meant. But, believe it or not, we threw everything down and walked with him towards town, even though we had no idea in the world what he was talking about. Then José did a strange thing, Moose. He stopped, put his hands on Pete’s shoulders as he looked into his eyes, and called him a stone, and said that the stone would multiply so that a big church could be built in a famous, future city called Reeme.”  [To be continued Tuesday, 9/18/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Billy, Chapter 8

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Billy, Chapter 8

“When we returned to Lizzie’s island cottage,” Uncle Ernest explained, “hordes of soldiers and guards dressed in red uniforms and high, fluffy, black hats were assembled on the lawn. When Lizzie saw them as we were gliding in, she hugged me hard and started crying softly. Then she dried her eyes and told me in firm, direct language that she would not be able to see me again. I’ll tell you, Moose, I was thunderstruck. It was like touching your car’s spark plug while the motor’s running.

“ ‘My country needs me; I must do my duty. You will be forever in my thoughts, Ernie dear. There will never be another man in my life—forever. And, dearest, I want you to do something for me. In the new world there exists a province called Mary’s Land. If you ever travel to that wild, savage land to the west, and if you ever go through the territory directly south of Mary’s Land, and when you hear the name they have called that territory, think of me; think of me and smile. Remember me and the wonderful, enchanting few days that we had together. Be assured, Ernie, that you and these days will be in my memory forever.’

“Then I embraced her, gave her a nice, long kiss, and wiped away her tears. Seconds later she was pulled from my arms by two guards, who then bowed deeply to her and lifted her up into an elaborate golden basket that was set on two long poles on each side. Four uniformed soldiers then grabbed the ends of the poles and carried her off towards a large sailing ship at the dock.

“As the strange, golden basket headed towards the ship, with all the soldiers and guards marching on each side, my Lizzie leaned out the window and waved her handkerchief at me. The look on her face was the saddest I have ever seen in my life. And that, Moose, was the last I ever saw of her.”

Then Uncle Ernest hung his head and I could tell he was feeling awfully sad because he didn’t say anything for a while, so I said, “Geez, Unk, that’s kind of sad, but I could never feel bad about losing a simple girlfriend … so what?”

Then he looked over at me and said, “Ahhh, but you will; you will!” A couple minutes later, though, I looked over at Uncle Ernest and he was smiling.

“Why the big grin, Unk?” I asked, happy that he was feeling better.

“I was thinking about what Lizzie said to me so many years ago. What’s the territory directly south of Maryland?”

“Hmmm … Virginia?” I asked, not quite sure of myself.

“Right you are, Moose!” And I could tell by the smile and dreamy look of pleasure in his eyes that he was going to be all right. Uncle Ernest and I sat there for a while in silence that late summer evening. And, Nina, I’m sure you know what it’s like at the end of the day on our farm in the late summer. The beauty and peacefulness of that particular evening—so many, many years ago—remain vividly alive in my mind.

The sun had disappeared below the line of trees to the right of Dave Herman’s giant oak. There was absolutely no breeze at all as the light gradually diminished, leaving an eerie stillness broken only by the cicadas, crickets, and other tiny creatures of the evening. And from a distant field, the mournful cooing of a dove, echoing from the deep woods, added to the enchantment.

As the mosquitoes buzzed our ears and dined on our legs and arms, we swatted a few but then gave up and, with Uncle Ernest’s arm around my skinny, brown shoulder as he whistled a nonsense tune through his teeth, headed towards the house.

I would be off to bed after warming the water and washing from the basin, but Uncle Ernest, after sprucing up a bit, would be off for a night of partying in the town’s taverns. I swung the screen door open wide to its limit, ran past Uncle Ernest in the hall, and raced into the kitchen just in time to hear it slam for the last time that day.  [To be continued Friday, 9/14/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Billy, Chapter 7

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Billy, Chapter 7

You know, Nina, when Uncle Ernest lumbered, with drooped head, toward the house, I could tell that he was still upset about his having to leave Billy and his family and that beautiful house overlooking the lovely Avalon. To raise my spirits, I climbed up to the highest branch of our maple and peered in toward town. The horizon seemed so different without our big, black drawbridge. As you remember, a German tanker had collided with it, knocking it down, leaving a mass of convoluted black steel rusting in the C&D canal.

It took seven years for them to build the modern span that exists today. In the meantime, the only way to cross the canal was to swim (which I did frequently), take a small vessel (which I also did), or (as most people did) ride the ferry which was provided by the Corps of Engineers. Ed Sheridan, my father's cousin, was the ferry's captain.

The ferry transported vehicles as well as pedestrians, and it would come roaring in towards the slip, churning swirls of water, maneuvering through the black heavy pilings (sometimes bouncing off them), and sloshing, banging, and hissing into the transport ramp like some bulky, squat, sea creature audaciously having its way. In the summertime, with the shore traffic coming and going, I would sell vegetables to the folks waiting in line, a line often snaking from the ferry ramp to beyond Dolph Wharton’s tavern about a mile away.

As a kid in school I watched the construction of the new bridge, from the razing of the houses in its path on the South Side to the tightening of the last nut that connects the last piece of steel. The sight of the derricks delicately swinging the beams into place, the concrete trucks constantly moving to and fro, and the sounds of clanking steel, loud staccato riveting, and roaring vehicles are still vivid in my mind.

And do you know, Nina, that in the evenings, after the construction crews left—leaving their trucks, cranes, compressors, and dozers skulking haphazardly about the site—my buddy, Junior, and I would run around, on foot and on our bicycles, all over that bridge as it progressed from ground level till the time the south side section was connected to the North Side section. Oh, the guards would sometimes harass us, but we almost always out-smarted them.

I remember one evening, shortly after dark, when Junior and I were riding our bikes up the unfinished bridge. The roadway span from the South Side ascended to almost the middle of the canal, about 100 feet or so from the ascending roadway span from the North Side. The only things keeping us from dropping 200 feet into the canal were a yellow wooden barrier and a thin white rope. Junior and I would ride our bikes around the barrier, crouch under the rope, walk gingerly to the edge, and peer down to the water far below.

Then we would climb the steel girders that hung over the water and look out across at the breathless view. More than once we would peer down into an active smoke stack of a ship steaming through below. On this particular evening, however, as we labored up the incline on our bikes, we heard a man yelling at us from above. He was flashing a light and shouting: “Hey, you kids! You’ll be arrested for this!”

He was coming after us, so we took off down that bridge at breakneck speed. We spun down the bridge bank, down into the road under the bridge, and across Saint Augustine Road. Then we tossed our bikes along the hedgerow, ran through Stanley Stevens' over-grown field, and sloshed into the swamp south of town. We crouched down beneath the cattails and hid there for quite some time. For sure, we didn’t want to be arrested. But do you know, Nina, that guy was just some old man hired to guard the bridge. He was just trying to scare us ornery kids. Would you say he succeeded?

Then I heard that old screen door bang, so I scampered down those limbs as fast as a squirrel after a fallen hickory nut. Uncle Ernest was feeling a lot better after a nice long pull on his glass, so he got me in a headlock, gave my noggin a good knuckling and, after a few swigs, continued his story. [To be continued Tuesday, 9/11/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Billy, Chapter 6

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Billy, Chapter 6

The slamming screen door told me that Uncle Ernest was on his way, and soon he was next to me, knuckling my head and laughing to beat the band.

“What’s so funny, Unk?”

“Yeah, Moose,” he blurted, stifling his laughter, “you should have seen me that afternoon on the stage of that funny open-sky theater. The place was really different from any playhouse you’ve ever seen. The stage jutted right out into the audience and guys of all sizes and shapes were standing there, some waving beer mugs, some eating apples, and some gnawing drumsticks as they laughed, danced around, and jostled one another. ‘We’d better do a good job, Ernie, or we might be wearing that beer or dodging apples,’ Billy warned. But, surprisingly, everything went really well, because the rowdy birds whistled and yelled their approval after each scene.

“A strange thing happened to me, Moose, and I just have to tell you even though it embarrassed me something awful. Billy took my advice and set the play in Italy with the two lovers, Tony and Sophia. All the actors wore funny get-ups with a lot of makeup, but the audience didn’t see anything wrong throughout the whole play.

“I thought the actress playing Sophia, the girl that my character, Tony, was madly in love with, was really beautiful. I swear, Moose, I fell in love with her. I’d flirt with her every chance I got—you know, wink and smile and so forth—just to let her know that I liked her a lot.”

“You’re nuts, Unk. That’s so stupid.”

“Yeah, I know, but when I looked up into her eyes near the end of the balcony scene, and when she talked about a bird I said, ‘I would I were thy bird,’  and when she said, ‘Sweet, so would I: yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow,’ I just couldn’t help falling in love with her on the spot.

“But, Moose, you don’t know the half of it. It wasn’t just stupid to like her so much; it was idiotic. Let me tell you what happened. After the play I went to the men’s room and was standing there using a sort of trough that, by the way, emptied directly into the Thames, when somebody walked in and stood right next to me. I looked over casually and about had heart failure right on the spot.

“Believe it or not, but it was Sophia standing next to me with her (his) skirt pulled up. I cursed loudly as Sophia laughed and slapped his knees. Stomping on out of there, I grabbed Billy and yelled, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Sophia was a boy?’ ‘Well, Geez, Ernie,’ Billy said, surprised, ‘I thought everybody knew that women aren’t allowed to act in our plays.’ ”

I’ll tell you, Nina, I laughed so hard at that dumb Uncle Ernest that I fell off the swing and rolled around in the grass.

“If you don’t stop I won’t tell you any more stories,” Uncle Ernest yelled; “now knock it off, Moose.”

So I jumped back on the swing and said, “Sorry, Unk, but that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.” Uncle Ernest was quiet for a while as he took a few extra swigs from his drink.

“Yeah, Moose, acting in that play was something special,” he continued finally, “and by the time our horse trotted on back to Stratfield it was late evening and the sun was setting on the beautiful Avalon. After dinner, I spent four or five hours helping Billy polish his plays and poetry and, I think that even though he would never make it big, he may have been able to make a little spare money to help support that fine family. We stayed the night with them and in the morning sailed on back to Lizzie’s garden island on the Thames.

“We all kissed and hugged before we left and I noticed that Hansen had tears in his eyes and, my goodness, I have to admit that when I saw that and also Baby Sauce with her head lowered in dejection, my eyes started to moisten for just a moment. Poor Lizzie, torn with the emotion of having to leave, started sobbing, so I had to console her as I had done before.” [To be continued Friday, 9/7/2012]