03/15/01

Still no knock at the door from the police yet. Probably just a matter of time.

There’s a story in today’s paper questioning Porch Rot’s possible role in my trailer fire and his disappearance afterwards. The story raises the same questions I’ve been dealing with regarding whether Porch Rot really did himself in or just faked his death. I guess you have to wonder the same thing about Clean Phil now too. I still keep having the thought that the woman buried in the well is that anorexic girl who used to be Phil’s girlfriend--- the poet girl who kept coming around the place looking for him who then went missing. Maybe Porch Rot took her interest coming around to mean something it wasn‘t, tried to make a pass at her, something happened, and then he panicked. Or maybe she found Clean Phil out in the world, something happened that she died in his company, and then he arrived back home with her body to bury her. Porch Rot assisted in the deed, and then advised Phil to remain in hiding. Well, who the hell knows?

Phebe had the day off and insisted on going up to the prison to see Rocky with the baby. I thought I’d be OK, but I always get all kinds of anxiety going into that place. I think if I ever got sentenced to a place like that I’d probably drop dead in minutes. Rocky was pretty happy to see everyone. He said Cornelius had visited him last week. That was surprising. I guess he told Rocky despite everything that’s happened with him breaking it off with Maddy that he still thinks of Rocky as his brother-in-law. Rocky told me he thinks Cornelius made up his mind to forgo becoming a woman. He came into the prison without the Cornelia garb at least. I guess Cornelius told Rocky he wasn’t too happy slum-lording for Dr. Hardik. He said it was hard to feel like a lady dragging poor folks belongings out to the curb in drag. He said it was always easier to get rent money in burly Texan male-mode anyhow. He asked Rocky if he thought there was any room on the farm for him to return, maybe try to start up things again. Rocky told him to come see us.

Rocky said he had heard about the trailer fire and before I could even get a word out of my mouth, Phebe says, your father thinks me and Stash Skimington are having an affair, and that Stash tried to kill him to take over everything. He’s a lunatic! Rocky looked pretty astonished.

Your mother and I are going to work real hard to provide a home for your son, I manage to say. Don’t worry any troubles we might be having. We‘ll get through. We’re family.

Rocky still looked pretty astonished. Phebe looked pretty astonished at that point too.

And just then Mookie shit his diaper really loudly. It was perfect.

03/14/01

So I don’t know what Stash is up to. Maybe he’s pissed off that I’m back home with Phebe and he’s looking to make some trouble. I have to wonder whether the way Phebe responded to him for calling here late at night set him off or something. I think he must have reported the secret I knew from Porch Rot about the burial in the old well. I drove by Porch Rot’s farm yesterday and saw a bunch of police cars there. Later I drove by again and saw them excavating near the old well. In today’s paper they reported the police received an anonymous tip and the body of a woman was taken out of the ground from the old well. That’s certainly different than what Porch Rot said about Phil being put there after being found hanging in the barn. I wonder if the woman is Phil’s old girlfriend who went missing after she came around the farm asking about Phil. In any case, I guess what all this means is that mystery of what happened to Phil is still unsolved. And I thought I finally had that all settled. That Porch Rot was one crazy fucker. Or maybe I should say he is one crazy fucker. I’m not sure which to say at this point. He might be on the lam at this point. I guess that’s another mystery that still needs to be figured out. Anyway, I’ve been hanging around home taking care of Mookie for most of two days now without any knock on the door like I anticipated. I figured Stash was going to make sure I was put on the hot seat for knowing the secret about this, but so far no one has bothered me. It weird. It’s like I almost wish they’d arrive so I could get it over with. But no, the door remains silent. Everything is very, very silent. That is, until Mookie starts crying again. I told him today he shits more than a Holstein, but then I felt bad for saying that because it could be taken as racially insensitive.

03/12/01

So when Phebe got off work Saturday I called Percy and asked him to pick me up, but Phebe had a fit.

You need to go with me Monday morning to court to file for custody of Mookie. I told you before, you need to make a good show of it. You’re staying here with me from now on.

So I’ve spent two nights at home. Actually slept in the same bed as Phebe. Thought I was finally over my fear of her clubbing me to death with a lamp in the middle of the night when she gets this call at like 12:30am last night. It’s been bothering me.

Phebe says to the caller plenty annoyed, yeah, I know I left a note to call me. I didn’t mean in the middle of the night! I can’t talk now.

So we went over to the court to file for custody this morning, made a good show of it--- acted like model grandparents and everything. After we were done there Phebe took me out shopping for new stuff. Then we went to Percy’s to get my bag with this disk in it.

So now I have to get used to living somewhere new all over again.

03/10/01

Started the day preparing to go to the Catskills to work on Cupcake’s broke-down Winnebago, but I get this call from Phebe. She said Betty was in the hospital again with another diabetes attack and I had to find a way to pick up Mookie from Newburgh and bring him back to the farm. Percy was gone already from the house so I end up asking Cupcake to change her plans for the day. So Cupcake and I head into Newburgh in her car to pick up the baby from Fauntleroy. We get the baby in the car, start back Goshen way, and we get pulled over by the police. Cupcake’s all nervous like I’ve never seen before. She gets a ticket for rolling through a stop sign.

After the police car is gone I hear her say, that was close!

I ask, what was close?

She says, oh, nothing.

We get to the farm and I’m thinking it would be best if Cupcake just drops us off. But she sort of invites herself inside, starts walking around all over the house going through all of Phebe’s shit. I’m thinking I gotta get this girl out of here. If Phebe shows up right now we’ll have disaster. We put the baby down to sleep after a feeding and Cupcake asks to check my bandages. Then she starts giving me a massage on the living room sofa. At some point her hands make their way over my ass. I had to put a stop to it and ask her to leave. She doesn’t seem too happy.

You’re not going to thank me for helping to pick up your grandson? She says as she makes her way out.

Thank you but this is just not the time or place, I say.

Time or place for what? She says. What are you talking about?

You know, I say.

No, I don’t know, she says. What?

Good fucking gracious.

03/09/01

So I’m at Porch Rot’s farm. Not a soul around. I find a shovel and start chiseling my way through the frost layer. Just keep digging away, removing the soil that had been used by Hiram to fill in the old well years ago. In time I’m down so deep I can’t even throw the dirt out anymore. I have to find a ladder and a bucket to carry the dirt up in. I just keep digging down deeper and deeper. No sign of Clean Phil’s remains though. Next thing I know I feel dirt raining down on my head. I look up and there’s Stash Skimington looking down on me from the rim of the well up above.

I hear you think I might have been involved in your trailer being set on fire, he says.

Well what would you think if you were in my shoes? I ask.

Stash says: I would be saying to myself ‘if this guy was behind the fire he would have had a bullet in my head already and had me half-buried too.’

Suddenly the ladder is pulled out of the well before I have the chance to grab it. I look up and the sun is shining down the well making it hard for me to see. I see what looks to be a pistol in Stash’s hand. I’m no sure what’s happening. And then, BLAM!

Somehow the bullet misses. I start climbing out of the well as dirt continues to rain down on me. I’m clinging to the rocks lining the shaft as I slowly inch my way to the top. I’m worried the whole time there’ll be another blast. But there is no blast. There’s no sign of Stash up top either. I start to wonder if this was all just a hallucination. I wonder if this was all part of a dream. . . And right then I wake up.

So I find myself going to Stash’s house again to try again to talk things over with him. But he’s still away. The note he left for Phebe was still at his door starting to yellow. This time I found a message in Phebe’s handwriting just below his handwriting. It said: Please call me.

03/08/01

I worked up the nerve this morning to ask Percy about his former roommate Gary. He said he had a falling out with him after Gary cut him from his cricket team. I told Percy I would give someone thanks for that, but apparently he was in no mood to deal with my humor. Yeah, hit a real nerve there.

I spent months learning that frickin game for that lame brain! Percy protests, once the warmer weather hits I’m going to get Dr. Hardik and your relative Fauntleroy and their cricket-playing friends together with my own team and I’m going to crush that lame brain!

Lame brain. It was also weird hearing Percy characterize Fauntleroy as my relative. I had to think about it until I could see it that way. Funny, I’m also starting to see how Percy’s Mythopoetic Men’s Group may be code for: Percy’s diabolical plan for revenge on Gary, the Lame Brain.

Percy then asks me if I had any money to help out with groceries. I stammered for a few seconds said I’d get him some money by the end of the day. Next thing I know Phebe’s on the phone saying she’s been cleared by the police, hounding me to come home. And then Cupcake’s at the door asking me to go back to the mountains with her to work on her Winnebago. Suddenly I start to wonder whether I might be better off like the man known as the Wandering Leatherman who lived across the river in the 1800‘s. According to Percy’s book they say he was a Frenchman who had his heart broken badly, became a hermit, hardly spoke, was always on the move. He was so named because he wore a stiff, homemade suit of leather year round. He traveled a 365 mile circuitous route between the Hudson and Connecticut Rivers throughout the year so he was never much of a burden to anyone for long as he relied on begging for survival. He showed up like clockwork at the same towns on the same day each year. If he was treated badly somewhere, he changed his route and would not return there, found a new rock shelter at another spot.

So I went to the farm, got my overalls from the barn---spared any more of Percy’s borrowed clothes from getting ruined---took a couple of loads of scrap metal to Middletown in the truck. All the money went into Percy’s hands or into the gas tank.

Now Cupcake is offering now to pay me $500 to get her camper running again. It won’t be an easy task getting that thing on the road, but I think I’m gonna have to take the job simply for the money.

Percy let Phebe in while I was asleep just before . She woke me up and said she needed to change my bandages. She was plenty miffed, said if you keep letting that little vixen next door doctor you, you’ll end up with gangrene.

I said, maybe I’ll have gangrene as my goal for St. Patrick’s Day.

03/07/01

Started the day explaining to Cupcake what happened to me that led to me living there with Percy. When she saw that my bandages on my burns had gone more than a day without being changed she insisted on helping me. She said she noticed I was moving funny the first time she met me but wasn’t figuring it to be from being burned. I just thought it was from you being old, she says. I told her while she worked doctoring me the basic account on things. When she heard about the dog being missing, she insisted on going over to the farm right away with me to look for him. Before I know it I’m in her car riding to the farm. Then we’re hiking together all over the place. Me and Cupcake on a search and rescue mission.

I just think to myself, I sure hope Phebe’s at work. She sees me walking around the farm with this girl, who knows what she’ll think?

Then I think, who cares?

I show Cupcake the burnt out trailer and she says, Dude, I don’t know how you got out of there!

Then she tells me she has an old Winnebago she inherited that needs to be removed from her uncle’s property up in the Catskills. If you let me keep it here, I’d let you use it to live in until your insurance comes through.

I don’t know what compelled me to say this, but I say to Cupcake with a wink, I don’t know about that idea, Sweetheart---if I ever got inside your Winnebago, I may never want to leave.

Just then Phebe showed up, killing the whole buzz. She sure looked pissed. She didn’t give Cupcake an ounce of consideration.

This is Percy’s neighbor, I say, she came to help me look for the dog.

Tommy didn’t call you? Phebe asks, cold as ice. The dog is dead.

Well now the buzz is really gone. I’m looking all kinds of hot to Cupcake now with quivering lips and tears streaking down my cheeks.

Talked a bit with Tommy‘s son. He showed Cupcake and I where he buried the dog. I looked over and Cupcake has got tears streaking down her face and a quivering lip too. We started back to the duplex when Cupcake proposed taking a drive up to Phoenicia just then to look at the Winnebago.

You don’t have to agree to anything, but maybe you can tell me if it’s road-worthy. I have to get that thing ready to move somewhere.

So we drive up to Phoencia to look the Winnebago over. She spends at least a half hour of the ride discussing in precise detail the varied nasty looks Phebe shot her and each of their meaning. You know, I really think she could be a murderer, she says. At one point at the camp Cupcake pops a squat and takes a piss. I’m not more that 15 feet away looking over the Winnebago’s radiator, which apparently leaks pretty good too.

I thought of that bed inside the Winnebago and then I thought how much an old fool I’d seem to Cupcake to mention it.

That bed inside sure looks like a comfortable place for an old guy to take a nap , I manage somehow to say.

Oh my God! Cupcake exclaims as she looks at her watch, My date! I forgot all about the date Percy set up!

They say there’s no fool like an old fool. Surely indeed.

So we rush back on the Thruway. Cupcake’s a half-hour late when we arrive. Cupid Boy is standing outside her door looking all kinds of bewildered. Cupcake introduces me to him assuming we’re strangers. He plays along. Nice to meet you, he says.

Don‘t I know you from somewhere? I ask.

No, he replies nervously, no, I don’t believe you do.