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]