Shirley

For When You’re Scalding, Part 2 Here’s what not to do: go to the creek. Or not the one near our driveway, anyway, downstream from the neighbor’s cows. We once called the shady bank and frigid, lazily trilling water our beach .  We’d hike down and let the grandkids drag their toes through the silty undertow. I don’t know what we were thinking. The herd is still sizable, and where the meadow lies below the road—there’s a steep drop-off —the cows are still grazing the grass down to the quick and guzzling their drinks. On the hottest days, driving past, you can see them lined up in the water like a choir, or like blackbirds on a wire above a city street. Birds only splat pearly white spots on the windshields. But cattle as they wander their acreage and streams drop pies of substance, steaming when fresh. The patties congeal as they dry, producing miracle nutrients for gardens. That’s looking at the bright side—you do want cow pies—but were somebody enamored with these bovines, unfa...

For When You’re Scalding Here’s what you can do when it’s too hot to think: dream a cold dream. Dream one like my husband’s. He was on an iceberg, very very big and high. You couldn’t see the end of it. There was little to occupy people. How did they make love or go to the bathroom? It was too cold. He saw single-lane roads, a few cars. Track treads, not from tires. He pedaled a bicycle-type vehicle down to the edge but then realized he’d have to bicycle back up. People could come for a month but they never lasted that long. Everything was too harsh and difficult. It was sort of like a lab to see how humans could adapt to long-term isolation and no heat, in a spacecraft or on Mars. Everything had to be geared toward protecting the ice from heat. Though, there was no way of making that heat. And there was always the risk of the iceberg cracking apart. But sensors could predict this and sound warnings. That’s all I wrote down. Dreams say something about who you are, of course. Th...

We went to see the Wizard. It wasn’t the same as what I remembered. What I remembered was the house in Kansas circling during the tornado, towed by a rope. Here they had some strange tower-like contraption with ribbons blowing while Dorothy lay knocked out on the bed. When auditions were announced for a production in Keyser WV, back when my husband and I had only four grandchildren, for some dumb reason I heeded the call. You had to come prepared to sing, your own backup music along. I chose a duet piece recorded by I don’t know who. I probably didn’t realize it originated with the Beatles. The lyrics made no sense to me, which made it hard to cement them in my mind, so I had to try and try and try. Two of us riding nowhere / spending someone’s / hard-earned pay / You and me Sunday driving / Not arriving / On our way back home . . . The genius part, I thought, was my adding a n extra line o f harmony, heartbreakingly beautiful. The director listened for a few seconds and dismis...

Book Report, or Open Letter to the Author Dear Kirsten, It lay around. I finally picked it up. Pored over the magic you mentioned, sleepy Harold and sweet Elaine, Briery Branch’s rages, the chicks you named Rotisserie and Giblet. Clear genius. And then the bees bees bees (not until yesterday did I reach this part). The chapter had the strangest beginning. They needed warmth. Some made a circle around their queen, burning honey for heat by shivering, as you put it. The undertaker bees, when on mortuary duty, dragged the dead to their resting places in the grass. Only this morning did I get to the chapter’s end. I guess I’d give your book a 15. Love, Shirley   Kirsten Eve Beachy, Martyrs and Chickens , Cascadia Publishing House 2025  

Before this, I belabored our posters . Even using fat, chisel-type Sharpies, it took me forever. But a couple of days ago, lecturing myself on slobbiness’s advantages, I simply patched and pasted and Scotch-taped together enough pieces of paper with words on and put them in the car. An oldish fellow—one of the regulars, which I’m not—was already there when I turned into the parking lot next to Representative Cline’s office. You’d think Oldish has a degree in law or maybe political science. He’s precise about his knowledge, genteel, yet blunt. His posters are never spectacular. When I got out of my car with my poor excuse of a billboard, he was photographing a man in an orange T-shirt. Orange looked at me. “You can’t park here.” “Who are you?” I asked, in my best belligerent good-Christian voice. Between the two of them, something unpleasant was going on. In front of Cline’s office, all over the sidewalk, lay construction-worker equipment. “The owner. You have to move your car....

The final installment in our haircut trilogy, for which I actually hired Grandgirl, for her help, we bickered, some, over her pay. I thought $20. She emailed back, noooonononono thats way too much lol … how about 15? Okay, and your tip is $5. Now stop arguing. But then my husband objected. I had to back down. Granddaddy says I’m railroading and I should honor your suggestion. Haha, she wrote. $10, $5 tip. That was for the  Xavier-and-The-Cowsills assignment. I’d not offered her cash for the Ray Stevens job. That one, when I  asked what she wanted for payment, she  said peanut butter cups. I had a whole unopened bagful in the pantry, the salacious Aldi kind I use for ramping up chocolate cakes . Well sure, I said. Grandgirl was thrilled. We stored them in the fridge. Every time she came over she could help herself. A bunch are still in there shivering, tantalizing, beckoning. For the Lady Gaga bit, the first video, I’d promised Grandgirl a tomato sandwich, somet...