"Why don't you go cut the yard. Again."

There is more than a big handful of things I don’t understand:  why male seahorses carry their young; Kate Bush’s song, “Babooshka;” Kate Bush, in general, really; the things you do simply because your family asked you to do them – as in participate in a talent show at a Relay For Life event; and, why anyone should ever be up before 8:00 AM.

Let me set the scene: I’d gone back home yesterday, to help out around the house, to be a “good son,” like I was brought up to be. And yesterday, as well as last night, I worked very hard doing things I don’t normally do, and so I was tired when I went to bed, and I wanted to sleep. It was a mere one hour from turning Saturday by the time I got my head to a pillow.

I don’t remember sleeping. I do, however, remember waking up. 

Around sometime before 8:oo AM, whatever hour that might be, I don’t know – I imagine it follows the same numeric system as our mathematics has taught us, so 5:00 or 7:00 AM – whatever, what I know is that I heard noise in the hallway. And then a snip of the conversation.

“Well, Mr. Larry, we’ll have to wake him up to get to the attic,” said an unknown, deep masculine voice.

“Yep,” confirmed another unfamiliar masculine voice, even deeper.

“Go right ahead. He needs to be awake, anyway,” permitted U.L., the traitorous uncle giving these unknown men permission to not only enter my safe place, but to wake me up in the process, as if I deserved it.

A few minutes later, there they were, in paint-covered, dirt-stained workwear, dragging a ladder into my childhood bedroom (it’s all in blue, the curtains, the carpet, the quilt Ya Ya died before completing and that my Aunt Celita, who had heretofore never done anything for me, finished and sent me for my birthday, talk about tears, the “chester drawers” my great-grandfather built in 1903, and other etcs.). In they came, bright as the morning sun, which I couldn’t see because I had closed my curtains before going to bed, and proceeded to fling open one of my closets to get to the attic.

There are several entrances to the attic, though I have no idea why anyone would go up there; I don’t even know what’s up there. After reading The Diary of Anne Frank I merely grew suspicious of attics, fundamentally speaking, though I held some odd sense of awe and respect for them in my heart of hearts, where my left ventricle is stoutly Jewish, to the great point that, one winter, I named all the field mice scurrying across the attic from one loaf of insulation to the other after the Franks and the van Daams: Margot was the shy, polite mouse, hardly a peep, she had the soft scratchy gait; Anne was the talker, the mouse repeating everything she heard, since she would be writing it all down later, and Mrs. van Daam, she was the fat one, the instigator who waited until midnight before chiding every one else to “head below and search for potato chips,” the one who ate insulation and by doing so began choking, alerting U.L. of their presence and then of course they were killed.

No, you see, the entrance that U.L. chose, and probably I know why – it should be obvious, was the tiny, uncomfortable entrance in the far corner of my left closet, facing from the door to my room. I feigned sleep for as long as I could because I had worked very hard the day before: cutting the yard, planting plants, just generally being a nuisance to the grass and flowerbeds. Though, in case you’re wondering, the outhouse did not come down, as intended. It proved both a physical challenge and an emotional near-impossibility: those birdcages, for instance, reminded U.L. of Tigi and Rosella, the sweet, family-girl maid before Daisy. Apparently, Tigi had a mynah bird that stayed out in the kitchen most of the time (back when kitchens weren’t connected to the house) and picked up just every little word she heard. Rosella, sweet as she may have been, had a “cussin’” mouth. One Sunday afternoon, the preacher was invited to dinner and Tigi, ever proud of this mynah bird, one she was trying to teach to sing “Whispering Hope,” flatly cussed out the preacher.

That was a day to remember, U.L. said. Why that meant the outhouse couldn’t be torn down, I couldn’t place my finger on. (At least, not until this morning, I thought about it: I hate to admit it, but U.L.’s getting older, and with age comes the wisdom of small things, and that wisdom lays very heavy on the mind).

In front of him, I blamed the blackberry vine and briar; they were so thick, we’d need more than an afternoon. We’d have to be mindful of the canna , they’d been there for years, like the Boxwoods, but he didn’t care what happened to the cajun lilies. Does anyone? In retaliation, I mowed down as much as I could of the lower-lying weeds and lesser ornamentals, like the dianthus, not my favorite, and accidentally a few of the sweet williams, a flower that U.L. has become perhaps a bit too attached to. I was happy to be on the John Deere. (It has cruise control and three additional pedals that I have no idea what to do with).

After the plywood attic door was removed, entirely, Tetanus-threatening hinges and all (there seemed to be no other way than to take the door off; several comments were made about the amount of detritus that came away with the unhinged door, I still kept my eyes closed – just to prove I had willpower and commitment to the importance of sleep)

The man they elected to “head up,” was a rather plump man, I saw through my now squinting eyes; I couldn’t help it, I like detritus, I was curious.  This plump man was chosen for this expedition on what qualifications, I didn’t know, but up he went into the vitriolic center of the attic “jungle.”

The others left, mumbling something to do with a hose outside connected to the air conditioning unit.  The Odd Man Out, I called hiim, I heard crawling, standing? -I’ve never been up there, I have no idea where the roof is in relation to the floor of the attic – and though I don’t know what he saw up there, I did hear what he had to say about it.  It wasn’t pretty. I won’t re-type it, but I will give you a list of graphic symbols to help fill in the spaces: *&%&%$ , $!!!!!*&!*,  !! !!&&!^%!,  $$ !#!#~,  ~^)(*(*&^,  ^ @%@$@#. (NOTE: The commas are there to separate between the words, not to be mistakened for actual letters contained in his expletives).

I was awake after his episode faded.  The fade didn’t take, though. He went on speaking, for quite a few long minutes, in a language I never knew existed, and have since decided is regulated (and thus only learned) by those in his trade. Having no interest in it, I got up and took my shower, dressed and stepped out into the brilliant morning light beyond my curtains.

There were several trucks in the driveway. Too many trucks. I needed to learn, to figure out, what was going on. I found U.L. 

“OK, So I’m up, now what’s all this about?”

“A leak.”

“A leak?  Where.”

“From my light. I’ve had to put a bucket under it.”

“What?”

“In my bedroom, water is leaking through the light fixture. It may have well-ruined the afghan bedspread.”

This was a serious offense. That afghan bedspread  either came to the New World from the Old one all alone, rowing itself in its own minute dinghy stolen from a pirate in port at Liverpool, or it was hand-darned by the dwarf wife of U.L’s father’s brother, with her one good arm, before she took the death from the Spanish Influenza.  I don’t know where it came from, or how it acquired its magic, but the mere fact that it may, as we were speaking, be hanging limply by the thinnest of yarns (and yarn isn’t all that thin; not in an afghan)…well, I didn’t know what to say.

So, I said, “Show me.”

He took me into the house, to the back, where his bedroom was, and there, on the bed, was a “bucket” so miniature that I wasn’t really aware of what it was, at first. A coffee mug? That porcelain soap dish from the hall bathroom, so deep it took three or four tries before you could retrieve the soap from its base, and so must always have a fresh bar in it because a worn soap bar was simply too much of an effort? Was it nothing?

I glanced over into the “bucket.” Folded ever so neatly in the bottom was a napkin. The afghan, I noticed, was over on the cedar chest, dry as my sense of humor.

I looked at U.L. “Is the napkin really necessary.” Not a question, really.

“For absorption.”

“Oh I got that part, just curious.  And, all the trucks, the men, the ladders?”

“Why don’t you go cut the yard. Again.”

So, I did.  One of the other secret joys of being a country boy, and I am – inside where it counts, is riding the lawnmower.  I don’t suppose that love ever dies. It’s how I learned to drive, actually.  And it’s especially fun when you’ve got a lawnmower with cruise control. So, I cut the yard, again, and then transplanted some hosta, moved a few wysteria bushes – still in pots, I should add, fed the birds to amuse the cat, and then I got stuck behind Nana’s house…in other words, I did, you know the usual things I do when I go home to help out.

Of course, I had to mow around the outhouse. But, soon, I said, soon, you will come down. I don’t know when, as far as the day is concerned, but I do know this…

…it will be after 8:00 AM when it happens.

Oh, and the Relay for Life incident: that’ll just have to come later. Because I need a nap.

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