Jerry

When I was at the carefree age of ten, a new boy moved on the block.  You see, all the popular kids lived and hung out on the block so it was super important that we got a good look at him, a chance to size him up.  All of us were very excited and tried to get glimpses of him between the trees he was near.

“Did you see him Patty, did you?” I asked close to her ear.

“No, not yet,” Patti answered.

His name was Jerry and he didn’t look like any of the other boys who hung out on the block. While the other boys were sporting head-buzzed crew cut hair styles for the summer, Jerry had long, wavy, curly blond hair that fell midway down his neck. We could see Jerry looked older, too, and we heard him say he was twelve years old.

As we kids got to know him, we found out that he was very funny but not in a disrespectful way.  He joked a lot about everyday things and we spent hours sometimes laughing along with his sense of humor.  Needless to say, he became the most popular boy on the block.

He also became like a big brother to me. He always made sure I was close by and always protected me.  I grew up very poor, one of eight siblings and Jerry would never let any of the other  kids make fun of my homemade haircuts, worn down clothes, old shoes or the house I lived in. I adored him. I looked up to him.  I felt safe and protected when he was around.

“I’m so glad we became close like a brother and sister,” I said to Jerry.

“I am, too,” he answered. “This way when any of the other kids bother you, I can put a stop to it right away!”

Until one day, he came over to me and said he was mad at me. Not just mad, but furious.  Jerry wouldn’t tell me why and all the kids on the block didn’t have an answer for me either. I pleaded, I begged and my eyes filled with tears as I shouted at him, “Why are you doing this to me?” but he would not answer why he was so mad.  Jerry did say to me, “You are not allowed to come on this block ever again.  If I do catch you on the block, I will subject you to bodily harm.” Being so popular, he had all the kids on his side. Although I had never become a victim of it before, along with all of Jerry’s charm and popularity, he did have a bully’s streak in him. Now, I was genuinely scared.  He had turned into this threatening, mean bully and I ran home as fast as I could.

I stayed off the block. Jerry and I went to the same small public school so every day at dismissal, I snuck off my class line and went out a different door. I was so scared he would be waiting for me outside one of the school doors so I went out a different one every day. When I wanted to take a walk to the candy store, I would walk six blocks out of the way to make sure Jerry didn’t catch a glimpse of me near the block.

This time of my young life was a very lonely, sad and isolated time for me. I did not even have one friend to play with because if Jerry said, “Do not play with her,” all of the kids listened to him.

If there ever was a time I felt like I was living in quarantine it was that time.  As a matter of fact, when everything closed up and I had to stay alone in my house because of the corona virus three months ago, there were so many times I thought about Jerry and how I felt that I was in the same situation, isolated and alone.

About a year came and went and my family announced that we were moving. I was relieved knowing that when we moved, I could play and move about freely in my new neighborhood but I was sad that I had never found out about Jerry and his temper tantrum toward me.

After my family and I moved to a new house, every so often, one of the kids on the block named Joanie would call to say hello. Each time I would ask her if she ever found out why Jerry got so mad at me.  Each time she would just answer, “No.”

Within six months later, Joanie called me again. I was hoping she would have that answer to the mystery.  My ears were not ready to hear what she said next.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “Jerry isn’t here anymore.”

“What?”  I said, “Now I can come visit you on the block and it can be like old times.”

“Wait,” she said, “there’s more to it. Jerry died.”

“What?” I screamed into the phone. “How? “What happened?”

My stomach wanted to burst out of my body right there and then.  Joanie explained, “Jerry stopped staying on the block and started hanging around with a bad bunch of kids from middle school. I guess one thing led to another and one day we heard Jerry died of a drug overdose. Shame, the same thing happened to his older brother not too long ago. Do you want to meet me at the funeral?” Joanie asked.

“No,” I couldn’t, I wouldn’t,” I answered.

I went numb and I think I stayed that way all through my school years. I realized, too, that Jerry had taken his mystery with him. I would never know why he turned on me in anger after having such a special friendship like ours. I could speculate of course. I even thought for a time that I could track down the kids on the block through Facebook and do a little investigating of my own. As time passed, I decided the best thing to do was to leave this mystery forever unsolved, and it is!

Ellen G.

June 2020

The Monarch Butterfly

You are the Chosen, by nature

To unravel the secret code of life

We follow you, like pilgrims

Tracking along in the mysterious forest

To see you return to the origin of your life

 

We worship your kingdom

In the high mountains deep in Mexico

There, millions of you, beautiful and proud

Together huddling on every branch of the sacred firs 

In your complex of glittering golden temples

 

On your migration path, like humans

The first generation is weak in body

But strong in mind, in mapping out 

All critical moments and every turning point

In seeking a better place for future generations

 

Your DNA sets the seasonal clock for

Chasing after the sun

In migrating back and forth in a loop

Your DNA is written with your ancestor’s dreams

In expanding your horizon to survive                                            

Through the journey of thousands of miles

 

The yearly migrations are imprinted 

In a magical relay race of a few generations

Under the challenging clouds

Millions of you glorify the sky

In carrying out the most scared task

Of the transformational monarch butterfly 

S.P. Ma

June 2020

A Lazy Vermont Stream

Heavy full raindrops fall from their miserly clouds reluctant to lose their numbers, plopping into the lazy river as it twists, turns and undulates on its slow steady winding path through the dark green forest. The river sounds like a violin. The raindrops conger keys tinkled on a piano. The water is icy cold even now in August. A bath is shockingly cold and refreshing if it does not stop the heart. This is not an occasion to linger and relax but rather to hustle quickly.

Silvery fish and forest green frogs frolic in the slow current. Turtles drop in occasionally for a dip, sliding down from moss-covered sedimentary rocks pitched towards the stream, like vessels from a boat launch. Leaves not wanting to miss the fun release themselves from their trees parachuting down, swirling and gliding to land gently on the watery ride, cruising over the pristine white marble that forms the river bed in this land of Vermont marble quarries.

          The ride is slowing now as the water pools up and hesitates before building the courage to leap headlong crashing and smashing splitting and splashing over the precipitous outcropping and into the misty abyss.

Jim

June 2020

My Bedroom Door

          Life is full of mysteries. Well, maybe not full of them. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that one can find mysteries throughout their life. I have a few that have taken up residence in my memories. They reside there simply because I was terrified when I experienced them, and—to this day—have no explanations for their occurrences.



          I will discuss only the first one today. I am not in a generous mood, you see. This incident happened in my bedroom during my first pregnancy. I am not certain of the time of night, but am confident it was not around three am. I mention this because three am is widely known as the witching hour. Magic is said to take place at that time.



          While my son was growing in my womb, I awoke with a start. I don’t recall having a nightmare or needing to urinate for the umpteenth time, which is common when pregnant. I simply awoke, looking around, and feeling annoyed with myself for the interruption of sleep. Glancing at my windows, I noted that it was still dark outside. Glancing at the clock, I noted the time, though, I cannot recall the exact numbers.



          Before I could attempt a return to slumberland, my bedroom door, which was left open at night, closed then reopened abruptly. It was a dark, bifold wooden door with slats across the top half of it. It was opened by grabbing the knob and pulling it inward, and had to be pushed in the middle to close it. I was still lying in my bed, my side being the side that faced the door. I hadn’t pulled it open or closed it shut.



          Sucking in a sharp breath, my heart pounding in my chest, I tasted fear in the air: my own and that of my husband. I quickly turned to my left to whisper harshly, “Did you see that?!” To my surprise, John was awake, wide-eyed and looking very uncomfortable. I’d fully expected him to be in a deep sleep. He was not a light sleeper. He whispered back, “Yes.” Wishing my heart would slow down its frantic beating, I whispered again, “You think it was the wind?” He shook his head and nodded pointedly at the only two windows in our bedroom, “No. There’s no wind tonight. Look.”



          Looking at the curtains sitting so still that they could’ve been painted on, my skin felt cold all over. Dread and fear were unwelcome visitors in the room. Seeing my husband, who is a foot taller than me and twice my size, look uncertain and afraid, was even worse. Forcing myself to turn right, I faced the direction of my bedroom door. It was still open. John nudged me on the shoulder, urging me to wait with hand motions as I looked at him. We waited.



          I hated the shared fear between John and me, that made my room feel claustrophobic. Whatever had closed and opened our door, it wasn’t the wind and it wasn’t an animal. We didn’t own any pets. We were equally certain that it wasn’t a person either. We lived alone in that apartment. My husband’s grandmother lived upstairs at the time. She never ventured downstairs. As if to confirm this fact, we heard her shuffling around upstairs, as we stared at the bedroom door. She regularly had trouble sleeping.



          So, there you have it. You wanted a mystery. I have experienced a few, but decided to share one with you. John and I never figured out what had happened that night. Neither one of us is religious in any way, and we were wary of assuming it was a ghost or spirit of some sort. But what else could it have been? As you may well know, a mystery unsolved can often lead to other mysteries.

          While I am not in a generous enough mood to share the other mysteries of my life in such detail as this one, I will say this: The baby growing inside my womb that night, eventually grew into a four year old who claimed to witness “an old man living in the clocks.” This old man often visited Aiden, causing fear and other incidents experienced by all three of us, to which I have no explanation. This is also the time that my sleep paralysis—a twice or more per month event—began to occur.



           Mysteries can be fun, but can also be terrifying, which was the case with my family’s experience. I’ve heard of unexplainable paranormal events following families to different homes. I am relieved to say no such incidents occurred since my family (now containing four members) moved out of that apartment and into a new one. And my sleep paralysis ended. Whatever had closed and opened my door that night and stuck around to do other unpleasant things to my family and me, had chosen not to follow us.  Whew.

Jessica S.

June 2020

Beachcombers

The air so fresh, the sky’s so bright

My day begins with such delight.

With glee surfers glide on a glass-blue floor

while sandcastle dreams return to shore.



The sand is mellow, the sea breezes slight

the afternoon heat brings white hot light.

With sand underfoot as I gaze out to sea 

where horizons and oceans push to be free.



The gulls sweep for scraps as they swoop all around

Their caws in the distance no eerie sound.  

The waves stretch up, the breakers crash down

with seashells like fossils found in the ground.



When amber mirages retreat for the night

then shades of pastels herald twilight.

Yvonne A,

June 2020

Risa's Secret

Risa and I were close. That’s the only explanation I have for how I knew what I knew about her, without anyone saying a word to me. She and I were best friends in seventh grade, always at each other’s homes. I knew all the members of Risa’s immediate family well, and a little more distantly, her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandmother. My mother taught Risa to crochet. Mrs. F. taught me about feeding birds and other activities, but mostly she taught me to see the world through the eyes of a woman 14 years younger than my own mother.  

The summer after 7^th grade, when my grandfather was quite ill, and my mother’s attention was needed, I was “adopted” by Risa’s family. Mrs. F. took us all to a nearby pool club: Risa, her sister Julia, her brother Jonathan, and me. As we marched in as a family, Mrs. F laughed about the odd combination of the exceptionally pale oldest “daughter” (me) and the rest of the brood who were lushly bronze-toned. She used to nod to me and say, “If anyone asks, just say, ‘From the first marriage.’” My mother was extremely grateful about the arrangement, but Mrs. F said, it was selfish on her part.

Risa had a friend to be busy with that summer, and so it was easier to keep an eye on the younger siblings. When my grandfather died that following winter, I was extraordinarily upset. It was the first significant death in the family for me. My mother arranged for me to stay at Risa’s during the time of the funeral. It was always a safe, welcoming place for me.

Like most young teens, we played games, giggled about boys, gossiped (only nicely) about other girls, compared notes about school, and took long, quiet walks while we discussed God and grown-ups. I could always count on Risa to provide mature advice or empathetic comments. If some boys were bothering us in the schoolyard, she’d say in a maternal way, “oh, just ignore them.” Or, “God, I’d be sooo embarrassed if Mr. O ever played a joke on me, like that John-Marsha thing he does when he calls on you and then John and then you.”

“Do you know what that even is?” I asked in disgust.

Eyebrows and shoulders lifted, she replied with a definite “who knows?” What a relief it was to find out that my ignorance was shared by someone whose opinion mattered to me. We laughed at Mr. O’s peculiar (and outdated) sense of humor. We giggled a lot about a lot. Years later, one of my male friends met Risa, and said, “My God, you guys even laugh the same.”

Well, I guess we rubbed off on each other. We completed junior high school together, but attended different high schools. One day toward the end of our last semester, Risa turned to me and solemnly demanded, “Promise me we’ll remain friends forever.” It was a pledge we kept.

Of course, I attended Risa’s wedding in 1972. Her honeymoon was delayed until her groom, Jay would finish med school a few months later. A day or so after the wedding, I received an unexpected call. Jay had to work 24 on/24 off. (Doctors-in -training did that in the ‘70’s.) Until they moved to Florida for his internship, Jay and Risa were staying at a residence hotel in Manhattan called “The Seville.” There were some transients who stayed there also, which made Risa was very uncomfortable being there alone.  “Would you sleep over tomorrow night?” she asked unsurely.

“Sure,” I said without thinking too much about how I could protect a damsel in distress or damsels for that matter, if I included myself. I became more doubtful of my decision when I walked into the room and was faced with a skimpy full-size bed we would have to share.  Too late to cancel. Next morning, she went off to a substitute teacher assignment. I went off to work. One could say Risa and I literally shared a night together in the honeymoon bed.

Afterward, Risa moved to Florida with Jay for his internship and residency. Over those years, we remained in contact, mostly via letters, because long distance phoning at that time was still very expensive. (It was a time when people would get off the phone if they were even suspected a long-distance phone call might come in.)

One day, I received a letter from Risa, bringing me up to date on things, asking me how work was, how my family was. The usual. When I finished reading the letter a sentence popped into my head: “Risa’s pregnant.” I reread the letter to see if there was anything about growth, changes, children, even plant propagation. I got to the end and the sentence echoed again: “Risa’s pregnant.”  Third reading a few days later, Risa’s pregnant.”

Risa had been married for four years, and we never discussed her plans about having children. It might be a delicate subject. How was I to ask her? Finally, I just wrote a straightforward letter back.  Those who know me, know I am pretty direct, almost blunt if I am not careful.

Dear Risa—

I know you might be very upset with what I am writing, but I’m going to write it anyway. Every time I read your last letter, I got the overwhelming feeling that you were pregnant. If you are not, I am sorry I brought it up. It’s just that the feeling was so strong, I couldn’t help myself.

Two days later, the phone rang. It was Risa’s mother. “Marsha, how did you know?? Risa just told me three weeks ago.”

How did I know? It’s a mystery to me.

I no longer get messages like this in my head, not about people I’ve stayed in touch with for 59 years like Risa, not about mere acquaintances or strangers. Maybe too many years of cynicism; maybe the magical synapses are not snapping the way they used to. So, don’t ask me if you are pregnant or anything about the future or the past. I really won’t know.

Marsha H.

June 2020