I have new neighbors. They made themselves known by hammering away at seven in the morning. I turned myself over
and was groggily aware of their presence. There they were with metal horse and black truck yammering and making a pest
of themselves to their new neighbors. I watched them from my upstairs stairwell window and they looked harmless enough,
what with the big one in ponytail imitating the disgusting male impersonation of the horse in revelation. I would
give him a present of a plateful of donuts, but I wouldn't want him to be too full of my revelation. Finding my legs
again, I crawled down to the kitchen and made a strong cup of coffee. My old priest said you make a strong cup of coffee.
Finding my mouth, I filled it with a swallow of fine,rich coffee and looked out the kitchen window to the fat ponytail waving
at me.
Waving back as if it were no big thing that after fifteen years of looking out at my old neighbors, I was now to be comforted
by a fat ponytail without the sense to keep quiet about moving in until after he had actually moved in here. Puttying barong
here and there, I made breakfast and fixed a few Greek rolls with soft butter and creamy ricotta for my daughter who had come
down looking like what the heck how do you live here. We ate and talked, and she went off to school.
I got up and cleaned and
turned the TV on to a special about that hideous Larry Flynn, secret agent,trying to destroy the morals of Americans in the name of
freedom of speech. I turned him off and went out and had a cigarette and looked at my fine new neighbors. Suddenly, I felt
sleepy and, although, I have never acknowledged the call from beyond, not even to myself, I am doing it now for the first time,
accepting it for what it is, a call from a spirit. I went in.
Laying on the couch, I was mentally brought face to face with my past neighbor Paul Mustache who lived across the street from me
in Clearwater Beach, Florida. We were friends, he and I; we spent the last years of his life cooking for each other. He was
a restaurant owner from Georgia and I was an English doctoral candidate attending the University of South Florida.
His breakfasts
for me were always the same, pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon with hot steaming coffee and his standing next to me holding
a dishtowel draped over one arm awaiting my pleasure for he knew that I would always say nothing but accept his food and dash off
to Publix for groceries since it was my turn to make the next meal. We lived Paul and I until I married.
Paul went to Greece and came back to die. He had left a will giving me his house on the beach with oak floors and his Wilma's
ironing board left exactly where she had them before she was killed in traffic in Clearwater. Bye, Paul, thank you for having
loved me and I am sorry that your magnificent gift was never delivered. I release you Paul to God's bountiful mercy
and his everlasting love.
