My Ladies

I'm trying to remember when I first heard the saying, "She's sitting on her groceries"...it's about prostitutes, of course...call-girls...whores....it means, well, obviously: that the woman is making money, or gaining property or favors or gifts: using her sex, someway, somehow, to make her 'living'.

I can't say that I'd deny that there was something in my personality that likes the idea of living using your own body to make your wages. I have no idea why. When you like sex a great deal, and I always have, it makes sense, in an odd way, that it would be fun to do sex all day or all night for money. if you really wanted to. which, of course, I didn't. but, I could understand the whole impulse. and, I could see why many women would do all that, if they loved sex sort-of generally...even if they didn't like sex much. If you wanted money, and had no, or few, other skills, it would be an OK-way to make money for some ladies. If you really hated sex, it could be a very bad thing. Then there's the whole world of sex slavery and poor kids forced to lose their identities in the madness and terrible harm of unwilling sex, to survive...so there is all that...and much more...the drugs...the rapes...the diseases...poverties...the deaths...the horrors that humans inflict upon each other everywhere....

I'm talking here about the gentle parts, because there are kinder aspects to the lives of whores I've known...and they and I have had a bit of life cross and re-cross in common with My Ladies....first: there was the Free Health Clinic in the Edgewater-Uptown area of Chicago...

I worked as a volunteer RN there in the very early seventies... because of Gretta, I became kind-of 'the nurse' for most of the prostitutes who came to the clinic to get meds for their STDS and their birth control pills and devices and their pregnancy tests and their abortion counseling. The clinic I was in didn't do abortions. The counseling was a sad part, for many of my Ladies. and the testing and treating for the STDs was laborious. the ladies often seemed to let things go too long...I wasn't sure why they were reluctant to get treated. maybe it was just denial. you would have thought the smells and the aches and pains would put-off business....

The other memory that was sad was that not one of the ladies I met was happy, ever, really...they sometimes would have a lot of fun. they liked to party quite a bit. they were kind to each other and to some of their clients...some of the time...but I'd have to say: most often they were sad. and mad at people from their pasts. from their childhoods and their young adulthoods. their dealers. the daily 'bums' from the streets. their pimps. their madams. their 'regulars'. their 'johns'. the police who were their 'friends'...the police who were their 'enemies' - who were often the same people. especially their parents. their dads more than their moms, I found. sometimes for incest. or verbal abuse. or physical abuse. or all three...or just for neglect. for rage at poverty... then they would joke about just everything. about nothing at all. it helped to keep some things in. it helped to keep others out....

Gretta told me lots about her life. I don't think she was trying to shock me. she seemed to just like to chat with me. sometimes she'd hug me and call me 'sister'. she was about forty, but she said she was thirty. she looked about sixty. she had bruises all the time. and she would not talk about them. ever. she had three STDs that needed injections...mainly antibiotics. She denied shooting-up even in the face of the holes in her inner arms. I've always suspected she probably died of AIDS or an overdose or a massive pelvic infection or something horrible. she had that feeling about her. that something horrible was going to happen to her. sometime. any time soon. but surely later. surely. in the meantime, she told jokes and acted all fancy-free and fun-lovin'. then she cried.

It was raining at the clinic. outside was a humid mess and hot and dark with the rain. few patients were dribbling in - mainly to get out of the rain and to hang out until they were dry. maybe get a cup of coffee. she came in all crooked smiles across her face and joking about the weather and life and all...she asked to talk with me in private. boyfriend trouble, she said. I went behind the curtain with her. then she just threw herself into my arms, all wet and stinky with sweat and cried and cried and cried...

she was crying for the four abortions she had in the past, who she called "my babies"...for the kid at age three the Child Protective Services took away from her because of the drug use and her work and a lot of neglect which she admitted to...she cried about all the men she had used and how they had used her and that was a list a mile long. which she seemed to have total recall about in way-too-great detail. then there was her dad, who had deserted the family. her mom who was a drunk. her brother who raped her. her sister who was a nun and never would talk with her and was sort-of psychotic...there was too much to hear. so naturally I was crying too. Gretta's story was endless and her life was endless. to give it too much thought was to drown in sorrow. because it was all only sorrow. all the parties and the jokes and the rich-ones-who-got-away and the hot times with money and the ones she 'loved' and the few who loved her right back...all these stories were lost in the tears. absolutely drowned in the sea of sorrows....

Gretta made all my fun stories about being the nurse for the 'My Ladies' feel a little dumb. I got myself a bit numb...I felt sorry for all My Ladies and for me too. for all the ladies I knew around me who were absorbed in sex in one way or another. preoccupied with too little sex and too much sex and liking sex or loving sex or not liking sex or their sexual partners, of course...how they felt about all of them. in the past. in the future. what the present seemed to be about: Women talk about sex problems with RNs. Even strangers. It's rare for a woman to have ever said to me "I love sex, have plenty, am happy with my partner (partners), the situation is great, and so on". something was always off-kilter in the equation. Well, not always, but you catch the drift....

Women like me, who have had pretty-good, un-abused lives: either didn't talk about their sex lives much - or else we're rare or we don't chat with RNs about the whole deal. It's taken me years to tell anyone about how much I love sex, generally, without a lot of thought. The question that has popped up all these years from most of my men is "Is that all you think about?"...meaning "Sex". my answer has always been that I don't "think about it" actually, as far as I know. "It" is just always in my body, waiting for the next hit or charge or, to be nice about 'It'...the 'Intimacy'. Only when I'm sick or have joint or back pains or am unhappy about a partner, do I lose interest. That happens to we so-called 'normal' women a great often I think... Otherwise, the on-button is 'on'. the equation, such as it is, is simple - in my experience...I'm not alone in this: I've had women friends who feel all day and night as I do...but I know it's not common - but it's not rare either...at least: that's what I observe....

OK, well, back to My Ladies...
I think most of them liked me because they were hung-up on sex, for better or for worse, in the same way I am. without judgement or thought. not necessarily for happiness or romance. just a part of life. a big part. but a part of life that is always, always there. just 'there'...and very preoccupying...that's true....

So, what about the Party Bits...the jokes and so on....well, that's part of the Night Life, too, for sure. In the oddest way, it is very satisfying for women who love sex...or for woman whose work life is sex...being with people who like to play with sex just for fun. It's a relief, really: watching people coming on to each other: a little kiss here...pretending lap dancing or pole dancing...the skimpy outfits...even joking with stripping bits of the skimpy outfits...the moves...the dances...the touches...the money...the alcohol shedding the inhibitions...it's all entertainment....a lot of people deny that they party with this kind of play, but the stats are against them...a whole lot of men and women enjoy playing on this level...especially now with the net and the cameras and so on....

but it gets scary, or scarier, when it gets into hard porn or actually connecting sexually with others...lots of risk and there could be lots of problems the further you go on this level...and that's the world My Ladies worked in...so...to lighten up, they'd go back a notch to the Party Bits, and just play and have a good, even relaxing time...lots of jokes and laughs and relief at this level...very little risk...fun to do with "friends"...even just "friends" for the night...My Ladies loved these Party times..they were pleased when they had a nice light night of no work and all play...these were the times I could join in here and there without feeling weird or out-of-place....

Take my times with Jimmy...well, yes: Jimmy was physically a guy, but he was a young woman on his insides, and he saw me as a trusted 'girlfriend'. he even called my about recipes at times...but mainly, he talked about his love for his guy, John. who he adored. and, because John played around on Jimmy, who he was very sad and jealous of at times....so, he would cry on my shoulder too....Jimmy had been a PlayBoy for years. he was very popular and tiny and black and darling....
but it's mainly the "play" I recall about Jimmy, with fondness...we'd go to big-time Gay Bars in Chicago and dance with the other guys or with John and my husband at the time...and just have fun - a lot of fun! Gay guys often thought I was simply a magnificent cross-dresser... or a man who had become a lovely woman...and they were excited and happy to dance with me...Jimmy would encourage them by out-and-out lying about me! It was all for fun...and, it was Much Fun! free and happy and exciting and risk-free and fun! At least I didn't have to deal with hetero-selection-rejection moves...I felt as fun and free as I ever have....

The same thing happened when I 'went out' to a party with Gretta and her friends...there was so much sex play and silliness and jokes and good dancing and fun flirting at that party...I wasn't drinking, but every one else was, and they got more and more funny and free-spirited and sexy and fun as the night rolled on...and, no body was paired-off at all...everyone was just playing, because it was a party. no one needed to score, because they were all resting from non-stop sex work during the day... It was all just stimulation and simulation and dance and performance and much, much enjoyment...best party ever...tho I did leave when the drugs started getting exchanged and bought...that was all too heavy for me...no one seemed to mind when I "had to go home"...no judgment...back and forth....still: the excesses were comin' on...and things could get nasty and scary...so...time to go....

Once, waiting for a bus, I was suddenly lit up with a spot light and pushed up against a wall with two ladies who had been standing near the wall behind me...I was startled and scared a bit, but not much, because the two ladies, who looked a lot like most of My Ladies, were laughing their heads off...A really grumpy, serious policeman was puffing about being upset and trying to arrest the three of us for "loitering"...the scene was pretty obvious....
the Ladies kept telling him that I wasn't with them. and laughing about his mistake loudly and boisterously...just having a good time at his expense. he was flustered, but was actually trying to see the funny part of it all, and in fact, he was starting to see the funny side of it! but, he couldn't break out of the role, of course...then the bus came...
he indicated that I could go. I smiled at the Ladies and they smiled and laughed back and the three of them just stood there looking at me getting on the bus. the people on the bus were staring flabbergasted at all four of us...I got on the perfectly silent bus, paid the smiling bus driver, and rode off, literally, into the sunset, treasuring every moment I had spent with the Ladies and the Cop...wondering what happened next for them all...wondering why my life was still so different than theirs, that I could get on the bus...and they couldn't....
wondering too, what it had been about me, that gave him permission inside of his mind, to push me up against the wall with the Ladies...how he knew, somehow, that we were Sisters under-the-skin....

I have always loved My Ladies. I have no other way to describe my feelings for them...the veil between my life and theirs is made of steel mesh thin as a butterfly's wing...you can see right through it. it's beautiful and colorful. but it cannot be broken-through. we are different. yet we can see each other clearly.

What we see has always been close, kind, loving, caring...without shame or consequence, because
What My Ladies and I...we know:

is that we are very,

really...

Beautiful....

SongPoem For a Runaway Poet: Past Perfect

real people kiss and smell like onions
garlics and the honey in the honeycake.
I'm sure you'd taste all salt and caramel
and corn and heat and dog, sand, rain,
and truly sun and cool of moon the
northwest wind with sea and places way
too far away and snow and washing at a
small sink in the desert with the dry deep
in the air and on your breath. no. really:

it would be like this: separate and sorrowful
without tears at all no expectations lips being
less interesting than words hearts being more words
mere words not feelings - feelings being first:
never mind the syntax the context it's all
feeling: unsaid unwanted unsung unmet -
so who the hell cares if you do not yell
for help in your forest and I am not there.
we will not hear each other whisper at all...

so laugh then and lean back sleeping on
the pillows and hold your sweet dog and think
upon the ways you've loved what went right of
course what went wrong and why touching
someone so close is not as good as from afar...
what it is to be older not twenty anymore:
what bodies are like now how young the young
have become where you can and want and can not
place your hands much less your heart...

Close your eyes to the day that had or did not
have meaning: the fish, the men, the ladies on their
slow way across the dunes the murmurs of their
souls breathing out like voices the kids laughing -
the dogs bark at each other all telling some story
or another and your story has been born has a life
of its own... it's your heart that's still unborn restless
as a pup in sleep legs going, going, going Gone
and you: dreaming the universe: for Signs of Love:

Stones. Rings. Waters.

this story is a mystery. really, a Mystery. it's a murder unsolved. the kind everyone assumes they could solve if they had half a chance. everyone knows that's not true tho. people who are reading or watching mysteries on TV or whatever: they think they can figure it all out. because they can see more than anybody else in the story can see. even then they can be tricked. this one is a tricky one. even if I tell you everything that happened. exactly. so I'll do that...

Karin was a very good friend of mine. she had traveled to eighty different countries. I admired that enormously. on account of I can't stand moist heat. a lot of the countries she had traveled in were sluggishly wet and hot all of the time. she was literally very cool about that. she also was revered as a traveler. by the people she traveled with and by the people she met. rightfully so. she was unfailingly kind to just about everyone. and patient. and listened well...

she was Buddhist too. in her true life. not as an empty practice. not saying that practice is empty or whatever. I guess it's supposed to be 'empty'. you must still get the drift here: she was alive and present in the 'present' most of the time. I admired that in her too. I always thought of her as very capable. because of all these things she could do. more capable than anyone else I knew. maybe I wasn't right about that. maybe she was somehow more vulnerable. maybe I just didn't see that.

some places she went were unsafe. anyone would have said that. she was very very lucky. something would always come through. someone would help her. or the checkpoint guy would be in a good mood. sometimes they didn't see that she was American. she didn't always look American. she looked Romanian. exotic. her gramma had been Romanian. from the old country… wearing black. wearing the berka. she could pass in Central Asia. maybe even in the Middle East. surely in Eastern Europe. so she'd get by. get across borders. not many troubles...

then there was her Health Practices. she was so practical about her dietary life and her exercise life and her medical care life that it was damn painful to sit at a meal with her. I would wind up feeling like a food wimp. with bad habits as well... so she could eat practically anything. did eat whatever people offered to her. could down fiery spices like a native. eat strange meats and fats. and nothing would happen to her. her body would take it all in with all that health. it would shield her from harm.

I'm telling you this because it all fits in to how she died somehow: how you could look like... even act like...you belonged to a place and time. how it could all get you anyway: how you could die. even when everything was perfect...or looked perfect...all around you....it's sort-of home court advantage: the sniper knows the tree's every branch - each place to hide. you see the tree. but not him. because you don't really know the tree. not like he does. it's that kind of problem....

well, she didn't die because of a sniper. so it's not about that. she died in a very iffy way though. officially speaking...she was on a reservation. an Indian reservation. well. a Native American one. she was out buying something in silver on one of the mesas. at the guild workshop. she had gone outside. into the desert. there was a rainstorm about to come. the sky was really dark. tho it was warm - everybody felt chilled. it was that kind of rainstorm. scary in a way. thunder low and rumbley.. sheets of lightening. then that sound all across the sky. like rockets going off all at once across a battle field. no one knows why she went out there anyway. she had gone to the john in back of the store. beyond that door was the desert. why did she go there? that's the first question. that no one knows the answer to: by the way.

she just wasn't found for a long, long time. her friends and I just said she never came back. one minute she was there. the next she was not. she went off the face of the earth. the desert was empty of her. she wasn't found there... she was found in town. in the back seat of a car. dead. maybe for a day. curled up like she was taking a nap. not a mark on her. really. not one mark. face calm. eyes closed. looking like somebody napping. skin still soft really. it was her color that had changed. wrong color. bloodless. but not scary. just too pale. gray even. no sign of violence. the man who found her had seen her in the car parked near his home. she never got out of the car. for hours. that's what worried him. he was scared to tap on the window. but he did. tapped hard. panicked. called the cops. they busted into the car. found she was dead. it wasn't her car. it was a car that had been stolen a week ago. no one had found it. no one had seen who had driven it. ever. it was a terrible mystery.

nobody knew anybody at all who had ever hated her. or had it out for her. or said they wished she was dead. nowhere in her past. the autopsy said heart attack: massive. there was one needle entry point. possibly. but no traces of anything that may have been injected. it was too long after she had died. she probably had felt a lot of pain all at once. maybe she had been terrified before. but there was no proof of any of that. it was just something everyone feared. it made me and her friends and family feel crazy with grief. such a good person. terrible ending to such a good life. that's what everyone speculated. it was only when the word Murder was said that every one really went to pieces. for the DA's office said it was Murder. they were sure of that. they wouldn't say why. then they did...

it was because of the car. there were no fingerprints on it. not one. that almost was impossible. and there was no damage to the car. no gas worth mentioning had been used. this was not a normal theft. the car was in great shape. nothing used in it at all. with no suspects. no rhyme or reason why this car. this body in this car. this car in town. no one seeing it driven in. no reason why it was parked where it was. not one clue. not one sign. just maybe something injected. for no reason known. and the body placed where people would find it. with no sign of pain. or struggle. or anything. peaceful almost. just death. a sigh between life and someplace else. no big deal...and no signs of what life had driven that car. used that car. why? for what purposes?

there may be nothing worse than a mystery that has not one single clue. no one with any motive. no reasonable doubts. no ways to go 'ah hah! I see now! how did I ever miss That?' frustrating. the detectives were all completely bewildered. upset. unhappy. mad. really mad. we friends felt exactly the same way. and angry too. how could someone have done this? why. why. why. why. morning to night...why?

now it must be said: these reservations in this part of America are known for fact and fiction about unusual stuff happening: deaths. disappearances. maimings. bad luck stories that are off the charts. some of these stories are fiction. some are true. really. some are true. they happened. they don't get explained very well. they usually involve the “Res” tho. not the town nearby. the desert is a great place to lose a story. people and things and life and death get lost out there in those wildernesses all of the time. that's a fact. this one was really strange though. it started in the desert. or seemed to. then it finished right in every-day civilization. didn't make sense. it started getting connected to the Res tho. because of the extreme lack of fingerprints. that was just the kind of thing that happened in Res tales of mystery. so people started speculating...

maybe she had been lured away by some of the evil in parts of that desert. especially between the mesas and the Navajo lands below: there was some bad blood: joint-use areas that were going back to Hopi possession. relocated Elders dying in the joint-use areas. especially when they were made to live in the cities. out of their old hogans. their ancestral homes. lots of unhappy folks out there... but what connection did Karin have to any of these folks? None that anyone knew about. maybe on account of her coloring. maybe she had been mistaken for someone else...that was a real possibility...people speculated some. then left it alone a bit. because nothing had really come to the fore. it seemed the whole story was closing in. like the night over the desert. very dark. very final.

she had just been on a vacation...she liked to travel. to see new sights. to meet new people. to buy a few new things. she had barely been out on the reservation for a few days. she hadn't known anybody there. just friends who knew friends out on the Res. it hadn't been hard to be there. the mesas weren't exactly in the middle of nowhere. there were motels. places to eat at. to stay nearby. it wasn't that isolated. no one had been unfriendly. no one at all. she hadn't offended anybody who anyone knew about. it was just a little vacation. so there we all were. not sure about anything. or anybody. not anymore. because it was all too strange. too mysterious for words… everybody wanted to just go home. but that wasn't going to happen any time soon. we were - all three of us - suspects. Us! Suspects! it was too hard to bear. we all were starting to feel claustrophobic. Like all these tribal people were closing in on us. for no reason that I could figure out. we surely were all innocent. of the...of her death....

we were all about to get lawyers to help us to be able to go home. then the call came in. someone had seen something. the authorities drew their attention away from our reluctant innocence. they started to follow this odd tip. it was about a ring in a pawn shop. outside of the Res. in town. inside of the ring. the engraving: My Karin Blue Feather - Joe. the woman said it reminded her about the woman who had died. she bought the ring for about twenty dollars. then brought it to the police. it was a Hopi silver ring. a simple pattern. usual to the rings of the seventies or early eighties at the guild workshop. the police didn't know what the connection was. we hadn't remembered the ring. whether she wore it or not. we didn't think so tho. but there weren't that many Karins in the area. that's what we figured.

then they found another one. a ring. similar inscription on the inside. one of the cops found it. recognized the pattern on the ring. saw the inscription inside. this one said: Karin. Joe loves you. this one was at a crafts show. on a tray marked 'vintage'. stuff from the seventies. this was getting strange.

then another woman - this one from the Res - came forward. she had heard about the rings. Joe and Karin: she had known them in the late seventies. they had been part of that big love affair of the hippies of the sixties and seventies: the one where they went out on the reservations. made 'friends' with the Indians. dressed like them a bit. beads and headbands and stuff. were in 'solidarity' with Native American rights groups and so on. they had felt some connection to the Blue Prayer Feather Clan people. none of who they had ever met. and never did meet. but they talked about getting a feather off the ground. buying a Hopi silver piece of jewelry with the feather etched on the back. they had been told it was made by a member of that clan. she had been working in the store for the guild at the time. that's how she remembered that. they had been out on the Res maybe a couple of months. so many years ago. they had never been back that she knew of. that's all she knew.

the Res police and the town police made up their minds to work together on this one. nothing much else important was going on. so they had the time. this murder case was irritating all of them on some level… OK. so our Karin maybe had a boyfriend or a buddy or something. she had spent a couple of months living somewhere on or around or near the Hopi or maybe the Navajo lands. something we hadn't known. then another lead came up. this one was really strange. not coincidental at all:

this guy told the Res cops that he remembered a story he heard the old women talking about in his gramma's hogan. he had just been a boy. it was about these two hippy types who were messing around one of the springs out on the Res. one of his gramma's friends was kind-of a spiritual woman. she had told them to move on. that the spring was sacred. the woman had been fine about that. the man had been a bit confrontational about it all. free country and all that. but they both had left. only they had taken some stones from the spring. the women were not happy about that apparently. the stones had been placed a certain way to direct water to the Res. to tell the water where to go. this was a Navajo way. he couldn't describe it more. on account of it was part of ritual. whites weren't in on that kind of stuff. period. he thought it was important. because the women were powerful people. maybe they had some bad ideas about the two hippy people. he couldn't say. he had just been a boy. there was women stuff and men stuff. they didn't cross much. and it wasn't done to go in too far either way... unless it was your business. which it hadn't been. being that he was just a kid.

now the Res police were more interested than ever in the case. the town police were just more irritated. we were intrigued. especially Manny. who was Mexican. a good friend once of Karin's. and the son a Healer Woman of the Indians. from the south. where he was from. he thought this was a sign that evil or at least mean intentions were at play here. he had been raised around this kind of stuff. maybe the stones had been way important. maybe something happened because Karin brought them back. maybe something happened because she didn't bring them back. but maybe that was the connection with the desert. maybe she had been trying to find that spring. or maybe the stones had power.

when a person is on any reservation you're way out there in the middle of Nowhere. Nowhere is a real place. the reality of that place is bigger than the reality of anywhere else. I'm not kidding here. strange stuff here. not American. not any nationality really. just a place on the planet. a place without a name. without a known identity. truly. you have to be there to get it. it's a strange thing. every body who goes out to the Res says so. at least everybody who doesn't belong to the reservation says so. it's a fact:

stones seem alive. I know that sounds all twilight zone. but I'm not joking. it's true: the desert is more alive than anywhere else besides. add reservation to desert. then you've got every thing alive. not in the way you usually think about alive. a lot of watching too. especially watching strangers. well. there's really no other way to explain all that...

so. the next person to give another clue shows up. he's a kid. about twelve years old. he says he saw her in the desert. behind the guild workshop. he saw her moving around. she put something down. then stood quietly. then a man joined her. he didn't see the man coming. he just suddenly was there. they were arguing a little loudly. not loud enough to hear. but he could hear the anger. bad from the guy. more like unhappy from the lady. then they both walked away to a car. got in. drove off. that's all he had seen. he had to go do an errand for his grandpa. he was already running late. so he had left… the car was the style and color of the car Karin had been found in. of course.

and you've noticed. naturally: she didn't tell her friends where she was going. or why. we all felt bad about that. what in the world had she been doing? what had been going on? can you feel what we were feeling? these bits and pieces of so-called evidence were so frustrating. they didn't all connect yet. maybe they never would...a few days went by. like they always do....

it was Joe who contacted us. he told us he was sorry he hadn't told anybody. but he had been scared when he heard what happened to Karin. it was him who had seen her. met with her out in the desert. she had asked him to come there. to put the Water Stones back into the desert. he hadn't seen her for years. suddenly she had been in contact with him again. told him she was coming out for this vacation with friends. to the same place they had taken the stones from years and years ago. he couldn’t remember why they had picked up the stones. he remembered that the old women had been 'unkind'. he admitted he had been 'unkind' right back: she had mentioned the stones again. she had them. could he come and help her to put them back where they 'belonged'? so he had said sure. he wanted to see her again anyway. so what the heck.

he admitted meeting her in the desert alright. but he said he had left by himself. in his RV. they had argued about the location of the spring. he said it wasn't where she thought it was. they didn't actually find the spring. she put the stones down in the sand. pointed the pointy parts of the stones towards the guild workshop buildings. he told her he'd meet her for dinner that night. named the place. she had said OK. she had been heading back to the buildings as he left...he was still in his RV. he had no idea what car they were talking about. the one she had been found in. but he had been scared. what if the police thought he had killed her? we said we'd go with him to the police while he told his story. he agreed to go.

the police in town believed him. the Res police had a different twist on the situation. for one thing: the Hopi counsel was complaining that they couldn't get the water to turn off in the bathrooms behind the guild workshop. the dripping was heavy and continuous. no one seemed to be able to get the water to stop. not in any way. this was the desert: wasted water was a terrible thing. they were trying to collect it all in buckets. but it was a waste. all the same. the Res police insisted on Joe taking them to the place where Karin had set the stones. so he did.

now all this next stuff is like a suspension-of-belief business. I freely admit that. but here is what happened:

we had all met for dinner. Joe, the few friends left in the area. me. one of the Res cops, who was getting pretty obsessed with the whole story...we were at a cafe. Good ol every-day foods...we were all kind-of bummed together. feeling like this was a waste of our time by now. Karin had been ashed. as she had requested. her family had a private funeral. as she had requested. so Karin seemed very far away somehow… only Joe was upset. he had taken the Res cops out to where he thought Karin had left the stones. they went over the ground like some kind of demented blood hounds. no stones. every one there was pretty upset. they wanted those stones back into the spring. where they belonged. where ever that was: no one on the Res was going to say. that was for sure.

then there was the rings business. Joe wanted the rings back. or at least to see them. he felt they should give them to him. but the bad part was that they had been misplaced somehow. at the Res police station. it was upsetting him. and the police too. not that it had anything to do with the 'case' so to speak. but what did they mean? those rings...what was the connection? how did they get left on the Res in the first place? or near the Res...or whatever...

the Res police decided it was time to bring in some Elders. they always knew everything. wouldn't tell you unless they felt like it tho. and when they felt like it. that was their way. you better really respect them too. or they would send you on some very bad trips. that was a fact. they would get you. you might even die. that made our hair raise a bit: they might even kill you. that was a sobering thought for sure. how would they kill you? you wouldn't get to know that. usually people were just 'found' dead. that rang a bell now. didn't it tho…

so they agreed. heavens know why. and why now. there were six little ladies. hard to tell if they were all sixty or one hundred. or timeless. they were all not smiling. they were holding court with us. we were their subjects. you could feel that. they had something to say. they weren’t interested in what we had to say. here's what they said:

the Mothers have told us about the stones. the spring. and two rings. the woman died. the little pin prick on her. it is all one thing: we can't tell you about it tho. it's all Dine' matters. matters of the People. not for you to know. we need the rings. the rings will lead to the stones. the stones will be brought back to the spring. the water problems will be gone then. until then things are not good. but that's all that is your business.

The cops told them the rings couldn't be found. the women said no matter. that was the end of the interview. they said nothing about the murder. one of them just shrugged. what did that mean? I don't know…

it was months later that they found a few hairs in the car where she had been found. they matched Joe's DNA. he's going to go to trial. he keeps saying he's innocent. he points out that he had no motive at all. and his RV with him. but the kid doesn't remember any RV where the couple had been out in the desert. so I don't know. I can't imagine how that will all come out.

the rings were never found. maybe someone took them for the silver. made something else out of them. that would be OK really...

the stones were found in the spring. one of the Elders told the Res police guy that. hard to check on since no one except the Elders knows where the spring even is...

the waters dried up at the guild workshop. just stopped. that was OK too...

the pinprick on Karin's body. that's the one thing no one can explain. it may not have been an injection site. who knows...the case was closed. unsolved....

I wish I could tell you how hard it was to love Karin. she was so perfect. it kind-of drove me crazy really...
when she told me she was meeting with Joe again I got pretty jealous. I didn't mean to feel jealous. but it just kept getting worse and worse. I couldn't even sleep well.
I started getting off my feed. and you know: that's not good for a diabetic like me. I have to take Insulin three times a day as it is...

you know...I can give myself those injections practically in my sleep. they're almost automatic....

stones. rings. waters...

the Res is a very strange place to be. puts you off your usual reality. sets you free from reality. you just don't have to deal with life the usual way...not if you know how to be quiet…

the Navajo can be quiet. the Hopi can be quiet...

so can I....

quiet like Stones.

Rings.

Waters....

Come Home

there were no policemen following the van now. they had been. because Nick had tried to get a prescription he had written, being a doctor and all, 'filled' in Goodyear, Kansas. because he had long hair and wore jeans and cowboy boots and had a mustache, they wouldn't fill the prescription. tho it was for her birth control pills. which she really wanted to have. but, even tho they called and found out that he was a doctor: they still wouldn't fill it. because they said he didn't look like his picture: so maybe he was a fraud. but he did look like his picture. so they were just being mean. prejudiced because he didn't look like any doctor from Goodyear, Kansas. not at all. then too, her kids and her...they didn't look like Goodyear, Kansas, either. she was wearing a granny dress which she had sewed herself. the kids were in second-hand shorts and teeshirts and flip-flops. hopefully they wouldn't have to prove that they were married. because they were not. he was just her boyfriend. they were thinking of getting married when they got out to California. maybe. it wasn't a given. maybe not. the trip out from Chicago had had its ups and downs. she had even writen a song about it. as if that would help matters any...

Nick was a good guy. and he was a good doctor. a really good doctor. he had done some special research at John Hopkins out east and had some of the results of it named after him or something like that. he just wasn't the faithful type tho. he was all into the hippie thinking about free love. on the other hand, he sort-of wanted to get married too. he talked about it more than she did, actually. he was fond of the three kids too. although they were all under ten. which made them quite a handful. still, they were such lovable pups. really sweet kids. just full of life: busy, busy, the whole day. she was a nurse. she and Nick had delivered babies and worked at the Free Health Clinic together. they felt very modern and with-it. being a voluntary family together. with important work. in the forefront so to speak. except not here in the middle of these corn fields. here it was the town's way or the highway. they were being shown the door. or the road, to be accurate. and the turn-away was none too gentle.

the kids were thirsty and hungry. she asked the cop following them to please let them get the kids bottles of water and food from the grocery store. he said OK, only he was going to accompany her in. not with the kids or with Nick. they agreed. this is fascist, Nick growled. but not so loud the cop could hear. the grocery store was a local one. nobody in it looked like they were part of the 70s at all. they were all dressed like 1959. retro-tops. beehives on their heads. polyester pant suits. lots of make-up. the whole trip. men in the store glowered at her. women at the store actually growled at her like Nick had growled. hostile. Hostile was definitely building up on the scene. but they had to have the food and water. she was starting to feel like she was in some bad movie. where really bad things could happen. because people felt too different than her and Nick and even than the kids.

The man in one of the aisles asked her if she needed any help. his accent was familiar. for a few sentences she answered him in the same dialect or accent or whatever it was she heard and responded into...then she realized what it was: her dad's Louisiana dialect. she had heard it and responded to it all of her life. that had just happened again. it wasn't a dialect she could just mimic or pretend with. she always had to hear it first. then she could speak it fine. that's what had happened. the man looked surprised. then pleased. he talked with her some more. then he asked her why she was in Goodyear anyway. she told him they were just passing through. on the way out to California. he laughed. that explains the dress. he wasn't being rude. he was being pretty friendly. she suddenly felt a bit less paranoid. happier even. they're not being very nice to us, she told him. well, y'all look like hippies, you know, he kidded her. yeah. I know. but we're harmless, she told him. we're really OK. I can see that, he answered her. seriously. and I've got it. got what, she asked. you're from Marshall Parrish, right? she laughed. how do you know? it's my hobby. pickin' up folk's dialects. well, you're right, she told him: Monroe. Monroe, he repeated. I've been through Monroe.

it didn't take long for the word to get out that she wasn't a hippie. just a nice southern woman with nice kids. the guy was a friend, a doctor from the clinic they were going to work in out west. just driving her and the kids out to California. just friends. that's what she had told him. Nick was furious. I want to stand on my own honesty, he told her. I've got my own reasons for living I don't need the approval of a bunch of Kansas red-necks. yes you do, she told him. the kids and I are exhausted. we want to stay in a motel here overnight. then leave in the morning.
Shit, Nick said. cold. just, Shit. we were doing better when we were getting escorted right out of town...I don't want to leave like that, she told him. besides, I want my birth control pills. I've already told the lady in the pharmacy back at the store that I need them to regulate myself. she was very sympathetic. damn, Nick added. so now they'll take me in because I'm the doctor for you? if you're nice, she reminded him. if not, one of the docs in town will order them for me. damn. damn. Nick was down. defeated. it had happpened so fast. one minute they had all been pariahs. now only he was. unless he behaved himself. which he didn't want to do. he just wanted to get out of town. now. and for good.

the guy in the store was Ronnie. he was actually very nice. he taught fly fishing at the lake. he was a fireman for the town otherwise. and a football coach for the high school. he was all about the out-doors. the kids liked him. around their mom talking all lightly southern, they had acquired the accent or dialect or whatever it was. they were natural as rain. he asked if they all wanted to get up early the next day and go fishing with him. She and the kids said yes, of course... they were all in their own room at the motel. Nick's was next door. since he was just the friend taking them to California and all. she felt a bit free, being just with the kids. her pack. it felt freeing. from all of Nick's expectations and ambivalence and impatience... she hadn't been fishing in years, either. it would be fun. before they left and everything. Nick didn't want to go. this was crazy, he said. I want to get going right away in the morning. it won't hurt to go fishing for a bit, she told him. the kids need a break from all this travel. this will be a chance for them to see and do something different than just messing around in the back of the van. see a bit of America. this is a bit of it, alright, Nick growled again. he was starting to sound a little mean a lot of the time. she decided to ignore him.

the sun was barely up when Ronnie came by in his van. they piled the kids in with water and suits and towels and food to make sandwiches and all. he had all the poles and bait and stuff for them. as usual, she had to wait first to hear him speak and then she could swing into the dialect. he had come up from the south to marry a woman who was from Goodyear, Kansas. she had died in a car accident. he showed them the intersection where she had died: one of those ones where long, long roads cross suddenly with no stop signs. you can see the other car coming for miles and miles. it doesn't seem possible people would risk crossing at the same time. but that's what had happened. he had stayed in the town. because he had this job managing the grocery store. and he liked it there. it's a great place to raise kids, he told her... he baited all their lines. and taught the kids how to cast a bit. retaught her. it came back soon. the swing from the wrist. always a skill worth all of them knowing...then the waiting. the little slack on the line at the end. so that the fish will rest. then you can net it safely. how to release safely for you and for the fish: so it will live another day. the kids and she were way impressed.

they ate their sandwiches. drank the water. played a little touch football: which the kids also liked a lot. Then suddenly, to their surprise, Nick came by the lake in his VW van. he got out. looking very irritated. I got your pills, he told her. she flushed. thanks, Nick... it's time to go: he spoke firmly. we're on a schedule here. the clinic is waiting for us, you know. we got to make up for this lost time... it wasn't lost, she told him. we've had some fun: it's been good... and cut the weird accent, Nick spoke suddenly. she flushed again: it's my dad's accent, she told him. it's from Lousiana. she stood up straight. it's natural to me, she spoke proudly. under certain conditions. Nick stared her down best he could. I'm not sure I know you as well as I thought I did... maybe you don't, she answered simply. the kids and Ronnie just stood staring at the two of them. are you coming? Nick pointed to his van. I packed up your stuff and the kid's stuff too. I'm ready to roll.

she knew then. there are times you just stop and take stock. you look at a man like Nick and a man like Ronnie and you think about how you're a single mom and about how your kids probably need a daddy. they really do. and you need some security. Goodyear, Kanas is a conservative town and Ronnie is truly a nice man. he's not a brilliant doctor and he isn't taking her to California. granny dress or no, she may or may not be the right person for California. she may not be the right person for Kansas either. the kids might be happier here. or they may be happier by the ocean. actually, they are pretty happy anywhere. it's her trip. where does she want to be? what's the risk here? nobody knows her here. nobody knows her in California either, except Nick. this is just a couple of states away from all of her family. instead of across the whold darn nation. her family would be happier. her being closer and all.

she looked at Ronnie. do you have a local hospital?...why, of course we do....do they need nurses? yep. any shift. hard to get nurses out here...a pause. I know a lady who does after-school day care, he offered...there are three houses for rent in town in nice areas, he continued quietly. all reasonable...good schools....a long pause.....
she turned to her kids. do you guys like it here so far? they all looked at her really serious: yep. yep. yep.

now what? Nick was fuming. are you getting into this van or what?... OK, then: or what. she spoke firmly...come on kids, let's get our stuff out... she looked up at Ronnie. my name is Suzanne Miller, she spoke calmly. I think we want to check out your town as a place to live for awhile. maybe to settle down...he nodded: that sounds OK....she turned to Nick. It's the 70s, Nick. new times. new ways to deal with things...I'm not going with you to California any more. it's not good, Nick. we're not good. you know that, deep in you. right? right?....he looked at the kids. bye, kids, he said. he climbed into the van. you know where the clinic is. send me your phone and address when you know it. then I'll send you mine...he drove certainly away....

you'll like it here, Ronnie offered. it's a good place, Suzanne...I think it may be, she answered softly...they walked to his van and piled the kid's stuff and her stuff inside. they all very seriously climbed into the van. let's find you a place to come home to, Ronnie smiled. started up the van...

yes, Suzanne ventured. that's what we need...

a place...

to come home....